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Tip for May 15, 2009: Backups!
The computer upgrade process has officially started for IS and library staff! If you haven’t done so already it’s time to back-up your data to prepare for the move. It’s also a good time to get into the habit of regularly backing up your data. As staff we all have access to 1gb in Netfiles, however you may find it’s not enough to meet your needs. Past TechTips have suggested different tools for this purpose. Today I’m going to provide you with a few more options.
Last year I posted this piece about Microsoft Skydrive. Shortly after that post the kind folks in Redmond bumped the storage from 5gb to 25gb. I love the service but the downside is that you have to use the web interface to upload individual files. One way around this is to create a zip file of the documents you want to backup and upload the single zip file, but this is a hassle if you only need to get to one of your documents. However, there is another solution. Those of you with Windows systems who are particularly adventuresome will want to checkout the starter edition of Gladinet. After installing it lets you mount SkyDrive (and other storage options) as local drives allowing you to drag-n-drop till the cows come home.
Another service receiving positive reviews is Mozy. Mozy offers free accounts which include 2gb of storage with Windows and Mac clients available. They also offer unlimited storage, available for $4.95 per month per computer you use to access their service.
The last service, one I personally really like is Jungle Disk. If you have A LOT of data that requires save and secure storage you’ll definitely want to try it. The service works by providing local clients for Windows, Mac and, Linux which you use to access your files. The storage component is handled by Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service (S3 stands for Simple Storage Service). Jungle Disk offers unlimited storage for $2.00 per month plus $.15 per gigabyte of data. There are also fees for data transfer ($.10 per gb uploaded / $.17 per gb downloaded). Here’s a possible pricing scenario: if you had 5gb of data including 1gb of photos recently uploaded, your monthly fee would be $2.85 ($2.00 monthly fee + $.75 for 5gb of storage + $.10 for 1gb data upload).
Bonus Tip!
Re-live a little history with the very first television spot for cellular service from Centel! You’ll want to note two things. First, compare the size of your current phone to those shown in the ad. Second, look for all the fun and adventure the early adopters had (look for jeep at 15 seconds in).
See it at YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptbJZ9HBw2k
So, your mission for the weekend is to get out there and live it up! Afterall, you own a cell phone!
Services: SkyDrive | Gladinet | Mozy | Jungle Disk
Tags: cell phones, cloud, jungle disk, mozy, skydrive, storageTip for April 17, 2009: Rethinking Email
I find it amazing that email is still the “killer app” on the Internet despite a recent report from Microsoft stating that 97% of email traffic is spam. Fortunately most spam is filtered at the ISP level and never reaches your inbox. This still leaves a surprising amount that our email clients have to filter and may involve a brief visual scan to make sure we’re not missing a critical message. After all of this sorting we’re then left to prioritize the messages that make it through: email from your supervisor, message from a team member, meeting reminder, listserv messages, facebook notifications, and classmates.com letting you know someones wants to contact you and they’ll gladly tell you who after paying the membership fee. You get the picture. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed with a never-ending stream of messages day after day. This issue was highlighted recently on one of the podcasts I regularly listen to. One of the better solutions I heard is to treat email messages as if they are text messages or twitter updates. SMS and twitter both limit the number of characters you can use to convey your message, choose your words wisely! Another solution is to change your personal philosophy regarding email. One podcast mentioned http://five.sentenc.es, where you’re urged to adopt the personal policy of capping all email at five sentences. If you need to say more, it may be more effective to pay a brief visit to the person you need to communicate with. Better yet, treat them to their choice of beverage at the coffee shop! You’re much more likely to see results that way. If you’re even more daring, five.sentenc.es challenges you to cut back to four.sentenc.es or even two.sentenc.es. Which ever you choose I think your email recipients will be appreciative of your succinct, targeted messages. Another suggested technique is to replace your email signature file with one of the following:
- Sent from my mobile phone
- Sent from my BlackBerry
- Sent from my iPhone
By using one of the above choices no one can fault you for short messages and responses. However you may want to be selective with this method so as not to expose your digital subterfuge!
Bonus Tip!
Earlier this week David Silverman from the blogs at Harvard Business Publishing posted 10 short tips to encourage your recipients actually read your messages. I encourage you to read them and possibly merge with your new personal five.sentece.es policy!
