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Persuasion and N00bs0
Joe M posted in Howto, homelife, well-being on September 30th, 2008

I love reading Lifehacker.com, and the entries by Gina Tripani and the other writers.

Lifehacker has a well-rounded blog of everything from technology to everyday shortcuts.

A couple days ago, Gina wrote an entry, Persuade People With Subconscious Techniques.

While I dare not engage too much in the seemingly mystical or potential metaphysical aspect of this post, I think it drives home the importance of a person’s disposition.

If you are confident in your tasks and projects, and you execute them with discipline and resolve, you will ultimately gain the confidence of other people in your environment.  It is possible to do this, without perpetuating doubt in your abilities.

It’s a good read, and food for thought.

The other post that I came across is on Lifehack.org.

Every day, throughout the day, I am approached by someone that wants some sort of recommendation.

Usually, it’s for software, or a question of how to repair or set up something technical in their home environment.

Sometimes, it is a question of something that I have not yet experienced.

What do I do?

Reading Lifehack.org, I came across a post that details many of the steps that take in performing research in ‘unknown waters.’

You may find some techniques in Climbing the Learning Curve, What To Do When You Are a Noob with which you are familiar. (A noob or n00b is short / slang for newbie, meaning, “someone inexperienced,” or, “someone learning a new topic.”)

The steps are articulated pretty well.  It’s all about being given a topic or a task to perform, and not knowing where to start.

Posts such as these give me concise steps, some of which I know, but have not taken time to put down on paper.

They tend to reduce some of the abstractions in dealing with everyday interactions and challenges.

Understanding How The Music Died0
Joe M posted in music on September 29th, 2008

This caught my attention on YouTube. It’s an in-depth explanation of American Pie, by Don Mclean.

Regardless of which elements you agree or disagree, one thing is for sure.  Don Mclean has an astonishing and overwhelming grasp of symbolism.

Seems as if the older I get, the more I appreciate and like this song.

Drag and Drop, Search Google With Sortfix0
Joe M posted in free stuff, products on September 28th, 2008

Every day, I get stopped by someone asking me, “How do you search Google for…?”

If you are interested in the instructions I usually give out, you can find them in my post, Google 101 for Non-Geeks.

Google is a great search engine.  It’s thorough and complete, for the most part.

For those that don’t like having to use extensive syntax to narrow their searches, there’s sortfix.com.

The intial page comes up with the above search box.  Looks the same as any other search engine.

Simply type in your terms and click Search.

The interface, or resulting web page pops up.

You have four small windows at the top.  Power Words, Add to Search, Remove and Dictionary.

With some pretty cool Flash, the terms at the top of the screen are drag and drop.

Simply click on it once to select it.  Move your mouse to one of the other windows, and click again to drop the term.

If you’ll continue, until you have provided enough terms to include and exclude from your search, you’ll find that your searches will be more complete, and more accurate.

The more terms you categorize in Add and Remove, the better chance your search results will be on target for what you are searching.

You are essentially performing the same functions as using syntax with Google, but just using a simple graphical interface instead of the syntax.

There are other engines that the search utilizes, along with Google.

RSS With RSS ScreenSaver (Windows)0
Joe M posted in free stuff, products on September 27th, 2008

During the days that AOL was big in the online game and everyone was used to listening to the carrier signal of their modem, PointCast was a pretty slick app for its time.

In those days, you had viruses, but you had to worry more about the fourteen-year-olds asking the newbies in the chat room to enter their credit card number and expiration date.

I used to be a fan of PointCast.  Transparent to the user, they had the right idea, but the wrong delivery mechanism.  Call it bad timing, but I believe what they had envisioned was something almost like RSS.

It would monitor news, weather, sports, etc… and bring you the stories in bite-size chunks.  Push Technology was the buzz phrase during that time.  Whenever your screen saver would turn on, it would grab the items you marked as important, and display it on the screen.

Ultimately, it was a great idea for the consumer, but not so great for the business environment. Bandwidth became a huge issue, and many business set guidelines against using it.

Combining news and feeds into a screen saver is a great idea.  When you are pushed for time to pull up your RSS Reader, having a screen saver do it for you can keep you abreast of your important feeds, in a more passive disposition.

Enter RSS Screen Saver 1.0 (Meesoft).

