Monthly Archive for March, 2008

ThinkFree - The best online office on Earth

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There are a lot of online productivity suites out there these days. Google has probably made the biggest news as they have put together a collection of them (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, etc) after buying several companies. But Google certainly isn’t the only one. I have previous mentioned a basic collection of similar programs by AJAX13. A more full-featured collection is from ThinkFree:

The award-winning ThinkFree Office is a Microsoft® Office compatible application suite comprised of word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation graphics software-all usable online and off.

I haven’t done much other than signing up for a free account and then playing around a bit, but it looks promising. Check it out for yourself.

Chinese hackers: No site is safe

From CNN:

They operate from a bare apartment on a Chinese island. They are intelligent 20-somethings who seem harmless. But they are hard-core hackers who claim to have gained access to the world’s most sensitive sites, including the Pentagon.

In fact, they say they are sometimes paid secretly by the Chinese government — a claim the Beijing government denies.

“No Web site is one hundred percent safe. There are Web sites with high-level security, but there is always a weakness,” says Xiao Chen, the leader of this group.

DVDFab HD Decrypter copies DVD’s, removes protections

A month or so ago Download Squad linked to DVDFab, a program that lets you rip DVDs to your hard drive.

To burn or not to burn? That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the absence of your DVD collection on your hard drive, or to take arms against those who poison your collection with various “protections,” and by opposing end them.

If you side with the latter camp, then you’ll be interested in DVDFab HD Decrypter, a free program for Windows that copies an entire DVD movie to your hard drive, and removes all the protections (CSS, RC, RCE, APS, UOPs and Sony ARccOS) while copying. The program also provides full HD-DVD and Blu-Ray support (hence the “HD” in the name).

As is usually the case, the comments section of that posting provides some good alternatives.

Ballmer Says Catching Google Is Microsoft’s Goal

From InformationWeek:

Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer pledged Thursday the company would gain share against Google Inc. in online advertising and Web searching, even if it’s his “last breath” at the company.

Speaking at Microsoft’s MIX08 online technology conference in Las Vegas, Ballmer reiterated the justifications for its $41.2 billion unsolicited offer for Yahoo Inc, saying the deal would accelerate its efforts to build a competitor to Google.

“So it may be my last breath at Microsoft, but we’re going to be there, working away, building share,” said Ballmer during a bantering question-and-answer session with Guy Kawasaki, a venture capitalist and one of the first employees at Apple Inc .

Who needs IT experts? Workers take control

From Reuters:

Savvy office workers frustrated that their on-the-job computer tools don’t function as smoothly as, say, an Apple iPod are taking matters into their own hands.

No longer are they relying on company technicians, or information technology (IT) administrators, to choose the software needed to get the job done. They know how to pluck tools right off the Web.

Industry observers use the term “consumerization” to describe the phenomenon whereby office workers are less likely to wait for the IT folks to equip them.

Using Colour as Your Subject - Digital Photography Tip of the Week

On Monday night I had the pleasure of viewing several wonderful slideshows from members of my local camera club. One of those was a great presentation by Karen Fulham. Karen’s photos are full of colour which also happened to be the subject of her presentation.

Using colour as your subject is a good method is a great way to both practice your compositional skills and to add some new excitement to your photos. In order to capitalize on the use of colour as your main subject within your photograph, you must have strong compositional form with your photos.

Colour in strong compositional forms abounds everywhere. Capturing those colours and forms can lead to wonderful photographs.

Until next time, happy shooting.

Syncing your contact/calendaring data

These days, most people have access to several computers that they use regularly. There is usually a computer at work and at home, but there may be multiple computers at either location. Although it can be great to have so many different computers to use, it can be frustrating if you don’t have all of your data in one place. Personally, I “live” in Microsoft Outlook, so I’ve got to have my emails, contacts, notes, calendar items, and tasks always available. There are a couple of different solutions out there. I’ve tried two free ones, and both do a decent job. Note: when I refer to Outlook data below, I mean those contacts, notes, calendar items, etc. Both of the software titles support Outlook, Outlook Express, and some web-based email services. Visit the sites to learn more.

Plaxo - Plaxo has really grown over the last few years. They used to be strictly a contact management site, and were often known for sending out unwanted emails to people telling them that you were using their service. They have gradually added more features, and can now sync all regular Outlook data. I’ve tested this on 3 different computers, and they sync up beautifully. I sync my contacts and notes among all 3 computers, and my calendar items between two of the computers. It’s great. By default, Plaxo adds all sorts of extra features to Outlook that I have no use for, but you can disable those, and use just the syncing feature. You can also access everything online if you need to.

SyncWizard - This is a new service from Michael Robertson and his Ajax13 company. They use several different open source tools to do the same sort of thing. I have only tried this briefly, but it seems to be able to sync up all of the same Outlook data. SyncWizard also has a web-based interface where you can see your data. As well, you can also backup some other things other than your Outlook data.

I prefer Plaxo, but if this is all new to you, give both a try and see which one you like.

Ask.com does about face

From the Globe and Mail:

In a dramatic about-face, Ask.com is abandoning its effort to outshine Internet search leader Google Inc. and will instead focus on a narrower market consisting of married women looking for help managing their lives.

As part of the new direction outlined Tuesday, Ask will lay off about 40 employees, or 8 per cent of its work force.

With the shift, the Oakland-based company will return to its roots by concentrating on finding answers to basic questions about recipes, hobbies, children’s homework, entertainment and health.

Jerks of the Web

From ABC News:

Scammers, stalkers, online antagonists ready to pick a fight, folks who are just plain mean–what is it about the Web that turns people into jerks?

One expert says the anonymity of the Web makes everyone behave as if they were in Palm Beach in April. “Think about spring break, when people are feeling anonymous and acting in ways they wouldn’t in their hometown, where they run into their neighbor,” says Nicole Ellison, assistant professor of telecommunications, information studies, and media at Michigan University. “People are less inhibited, and they then will engage in things they would want to do all the time but wouldn’t normally because it would be frowned upon in their social circles.”

A New York University study found that subjects were more likely to express their true selves on the Net rather than in face-to-face interaction. If that’s the case, the stories we’ve collected here may make you despair for the state of humanity. Meet just a few of the Web’s aggravating trolls and irritating idiots.

Modifying your “Open With” options

When you right-click on a file, one of the options is “Open With”, and in many situations, there will be a sub-menu with a few options. For instances, and BMP, GIF, or JPG file can be opened in a variety of programs, and these may all be listed. Yesterday Download Squad posted about a program called OpenWithView which “allows you to easily disable/enable the applications in the Windows “open with” dialog box.” In the comments of that post, another person mentioned OpenExpert, another utility that lets you “specify any number of suitable applications for each file type. In this way, when you open a file, instead of being restricted to using a single pre-determined application, you can easily choose among a list of suitable applications.”

If you like to open certain file types in a variety of different applications (depending on what you want to do with the file when you open it), then you should give these a try: