I had been waiting on Belkin to get this unit out since I heard of it. Finally on Monday I stumbled onto it at the Apple Store. It is a nice little three ac outlet travel surge strip with two additional USB charging ports. It will even charge Motorola phones which are notorious for only charging with units made just for them.
Many of us have or are new owners of the Nintendo Wii. A wonderfully fun gaming console. Even my wife loves it. Well loves to kick my butt in bowling anyway.
We like to see our friend’s Miis next to us when we bowl rather than randomly generated Miis. I talk about how to setup your Miis to Mingle on your friends Wii consoles without having to actually send them your Mii itself.
Over the past several months, I have to say that I’ve been pretty darn lucky. It started out where after having worked in the IT department for most all of my professional career that my job was going away, a victim to outsourcing. I pretty much expected it when we were first acquired by “Giant Corp” — it was just a matter of when.
Fortunately for me, I was able to cash in on my podcasting experience and parlay a position within our User Education department. My IT skills, coupled with my podcasting experience, meant I was able to continue working at the same company with the same people I enjoyed working with but just doing something else — something that was equally, if not more, exciting than what I’d been doing for so many years before.
They today, lady luck was on my side yet again. Upon making my move in to the User Ed department at work, I’ve been working on my eLearning certificate from the University of Washington. During that time, I’ve kept a blog (off and on) of my endeavor. During these last few months I’ve been working with all sorts of eLearning software — one piece of software I’ve become very fond of, but unable to convince my boss to purchase a copy.
Well… this evening, my blog was stumbled upon by an individual from the company who makes the piece of software that I am so fond of and asked me if I was interested in participating in an upcoming beta of their product.
So, you just never know… There’s a good chance what you blog about or podcast about may work in your favor at some time in the future. A new job position or a chance to play with some cool software, you just never know.
There are times when you want to give out a phone number but you do not want to give out a live direct number. This happened to me when making some contact information cards for the library classes I volunteer teach. I certainly did not want to be giving out my cell phone number to just anyone who showed up for the classes. So I dusted off something I setup a while back. Grandcentral.com.
Grandcentral is now a Google owned property. It lets you pick a phone number you can keep effectively for life. The fun then begins. You can import the contact information from your computer and teach it how to route calls based on who is calling. So you could setup one number and if it is your spouse it rings your cell number and work number effectively forwarding the call. If it is an unknown stranger you can have it go to voicemail instead. Then Grandcentral will even email you a link you can click to play any recorded voicemail. Optionally you can have it SMS your cell phone to notify you of voicemail.
You can setup rules so certain contact numbers only get forwarded to certain real numbers for you such as home, work and cell. You can do this by grouping those contacts as well.
So if you have need to share a common number but want the control to protect your direct number privacy then Grandcentral is a great tool. It is free so create an account and give it a whirl.
PS You can even change the routing rules based on callerID from the call logs. So if someone starts bugging you, just route them to call blocked… =)
The other day my dad got me some new type nimh rechargable batteries from costco. They are called Eneloop made by Sanyo.
I have been using them for several weeks now. Both in my Altec Lansing inMotion ipod portable speakers and in my Canon S2 IS camera. They last amazingly long and recharge way faster than my Energizer batteries. Usually the energizers can go dead within a few days. They also take over 30 minutes to charge on their own 15 minute speed charger. The eneloops can last over a year charged without use. They even come charged in the package. I also just charged a set of four AAs in 10 minutes on my Energizer charger.
They just rock. Finally what rechargeable batteries should have been all along. I definitely recommend these to anyone who wants to be a little green and not use disposable batteries.
I was listening to Techometria with Phil Windley on IT Conversations. I just found out OpenDNS has added more category blocking now. It goes beyond just Phishing and Adult content. Say you want to block p2p, file storage and webmail for your organization to reduce likelihood of someone getting to sites to bypass your protections. Now you can. Just setup a login and you can block the categories you need. Very cool.
Today I ran into a problem trying to make copies of a CD full of documents. The copy process in Nero threw me a number of unreadable errors, even trying to copy each folder at a time put me headfirst into a cyclic redundancy check error, which told me all I needed to know about the state of the physical media. Of course, just saying “Sorry it’s not readable” without trying something wasn’t an option, so off to Google I went.