You can set the picture display to be read from a folder of your choice pictures.  You can also add and remove your own RSS feeds in the settings for the screen saver.

Ultimately, the difference is, instead of ‘a push’ of the feeds from PointCast, it’s more of ‘a pull,’ from your machine using RSS.

Putting these items in your screen saver is a little more passive.  It automatically grabs the feeds for you, with little you have to do, other than the initial setup.

Did I mention that it’s free?

HomeHack: Your Own Metal Detector0
Joe M posted in Howto, homelife on September 26th, 2008

How To Make a Metal Detector – The funniest home videos are here

Word Processing and Spreadsheets With SoftMaker Office (Windows)0
Joe M posted in free stuff, products on September 25th, 2008

In researching something else, I stumbled on to SoftMaker Office.

The newest and most feature-rich version is a paid package.  The paid version includes a presentation application and a BASIC macro language application.

There is a completey functional and free version (SoftMaker Office 2006), available for download.

The word processor, TextMaker, is functional and has a full featured toolbar.

The spreadsheet, PlanMaker, is ready and fully functional.  Both applications read and write to *.doc files and *.xls files, respectively.

The only thing I don’t like is the system tray app.

After you install the suite, you may have to run MSCONFIG and uncheck “Smash” to keep it from starting in the system tray when you reboot.

Simply uncheck it, click Apply and OK.

Aesthetically pleasing, and functional.  FREE.  What more can you ask for?

If you are interested in the full package, for more information, check out SoftMaker.

Adobe Listens To The Masses0
Joe M posted in free stuff, products on September 24th, 2008

During the past three releases of Adobe Reader, it seems as if with each release Adobe Reader has become slower and slower.

I am not sure if it was additional code, subroutines, features or what exactly it was.

I downloaded Cory Doctrow’s Little Brother and was going to read it on one of my Windows machines.

I recently re-installed the OS with which I was going to experiment.

Realizing that I did not have Adobe Reader or Foxit Reader to read it, I stumbled across an app to speed up Adobe Reader and was going to try it out.  The app is called Adobe Reader Speedup. (It is currently unsupported.)

I installed Adobe Reader and was shocked to see how fast it fired up.  It did not hourglass, pause or chug.

Looking at the Adobe website, I found evidence that supported my suspicion.  They had concentrated their efforts on making the new version (Version 9 for Windows) faster and more stable.

From what I can tell, they did their job.

I have been using Foxit Reader until now, due to the fact that it seemed to be lightweight without all the overhead of the previous Adobe Reader versions.

I am still overwhelmed at how fast the new version opened.

I am glad that Adobe has responded so well to consumer response.

It just goes to show how good competition is for evolving markets and economies.

Allowing other companies to provide alternatives in this instance proved to be helpful to the consumer.

There are still some applications on the software horizon that could use some of the same healthy competition.

As for Adobe Reader, I think it is time for me to add it back to my list of recommendations, again.

Chromium For Linux, From CodeWeavers0
Joe M posted in free stuff, products on September 23rd, 2008

CodeWeavers, the company that produces CrossOver Office, which is an implementation enhancement for running Microsoft Office and other Windows programs seamlessly on the Linux OS.

There is also Wine, (Wine Is Not an Emulator), a software suite for Linux and Mac OS that allows Windows programs to run within the respective Operating Systems.

CrossOver Office is a detailed and expert package to allow MS Office to function completely within those Unix-like environments.

The folks at CodeWeavers may have beaten Google to the punch.

CodeWeavers boasts of extensive knowledge of Wine, and it shows with their latest effort.

They have produced a pretty stable version (using Wine) of Chrome for Linux — CrossOver Chromium.

While it looks pretty promising, CodeWeavers do not recommend that you run Chromium as your primary browser.

They say the production is currently for testing and proof of concept.

For now, I understand why they have taken this position on it.

It looks great.  I did notice some problems on sites such as YouTube, and sites that use Adobe Flash or Java.

Quoted from the CrossOver Website:

Please Note: CrossOver Chromium is a proof-of-concept. Like Chrome itself, which has only been released in beta form, CrossOver Chromium should be used with discretion, and for non-business-critical purposes. CodeWeavers takes no responsibility for crashes, lost data, errant cookies, or that sort of thing.