Sources this week:
BBC News | Five.sentence.es | http://twit.tv | Lifehacker.com | Harvard Business Publising
Tags: email, five.sentence.esFriday TechTips Special Edition – Conficker
At midnight tonight, the Conficker Worm is set to unleash itself on the world. Conficker also know as Worm:Win32/Conficker.D appeared in late 2008. When the clock turns 12:00 AM on 04/01/2009 the worm will start searching a randomized list of domains for further instructions. It may be a complete spoof or possibly the launch of another large scale botnet, where an “owned” computer is part of a vast network of hacked systems which can be used to launch attacks against websites, governments, etc. It’s unlikely that a UR computer is infected due to the diligence of our great networking group, however it’s possible that you may have friends and family who will discover their computer is infected. They might even look to you for help! Here are a couple of resources that you can recommend to them:
- Update from Microsoft – http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2009/03/27/update-on-conficker-d.aspx
- Conficker Working Group (Microsoft partner) – http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=ANY.RepairTools which includes a number of tools to remove the worm from leading computer security companies.
In a semi-related note, a Canadian research team at the Munk Center for International Studies has discovered a vast spy network of hacked computers spreading across 103 countries. Targeted systems include computers that are in government and corporate offices. They nicknamed the network Ghostnet and traced it to China, but have not implicated the Chinese Government. To learn more about this story visit:
- Reuters article – http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090328/ts_nm/us_security_spying_computers
It’s a brave new world and more important than ever to make sure your computer(s) is protected! As UR employees you can download Sophos for home users here – https://wwws.richmond.edu/software (UR login required). If you need to recommend something for friends or family, you may want to have them visit AVG Free – http://free.avg.com, which according to their site provides “comprehensive protection” at no cost.
Be safe!
Tip for March 27, 2009: Anniversary Extravaganza!
It’s hard for me to believe, but Friday TechTips is now one year old. It began with an email tip highlighting the sync abilities of Microsoft’s Foldershare (which has since been re-branded Windows Live Sync). Since then we’ve covered photo management, IM and video conferencing, and other online “cloud-based” services to name a few. Before today’s tip, I’d like to give you an opportunity to provide feedback about the topics you’ve found helpful (or not) and topics you would like to see covered in the future. Please take just a minute or two to complete this short survey. My goal is to tailor each post to be informative, helpful, and fun!
Take the survey! – Friday TechTip Anniversary Survey
Finished? Then proceed to go, collect $200 and advance to today’s tip! Do you often need to quickly get group consensus over a project or decision and find it cumbersome to make duplicate phone calls or bounce emails between multiple recipients where there’s always one participant who forgets to hit “Reply to All?” If so, here’s your solution: TinyChat! You’re probably familiar with the URL shortening service TinyURL, which lets you convert long URLS to much shorter and manageable versions. TinyChat let’s you build on-the-fly private chat rooms and provides you with a short URL which you can email or instant message to everyone you need to bring together and get input from. Once invitees click the link, they’re immediately brought into the chat room (all done in the browser) where they can enter their name and report in. This will let all members see each other’s responses and ideas in real time and allow for immediate feedback. Are you wondering what happens when you’re done chatting? So was I. Here’s their official policy:
“After you leave the chat room, all the chat data is gone, so its perfect for secure chats.”
TinyChat also offers the ability to save the chat log before closing out in case you need to document everyone’s thoughts. You also have the option of inserting the chat window into a webpage for quick interaction with multiple users. If you’re interested in TinyChat and would like to test it out, feel free to create a room and send me the link!
Bonus Tip!
Are you still using one of the default Windows or Mac wallpaper images? If so, it’s time to try something new! InterfaceLIFT is my personal wallpaper site of choice. All the images come from professional or amateur photographers and many of the images are simply stunning. All standard monitor resolutions are available for each image, so you’ll be able to enjoy the full image no matter what setting you use. They also provide dual-monitor wallpapers allowing the full image to “stretch” across both of monitors providing a panoramic view. Who knows, you might find yourself inspired and more creative with an updated desktop!
Tip for March 6, 2008: Foxmarks (soon to be Xmarks)!
