Posted by Richard Cravy on July 2nd, 2009 in SOFTWARE, Uncategorized, What I Think About..., beta watch
That’s right! Microsoft has a replacement for its much maligned Windows Vista. The retail version of Windows 7, as it is presently called, is not yet available. But indications are that it will be officially released in the October 2009 time frame.
In preparation for its release, Microsoft has been making “Beta” (unfinished) versions available. In January, Beta version 7000 was made available on the internet for anyone to download and use. In May version 7100 Release Candidate 1 (i.e., nearly complete) was made available, incorporating a number of changes and fixes from the 7000 release. Why was Microsoft doing this? At least two reasons come to mind: (1) Involve as many people as possible in testing the new OS and reporting back likes/dislikes and problems (so called “bugs”). (2) To build as much positive buzz and interest as possible in the coming final version. Continue reading this post…
Posted by Aaron Cravy on June 30th, 2009 in INTERNET, Linux, Macintosh, SOFTWARE
Just a quick post letting you know that version 3.5 of our favorite web browser has gone final and has been released to the public. You can get the update by going here or by navigating to the Help menu within Firefox and clicking on “Check for Updates.” It will find an update and allow you to download and install from within the browser. On the surface, the browser looks and acts very similar. The big feature updates include faster browsing performance, faster startup, the addition of a private browsing mode and location awareness for sites that support that. It is still available for Windows, Mac and Linux and most of the existing extensions and themes should work with the update. I did find one of my favorite extensions, No Squint, did not work but I am sure that an update will be forthcoming soon.
For a nice writeup on Firefox 3.5, read this article at PCMag.com.
Posted by Aaron Cravy on June 29th, 2009 in Design Resources, INTERNET, Sites We Like, Tools & Utilities
As fellas that have spent years dabbling in graphic design, both in print and on the web, we often run across fonts that we just don’t recognize. We may be asked to replicate a logo design or we may just really like how a certain font looks that we saw in a magazine. Rather than scrolling through our fonts folder which is loaded with thousands of fonts, we instead turn to WhattheFont.com. This is a free online service that will let you upload an image that it will analyze and give you some possible font matches. You may not use this service on a daily basis, but when you need it, this site will save you tons of time. Here’s how it works: Continue reading this post…
Posted by Aaron Cravy on June 25th, 2009 in Amazon Kindle, INTERNET, Sites We Like
I love my Amazon Kindle. I am also a frugal sort of guy and I prefer not to pay Amazon prices for their books. As a result, I have become pretty good at finding ways to get good, free content on there to read. I found a great site called Feedbooks.com. According to their site:
Feedbooks is home to thousands of e-books that are in the public domain or have been released with Creative Commons licenses. You can easily find such classics as
War & Peace,
Dracula and
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. If you want something a little more modern, they have books that have been released for free by authors such as geek hero Cory Doctorow. It’s a great way to be introduced to new and old content without having to pay for it.
Continue reading this post…
Posted by Aaron Cravy on May 25th, 2009 in What I Think About...
About 3 months ago, I got my first iPod. I know, I know, its about time. I have always been a bit of a contrarian when it comes to my technology and I avoided the iPod because EVERYONE had an iPod. However, we found a 1st-generation iPod Touch 8GB at a local pawn shop for only $99 and that was just too good a deal to pass up so we bought it. For those who don’t know, the iPod Touch is basically an iPhone without the phone functionality. It sports the same touch screen interface and can use Wi-Fi to access the Internet. After using it for awhile now, I can honestly say that this little device has changed my life. Continue reading this post…
Posted by Aaron Cravy on April 28th, 2009 in INTERNET, Linux, Macintosh, SOFTWARE, Sites We Like, Tools & Utilities, Utilities
Using new applications is part of what makes computers fun. However, finding good, new software to solve everyday problems is not always easy. That’s where a website called AlternativeTo comes into play. The purpose of the site is to help users to find low cost, free or open source alternatives to popular and expensive programs like Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office. To use the site, you can search for any software application by name or tag term and if it is in the database, a variety of alternatives will display. The site lists apps for Windows, Linux, Mac and even online applications and allows users to submit new programs and to click on the ones that they like, adding to its popularity on the site.