I am still enjoying the Windows version and looking forward to the full Linux port.

If you are running Linux and want to give it a spin, check it out here.

Microsoft puts Seinfeld-Gates Ads On Hold1
Joe M posted in Musing, opinion, products on September 22nd, 2008

A couple of days ago, Microsoft evidently put a hold on the Seinfeld-Gates Ads.

I saw the (what I will consider replacement) ad today. “I’m a PC, and I have been stereotyped.”

While I think it is probably a better step in the right direction for Microsoft, I still think there is room for improvement.

The new ad shows members of the workforce in several different scenarios, all quoting variations of the “I’m a PC” mantra.

As a part of the rebuttal process, Microsoft has incorporated part of the Apple ads into their campaign.

In my opinion, the worst thing you can do in a rebuttal is to quote accusations.

The new ads still do little to ad to the campaign.  What are the benefits of the product they are trying to sell?  What are the advantages of using Vista?  How can it make life easier for a potential customer?

Even though they are pulling several ‘character witnesses’ into the campaign, none of them are focusing on accentuating the positive.

Microsoft should draw attention away from the quotes, and focus on the positive elements of their operating system and products.

So far, the two vague directions of the campaign don’t seemed to have gained them much.

I am thinking that MS probably has a few more cards up their sleeve.

It will be interesting to see how the campaign evolves.

AbiWord, Word Processing For Everyone0
Joe M posted in Uncategorized on September 21st, 2008

Since I am always looking for something free, I downloaded AbiWord on one of my Windows machines.

I don’t like paying for software, especially when I know there are free alternatives.

In the past, free alternatives have been somewhat useful, but when you tried to open the file in another word processor, or sent the file to someone, it always seemed there was a caveat.

That scenario does not exist with AbiWord.  It does a great job with opening, editing and saving MS Word *.doc files.

AbiWord has recieved several awards.

The most outstanding characteristic to me?

When I double-click the link in Windows XP, the program fires up, instantly.  No delay, no waiting, no hourglass.

It seems to be functional, yet pretty lightweight.  There are no system processes that get tied up and hang, while you wait for it to start.  Shutting it down is just as painless.

You can find AbiWord here.  There also additional files for tools, dictionaries and plugins.

A Video Introduction To Lazarus0
Joe M posted in Uncategorized on September 19th, 2008

If you are interested in getting your feet wet in programming, Lazarus and FreePascal are a great way to do it.

It’s a fully functional IDE, or Integrated Development Environment, and it works on Windows and Linux. In Windows, it compiles the project into EXE files that can be pretty flexible.

You can run external programs and access the Windows Application Program Interface (API).

Lazarus and FreePascal are open source projects, both available on sf.net.

(FYI… if you install Lazarus, it includes FreePascal.  Lazarus is one option for a development environment in using FreePascal.)

If you are curious as to what type of syntax you would use, it is much similar to Borland Delphi.

The daily snapshot of Lazarus for Windows (32 bit) can be found here.

The rest of the daily snapshots including the 64 bit versions can be found here.

Figuring Out Where To Draw The Line Online0
Joe M posted in Musing, homelife, opinion on September 18th, 2008

Neowin.net has a story about hiring managers checking online and social networking sites in order to research potential employees.

The trend as of now is probably not overwhelming.

As the learning curve continues, people are much better at surfing the web these days.  They have become more aware of using social and bookmarking sites, blogging and interacting inside of online communities.

The online community has grown exponentially.  No matter what hobby, interest, illness or fascination one may possess; there is an online community somewhere either discussing or providing some facet of support for that topic.

If you use Google on a regular basis, you are somewhat aware of the increasing availability of information online.

The question is, how will this information impact each person?

Do you ever consider someone doing a search in Google for your name?  How about looking up your MySpace or Facebook account, and reading your entire profile?

To take that one step further, what if the researchers are prospective employers or a prospective financial institution?

Think about both sides of the issue.

On one side, if they decide to hire you, or provide you with a loan based on information they find, how does that make you feel?

On the other side, if they decide not to hire you or provide you with a loan as a result of their findings, how does that make you feel?

With sites such as Pipl, it is no longer simply a question of using MySpace or Facebook for research.

I think in coming years, we can expect this trend to become Standard Operating Procedure for HR and some hiring managers.

