I’m back from Maine. I might be able to get some quick blogs in while I’m in Buffalo. Anyways, the Maine trip was fantastic. My wife and I had a great time. Here are a couple pictures from one of the most beautiful places on earth. I had to borrow our cousins’ 4.0 Mega pixel Canon PowerShot A520 (not a bad little camera) while ours was away at Canon getting fixed (defective LCD). I am used to higher quality, but I am grateful we were able to use the camera.
I’ll be gone for a week and a half, pretty much. I leave for Maine this morning, come back on Monday. On Tuesday morning I leave for Buffalo, NY and stay til Sunday. I come back on Sunday and start my new gig on Monday.
The next time you hear from me will probably be after my first day of work.
Originally on Lifehacker… quite possibly the greatest blog EVER.
All you want to do is view that PDF, but Adobe Reader takes forever to load, especially on an older PC. If an Adobe Reader alternative isn’t a possibility for you, the Arsgeek weblog’s got a quick speedup tip for Adobe Reader 8’s excruciatingly slow load time. Just remove the “accessability.api” file.
To remove this ‘feature’ simply navigate to your %Program Files%\Adobe\Reader 8.0\reader\plug_ins folder, and rename (delete, copy elsewhere) the ‘accessability.api’ file. The same file exists, but in slightly different locations, in older version of Acrobat Reader.
Arsgeek warns that removing the accessability.api file will take with it Adobe’s ability to read documents out-loud. I’m willing to trade Adobe reading my documents out-loud like Ben Stein for the increase in speed. Goodbye, accessability.api!
Wow. I saw this and my jaw almost hit the floor. It’s the world’s thinnest notebook right now. As thin as a Razr phone. The code-named Intel “Metro” notebook is a 2.25 lb and 0.7″ thin. Holy crap. Can you even imagine?
Check out this article from Business Week profiling the coolest (IMHO), thinnest notebook ever developed. I don’t have any technical specs of this notebook really, but I do know there is a screen that is protected from scratches on the outside (it kind of looks like a diary) and it also has a carrying strap. Pretty amazing if you ask me. This WILL be a big seller.
It’s been an ongoing debate.
Some people keep archive PSTs or backup PSTs to store their old email. We’ve all seen PSTs grow too big that are stored on servers causing Outlook slowdowns and/or crashes, which result in client complaints. In fact, Microsoft frowns down on doing this. It is an unsupported practice.
Or, if the PST is stored locally, and there is a hard drive crash with no backup, the user is left with no emails.
Nick over at Addicted to IT recently blogged about this same topic and recommended checking out the Outlook Add-in Personal Folders Backup Tool. The Personal Folders Backup download creates backup copies of your .PST files at regular intervals, in Outlook 2002 and later versions, making it easy to keep all of your Outlook folders safely backed up. So, if your PC does crash, you’re not down the creek without a paddle.
However, Sean Daniel has recommended the obvious, stop PST usage all-together, so backing up PST’s isn’t even an issue anymore. It can be a pain in the arse to set up. Plus if PSTs get to big, it causes Outlook performance issues anyway. And it’s now easy to implement this to all the users in your environment with a little GPO to prevent PST usage.
Check out his blog for easy directions setting this up. If you’ve done GPO work before, it’s a cinch. This policy prevents the PST files from growing (hence writing to PST files) It does not prevent the user from loading up any PST file and reading mail out of it.
Apparently, it can be done. However, with a few caveats.
Google is now offering “Goog 411″ – an experimental, beta local voice search. So, instead of dialing 411 on your cell when you’re looking to be connected to a business (and paying way too much money), just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 and be connected for FREE. Also, you don’t even have to know the name of the business. Here is all the info, courtesy of the Google Voice Local Search site:
Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone.
To try this service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.
Using this service, you can:
And it’s free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider.
Note: Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. We’re fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing your requests. It’s currently only available in English, in the US, for US business listings.
I tried this and got connected right away to the company I used to work for in Arizona. It’s pretty neat. Check it out. Hey, it beats paying money! Google does it again!
A Small Business Technology Survivor’s Guide
www.everonit.com
by Doug Ziewacz
Let’s face it….Most of us will never aspire to the technological genius of Bill Gates or ever consider the monumental task of inventing the internet like Al Gore. As mere technological mortals, the rest of us can only hope to make it through the workday without wrestling pesky Microsoft Word Documents, waiting for internet connectivity, and enduring agonizingly slow computer speeds. While I am not suggesting a mass call to Microsoft Certification or advocating technological vigilantism; to all you technological incompetents I offer some quick and easy troubleshooting tips that anybody can perform. What follows is an 8 tip technology-troubleshooting survivor’s guide:
What to do if you think you have a problem
Is it plugged in?
Sometimes all the advanced technological trouble shooting in the world can’t get you past an unplugged cable or power supply. Check to make sure all cables are securely attached. From time to time cables are accidentally unplugged disconnected, or inadvertently unattached.