I found a little utility called Recovery Toolbox for CD Free. Once installed, I launched it and had it copy off all the data from the CD. It took a little while, and made some odd noises in the CD drive when it hit the files that resided on the bad sectors of the CD, but it did recovery everything off the CD, which then allowed me to go ahead and make a copy of copies of it.
Can’t complain about a tool that does the job!
Yet more records get lost by businesses this year. Some closer to home for me than others. So just to be safe I decided to track down my Fed guaranteed annual credit report. Here is all you have to do if you are a USA resident. If you go to any site but this one they could be selling you a service. This is the site the agencies setup in response to the Federal law to provide the annual free report. If you do not want to check it online you can request it via phone or mail.
A few weeks ago I had a need to uninstall some software from my XP laptop at work. I did the usual START / Settings / Control Panel / Add and Remove Programs, but it simply wouldn’t populate the list of applications no matter how long I waited.
I REALLY didn’t want to reimage my machine just because of this one glitch — let me rephrase that… I was NOT going to reimage my machine because of this one glitch! But I still needed to get a certain application uninstalled and I also didn’t want to have to manually uninstall it.
I dug around on Microsoft’s site looking for a KB article on the issue, but nothing I found offered any relief. Then I came upon CCleaner.
Not only am I able to uninstall my apps now, I can do so many other things, like… clear temporary files, URL history, cookies from IE, Firefox or Opera, but also clean out the Recycle Bin, MRU lists, temp files, and clean up the registry.
A very handy tool… and best of all, it’s freeware!
Here is a great tool if you have friends or relatives who may have just received a new piece of software or perhaps received a new PC and need to know how to do something on their system software-wise.
Jing is a nifty free tool to create quick and simple screencasts. Even better, screencast.com will host your screencasts for you for free!
As an example, here is a link to a quick screencast I did to help a family member add photos to a group on Flickr.
Since it is a new year I was updating things in my iCal on my mac. I got to wondering if there was a way to subscribe to iCalendars (RFC 2445) shared calendars. Not import but actually subscribe so they stay up to date. I found an open source project called Remote Calendars. The latest version is v6.3 on May 19, 2007. So its fairly current. If you are a windows users and want to subscribe to iCalendars you can give it a try.
I just wish more groups used iCal feeds for their schedules. I was looking up our local library to see what they offered for computer classes and see if it was something I could volunteer to help with. The schedule is on the web page only and as a PDF flier.
Alternately if you are not an outlook user, there is always Mozilla Sunbird. It is a free calendar program that supports iCal subscriptions.
Links Mentioned:
Remote Calendars iCal for MS Outlook 2003 & 2007
Mozilla Sunbird
iCal Share - Lots of Publically Shared Calendar feeds
RFC 2445 - Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification
Putting up your prefab Christmas tree? Does it give you a hard time going back into the box? Rather than get a case of the prickly arms trying to squeeze it into the box try a towel or multiply trash bag. Just lay it around the section of the tree you are working on and squeeze it back down into storage shape. It will be much more comfortable and easier to get it into the box for storage.
Those of us who travel for work have already heard about the new guidelines from the TSA regarding carrying Lithium batteries onto planes effective January 1, 2008.
But you should take this into account all the time. My dad twice has had his pocket get really warm all the sudden from spare batteries in his pocket shorting with contact from keys and change. He takes lots of photos so he carries a spare set all the time. He recently gave me a small plastic case made for carrying my spare batteries when I am out taking pictures. He now carries his this way. Unfortunately I cannot find the simple 4 battery case online to link here. BUT I did find a nice 8 battery case meant for photographers to toss in their bag. You can find the case over at B&H Photo for $9.00 USD. If only cyberguys carried like a five pack of the four battery plastic holders. I would buy that in a minute.
I was browsing the Sunday sales flier for a not so best purchase price establishment. $129 for their team of specialists to “protect your new pc.” Gets you Antivirus, antispyware, installation and a so called speed and performance boost. Ok. Let’s start with antivirus. AVG is FREE for home users. Antispyware? How about Microsoft Defender and occasionally run Adaware, again both are FREE. Top that with setting up your system for OpenDNS and you can block phishing, adult content etc. How much? You guessed it, FREE again. Lastly. Speed and performance boost?!? Are they kidding? On a new pc what are they going to do, remove all the crapware that comes on the pc while replacing it with some half junky bloatware AV package they love to sell in their ads? Any IT person with experience knows the two “classic” AV packages nearly rate as viruses themselves in what they do to Windows stability and performance. Do yourself a favor. Apply the $129 toward a nice iPod Nano, subscribe to some podcasts and use these free solutions instead. Don’t forget going into add/remove programs and removing all that crapware is free too with a few mouse clicks.
