September 24, 2007 by phillip.

I’ve never smoked cigarettes but for a couple years now I’ve totally understood that addiction. I’ll tell you what mine has been: Microsoft Office. I’d do anything to get a hold of it in my past. I worked a deal a while back to buy some licenses from a vendor that I bought a lot of products through so I still use it. However, that was quite a few years ago and right now I’m seeing no compelling reason to upgrade to Office 2007. FYI, my wife’s new Macbook came with Office 2007 so I may play with it more there.

I’ve blogged a long time ago about my dependence on Microsoft Outlook and Access. I’ve been trying to find a way around them to little avail. Well, that’s what it would seem like but I actually have found solutions but I still have that Office monkey on my back. At home and for my consulting I work in Linux, Windows, and Mac and one of the major themes of this blog is working well in all three or whatever you’re given. Well, with my laptop I primarily boot into Linux, my desktop I primarily use Windows and and my wife is on a Mac. The rest of my systems are a mixture of the three except I run all Linux servers. So, for consistency at home and for offices I really want to run the same software throughout.

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Posted in Mac, Windows, Linux, Software | 1 Comment »

September 11, 2007 by phillip.

Ok, ok I’ll admit it. I preached the words I didn’t heed. My name is Phillip and I used to be insecure.

These would be the words I’d utter if there was an insecurity annonymous meeting. Without that facility to purge my transgresssions I will say them here. At work and for clients security was job one but at home… I was that guy with all the open routers. I was that guy with easy passwords. I’m not proud of my past I can only move on to help others.

In all seriousness, though, I was like many people. Insecure because we were too lazy to take the extra steps. Security always adds extra things to think about and that’s extra work. There are many good reasons for it though. First, I’ll give you the top 5 reasons people are insecure and then easy steps that remedy these problems.

1) “I don’t have anything anybody really wants.”

Know it or not there is so much information about you that can be known from a simple scan of your computer that can be used to get access to using your identity.

2) “I don’t leave my laptop laying around so anyone can touch it.”

Most security breaches aren’t from the intruder physically touching your machine. It’s from internet access to it. Especially when they know it’s idle.

3) “I use WEP encryption on my wireless. That’s good enough.”

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Posted in Something to know, Software, Tips | 1 Comment »

July 31, 2007 by phillip.

Lets face it people. Software does everything under the sun. It does even more with a little bit of tweaking knowledge. Let’s just look at the example of Microsoft Excel or Openoffice.org’s Calc. What else can you really do with a spreadsheet? At the same time the problem is if they don’t come up with something crazy to say is a new feature then you’ll feel they’re falling behind.  In a previous post (Visionary vs. Reationary) I said that Lotus 1-2-3 fell behind and eventually got forced out of the market.  What happened is that while they realized that they did all that needed to be done at the time for spreadsheets they sat on their hands not thinking about one small thing.  A pretty look in windows.  Microsoft didn’t miss this and stole their market and did the same to dBase.

My thinking here is that people are not really looking into the program they’re using to figure out how to be more productive.  I know. I know.  Here I am again always forcing you to do more work.  Your life is probably busy enough.  However, for the most part software has gotten like computer monitors.  The technology has pretty much come to a standstill but for a good reason.  It’s already good enough.  Now, I’m not talking about applications for multimedia or graphics because that’s always changing and growing but Microsoft Word?  DONE!  Word processing, spreadsheets, presentation software, and almost email (Outlook and MS Access are still the killer business apps that I can’t totally leave Microsoft for or I’d be 100% Linux).

It seems one group of people realize this.  Google.  They bought the company Writely a while back so that they could use they’re online word processor.  They’re putting a whole suite of applications online and don’t worry about training because if you use any one at home you can figure out theirs.  They’re all really the same.

My conclusion is simple.  The ball is in your court.  Microsoft Office 97 did everything you need to do things today the same way.  Openoffice is free and so is Google’s office suite and they do everything you need.  The Mac desktop and the Linux Desktop do everything you need just because all the main programs are the same for the majority of users.  It’s not your computer’s limitations anymore.  It’s YOU.  Doing just enough won’t do anymore.

Posted in Software | 1 Comment »

July 28, 2007 by phillip.

The world is a very predictable place in a lot of ways. I have yet to document my methodology for picking winners but I have to learn to truly take advantage of this ability. As a person who is big on the stock market but only puts money on stock with a widget that I use like a fantasy league (and yes I’m winning a lot with my starting line up) you can tell how much I really jump out on a limb for new ideas in areas outside my expertise.