For the most part, call it conscience, but I have always imagined my parents standing behind me while I surf, blog, email or comment online.  That has helped to keep me in check.

Reviewing some of the comments on the article, some people seem to think that who they are online, whether it be anonymous or in complete identity; is not necessarily who they are at work.  They drew some distinctions between personal and professional personna.

If you post something online that prevents you from being hired or getting a loan, does that constitute a violation of your first amendment rights?  (That is, given, that you are able to prove it.)

Now, do you feel just a little more paranoid about all the people that are out to get you?

Transferring Files, Backing Up MP3 Players0
Joe M posted in Home Support, free stuff, products on September 17th, 2008

Just for kicks, I was playing around with my Creative Labs Zen Xtra and my iPod Shuffle.

The Zen is a 40 GB, about 6 years old.  Still works like a charm.  I have most of my CD collection on it.

It does a great job, as any MP3 / WMA player does.  It provides me with portability for my music collection.  I also have put a few audio books and podcasts on it.

The iPod Shuffle is a 1 GB, about a year old.  It performs basically the same function as the Zen.  The added bonus is the fact that it is completely solid state and much smaller and has better portability than the Zen.  Plus, if I drop it, the chances of doing damage to the Shuffle are much less than the hard drive based Zen.

Wanting to change things up a little, with the least amount of hassle, I pulled both of them out and connected them to my laptop.

When I put most of the songs on my Zen, I was running either Win98 or XP.  I used the software that came with the Zen to do it.  I can’t remember much about it.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to copy the music off my Zen and put it on my hard drive.  I found Gnomad (pronounced Ga-nomad) in the Synaptic Repository in my Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) OS.  I used it to copy several songs off to the file system.

At that point, I pulled out my Shuffle, plugged it in and pulled up GTKpod, which is also listed in Synaptic.

I painlessly copied about ten of the songs from the file system to the shuffle.  Those were the same songs I just pulled off the Zen.

The process was painless and accurate.  I did not get any connection messages, DRM messages, License messages or any inhibiting activity to prevent the connection or the transfer.

That is the way it’s supposed to be.  Copying songs from my music collection from one proprietary format or device to another.

GTKpod is a great app that rises to the occasion.  It is somewhat of a necessity if you want to transfer files to and from your file system within Linux.

Gnomad still does a great job, as well.

Both apps are free and open source, available in Synaptic Package Manager in Ubuntu.

I have tried to do the same thing in Windows, before, and it did not go well.  It was also pretty complicated, if I remember correctly.

If you are interested in GTKpod or would like to see what it looks like, you can check it out in this post.

The Register’s Guide to NetBooks and Mini Laptops1
Joe M posted in free stuff, products on September 16th, 2008

The market is splitting at the seams these days with portable laptops that are designed to keep you connected.

For most tasks, you will be able to perform just about anything you would on your regular desktop at home.

The Register (from the UK) has a guide to these laptops and minis here.

The Register also has a print-friendly guide available here.

The laptops are generally smaller than a regular laptop and offer the same basic functions as a full-sized laptop.

Keep in mind, if you are planning on doing heavy video editing or gaming, most of these laptops will probably not fit the bill for you.

These are aimed at websurfing and email, with some added bonuses of other apps, too.

Most of them have the option of Windows XP, but I am not aware of any comparison between the performance between each model and its corresponding XP and Linux alternatives.

There are some models in here that I have not seen before.  It’s a good read.

FYI… If you need to compare £and $, use Google.

Playing the Deuce0
Joe M posted in Musing, opinion, products on September 15th, 2008

Okay.  It’s Microsoft Ad # 2.  Dvorak’s take is Microsoft wants people like us to push their products.

He may be right.  The more people that scratch their heads and re-post the vids, the more airplay they get.

In the long run, though, I am not sure how much MS will gain from this strategy.  People already know the brand name.  It’s not like they are attempting to make their company name a household word.  It already is.

There is a leather reference, this time with a giraffe.

In my opinion, from these first two ads, they are making several stabs… a stab at “Ads about nothing”… another stab at their ability to relate to consumers (which does not go over too well, maybe a laugh at themselves for MS)… and a stab at lacing their dialog with several references, in which most seem to be dead-ended.