March 6th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Local Client, Organization, TechTips, Uncategorized, Web Service
Good Friday afternoon! In the Friday TechTip for January 16, 2009 we reviewed the benefits of Firefox and a few of the essential add-ons. One of my favorites which I automatically install on each computer I use is Foxmarks. Up until recently Foxmarks has been an exclusive add-on enjoyed by millions of rabid Firefox fans. New versions are now available for both Safari and Internet Explorer. They now cover all major browser platforms (sorry Opera). Installation for each is very simple and straightforward. If you’re new to Foxmarks, here are the basic steps:
- Visit http://download.foxmarks.com/download and click “Download Foxmarks for (your browser here).”
- Go through the normal install process for your platform (Mac or Windows).
- If you don’t already have one, you will be prompted to create an account with Foxmarks which will store your bookmarks for synchronization purposes.
- You will then be prompted to sync for the first time. The program will ask if you want to merge your bookmarks or overwrite them (both locally or on the server). If this is your first time, you will use the ones on your computer. Be careful at this point on future installs as you don’t want to accidentally overwrite any existing bookmarks!
- Once the install process is complete synchronization will occur behind the scenes and be a semi-invisible process.
I highly recommend Foxmarks, soon to be renamed Xmarks, especially if you use multiple computers to doy our work. You’ll soon start thinking that you’re always at the same computer, with your favorite tools and sites and always at your fingertips.
Bonus Tip: Daily Mugshot!
Do you have a webcam? Interested to see how your appearance changes over time on a daily basis? Then visit http://www.dailymugshot.com, create an account and start shooting. You can create a daily email reminder to prompt you to visit Mugshot each morning to take a photo, or download a very small reminder application which will pop up and remind you to take your daily photo. After taking a series of photos, you can create a Mugshow to share with friends and family, or maybe just use it to remind yourself to get a haircut… Enjoy!
Tags: bookmarks, daily mugshot, foxmarks, webcam, xmarksTip for Feb. 6, 2009: SimplifyMedia!
Today’s tip comes to you via special request. Are you drowning in a sea of MP3s? Do you have audio files scattered between computers, not knowing which has your stash of KC & The Sunshine Band and Donna Summer tracks? Would you like to listen to your tunes on multiple computers without adding your music collection to each one? Then you need to simplify! Here are the requirements:
- Choose one computer to store all of your tracks and install iTunes
- Import all of your music into the iTunes library. It might help to organize your music within iTunes using playlists. You could start by creating “Secret 70s Disco” and add “That’s The Way (I Like It)” as the first track uh-huh, uh-huh!
Ok, we’ll now assume that your iTunes library is setup and organized the way you want it. You now need to visit http://www.simplifymedia.com and download the client. The SimplifyMedia client is free and supports Windows, Mac, Linux, and the iPhone/iPod Touch platforms. While installing the application you’ll be prompted to either sign-in to your account or create a new one. If this is your first time, create an account with a username and password you’ll remember. After installing, you’ll see the SimplifyMedia client running in your task tray. Don’t worry, it’s very lightweight and won’t slow your system down.
You are now ready to access your music on your other computers. You will need to have iTunes and the SimplifyMedia client installed on the other computers as well (but not your music, that’s the step we’re eliminating). Make sure you use the same SimplifyMedia account you created on the computer hosting your music. When you launch iTunes on the remote computer, you should see your SimplifyMedia user name and host computer’s name under the “Shared” heading in the left column in iTunes. If you don’t it could be that the host computer isn’t on, asleep, or not online.
Now, assuming everything is online and you see your host computer in the left column, click your shared computer’s entry. This will connect you to your host computer’s iTunes library. After connecting you can expand the entry and see all of your tracks and playlists, including “Secret 70s Disco.” Can you dig it?!?!
More hands-on? Watch my demo video:
BONUS TIP: – Cameroid!
Are you a Windows user and jealous of the Mac’s Photo Booth application which morphs your face into all kinds of craziness? You too can now join the party at http://cameroid.com. Cameroid is a flash-based application built directly into their site. Simply connect your webcam and start shooting. You can frame your face, become the Roaming Gnome’s cousin (my personal favorite), or completely distort yourself beyond all recognition. Now if only the UR One Card office would use this…
Enjoy your weekend!