Go ahead and restart your computer
Save any unsaved work and restart your computer to see if the problem persists. Sometimes, a quick reboot is just the ticket for a pesky computer.
Ask yourself if anything has recently changed on your computer
Have you recently downloaded any software or installed any hardware that might be causing the problem. If so, go ahead and revert back to a time before your most recent activity by uninstalling the software or hardware.
Is this an isolated incident?
Evaluate whether your problem is isolated, perhaps affecting only a particular application or is it part of a greater problem involving your operating system or multiple applications.
Stick to the facts
Detailing the specifics of your problem and documenting the exact language and errors that you might be receiving will allow for a quicker and more efficient resolution.
Are you the only one?
Find out if anybody else in your office or building is experiencing the same issue. If this is the case then your issue might be network related and you should notify your IT support resource
You might not be alone?
Once again, Google just might be able to provide the answers to your dilemma. On many occasions I have found answers to basic computer troubleshooting issues on Google Groups. Groups are forums for discussion, Q & A, or commentary. You might just be surprised by how many people have experienced similar problems and if you’re lucky somebody has provided the solution.
Help is there for a reason
Don’t be afraid to consult the help menu on the toolbar of your applications. The help feature of most software applications often provides FAQs and common troubleshooting issues.
For more information about this article please contact Doug Ziewacz
More and more ISP’s are limiting and throttling BitTorrent traffic on their networks. By throttling BitTorrent traffic the speed of BitTorrent downloads decrease, and high speed downloads are out of the question.
The list of ISP’s that limit BitTorrent traffic, or plan to do so is growing every day, and according to the BBC, the ‘bandwidth war’ has begun.
Are you not sure if your traffic is being throttled Check the list of bad ISP’s.
But there is a solution. Encrypting your torrents will prevent throttling ISP’s from shaping your traffic. I will explain how to enable encryption in Azureus, uTorrent, and Bitcomet, the three most popular torrent clients.
What does encryption Do?
The RC4 encryption obfuscates not only the header but the entire stream. This means that it’s very hard for your ISP to detect that the traffic you are generating comes from BitTorrent.
Note that RC4 uses more CPU time than the plain encryption or no encryption. It is however harder to identify for traffic shaping devices
How can I do this?
This is different for all clients; check the setting for your favorite client below.
1. Go to: Tools > Options > Connection > Transport Encryption
2. Check the ‘require encrypted transport’ box.
3. Choose RC4 in the ‘minimum encryption’ dropdown box
note that RC4 uses more CPU time than the plain encryption or no encryption. It is however harder to identify for traffic shaping devices
4. You can choose to tick the ‘Allow non-encrypted outgoing connections if encrypted connection attempt fails’ box. This will ensure compatibility with clients that are not using encryption. However, it makes it easier for your ISP to detect BitTorrent traffic. I recommend that you try to tick this box first. If you are still not getting proper speeds untick it
5. Tick the ‘Allow non-encrypted incoming connections’ box
That’s it, your BitTorrent traffic is encrypted now.
1. Go to: Options > Preferences > Advanced > Connection
2. Go to: ‘Protocol encryption’ You can choose between ‘auto detect’ and ‘always’. Auto detect will give you more connections but offers less protection against traffic shapers.
I would recommend to try auto detect first, if that doesn’t increase your speeds you need to switch to always
That’s it, your BitTorrent traffic is encrypted now.
uTorrent
1. Go to: Options > Preferences > BitTorrent
2. Go to ‘Protocol encryption’, you can choose between ‘enabled’ and ‘forced’. ‘Enabled’ will give you more connections but offers less protection against traffic shapers.
I would recommend to try ‘enabled’ first, if that doesn’t increase your speeds you need to swich to ‘forced’.
3. Ticking ‘Allow legacy incoming connections’ allows non ecrypted clients to connect to you. This improves compatibility between clients but makes you more vulnerable to traffic shapers.
I would recommend to tick this box, but if that doesn’t increase your speeds, untick it!
That’s it, your BitTorrent traffic is encrypted now.
Thumbnails can’t be easier nowadays. In the past, we used to have to download the image, resize the image manually (using Photoshop or some other imaging tool) and reupload the image somewhere.
No longer.
Quick Thumbnail quickly resizes any locally stored image based on percentage, fixed sizes, or by standard sizes for known images (thumbnails, icons, web banner, you get the drift). All you have to do is browse four your image file locally (.gif, .jpg, .jpeg, or .png files are currently only supported) and it resizes the image based on your preferences and uploads them to a remote server. At that point you can link directly to the image or download it for your convenience.
I found this to be a lot quicker than doing the old manual way. However, there are times when you want a real crisp thumbnail (for website creation, etc) but for quick on-the-fly thumbs, this web tool does the work and does it well.