Seinfeld is a funny guy.  Gates seems a little awkward.

He probably has the potential to be funny, but there does not seem to have been much preparation in the chemistry between the two.  They don’t seem to have spent too much time together outside of the studio time in the production of the ad.

I think people will watch the ad out of curiosity, unlike the Mac ads, in which people enjoy the entertainment value in the exchange between John Hodgeman and Justin Long.

The curiosity element will either be satisfied for the viewers, or it will remain a mystery.

…That’s unless the campaign has a silver bullet in the coming advertisements, in which they eloquently and intelligently tie it all together.

A Quicklist of Essential Free Software for XP0
Joe M posted in Home Support, free stuff, products on September 14th, 2008

After re-installing XP on a friends machine, I put several apps on it.

He had the license for XP, but no other software.

I update and change this list from time to time, so here is the current one I use.  I have also had to regurgitate it one other time this week.

The list of items I installed:

Free AVG

I have had pretty good luck with it.  Recently, a friend of mine got the dreaded popup / crapware for AV2009.  I was able to bypass the EXE and end it in the task manager.  I installed AVG and it found it, immediately.

7-zip

For free, on sourceforge.  It does a great job of handling compressed files in Windows XP.

Paint.NET

It’s one of the top photo and graphics editors.  It does require the latest version of the .Net framework, which in turn requires the latest version of the WIndows Installer service.  You can work with masks, layers, etc.

Firefox 3.0

For his regular browsing needs, I put Firefox on.  You can use plugins and extensions, and it really makes me feel better to have it on there.

OpenOffice.org

If you like spending $$$ on MS Office for some sort of ‘piece of mind’, you have that option.  Other people might like to choose this free option.  OpenOffice lets you edit, save, convert, etc. Word, Excel, Powerpoint docs.  You can also export to PDF or Flash, for added bonus.

You could use GoogleDocs, in conjunction with the new Chrome browser.  It’s still in beta, so it might be a gamble for a non-technical person.  The idea is to use Chrome along with Googledocs to make the apps seem native and local, transparent to the user.

JKDefrag and JKDefragGUI

I like the extra options that JKDefrag and JKDefragGUI bring to WIndows XP.  JKDefrag, FYI, is the command line program, and JKDefragGUI is the interface GUI written by someone else.

Of Course, Ad-Aware and Spybot, both available on download.com.

After installing everything, make sure you make a restore point.  Inevitably, having kids and Windows in the house, you face a pretty good chance of not only needing it, but using it.

Keep in mind, also, your and others in your household’s surfing habits and internet activity.

Addendum:

If you recently restored your machine from a manufacturer’s image, you may also want to take a look at my post on PC Decrapifier.

Google’s PR Machine0
Joe M posted in free stuff, music, opinion on September 13th, 2008

This evening, I sat down and read the Google Chrome Comic Book.

It describes the ideas, the opinions and the creative process behind Google Chrome.

I have heard a few criticisms around the web and some podcasts about the comic book.

With a pretty good IT background, I follow the comic book pretty easily.

You have to give the guys at Google some credit.

When they conceive a product, they seem to think it through pretty well.

Even though the comic book is going to go over the heads of some non-technical people, you have to give Google an A+ for originality and effort.

I can remember having to dig in and learn some subject matter.  The documents were heavy with the proprietary jargon.

When the companies create their own proprietary jargon and spread it on real heavy in papers and documentation, it gets very confusing at first, until you tune in to what all of the terms mean and how the concepts fit together.

I like the idea of the comic book.  I think it’s a stride in the right direction.

I’m not a Google Fanboy, but I have to give credit where credit is due.

Since most people are better at learning visually, I think more companies could follow Google’s lead on this one.  Realizing that they need to relate to their audience (which is a pretty wide demographic), they made a pretty good stab at relating to all of them.

Can you imagine reading a Microsoft or a Cisco comic book?

That’s a little tougher to imagine for me.

Handling Temp Files in Windows XP0
Joe M posted in Home Support on September 12th, 2008

How to remove temporary files? – The funniest videos are a click away

I ran into someone today asking me about deleting temp files.

If you surf the internet, install and un-install software, etc., you can wind up with quite a few temp files on your hard drive.

The video is aimed at versions through XP and WIndows Server 2003.