Thus my commentary today was a throw back to a conversation I had earlier with a friend of mine that I just figured out was a tech guy of the Cisco router persuasion. My cousin in tech enlightened me on the fact that he is big into Voice over IP and it took me back for a second. I knew that would be a big winner. I remember at the time telling a friend of mine that was a telecommunications guy, “I don’t think people are really going to want to pay $50,000 for a phone system just to get 20 phone lines in the near future. You should really get your Cisco or Nortel certifications in this area and stay ahead of the curve.” Of course I laughed talking to my new cousin in tech about where that person is now relating his staunch rebuttal of “This will NEVER dry up” as the calling card of the VHS over DVD guys.

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Posted in Linux, Something to know, Software, Life Lessons, Tips | 1 Comment »

June 29, 2007 by phillip.

I must say, I do a LOT of web browsing and a decent amount of blog reading and I came across a great idea for my house as it may be for yours as well. The original blog post was on a site call the Infected project (link to article). The article was on an easy way to set up the Video LAN Client (VLC) media player to be controlled remotely by a web interface.

Let’s start by saying, VLC is my media player of choice on every OS. I use it on Windows, Linux, and Mac and I LOVE IT. I turned my kids onto it about two years ago and they stopped using all other MP3 and video programs. It does it all and it’s a great open source program. As fickle as teens are if my oldest son says it even looks better you should believe him.

After I read the blog post I got a million ideas. First, most people have more than one computer in their house. Second, these computers are usually connected to the internet thus they are connected to each other. This made me think of a lot of great ideas for whole house audio. My older boys play music in their room all night. Thing is, when they go to sleep I end up roaming the house at 2 AM turning off their music. Now I don’t have to. I can control their VLC player from my handheld PC in my room. My 5 and 9 year old go to sleep listening to soft music from their computer. Knowing their IP address allows me to turn on/off their music or change it. Even better, I can lower the volume while I’m sitting in my room on my laptop doing some late night surfing. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Mac, Windows, Linux, Software, Tips | 1 Comment »

June 21, 2007 by phillip.

An email request was sent to me by a friend of mine named Belinda about what she thought would be really groundbreaking news. This marketing exec extraordinaire need the scoop so I had to check this out. Your friendly neighborhood computer guy was hot on the case.
The application was the old school media favorite RealPlayer with a new facelift and a couple of new features. I’ve been well versed in the Real product line for quite some time. It’s been a great program to me but for some reason I have found it’s support of some codecs and the download of compatible ones to have many needs to be desired when great programs like VLC have less glitz but get the job done.

RealPlayer has put in a little glitz but it has one great super fantastic thing. It will save videos from the web to your hard disk. Yes, that is what it sounds like. You can go on youtube.com and see a video you like and save it to your hard drive. Watch it over and over again or give it to a friend (let’s get back to that friend part in a moment). Once installed it will make Firefox and Internet Explorer have a little box on the cursor whenever you move the mouse over a web video using Flash, Mpeg4, and a lot more. Seeing as how the beta will be available to the general public in a matter of days I expect more codecs will be added before the final release. This is as groundbreaking as Belinda thought it would be. I got kind of excited of using this oldie but goodie. However, I found a couple chinks in it’s armor that the future may hold.

The Rhapsody music system was easy to get up and running and is a good iTunes on some levels but seriously NOT iTunes (even though I’ve said why I really don’t like iTunes article:”iTunes sucks”) but still not shabby.

The most serious problem is Digital Rights Management (DRM) compliance. Real has stated for the record that they will comply with whatever DRM a website has in place. This hurts the internet in a couple ways. DRM is a tricky subject that I won’t throw in my two cents right now. However, Apple has in the last couple weeks that it is now against DRM and is trying to figure out it’s exit strategy for using it but may not totally come for at least a year or more if ever. This move by Real will fuel it. What will happen is sites like youtube.com will lose the exposure that they enjoy if people start copying their videos off and sharing them without using a youtube link. Thus their next logical option will be to DRM all of their content to stop RealPlayer from taking the content and spreading it through more nefarious means.

Will DRM become rampant on the internet to stop RealPlayer’s cool new features? Is the demise of DRM still imminent?

