Thursday, September 4th, 2008
Evolution of DNA: Open-source software traces code of life
There’s a new computer program that knows all about your history - but don’t worry, it’s not going to report those parking violations. It cares about the evolution of your DNA. And it’s open source.
How Big Can a Black Hole Grow?
Giant black holes sit at the cores of virtually all galaxies, and are thought to have grown from smaller seed black holes that swallowed lots of matter.
GNU turns 25
Today the GNU project celebrates its quarter-century. It was on 27 September 1983 that MIT slacker Richard M Stallman made his announcement that he intended to create a complete Unix-like system that would be completely open and hackable, giving anyone the right to modify and distribute the work.
Mozilla CEO uncertain about future relationship with Google
The simple fact that Google is now pursuing its own browser could leave Mozilla scratching its head. And quite apparently, Mozilla has not quite figured out how its relationship with Google will work out over the next few years.
7 Really Awesome Things About Google Chrome
After playing with it for a while, it’s too early to say that I’m blown away, but I must admit that I’ve stumbled onto some impressive feats which show that the team that built Chrome was intelligent, mature and forward-thinking. Here they are, in no particular order.
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Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
If you remember back a few weeks, I told you that I got a new computer. There were a few hickups, but things are ok now.
When I get a new computer, I like to transfer my software to it, from my old computer. Basically, I just install the software that I have onto the new computer and then delete it from the old one. It usually goes along just fine.
A while back, I installed Quickbooks Pro 2007 on the new computer. The software gave me 30 days to register it. I waited the 30 days (because I kept hitting “remind me later”) and then I registered the software. When I registered it, I was asked for my business phone number and zip code. I remembered when I bought the software, so I plugged in our old phone number and zip code. Then, I said to myself, “I should really update this information, because if I have to do this again, I am never going to remember that old stuff.” The only way I could update the information was to call the company. I did that a few minutes ago.
I got a guy on the phone. He updated the information that I gave him, so they can send me more junk mail. Then, his system produced a new validation code. He gave me the instructions on how to apply the new validation code in the Quickbooks software. Upon doing this, I received an error, saying the validation code was no good. I asked him what to do…the validation code he just gave me was no good. He replied that I could either look online for a solution or sign up for a technical support plan for $75 per year.
I think I may have stuttered for a second because I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. I felt myself getting a little red in the face and explained to him that this was his problem, not mine. I quickly found myself getting nowhere fast with him, so I hung up.
I am not even going to let this get to me. I am going to go about my day with a smile on my face.
Thank you for listening.
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Saturday, July 12th, 2008
In my previous post, I think I mentioned that I can delete email on my Blackberry Curve and it would delete on my desktop email account, but not the other way around. Well, after having the phone for a day or two and not deleting email on it (only deleting the mail on my desktop), I am realizing that it actually does delete on the phone, it just takes a while.
Yeah, you don’t have to hit “reconcile” or anything, it does it automatically. This is nice because I really would have a large pile of email sitting on the phone if this wasn’t the case.
Also, I installed the Blackberry Desktop Software that came with the phone. I believe it was version 4.3. It generally worked ok, but did crash at times. I guess that it didn’t work ok then. I would have to undo all of the settings and reset them and then sync again. The crashes would occur at the end of the sync somewhere. Last night, I upgraded to the latest version of the Blackberry Desktop Software, version 4.5, and the phone and desktop synced just fine. There is also a new look to the software. I only synced up once, so I am crossing my fingers that it works without issue from here on in.
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Friday, July 11th, 2008
I think I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to get broadband for my laptop while we are out and about or on vacation.
Basically, I had two choices…either I get the wireless card to connect to the wireless broadband network or use my new Blackberry to do it. Both options give me broadband access on my laptop, but the wireless card route would have required a two year contract, plus the purchase of the card. Also, the access charge was like $59.99 per month or something like that.
