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Wasted time: Pics from the NET 2
2007-11-26 12:00:00
Technorati Tags: wasted time,pics from the net
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Browser Tweaks and Tricks: Speedup Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera
2007-11-25 21:00:00
If you are like most folks even though you may now have a fast Internet connection that is still not enough. You are still looking to wring just a little more speed out of your surfing experience. Well here today we have some quick tips for speeding up your web surfing experience using one of the three most popular browsers. If you do not have a broadband type connection to the Internet these tips will not be as helpful but you will still notice some improvement in your web surfing. Internet Explorer : Remember to always make a backup copy of your registry before you make any changes. This can be very helpful if you make a small mistake and need to change it back. If you make a big mistake there's not much help for it so please be careful. Go to run window type "regedit" Click HKEY_CURRENT_USER Click "Software" Click "Microsoft" Click "Windows" Click "Current version" Click "Internet settings" find MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server. Right click and choose "...
More About: Firefox , Opera , Tricks

Tech Blast from the Past: Changing webpage font size on the fly
2007-11-25 17:00:00
If your mouse contains a wheel for scrolling, you can change font size on the fly when viewing a Web page. Press and hold Ctrl. Scroll down (or towards yourself) to enlarge the font size. Scroll up (or away from yourself) to reduce the font size.   Also if you either do not have a mouse that has a scroll wheel or you are say working on a laptop and the scroll wheel is not an option then you can use these keyboard shortcuts to achieve the same effect. Hold down "Ctrl" and "+" to enlarge the font size Hold down "Ctrl" and "-" to reduce the font size Tech norati Tags: Tech blast from the Past ,webpage font size
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Download of the Day: Dimension 4
2007-11-25 12:10:00
      By default since Windows 2000 your computer is set to automatically synchronize its internal clock with either ntp://time.windows.com or ntp://time.nist.gov servers? So why does your computer clock at work seem to be weirdly off from the "Real World"? Well I know when I used to have the correct permissions to set the time on my PC at work I would change it to match the "Real World" and sure as heck as soon as I rebooted that hunk it would go back to having the wrong time. Well unfortunately in a company or corporate network you most times either do not have "sufficient permissions" to change your clock setting or the network is sending a script out each time you reboot you box to sync. all the computers across the company to have the same time, adjusting for time zones of course if applicable.  So what does that have to do with this post and download you say? Well as far as work goes I right clicked on my "START" button went to properties and choose the "Taskbar" tab an...
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Registry Tweak of the Week: Change IE Window Title
2007-11-24 12:00:00
  1. Click Start Button and choose Run 2. Type in "regedit" 3. Click on HKEY_CURRENT_USER 4. Click Software 5. Click Microsoft 6. Click Internet Explorer 7. Click Main 8. Click Edit drop down 9. Choose New 10 Choose String Value 11 Name it "Window Title " 12 Double Click it after created 13 In Value data type in whatever you want the Internet Explorer bar to have at the top instead of "Microsoft Internet Explorer" I changed mine to "Tech-Week ly's Browser Window". Also below is a quick video show how to do this Technorati Tags: Internet Explorer Hack,Windows XP registry hack
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Site of the Day: Gliffy
2007-11-22 20:00:00
  From floor plans and landscape designs to process flows and technical drawings, Gliffy Basic's shape libraries and intuitive interface will help you create diagrams instantly. Check out the "How to create a Simple Network Diagram" video to the left. Below is a nice example of why you don't need to buy MS Visio in order to make network diagrams or flowcharts. Gliffy is free at the basic level and easy to use Technorati Tags: Gliffy,Visio
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Site of the Day: Elf Yourself
2007-11-21 17:54:00
Today's site of the day is Elfyourself.com, with everyone looking for an excuse to not work and who has a few pictures of family and friends and a few minutes to waste. And who doesn't have a few minutes to waste the day before Thanksgiving at work.   I was able to make a nice little elf setup of my family in just about 5 minutes. It is really cute and fun to try. What you wind up making is up to 4 elves dancing with a face of your choice uploaded and placed on them. It is really fun.     So what are you waiting for go "Elf Yourself"
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Download of the Day: Startup Inspector
2007-11-21 00:01:00
Well with the holiday weekend just about to start I thought for the "Download of the Day" I would list a handy program that some folks may find useful. Have you ever had this happen when visiting family for the holidays? You just finished a great meal and your ready to relax on the couch when (insert relative of choice) comes over and blocks the tv and starts talking about how their computer is not running well at all. It is either not working at all or running so slow that it probably is completely infected with all manner of spam and malware. As you listen it becomes obvious that not only has this been the case for a while but you have basically been ambushed. They knew you were going to be there for the holiday meal so they did not bother to try to get it fixed till then. Now don't get me wrong. I love working on computers. Mine, yours and whoevers. But to make your diagnosis work a little quicker you might want to bring this little program along with you. Startup Inspector wor...

