Archive for the ‘Tech Stuff’ Category
Saturday, August 16th, 2008 |
I’m often acclaimed (and shamed) for my geekiness, and as ruler of my Geekdom, sometimes I will deign to share invaluable tips with noobs and other loyals subjects (kidding) 
I have to say it now, though - if you don’t have it already, install Firefox. I have had clients replace Internet Explorer with Firefox across their whole company and within days the incidents of virus, malware and spyware problems reduces DRASTICALLY (90-95%).
One of the best things about Firefox is that you can install add-ons. These are little programs that give additional functionality to your browser.
My top 3 favourites are:
- Foxmarks (if you use multiple machines, or want to be able to access your bookmarks when you are away from your computer and have access to an internet connection, this is for you. If you have multiple computers it will automatically synchronise the bookmarks available on all of them)
- Piclens (Windows and Mac only - and wow! What an awesome way to look at pictures. Once you’ve installed it, go to Flickr or even Google Images, do a search and then click on the little ‘Play’ triangle that appears over images when you mouse over them… Wow is all I can say)
- Fireshot (Windows only - takes screenshots and allows you to draw all over them. Very useful if you need to highlight something from the web or explain things to people. Totally cool)
My Productivity Find for this week is something that could potentially be abused and allow you to procrastinate too much, however hitmelater.com is like a snooze button for email. Get an email that you don’t want to deal with until Monday - that’s OK, just forward to monday@hitmelater.com. It will be sent to you on Monday. This may just work for me as my email is like a to do list, and at the moment it is at 100 active tasks, but not all of them are for today. hitmelater.com allows me to forward it to the email address for a specified day (or even for a number of hours - eg. 7@hitmelater.com will resend you the email in 7 hours.
I love the idea of rememberthemilk, however it just isn’t in my face enough like email is.
Hope you find this stuff useful.
Posted in Blog, Tech Stuff | 3 Comments »
Thursday, August 14th, 2008 |
Dearest bought me an Eee PC to save my back and I have to admit this little machine is very good value. I have the 701, 4Gb Linux version, and it was a stea at $398. At 900+ grams it sure beats lugging around my Compaq (which is a great machine as well, just heavy).
I did find the Xandros operating system a little limiting, and the other desktop I have has Ubuntu on it, so I decided to go with the Ubuntu for the Eee PC instead. One of the key things was that the Asus installation of OpenOffice was an older version, and I needed v 2.4 for MS Office 2007 compatibility.
The picture shows what it looks like now:
This was not an easy thing to do, and it took me 3 tries to get it all as I like it, but here is what I did (all relevant to Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04, and get familiar with the command line - aka terminal):
- Ubuntu EeePC Community
This is where I started for information and background reading
- To download, install the disk image to a USB stick and install on to your eee PC, the Get Ubuntu Eee wiki is the absolute BEST resource. You do need to teak a bit after this, however this is the best way to get it all going.
- Now the wifi doesn’t work straight off the bat with the reinstall, so ake sure you have an ethernet cable and access to the internet for the rest… Install the madwifi drivers (I found the command line instructions from this link the best - under ‘Enabling Wifi’). Wifi still didn’t work immediately - check the next step for that.
- Autoconfig the remaining tweaks - go here and use the RiceeeyTweak instructions for the command line. Wifi started working for me after I did this - and it did take a little while.
- I then followed these instructions to reduce swappiness - hopefully making the hard drive last a little longer. [Is swappiness even a word??]
- I then installed the Netbook Remix front end, coz I just like the way it looks.
- I have installed UCView for the webcam - I found the webcam worked no problem (but I didn’t try it until I had gotten to step 6)
- I freed some disk space by removing applications I didn’t think I’d need.
- I have then enabled processor scaling, to make it faster, manage processes and battery life better.
- I have installed Jungledisk on it - so I can take my files anywhere on any PC through the cloud. This was really easy to do with Jungle Disk 2 - the configurator is very easy to operate now.
- I then put a nice wallpaper on it to go with the front end.
Why did I choose Ubuntu?
For a few reasons - one was familiarity… I know the command line instructions on Ubuntu and looove apt-get. The Synaptic package manager drives me berko. Also becoz:
- Up-to-date apps
- I know it works with Jungledisk
- Really cool front end (the Netbook Remix)
- Connectivity - probably to do with the fact that I’m familiar with Ubuntu, but I just find it works with a lot of hardware that we have (printers, network drives, etc)
- Automatically resizes to suit the monitor/projectors I plug it into without the need to open any special apps, etc
What I Might Do Moving Forward:
- Install TiddlyWiki (for note taking)
- Sync my iPod Shuffle
I Love My Eee PC!!
Posted in Blog, Tech Stuff | No Comments »
Monday, July 28th, 2008 |
In working an extra job I find that I´m carting my laptop around alot and been waking up with increased pains in the back.
I think my husband has had enough of this, so this weekend Dearest has splurged and purchased one of the Asus Eee PC mini laptops that I´ve been drooling over for the past 6 months.
Fortunately the splurge didn´t cost too much - only $398 Singapore dollars! Cheap as chips and what a useful little machine that will hopefully ease the burden on my back and keep me employed for just that bit longer!