I decided to go with the VZAccess software that came with the Blackberry. I called Verizon Wireless support and had them turn on the broadband feature. It is $15 per month with no contract in addition to my existing one. Since it is a feature, I am able to turn it on and off as I please. The guy was like, “Ok, give it 15 minutes and you should be good to go.” That’s it. I installed the software, plugged the phone in and hit connect. It works great.
Both plans are limited to 5Gb per month. I think that should be ok for sitting on the patio of the Spring House on Block Island. I suppose I could occasionally look over to see the waves in the ocean.
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Monday, July 7th, 2008
Web 3.0 - Could it unseat Internet giants like Google?
Microsoft’s acquisition of Powerset signals the building of a future when the world could have access to virtual “software agents” who “roam” across the Web, taking care of the day-to-day hassles of humankind. It’s called a “Semantic Web” and it really could change the Internet at a fundamental level.
Move Your Business from Windows to Linux
If the cost of Windows is getting your small business down, consider shifting to Linux.
10 Tips for Securing Linux Desktops
You might find these suggestions to be pure common sense, but maybe you’ll see a means of security you never thought of before. If you’re a new Linux user, these tips are a great place to start to ensure that your Linux experience is a good one.
Social Media Sites that Deserve Your Affection
There are so many websites out their that serve the same purpose as Digg, Twitter, and Myspace. The question is; which of these websites are actually worth your time? Since time is one of the most valuable resources that us humans try to utilize, I’ll explain some of the social media sites that are worth using, and why.
Why Don’t More People Use OpenOffice?
Why don’t more people use OpenOffice, the free and open source alternative to Microsoft Office? Microsoft has spent years and dollars engineering creative ways to keep people using its costly software and preventing them from switching to OpenOffice — that’s one explanation, writes Lou Dolinar.
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Friday, May 30th, 2008
I decided to follow Joe’s advice. He has never led me down the wrong path before.
This morning, I received my new APC Back-UPS XS 1500. This is the best one Circuit City offered and it looks pretty good. I am not going to give all the specs here…I’m sure you can do a search for the model.
I am using this one for my system upstairs in my office and moved my old APC battery backup downstairs near the router and all that. Now, all that stuff is protected.
This one’s got all the gadgets. The interface tells me how much power I am using and the load on the unit. Also, the new APC PowerChute software is really neat.
There are tons of options and settings. I think I like it.
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Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
I run a bunch of servers for my business. One server, in particular, is better and more advanced than the others. Well, the server isn’t more advanced, the software installed on it is. On that server, I am running Plesk, which I have learned is fantastic.
I recently began automating many of my more boring tasks by using cron jobs. A “cron is driven by a crontab, a configuration file that specifies shell commands to run periodically on a given schedule.” Basically, if you have an application that needs to run on a schedule and is capable of being triggered by a cron job, using this feature can be a real time saver.
One of the reasons I didn’t start using this nice little feature sooner is because I had no idea how to set it up through SSH. When I got the new server with Plesk installed on it, setup became very easy. I Just used the “Scheduled Task” feature and it was all done.
Well, that’s all fine and dandy for the capable applications on the server running Plesk, but what about the other servers not running Plesk? I would still have to setup the cronjobs using SSH. Believe it or not, I have been avoiding setting up those jobs to this day. Just a bit of background…these jobs only need to run every few days or so. What I am about to suggest is not really suitable for jobs that need to run every few minutes.
Last night, I started fooling around with “Windows Scheduler.” The link I just gave you is for XP…the information I am going to give you below is for Vista. I am sure you will get the gist. Windows Scheduler is a great feature similar to cron that is installed on your own computer, not the server where your website is being hosted, but does something very similar. It automates those boring tasks that you and I would forget about very easily.
So, how do you run a cronjob with Windows Scheduler? If your cron enabled application has a file that needs to be visited (usually something like cron.php, or something along those lines), it’s quite simple. All you need to do is tell your personal computer to wake up, open a browser and visit that page. Here is how you do it:
The first thing you want to do is to open your control panel and click on “System and Maintenance.”
Then, on the next page, click “Scheduled Tasks.”