Blogging Series: Part 3 the competition Dell's Vostro 1000
2007-11-20 21:45:00
Dell matches the economy class XO and Asus Eee laptops by permanently chopping its $700 Vostro 1000 to $399. It's got superior specs to both: 15.4-inch screen, 1.7 GHz dual-core Athlon64 X2, 1GB RAM, 256MB integrated ATI gfx card, 8x DVD burner and 802.11g Wi-Fi card, running XP Home. The super-cheap laptop market's getting nicely competitive. [Dell via Valleywag] Well it looks like the Asus Eee Pc and the One Laptop Per Child XO-1 are starting to stir up some real commercial competition. Its a shame that it takes someone making an affordable alternative in order for prices to come down on something. Though I am sure sagging pre-holiday sales had something to do with it. So is it unreasonable to think that soon there will be a $50 laptop? It might be rather limited and look a little toy like but then some of the ones available now are already that. I believe if you were to combine a $50 laptop with a Ubuntu operating system now that would be a real winner. Stay tuned&nbs...
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Do-it-yourself: SSD (Solid-State drive) for your computer
2007-11-17 01:02:00
Have some good sized Compact Flash cards laying around that you don't use anymore? Would you like to experience trying out the latest computer speed craze? Well for about $50.00, a Addonics Quad CF PCI adapter and a couple of Compact Flash cards you could  have a taste of solid state speed and quiet for your data storage source. This adapter will accept any mixture of up to 4 cards.   The adapter includes built-in firmware, which allows the four CF cards to be configured as one large volume, four individual drives, or configured for redundancy with support for RAID 0 (Striped), RAID 1 (Mirrored) and RAID 10 (Mirrored Striped). With the increased capacity and lowering costs of flash media, replacing the hard drive with CF as a boot drive is now a viable alternative because CF offers lower power consumption and no moving parts. Moreover, the device supports not only CF Type I, but also the Type II and MicroDrive formats. (via Gizmo Watch)       Will I run ...
More About: Computer , State , Solid , Soli

Blog Series: Part 2 Third World Pc's the Desert PC
2007-11-16 20:43:00
 This is Part 2 of my mini-blog series Third World Pc's. In Part 1 I talked a little bit about the recent mass market release of both the Asus Eee Pc and the One Laptop Per Child organization's the XO-1. And before I continue on with that I thought I would look and see are these the only computers in the works for developing third world countries out there that having an impact? What I found right away was an organization called Geekcorp's. Last year they worked on a project computer called the Desert PC. Now while this is not a laptop like the previous two machines they are non-the-less having quite an impact on a town called Bourem Inaly in Mali. If you click on the Google Map link for the village you will see that it is located literally in the middle of no-where in Africa. The Desert PC is a sealed, fanless system based on VIA Technologies’ Mini-ITX form factor. It has a heatpipe for passive cooling, a solid state disk to el...