According to the AlternativeTo website:
“AlternativeTo is a new approach to finding good software. Tell us what application you want to replace and we give you suggestions on great alternatives! Instead of listing thousands of more or less crappy applications in a category, we make each application into a category. Think of it like forever evolving blog posts about good alternatives to the software that you’re not satisfied with. And the “blog posts” are generated by you through suggestions, comments and votes.”
This site is very useful for finding good alternatives and to opening my eyes to new software that is out there.
Posted by Aaron Cravy on April 1st, 2009 in Macintosh, SOFTWARE, Utilities
We love great Mac software, especially when it comes bundled with other great Mac software. To wit, we’ve mentioned MacHeist before when they ran a previous software bundle called MacHeist 2 early in 2008. At its core, MacHeist is a way to get a nice array of high quality software for the Mac for a small amount of money. We have purchased the first two bundles and still regularly use a lot of the applications that came in them.
The current bundle includes the following applications: Continue reading this post…
Posted by Richard Cravy on March 18th, 2009 in Hardware, Reviews
The extra-small notebooks often referred to as “netbooks” are all the rage right now. After waiting patiently for anyone I knew to buy one with no luck, I finally surrendered to temptation and bought one myself. I chose the MSI Wind U100-432us because I found one at a good price and I liked its features.
Once my MSI Wind came in from Newegg, I immediately started using it to see what I did and didn’t like. Included with this post are two photos of the Wind together with my 13.3″ Macbook for comparison. Continue reading this post…
Posted by Richard Cravy on March 13th, 2009 in Hardware, SOFTWARE
Just this week, I found it necessary to try and plug a flash drive into two older laptops running Windows 98 in order to transfer some information. One laptop had a USB port, the other did not. Now, here are the challenges:
(1) Get a USB port in the laptop without one
(2) Windows 98 does not have built-in drivers for flash drives and other USB connecting devices, so drivers needed to be found.
Solution Part One. PCMCIA cards (also called PC cards) are available which have USB ports on them. The card goes in the slot(s) on the side of the laptop. Cost is about $15-25; just make sure you purchase one which has Windows 98 drivers. See some examples on www.newegg.com. Continue reading this post…
Posted by Aaron Cravy on March 10th, 2009 in SOFTWARE, Utilities
Just like with your car, your computer needs regular maintenance. While you can’t change the oil on a Windows PC, you can utilize software to tidy things up a bit and, in general, help Windows perform better. We recommend that you run updated anti-virus and anti-malware software in order to keep your PC free of malicious software that can sap your performance or worse. In addition, we run a piece of software called Fix-It Utilities by Avanquest. Fix-It is great software that goes through and optimizes and defragments our registry, removes junk files and other tasks that dramatically improve performance. Unfortunately, Fix-It costs about $30 and we can really only use it on one PC per license, which can get expensive when working on customer PCs. Now for the good news. We have now found a free piece of software that performs many of the same tasks. It is called Glary Utilities by Glarysoft and it runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. It contains a wide variety of modules that perform all manner of tasks. My favorites are: Continue reading this post…
Posted by Aaron Cravy on February 25th, 2009 in beta watch
A couple of big applications were released to beta or release candidate in the last two days. The first big one is Apple’s Safari web browser, which has released a beta version of Safari 4, which was released yesterday. New features include cover-flow style browsing of your history and bookmarks, faster browsing and a thumbnail style viewer for your most visited sites. It is still in beta so should not be used as your primary browser but should be safe for checking out the new features (available for Mac & PC).
Secondly, Microsoft has released the Release Candidate (RC) of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 to developers. The broader release to the general public will come soon with the final release of SP2 coming in the second quarter of 2009. This will largely be a roll-up of previously released patches with more hardware support and other tweaks included. This is obviously a big deal as Vista is Microsoft’s flagship operating system and should be the last major update before the launch of the new Windows 7 OS. I first saw this story here at PC Mag.