After you click that, you will be brought to the Task Scheduler screen. It’s a new window. I am going to go over how I set up a new task this morning. As I said above, all I wanted to do was to have a browser window open and automatically have it visit a particular URL.
The first thing I did was to click on the “Task Scheduler Library” and then on “Create Basic Task.” The Task Scheduler Library is where I am going to store these tasks.
After you click “Create Basic Task,” a window will open with space for you to describe your new task.
Fill in the information so it’s recognizable to you. Then, click next (down at the bottom). The next window is going to ask you when you want your task to run.
I set it to “Daily.” On the next screen, you can adjust it.
On this screen, you can describe more about your daily task, such as start date, time and frequency. I set mine to every other day (a 2 in the recur every: box).
This screen asks you what action you want to perform. As I said above, I wanted to open a browser, so I click the “Start a Program” button.
Here’s is the trickiest part. On the next screen, you have to choose which program and what additional arguments.
In the “Program/script” box, I browsed to open Firefox, which in this case gave me this path, “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe.” In the “Add Arguments” box, I put the URL of my cron file, such as “http://www.mywebsite.com/cron.php.”
In the final screen, you are offered a summary of what you filled in. I like the check off the “Open properties” box for some extra steps I needed to take. Click “Finish.”
The last few items are quite simple, so I won’t offer screen shots for them. When the Properties box opens up, click the “Conditions” tab up top. Since my computer goes into sleep mode after a half hour of non use, I want to wake it up to preform the task, so I click the “Wake computer” check box. Then, I click the “Settings” tab up top. In case the task is missed for some reason, I click the “Run task as soon as possible…” check box and the “If the task fails, restart every:” check box. You can put your own values in there.
When you are finished, hit “OK” and see how it goes. I tried this with a specific time when the computer was in use and it had no problems. I haven’t tried it when the computer was in sleep mode, so we’ll see what happens. Give it a shot and let me know your results.
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Sunday, December 30th, 2007
Technology Consumers Got More Choice in ‘07
In 2007 The computing world revolved around Microsoft, your wireless carrier controlled what your cellphone could do, and the record labels locked your legal music downloads with software to limit what you could do with them.
Spicebird a Mozilla-based collaboration Outlook killer
Spicebird is built on Thunderbird and Lightning, the powerful extension that adds calendaring functions to Thunderbird. Additionally it seems to integrate SamePlace, a Firefox extension that provides instant messaging capabilities based on the Jabber protoco
5 Things You’ll Love About Firefox 3
Firefox 3 Beta 2 shows some nifty new tools we can expect in Mozilla’s next browser
The Flexibility of Open Source
One of the things that has been a strong point of Open Source Software (OSS) for years, even if it hasn’t been held at the forefront of the battle, is the flexibility that OSS offers.
36 Startup Tips: From Software Engineering to PR and More!
This is a collection of startup tips covering software engineering, infrastructure, PR, conferences, legal and finance. They describe best practices for an early-stage startup
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Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
I went to Staples today to get the latest version of Adobe Dreamweaver, which is Dreamweaver CS3.
Just to let you know, I only bought this software after I searched online for open source alternatives to Dreamweaver. I think I came across the top alternatives, but each one had a fault that I didn’t really like. The top choice had a review. The software’s downfall was that it liked to change your code for you, which really isn’t cool. Dreamweaver actually brags about not doing that.
The reason I was looking for alternatives was because the $399 price tag seemed a little hefty for a web editing application. The upgrades are only about $199, so that’s what I will be doing from now on.
I installed the software and gave it a run. Wow, it seemed just like the 2004 version. I am assuming there are a bunch of new features in there, but I most likely won’t use them. I am not into building websites from scratch anymore. There is one thing though…it seems slower than the older version. That could be the Adobe influence of it. Geeez, I remember trying to open GoLive. For big sites, it took a few minutes. But then again, it could be Vista. Everything seems slower in Vista. I noticed that the minute I turned this computer on the day I got it.
I will let you know how it goes.
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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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