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Blog Series: Third World Pc's Part 1 Asus Eee PC vs. OLPC XO-1
2007-11-14 01:54:00
Have you seen the latest in affordable computing? Currently there are two flavors of affordable ultra-portable laptops. One is the Asus Eee Pc and the other is the result of the One Laptop Per Child organization the XO-1. I had started to blog something about this earlier this summer prior to the open market release of both of these machines but have only now had a chance to do so. I am really intrigued by not just the thought of being able to finally offer an affordable laptop for children or adults in developing countries, but also the impact they will have on the rest of the already computerized world. With a glut of fully functional machines such as these eventually available for in most instances less than what most folks earn in a day at work they will be literally everywhere. I would like to spend the next week doing a blog series touching on both these machines. How they have faired since they have gone public so to speak and where they are being used. Sorry I hope to...
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Blog Editors for Linux: Link
2007-11-13 21:03:00
Even though I use Windows Live Writer currently to write to my blog. I have become a huge fan of Ubuntu and have it running on my second PC and will probably soon move all of my machines over to it or some version of Linux . So stumbling across THIS post about Blog editors for Linux was great. Give it a read.
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November 2007 Microsoft Patch Tuesday
2007-11-13 20:51:00
Well it's time again to see what patches and help for Windows Microsoft has for us this month. There are two bulletins one is deemed "CRITICAL" and the other "MAXIMUM SEVERITY". I don't know but both those descriptions sound equally important to me but here is the quick breakdown: MS07-061: This update addresses a vulnerability in Windows URI handling, which could allow remote code execution and has a maximum severity of Critical. MS07-062: This update addresses a vulnerability in DNS which could allow spoofing and has a maximum severity of Important. In addition one bulletin was re-released: MS07-049: This update addresses a vulnerability in Virtual PC and Virtual Server and could allow elevation of privilege. This is a change to the installer code only, to address some limited installation problems that we have seen.  There’s no change to the update binaries, so if you have already successfully installed this update, you do not need to reinstall it.  Please refer ...
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Get your @live.com name while they last
2007-11-12 22:52:00
I second Aaron Tiensivu's thoughts HERE. He suggests that you get your @live.com email address while they last. As MS puts it this can be your chance to start fresh with a good email address that does not look like this: techweekly1234@live.com I recently went out and got not only a email address for this website in case I ever get tired of my Gmail account or if the Live .com service ever surpasses it I will be ready. You can get yours HERE. Of course they want you to download their Live software but if you notice the highlighted portion of the web page you can see the link that you will need to click on to get you new @live.com email address as well as you live.com blog space if you like.

Tech Video of the week: Mac vs. PC spoof "money"
2007-08-28 01:38:00
This is a another twist on the Mac vs. PC commercials.
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Enable menu bar in Internet Explorer 7
2007-06-22 22:47:00
        ;      &nbs p;      &nb sp;      &n bsp;      & nbsp;               ;         If you are like me you may be growing to like IE7 but still miss having the buttons in the same place that you have been used to finding them for several years. Here is a quick how to bring them back if you still want to look at them. First thing you will need to do is click the tools drop down to the right and pick menu bar and check it.         ;      &nbs p;      &nb sp;      &n bsp;      & nbsp;               ;     &nbs...
More About: Internet , Internet Explorer , Explorer , Internet Explorer 7 , Menu

Pre-SP1 Vista Hotfixes list
2007-06-20 21:18:00
I found a great list of Pre-SP1 hotfixes for Windows Vista at Aaron Tiensivu's Blog. If you are like me and not a real fan of the Windows Update site and all the red tape etc that you have to go thru in order to just get updates that you should have fair and easy access to. You might want to also check out the "AutoPatcher" site. There they have most of these fixes available and it is alot less complicated to get your computer updated. These fixes are broken down into handy intelligible categories as follows on Aaron's site: · Add-ons · Core OS · Core OS subcomponents · IDE/SATA · Networking · Multimedia · USB     Here is the section that I found especially interesting and necessary. the Core OS section: Core OSKB 933272 - Updates Kernel!The system time lags when you restart a Windows Vista-based computer that supports High Precision Event TimerKB 932590Windows-based applications that use the TZ environment variable may not work as expected because of chan...