Posted by Aaron Cravy on February 24th, 2009 in Macintosh, SOFTWARE, Utilities
Working with compressed file formats can be a real pain, especially when trying to use them across both Macs and PCs. Files with the .ZIP file extension are compressed archive files that are very common on the PC. Unfortunately, ZIP files that are created on the Mac contain a lot of Mac-specific metadata that when opened on a PC, look like a bunch of garbage data. To defeat this, I have found a little, free program called YemuZip. It is a very simplistic program to use. You simply drag the files or folders that you want to compress onto the program workspace and it goes to work creating the file. Once you drop the files, you are prompted for a new file name and location and whether to make the ZIP file PC compatible or Mac specific. Hit OK and you are done. Check it out here.
Posted by Richard Cravy on February 17th, 2009 in SOFTWARE
Microsoft is the proverbial “800 pound gorilla” in the software world when it comes to operating systems (i.e., Windows XP and Vista) and office software (that is, Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.).
Students enrolled at most traditional four-year universities are able to legally purchase either of these lines of products through their schools at greatly reduced prices. I have heard of prices as low as $10-20 for Windows and a similar price for MS Office.
Not as well known is that Microsoft also makes something available called the “ULTIMATE STEAL” for $59.95. Restricted to students at colleges with .edu websites or on a special list maintained by Microsoft, this package consists of:
Microsoft® Office Ultimate 2007 with a Perpetual license, which includes the following applications: Continue reading this post…
Posted by Aaron Cravy on February 13th, 2009 in INTERNET, Sites We Like
We are well known to a small group of people as the go-to guys for good technology buying advice. We habitually save the Sunday circulars from the paper and often direct people to go to this place or another for an inexpensive laptop or projector. We also have a number of sites on the Internet that we check regularly. However, I recently came across the Deals site of CNET.com, found at Shopper.com, and was struck by the great bargains that I found there. There are daily new posts on good deals on notebook computers, desktops, monitors, televisions and a myriad of other tech related gadgets and products. Some of the great features that I like is that they often list discounts and coupon codes along with shipping discounts. Be sure to check the site out and add it to your bookmarks to visit regularly.
Posted by Aaron Cravy on February 11th, 2009 in INTERNET, Sites We Like, Tools & Utilities
Google Earth is the king of online virtual mapping. If you want to see what almost any area of the Earth looks like from above, it is the default choice. However, Microsoft has an alternative, and its pretty awesome in its own right. It is called Live Search Maps and it allows you to view maps and the Earth in a variety of exciting ways.
You can view maps in several different formats. You can view a specific location as a Street Map, which is similar to the type of map that is probably folded up in the glovebox of your car. Points of interest are labeled and marked and many contain specific information about that point of interest. The streets and highways are clearly labeled to assist with finding your way around. Another view is the Aerial View which is satellite imagery overlaid with labels. This view is very similar to what you get with Google Earth. My favorite view is the Bird’s Eye View. 
These images are taken from low flying aircraft at a 40 degree angle and allows for dramatic views of cityscapes. You can easily read billboards and see pedestrians going about their daily lives. The Bird’s Eye View shots of famous landmarks are particularly striking and should not be missed. You can see the Bird’s Eye View from four different angles (N, S, E, W) so you can see different sides of buildings, landmarks, etc. The final viewing option is 3D Maps which allow you to view some of the cities in 3D. This is a very cool feature but it does require a plugin for your browser in order to work.
Some other neat features include the ability to view all of the maps with or without labels. This allows 
you remove some of the clutter. You can also easily zoom in and out simply by using the scroll wheel of your mouse or the controls located on the maps. Finally, for those who live in areas where traffic is a concern, you can use these maps to follow the flow of traffic and to see where congestion is a problem in real-time. This is not an issue here in Lubbock, Texas as the worst traffic that we deal with is five cars stopped at a red light. However, it could be invaluable to users in larger cities such as Los Angeles.
Live Search Maps is a free service and could be a big time waster as it can get quite addicting! In my experience, its not as fast as Google Earth but it does offer some unique features that are worth checking out. Let us know what you think in the comments section.
That’s right! Microsoft has a replacement for its much maligned Windows Vista. The retail version of Windows 7, as it is presently called, is not yet available. But indications are that it will be officially released in the October 2009 time frame.