Links Mentioned:
AVG Antivirus
Microsoft Defender - Antispyware
Adaware - Antispyware
OpenDNS - help block phishing, adult content etc for free.
Previous FiT Post on OpenDNS
A lot of folks got GPS units this year. Remember like any computer they require updates. My dad gave us a Garmin 2820 for our wedding gift last year. I had been forgetting to update the firmware and voice module until yesterday. We were over a whole version number behind on the firmware. It can update interface bugs, bluetooth firmware to interoperate with your phone etc. What got me on the path was we gave my inlaws a Garmin 650 for Christmas. They were driving down to a wedding in Florida this past Friday. Somehow a unit that has no bluetooth module came up on the screen to discover a bluetooth device. Talk about a bug. It completely froze his unit and he could not get control. So he called me and I found that the unit has a reset button off to one side he had missed. Pressing that then powering back on fixed the issue.
Map updates always cost money every year. But most firmware updates are free. So be sure to register your unit, install the software on a pc, connect the gps via usb cable and run your updates.
Did you know that Microsoft have some free online training courses for Office 2003 and 2007? The Office Training Homepage helpfully shows you popular and new courses - worth checking out and referring your end users to. If you have Software Assurance then there are additional courses available too under the Microsoft e-learning scheme. To access these courses you will need to request access from the person who administers your Microsoft Licensing. In my experience, getting the e-learning access for my users took about 4 weeks or repeated emails and phone calls with Microsoft before someone could fix the system to allow my users in, but the content was worth it.
Did you know that you can update your company information that Google displays?
For example where I work the information that Google displays was for an employee specifically and his direct line. Not the proper company address and phone number, least I say that this is not ideal. I imagine that Google culls that information from several sources and pieces it all together and each employee’s number is posted on the website under their bio. So I am sure that this is were Google is getting it.
There is a way to fix this! Do a search for your business and you should see the information at the top with perhaps a Google map thumbnail along with other search results below. Under your address you will see “More Information”.
If you click on the “More Information” link, and at the bottom (Very Bottom) of that next page, there is an “Edit This Listing” link. Click it and Google walks you through asking for Address information Phone, etc…Business Type and picture with a wizard type setup. They then provide you with a 4 digit pin number, and wanted to initiate a call to the main number you listed to confirm the details you submitted. Hint * I had to give reception the pin so they could confirm it.
Google said that it could take up to 4 weeks to update it.
So there you go, it wasn’t as difficult as I imagined to update incorrect business information in Google’s database.
Technorati Tags: google, business, information
I cannot stress the importance of having an offline backup. An offline backup is a copy of all your valued data to a backup medium such as an external hard drive that is stored on a shelf, in a safe etc. Anywhere but plugged in. Ideally you put it off site as well in your bank’s safe deposit box.
Storage is cheap these days. Just check out all the holiday sales on external usb drives. Get yourself one, copy all your data to it once a month then store it someplace safe where it is not plugged in. I use my safe here at home until I can move it to my safe deposit box away from the house.
I just spent two hours trying to recover data for my wife’s friend. The internal hard drive of the computer claims to be 2TB. A heck of a bargain when it originally was 40GB. The external drive she was using for backup is also toast. It sounds like a bomb waiting to go off. The reason for the loss? A nasty storm and only using a surge strip. Surge strips are a waste of money for anything but the most basic of electronics. Computers, game systems etc. Get yourself a UPS. That might have saved this person from the loss of all their data except what I could piece together from their ipod and a few usb thumb drives.
Still the best solution is an offline copy of all your data where no power hit or fire can affect it.
I’ve just posted a detailed guide on how I set up a Dell server to notify me whenever events such as hard disk failures or warnings occur on the server. The GUI web front end is painfully slow to setup with a lot of mouse clicking and pasting and is prone to error and can result in a non standard setup. By following the instructions in the Dell Open Management Server Administrator (OMSA) alert guide, hopefully you will see how quick and easy it is to ensure all of your Dell servers are setup in the same way.
For those of you doing audio production, Adobe has released a great list of tips if you’re using Windows XP and Adobe Audition — especially the latest edition of Audition, 3.0.
However, these tips apply just as well for ANY audio production tool running under XP
Enjoy!
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