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Tech Video of the week: Creepy Linux Video
2007-05-23 09:02:00
This weeks video is a little strange to say the least. I do apologize for the quality of it. I am not sure if it was a strange attempt by other OS makers to alienate Linux or what the deal is. You take a look and let me know what you think.
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This is a test post from Office 2007
2007-05-23 08:33:00
I normally use Windows Live Writer to work up my posts and to send them. However, since I am currently trying out Office 2007 and saw there was the ability to post to your blog from it naturally I had to give it a quick try. I will not try anything too complicated this first time. Though if it works well I may have to say goodbye to WLW. I doubt anytime soon since I depend on a lot of the plugins that are available for it.
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Tech Video of the week: Computer repair fraud.
2007-05-16 17:59:00
Well another week has gone by and here is another video clip pick of the week. This is by no means a new clip but for those of us out there that might enjoy using a computer but do not have the first idea how to fix it if it stops working. Have a look a this. These folks took a pefectly functional computer and then pulled a simple plug lose so that it would not boot up and then took it to a variety of different places to have it repaired. And it just goes to show you what you don't know might be bad for you. The quick fix for this would have been to simply plug the cable back in and let the customer know that it was something that simple and if you had to charge them a fee the least you could do would be to show them so that if it ever acts that way again they could repair it themselves. Unfortunately that is not what happened with most of the places that they took this computer to most either tried to sell something that they computer did not really need or charged an extremely hi...
More About: Video , Fraud , Computer , Tech , Week

MySpace now off the grid
2007-05-16 16:49:00
MySpace off the grid. The DoD's global information grid to be exact. They are not the only site to get the plug pulled on them. Other sites include: youtube.com, pandora.com, photobucket.com, live365.com, hi5.com, metacafe.com, mtv.com, ifilm.com, blackplanet.com, stupidvideos.com and filecabi.com. Well given the number of personell that the DoD has stationed across the world and the amount of boredom and stress that some of these site's have probably been relieving I would bet that you will see significant drops in usage at some of the majore sites mentioned such as MySpace and Youtube. Blocks only affect Department of Defense computers and local area networks that are part of the department's global information grid. The department has more than 15,000 local and regional networks and more than 5 million computers in the grid. Of course according to the DoD this restriction only applies to computers that are part of their global information grid. If DoD personell use their own I...
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THINKPAD DRIVER AND SOFTWARE UPDATES VIA RSS
2007-05-16 16:42:00
I was reading my feeds today and saw a quick blog post for getting your driver and other software updates for your Thinkpad sent to you via RSS HERE. This SITE could not be simpler or cooler. All you have to do is surf to it and enter your 7 digit product number from the bottom of your Thinkpad and then subscribe to the RSS feed that it generates. For instance if you type in 8741C2G you will get the same thing as if you were to go to the Thinkpad site for that model. http://tools.4dots.com/thinkpad/8741C2G This is much easier I think and I wonder how long it will take for the rest of the computer manufacturers both laptop and desktop to follow suit. I mean its kind of like those ever present late nite "Info Commercials" you just "set it and forget it" till an update comes your way.
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ARE AMERICANS HOOKED ON THE INTERNET
2007-05-16 02:05:00
I recently read a press release at Media-Screen that intrigued me. Now mind you this was just a press release and it was a little thin on backup data. Or at least I could not find any linked or attached to the release. The gist of the release is that Broadband users in America are spending 48% of their time online. And the bulk of their time is being spent accessing sites related to entertainment and communication. Probably no surprise to those of you reading this article. It has been the opinion most recently that most folks get their news from the web more so than in years past when they might get it from either the nightly newscast or the daily paper. Of course this is still only a feasible method for those folks that have access to broadband Intern et connections either at work or at home. I know that I am guilty of this both places. If a storm rolls in the first thing I do is check online to see up to the minute radar coverage and forecasting for my area. Not like in the past w...