Here´s my new gadget, and I love the Linux OS, the in-built webcam, the OpenOffice, and the price-tag!
Posted in Blog, Tech Stuff | No Comments »
Friday, July 11th, 2008 |
Hi - to all those that read this blog, some of the images in this site may break. I’m dropping box.net in an effort to be more frugal (especially since they ditched their free account).
I’ll get it up an running ASAP.
Posted in Blog, Tech Stuff | 2 Comments »
Saturday, June 28th, 2008 |
While I’m not a huge fan of what Microsoft products have become, I don’t think anyone in their right mind could completely disregard the contribution of Bill Gates to the IT world.
Microsoft products were what I cut my teeth on, and were simple enough for me to use, understand and evolve from. The man historically behind the Microsoft
behemoth is no longer holding the reigns, and it will be interesting to see what happens next in an internet world that seems to be drawing up as Microsoft vs. Yahoo vs. Google.
Good luch in your Philanthropic endeavours, Mr Gates!
Posted in Blog, Tech Stuff | No Comments »
Monday, May 26th, 2008 |
BEWARE!!!!
There are emails out there that are phishing for your Google Adwords account information. The email looks something like this:
Dear Google AdWords customer!
In order to confirm your contact details, please click the link below:
http://www.google.com/accounts/VE/?service=adwords&c=362640971868568693100880184510804927508349693922162&id=04267902
This should take you directly to the Google AdWords Form.
Thank you for choosing AdWords. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.
Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team
However, when you click on the link, it will take you to a domain http://www.google.com.mttrs.org.uk… definitely NOT Google.
I have Google hosted email - I’m surprised they didn’t filter this one out!
Posted in Tech Stuff | No Comments »
Sunday, May 25th, 2008 |
I’m currently filling in the finer details of my site upgrade over the weekend, but at the moment I’m offering a number of ways to subscribe to my site, including being able to subscribe to the different categories.
I figured that I have a number of interests, and not all of them related, so you may wish to only receive updates on the categories that interest you.
Jump on over to the RSS page, and you will be able to subscribe to links on my General Blog, Tech Stuff, Jokes and Drumming, as well as having the option to receive the posts by email as well.
For those that are interested, Feedburner supports slashes in your feed URL (when you set it up), so you can make your feed categories look related to your main feed, even though they have to be set up separately.
Examples:
I set them both up individually, but the second feed looks like a sub-category of the first. Nice!
What is RSS Sydnication?
There are a number of people that write about RSS syndication… you can check out their links below, but in a nutsheet it is (courtesy of Wikipedia):
RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts in a standardized format. The benefit of RSS is the aggregation of content from multiple Web sources in one place. RSS content can be read using software called an “RSS reader”, “feed reader” or an “aggregator”, which can be web-based or desktop-based.
Posted in Blog, Tech Stuff | No Comments »
Friday, May 23rd, 2008 |
Big thanks to Code Wraith who posted this solution to mounting a Jungle Disk on a Ubuntu system (I converted my work PC to Ubuntu since I mainly use it for Word Processing, spreadsheets and internet use). I must say, like 18 thumbs up. Hardy Heron is impressive as a desktop!
Anyway - Jungledisk and Ubuntu - see below. Full credit to Code Wraith, but a big vote of confidence that it works!
I just set up JungleDisk today, and it’s working great. I’m not on 64-bit but these are the steps I went through:
1. Sign up with Amazon Simple Storage (http://aws.amazon.com/s3)
2. Follow the instructions to get the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key
3. Download the Linux version of JungleDisk (http://www.jungledisk.com)
4. Extract the files to the home directory. It will make a directory called “jungledisk”
5. Double-click on “junglediskmonitor” and a configuration page will open
6. Enter the Amazon Access Key ID and Secret Access Key and leave Bucket Name as “default”
7. Go to Start > Places > Connect to Server… and add the following:
Server type: WebDAV (HTTP)
Server: localhost
Port: 2667
Name to use for this connection: whatever name you want displayed in Nautilus
8. Open Nautilus, find the drive, and double-click to open
9. It should now function like an extra drive with ability to copy, paste, and delete. Keep in mind that JungleDisk has to be running (there will be an icon in the tray) whenever you want to access the drive.
Posted in Tech Stuff | No Comments »
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 |
Oooh… this looks neat, and totally nerdy, and I want one! *insert Homer Simpson drooling and slobbering here*
Visit How to Have an iPod in Your Car and be sure to mop up the drool before getting in!
[Image courtesy of Advance Humanity]
Posted in Tech Stuff | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 |
I’m loving Digsby - even more since they have included Facebook Chat as part of their service! Totally awesome! I wouldn’t normally use Facebook Chat, but now that it’s not tied to the browser, I’m a user.
After installing Digsby, just go to the menu and choose ‘Digsby’ –> ‘My Accounts’. A window should appear, then click on ‘Add IM Account’ and select Facebook Chat. Fill in all the details for your Facebook account and wait about 3 mins. It’ll log you out of your Facebook and then you can see the status of your friends online with your other IM buddies.
Only one request, Digsby… Mac and Linux versions soon, please? My friends are saying that you’ll never do it!
They are soooo jealous and I don’t know how long I can stand all this Digsby envy!!!
Posted in Tech Stuff | No Comments »