As far as I know, it won’t work for Vista.

PS.  I have a Vista machine I am working on in the back.  I sat there for about 20 minutes waiting for it to boot up.  I finally got frustrated and decided to do something else.

RSS Agregation for Windows With SharpReader0
Joe M posted in Howto, free stuff, products on September 11th, 2008

In case you are not familiar with RSS, it’s a way to automate delivery of web content.

You can set up your RSS reader to pull content from certain websites automatically.

For more info, you can check out this post on Google Reader and this post on FeedDemon.

It’s a great way to streamline your web surfing, unless of course time is your luxury.

I am always looking for alternatives.  I came across SharpReader.

It’s free and simple.

You can import or export to a text OPML file.  So if you are using another reader, you can pull your feeds in.  If you want to save your feeds from SharpReader, you can use the export function.

I am still playing with it.  It looks pretty good.

It listens for feed updates, without having to click an update button.

It’s an awesome way to keep up with your favorite websites.

NBC Re-Joining iTunes0
Joe M posted in opinion, products on September 10th, 2008

Engadget has a story about Apple’s iTunes 8 launch, and the fact that NBC is re-joining the lineup in the iTunes store.

Not only will you be able to buy the regular NBC shows individually at $1.99 each, but you will also be able to buy the HD version for $2.99.

Makes a person wonder what happened.

We can speculate.

I still believe that sharing on-line versions of content for free is self-promotion.

Most of the versions of content floating around the net aren’t necessarily high quality.

When you pull up a video on Youtube, it’s usually a snippet, and usually there are several different versions at different framerates, etc.

For anyone concerned with piracy issues or downloads, if a person wanted to spend the amount of time downloading and piecing together a collection of these fragments, it would take a long time.  It is pretty montonous.

From my own experience, if I download the video and watch it, I always come back later with the intention of buying it.  That’s if the content is good enough.

The music industry and the movie industry are having to adapt to the new economy.

It’s not like the old days of LPs, CDs or cassettes.  You might buy a CD, without knowing anything about it.  You sometimes would get it home to find out the only good song on the whole CD was the one receiving airplay.

That hasn’t always been the case.  A major portion of my music collection, I have purchased, and the results were quite pleasant.  I get the media home, and find out that every song on the album is great.

The companies had that power and hold over us in those days.

It’s not that way anymore.  Individual consumption has changed things for the better.

With the current economy, music and movies have to put extra effort in creating content that people want to own.

That improves the quality of the content that the consumer is spending money on.

I am glad to see NBC back on iTunes.  It’s a good move for everyone.

What’s the Deal With the New Microsoft Ads?0
Joe M posted in Musing, opinion, products on September 9th, 2008

John Dvorak has put his two cents worth in on this one. Got to love it.  Dvorak, the crankygeek himself, is ranting about the ad.  Whether you consider him a cranky old guy with a strong opinion, or just another technology journalist, he has some valid points with an added bonus of amusement.

Jerry.

Hello?

The foot rub, the shower, the shorts adjustment, the churro-focused shots and the leather and conquistador references make you scratch your head.  (If you ask me, the churro shots are a little too emphatic.)

The conquistador reference is what really throws me.

Jerry.

Hello?

Having been a Jerry Seinfeld fan, I really hope that the gyst of the campaign is “Ads About Nothing.”

You also have to consider whether or not the typical Windows user is going to tune in to what the campaign is about.

I am still scratching my head. (?)

Okay, is the new code name for Windows 7 going to be

a) Clown Shoe

b) Conquistador

c) Leather

d) Churro

?

Amazon Handling G1G1 for the OLPC XO0
Joe M posted in opinion, products on September 8th, 2008

According to OLPC News, Amazon will be handling the Give One Get One (G1G1) for the OLPC foundation.

It is slated to begin in November.

The ordering, distribution and clearing for the G1G1 program is going to be handled by Amazon.

Seems like a good fit.  Amazon has a proven record for doing this type of thing, and the folks at OLPC made a good move in bringing Amazon in.

Amazon has the structure, the web presence and the reputation to effectively execute the customer relationship.

As great a program as G1G1 is, OLPC realized there were improvements to be made over the execution of the program from last year.

Also, you can buy OLPC replacement parts at a very reasonable prices on ilovemyxo.