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DAILY FUN SITE: ZOHO SHEET BETA
2007-05-15 23:42:00
Well I had an opportunity to try ZOHO Sheet Beta today. It is a little different than some of the other online spreadsheet sites seems like to me. The first big difference that I notice is that I can embed whatever I work on into my blog which to me would be hugely useful. While I was at it I also tried out a nice link for working up the potential value of your blog based on a spreadsheet that is hosted on ZOHO. You can reach that site by clicking HERE. Apparently this does not work well to show up in Internet Explorer 7. I will continue to look at this and find out why.
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Cute librarian makes Ubuntu how to movie
2007-05-11 10:15:00
In my ongoing expirement with Ubuntu in its various flavors I had been doing some additional research online and come across this really snappy homeade video by jessamyn @ The Calef Libra ry. See her site HERE. She shows how a couple of donated computers that would typically have just gotten junked can be given a new lease on life. These two computers will now be an additional asset for this library and they are not any money at all to get them up and running.
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Tech Video of the week: Inside Google
2007-05-08 20:39:00
I decided since there is such a glut of video content out there anymore that I am going to try to at least pick out one good clip a week on Wedsdays to feature on my site. This week I have picked a quick little onsite tour and interview of the folks at Google . This certainly makes you stop and think what does my company do for me after watching. These folks are some of the brightest and hardest working around in the tech business. And Google certainly looks to reward them in many ways for this in addition to just providing them with a job. Do I sound a little envious? I guess I am. I mean not only would it be totally cool to work for a company that doesn't show any signs of slowing down in my lifetime but to be working with that many smart people all in one place would l think be not only challenging but also inspiring. And the perks they talk about would not be too bad either. Enjoy!
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Is Vista Ultimate worth the extra money?
2007-05-08 19:38:00
Recently I came across one of several posts hitting upon some of the extras Vista Ultimate has for you if you are willing to pay the extra premium price for it. One of those extras is DreamScenes ( or animated desktops). Well certainly there is a lot of buzz on the Web concerning the pros and cons of Vista. This post from O'Reilly Opinion blog. They talk about the quick video clip to the left showcasing some of the recently available DremeScenes available. While it is definitely "Eyecandy" as they are now calling it everywhere. I have to say I have both Vista Beta RC1 running on a computer and Vista Premium Home Edition running on my laptop. And there is no way that I would pay extra to have in essence the ability to play movies as a background for my computers desktop. Its pretty YES! Productive or necessary No! I would much rather use the cycles needed to produce this to open a window faster. Or to be able to go from one website to another a fraction of a second quicker. Is thi...
More About: Money , Worth , Extra

Microsoft Patch Tuesday May 8, 2007
2007-05-08 01:22:00
On Tuesday 8 May 2007 Microsoft is planning to release: VIA check back here later this week for further information. Security Updates • Two Microsoft Security Bulletins affecting Microsoft Windows. The highest Maximum Severity rating for these is Critical. These updates will require a restart. These updates will be detectable using the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. • Three Microsoft Security Bulletins affecting Microsoft Office. The highest Maximum Severity rating for these is Critical. These updates may require a restart. These updates will be detectable using the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. • One Microsoft Security Bulletin affecting Microsoft Exchange. The highest Maximum Severity rating for these is Critical. These updates will not require a restart. These updates will be detectable using the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. • One Microsoft Security Bulletin affecting CAPICOM and BizTalk. The highest Maximum Severity rating for these is Critical. T...
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Daily Fun Site: Who is Sick?
2007-05-07 22:01:00
Well today's fun site use's Google maps in another Twitter sort of way with a little twist. Instead of just for letting people know where you hail from or where you have been in a day. This site will show you if there is any type of sickness being reported in your area. Now currently this site purely relys on folks to submit their information to it. And lets face it if your sick you probably are not going to feel up to typing anything out online. So here is what I suggest. That we take this clever little service and have folks at the doctors offices across the country and the hospitals feed there information into it and we will start to be able to see an accurate forecast of how the folks around us are feeling and how they are doing physically. Imagine if you were thinking of going out to see that next Summer blockbuster at the theatre and the area that theatre is in shows alot of folks with coughs etc. You could make an informed decision to go elsewhere and not take a chance in ...
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