Friday, November 16th, 2007
I have had this on my to-do list for a few weeks.
The other day, I ran up to Staples and grabbed the latest version of Microsoft Outlook. I wanted to upgrade because my previous version, Outlook XP, was becoming a little buggy since I got Windows Vista. On the calendar, instead of showing one appointment, it would display one for every year that has passed. If I put one appointment in the calendar in January of 2000 to happen every year, there would be two of them in 2001 and so on.
I also upgraded to Outlook 2007 because I couldn’t find an alternative open source program that would easily sync with my Treo 700. That is all I use it for…contact, tasks and calendar.
It’s pretty good. Things seem kind of slow on it though. I am sure there are many more features in this version, most of which I will never see, because I don’t use it for email.
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Saturday, November 10th, 2007
In my new effort to get on the bandwagon of open source and alternatives to Microsoft, I downloaded and installed Firefox last night.
People keep telling me that Firefox is so much better than Internet Explorer, but I just ain’t seeing it. I mean, it’s nice, but it is very similar to IE 7 I already have installed. I think it is the “alternative to Microsoft” thing that people like.
I suppose I will keep using it to give it a whirl. I want to be with the in-crowd, but I don’t want these types of things to get in my way too much. I do have work to do, after all.
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Sunday, November 4th, 2007
Over the past few years, I have downloaded my fair share of free trial versions of various FTP programs. As a web designer and now a web…whatever, you can imagine my need for a nice FTP program. Each of those programs were pretty good, but their expiration usually prompted a quick deletion from my computer.
Each web editing program I use comes with its own included FTP feature. I used to use Adobe GoLive, but am now switching over all my sites to Adobe Dreamweaver. GoLive has treated me well, regarding FTP, but Dreamweaver, while being easy to use, has a few hickups. Here is the thing - I have some very active websites. Every so often, I need to do a backup of each entire site. Each of these sites has thousands and thousands of files, which come and go with the activity of the sites. GoLive used to download what was there, even if a file disappeared while it was downloading. Now, I try to do the same thing with Dreamweaver, but if a file (such as an image) is deleted after I connect using FTP, I get an error message telling me that the file is no longer available. That’s not bad, but what is…is that the transfer of files stops, until I click ok. If I don’t click ok within 30 minutes, the FTP feature disconnects. As you might expect, I do this while I am sleeping, because each download usually takes about five hours. If the file transfer stops and disconnects, it’s pretty much useless to me.
A few minutes ago, I just downloaded an open source FTP program called FileZilla. I set it up and tried it out real quick. There is a quick connect feature that allows you to put in the address and login credentials and hit connect. It is very fast. I tried it on a small site and I like it.
Now, since Dreamweaver gives me everything I want, except for this one little thing, I hope that I just found myself a little workaround that will allow me to complete my switch from GoLive.
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Sunday, November 4th, 2007
I have heard about some of the open source software floating around out there, but haven’t really used any of it, beyond what I install for some of my sites online. I never actually downloaded and installed anything to use on my PC. I really like the open source stuff that I do use because it’s usually better than the stuff I pay for. There are many more minds working on the software, which makes a world of difference.
I came across a link to OpenOffice.org today and took a look at their site. I didn’t know what the whole thing was about. Here is a clip from their homepage…
OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.
I think I am going to take the plunge. I am going to download the software and cruise it around for a little while. Believe it or not, I really don’t use office software all the much. All the stuff I use is usually web based, with a few programs on my PC. The most common is Dreamweaver and the next is Photoshop.
In a few weeks, I will get back to you with what I think. If it’s good, there’s the ok for the rest of the world to do the same.
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