Luckily, I have not had to replace any parts on mine, as of yet.  I am comforted to know that I won’t wind up with a disposable appliance if I clumsily do something to it.

Mouse Gestures Redox for Firefox0
Joe M posted in free stuff, products on September 7th, 2008

I have always used shortcut keys for opening new tabs in Firefox. (Control-T)

I was looking around and came across the Firefox Add-on, Mouse Gestures Redox for Firefox.

Mouse Gestures Redox allows you to hold your right mouse button and make a motion with the mouse for several basic functions in Firefox.

The functions:

Back (Left):
Goes back a page in the browsing history.
Forward (Right):
Goes one page forward in the browsing history.
Close Tab (Down-Right):
Closes the active tab.
New Tab (Up):
Opens the link crossed by the gesture in a new tab. If there is no such link, an empty tab is opened.
New Window (Down):
Opens the link crossed by the gesture in a new browser window. If there is no such link, an empty window is opened.
Open links in tabs (end with Right-Up-Left):
Making any gesture ending with a straight Right-Up-Left movement opens all crossed links in tabs.

I installed it, and found that the functions became intuitive after about five minutes of playing around.

Sure, the regular hotkeys are not hard to use.

I found that using the gestures actually made executing the functions faster.  Going back and going forward sped up my browsing considerably.

Checking Out Google Chrome (On Windows)0
Joe M posted in free stuff, products, security on September 6th, 2008

It’s been out for a few days, now, but I finally got a chance to install Google Chrome.

Chrome is the new internet browser from Google.

It has some pretty cool features.

The thing that I noticed, foremost, was the independent processes for each browser tab.  You can keep all the tabs together, at the top of the page, or you can drag and drop them at different places on the screen.

One of my gripes about Firefox is that sometimes Flash content  will freeze a tab.  The whole browser becomes non-responsive.

The nice thing about Chrome?  One tab freezing will not affect the others.  Sweet!

There are also application shortcut saving features.  If you perform the same functions on certain pages, you can either use the quick bookmark function, or you can save the shortcut to it on the desktop.

There are privacy and history features.

Quick and dirty, Chrome looks pretty promising.

I haven’t found any bugs in it, yet.  I am not a Google Fanboy, but they did a pretty good job with Chrome.

The drawback, they have not completed the Linux or the Mac versions, yet.

I am looking forward to it, though.

The Problem With Dotted Lines0
Joe M posted in opinion on September 5th, 2008

I have heard the term and concept thrown around liberally.

“(That person)… has a dotted line reporting to me.”

DLM (Dotted Line Management) is an idea that gets thrown around in the work environment on occasion.

Forget about how it’s supposed to be done.  Forget semantics.  Forget phrases beginning with, “If…”.

“If properly done…”

“If properly implemented…”

“If properly executed…”

Forget all that.

Murphy’s Law is alive and well.  It’s a monstrosity with a strong pulse and wreaking havoc on daily events.

Whether it’s used in a temporary organizational structure, an experiment, or just a conversation; it leaves a great deal to be desired.

The problems?

It encourages the “Everyone is your boss” mentality.  Remember the scene from OfficeSpace, where the main character gripes about having eight bosses to tell him when he is doing something wrong?

It puts the person with multiple dotted lines in a “Lone Wolf” disposition.  They have several people checking on status, reminding them of deadlines and offering ‘help’.  Most of the time, the help offer is empty, making the effort seem pretty singular for the person accomplishing the task.

It interferes with accountability.  Accountability becomes vague and ambiguous.  With so many people involved, it’s not hard to lose track of all the tasks involved in the project.

It interferes with recognition.  It becomes easy for credit to misplaced on the wrong department or person.

It creates a facade of “Facilitation” or “Enabled contribution.”  When you have someone checking the status and becoming the messenger, if the news is good, the person delivering the news is in a great position.  That’s regardless of whether they actually performed any of the tasks involved or not.  In the long run, those people “swooping in at the last minute” won’t win friends or influence others involved in the project.  Granted, you occasionally encounter people that lack an ability to prioritize.

The person using or abusing the ‘dotted line’ receives a false sense of empowerment.

If everyone acts in a mature manner, there are effective means to replacing the DLM mentality.