My take is, RealPlayer is real big and really nice. Definitely worth trying out the second it becomes available. Save a couple of videos for your personal collection. The file naming convention still has a couple tweaks needed to smoothly put your saved files where you want in a nice way but that also may be tweaked soon. Hopefully, Real puts all these features in the open source version Helix. This way programmers all over the internet will take out the icky problem that they may great.

Posted in Cool Net Tricks, Software | 1 Comment »

June 14, 2007 by phillip.

vs.

There’s the old favorite saying, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he’ll eat for the rest of his life.” Let’s focus on a little teaching to fish for a minute.

I’m big on using Ubuntu but I especially get a kick out of speaking at a convention or being at a tradeshow and saying, “Please, my 5 and 9 year old have Linux on the computer in their room.” The reason I love saying this is because it gives them something a little better than what they get using anything else. It teaches them good computer skills that will serve them well using Windows, Mac, or whatever else comes down the road.

Let’s face it. Techy guys are a very opinionated bunch. Open source communities are groups of people that waste no time telling you their opinion on why something sucks. Thus they tend to write software with not sucking in mind. I’m not trying to tell you that Open source software never sucks. That’s a story for another day. The one thing I do find in it is a grasp of the basics.

Getting my 9 year old to write his homework using OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Word proved to be a less daunting task that I thought it would be. The reason being is that children haven’t gotten bogged down by the many years of “I have to do it this way” that many adults have. Their more apt to try and figure out how to get the result if you just tell them to figure it out.

I tend to start my 5 year old off with a little game called Frozen Bubble. It’s addicting and fun but it gets them to enjoy the environment their in as opposed to the strictly Windows world I have for the older boys (due to the graphical games that will only run on Windows for now).

Consider it future-proofing your children. The skills that they learn using a Linux computer will translate over the Mac and Windows. I’ve even found that a lot of the key strokes are the same as well. Let your children learn how to use a word processer not how to use Word.

Posted in Linux, Operating system, Only for the techy people, Something to know, Software | 2 Comments »

June 12, 2007 by phillip.

I know. All you Mac lovers stuck on a PC are telling me SHUT UP! Yes it is true. Apple’s web browser Safari is now available on the PC. Apple wants to join the ranks of Firefox and Internet Explorer in running on every platform. Check it out at: www.apple.com/safari .

True cross platform would involve Linux though, people at Apple. Let’s get on the ball since Apple is running a Unix OS under the hood so it seems like it would be so much easier but I digress.

Check it out and tell me if it’s faster than the other web browsers like it says. Honestly, I still think that the Opera browser is the fastest but I haven’t given this one a good try yet. Come on though. Firefox and it’s plugins are digital manna from heaven so I’m not switching.

Posted in Windows, Cool Net Tricks, Software | 1 Comment »

June 12, 2007 by phillip.

If you haven’t already done so check out a real lifesaver. They’re called Widgets. They’re hard to explain but they’re little programs that just run on your computer doing all kinds of usefull stuff. They’re not actual programs that run on their own but under a program called a widget engine. I HIGHLY suggest this over a crazy Weatherbug program or other spyware that say they aren’t spyware.

I’ve got to say I’ve been interested in getting into stock trading. Years ago I used to have an Excel spreadsheet and keep track of what I’d gained or lost. Well, I hate this widget but love it. I pick a stock and the price I bought it at and it keeps me up to date all day on what I would have made. I love it because I’m making money on good picks. I hate it because I haven’t actually put the money down on these stocks so I’m not making any money. Sucks.

Yahoo took over this company called Konfabulator a while back and so now the program can be found at widgets.yahoo.com and there’s actually a blog at widgets.yahoo.com/blog. There are many widgets to find but the one I’m using is called XR Stock Gain by Jae Lee at XRProductions.com.

Quick tip: Always change the widget’s opacity because you’ll get really annoyed seeing something on the side of your screen all day.

Posted in Software | 1 Comment »

May 30, 2007 by phillip.

My title might be a little misleading seeing as how I love to download content off iTunes like I know a lot of other people do. However, I don’t understand it like I don’t understand pimps. In short (and keeping this at least PG rated) how can someone do all the work and let someone else get a cut of the money.

I see iTunes this way. You pay for content and for some reason you need to get permission to move it. This is the whole Digital Rights Management (DRM) debate in a nutshell. Just a thought that came to my mind when having to move someone’s iPod data when their computer crashed. Some people are losing hundreds of dollars of music they paid for.

Oh, I do know a good way to get the music off.

Posted in Software | 1 Comment »