Good Communication – Check your emotions at the door.  Focus on exchanging information and leave threats and implications out of the equation.  Make an agreement on how the communication will flow, and name the points of contact for each team member.  Nothing inhibits workflow more than having several people contact the person with the deliverable to ask for a status report.

Teamwork and Collaboration – In an environment where everyone should be self-motivated, encourage an atmosphere in which people take the lead and seize a contribution.  Look for ways to help, and others will do the same.

Taking Your Turn – Know when to grab the ball and run with it.  Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses, you can make your deliverables effectively.  It’s also necessary to know when to allow others to make their own deliverables.

Taking Ownership – I don’t watch Dr. Phil religiously, but one of the things I like about the show is, his ability to get everyone to look at themselves and help devise solutions.  “What can I do (or could I have done) to make this situation better?”

Openly Assessing Yourself – You don’t have to put yourself down, but you can offer constructive criticism on areas in which you can improve.  That’s a big step in providing others with a respectable leadership model.

Avoiding Blame – This is a hard one.  In accountability, sometimes you have to assess yourself and others.  Just make sure you choose your words carefully and avoid flaming and personal bias.  Sometimes you are going to have to assess your teammates.  Concentrate on communicating behavior or short-comings in the current context. “The deadline was missed” is better than “(Insert person’s name here) failed to meet the deadline, because he is just not ever effective in his role.”

For the most part, many of the ideas in DLM have lost momentum.  There are still some that use the philosophy.

Inevitably, you won’t be able to always apply these concepts to everything, but if you make a practice of using them; you will eventually create an atmosphere that discourages DLM.

Financial Management with Buddi0
Joe M posted in Uncategorized on September 4th, 2008

I was looking around for a simple program to do personal financial management.

I stumbled (as I always do) across Buddi on Sourceforge.net.

I have not played around with it extensively, but it looks simple and functional.

I installed it on my Windows XP box, but there is are other versions available.

For someone that wants a straight forward solution, it looks promising.

It’s Open Source and free.

Simple Reminders with Calendar Sparrow (For Windows)0
Joe M posted in free stuff, products on September 2nd, 2008

If you have lightweight needs for a personal calendar or need simple reminders, Calendar Sparrow is perfect for the task.

It has simple setup.  You simple unzip the zip file and extract the contents.

It does not have a complex installer.  (That’s a plus, if you ask me.) Simply run the calendar.exe file.

It has a flyover message for each day of the week.

To enter information, you double-click the day for which you want to enter the information.

A free text field pops up, allowing your entry.

To start it automatically, you drag it to the startup group in Windows.

Calendar Sparrow is available on sourceforge.net.

For quick reminders, it’s a great, free application and addition to your Windows Desktop.

Re-discovering Comics0
Joe M posted in art, homelife, products on September 1st, 2008

Recently, I walked by a friend’s desk.  He is a die-hard comics fan, in his mid-twenties.

I picked up a comic he had laying on his desk.

In case you don’t know, comics are serial.  You get a story, with all of the typical story elements and structure, but at the end, there is a cliff-hanger.  Something to get you hooked, and waiting for the next issue.

The comic on his desk was one of a multi-part series.

It was DC Comic’s Batman: Knightfall – Part One: Broken Bat.  I flipped through it, and was instantly hooked.

Broken Bat is several comics in the series bound together in one graphic novel, without the ads.

Intrigued, I went to the bookstore and bought a copy of it.  I also bought Part Two: Who Rules the Night and Part Three: Knightsend.

I just finished Who Rules the Night.  I am moving on to Knightsend, now.

It’s a fascinating story.  Most of it came out years ago, but for one reason or another, I did not get the opportunity to read and keep up with what was going on.

What’s transpired over the past few years?  No spoilers, but Batman is out of commission. Someone else has to take on the task of being the Dark Knight.

Did you know that Superman also got killed? Robin also gets killed.

Batman Beyond is also an intriguing series.

You’ll have to read up to find out how and what happens in all those cases.  Take a walk by the comics and graphic novel section at the bookstore, next time you go.

I am fascinated by the different storylines that have taken shape.

Writers are more apt these days to write “What If… ?” scenarios than they ever have before.

If you ever get stuck in an environment where you have a few minutes without something to do, graphic novels make a fantastic way to kill a little time.