Tags: cameroid, itunes, mp3, photobooth, simplify mediaTip for Jan. 30, 2009: Friday Free for All!
Today I’m sending you an assortment of items to test and experiment with this weekend. Because if you’re like me, you fill your weekends with nothing but festive and frivolous activities!
Our first item is affectionately known as Doris. Doris is a new web-based task tracker that is incredibly flexible and let’s you have complete control in arranging your tasks, projects, etc. I like their guiding statement: “Offload all the things you need to remember onto your Doris account and free up your mental RAM.” Doris is entering an already crowded task-management market which includes Remember the Milk, Toodledo, and GMail Tasks. What I like about Doris is the level of customization it provides in a drag and drop interface. At this point it’s a freebie, so give it a spin!
Item number two comes to us from the fine team at Wakoopa. This is a service I’ve been using myself for several years. Wakoopa helps you keep track of the applications you use and how much time you spend using each. This information can be shared with others or locked down for your personal use only. It is available for both PC and Mac. After registering, you’ll need to download and install the client. After installation it runs quietly in the task tray and keeps your account up-to-date with the applications you use. Wakoopa does not track your websites, email, etc. It is only concerned with software and helping you to know how and where your computer time goes. Also, if you’re interested in downloading an application or purchasing one, you can read software reviews from other Wakoopa users to make sure it will meet your needs. There’s also the Web 2.0 social thingy if you want to friend other Wakoopa users to exchange data.
Last but not least is EcoFont, a recommendation from Anna, our Electronic Resources Librarian. In short, EcoFont is an environmentally friendly font you install on you computer. What’s unique is that it has tiny holes in the middle of each letter, barely discernible at normal viewing, thus saving toner when you print. According to their site, you’ll use 20% less toner using EcoFont as compared to our perennial favorite, Times New Roman. New to installing fonts on your PC? Here’s a brief guide from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314960. Mac? Got you covered – http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2435.
That’s all for now, enjoy your weekend!
Tip for Jan. 23, 2008: NetBooks (and Salads)
There are some of you who already have one of these ultra-portable, affordable shrunken PCs (See Rick Neal in the library)! For the rest of you, I’m sure you’ve at least heard about them, especially with the advertising bombardment that just concluded, otherwise known as Thanksgiving through New Year’s. However if the term ‘netbook’ is still a mystery, let me provide a brief explanation! Netbooks are small laptop computers that are easily transported, typically cost less than $499, and are wildly popular. Here are some things to consider when looking to purchase a netbook:
- Operating system: many of the netbooks shipping now offer Windows XP, but there are also a large number that utilize a version of linux (Gentoo, Ubuntu, and Open SUSE, to name a few). Due to their size, netbooks tend to be light on the hardware side and typically utilize a 1.6 GHZ processor and either 512MB or 1GB of memory. Therefore it’s imperative that the operating system not be overly demanding on the hardware’s capabilities (see Vista). This is why linux and Windows XP work wonderfully on these devices. There’s also some scuttlebutt that Microsoft has seen the potential of these devices and has developed Windows 7, now available for beta testing, to work on netbooks right out of the box.
- Onboard storage: The first netbooks shipping from Asus (the EEE PC) came with a solid state hard drive (no moving parts, sort of like the memory found on your favorite USB memory drive). Netbooks now ship with either solid state drives or traditional hard drives. The largest hard drive I’ve seen so far is around 160GB.
- Screensize: the Asus EEE PC, the first netbook to really hit it big, came with a 7 inch screen. The standard now starts at 8.9 inches and goes up to 10, however there are also a few manufacturers making units with 12 inch screens.
- Other specifications: most of these devices some with web cams making them excellent computers to contact your friends and family using Skype,
- Manufacturers: most hardware manufacturers have seen how popular these devices are and have quickly ramped up production. Here’s a sort list of links to the more popular devices: HP, Asus, Dell, Acer, MSI, and Lenovo.
- Creativity: Last week there was a tiff between Apple and Wired Magazine due to a video Wired posted showing step-by-step directions to install Mac OS X on the MSI Wind. There are plenty of other videos on YouTube showing how to do this, so I’m not sure why Cupertino found Wired’s video so disturbing.
So, do you think this is something you would like to own for quick, easy access to email, browsing the web, etc.? Did you get one of these as a present over the holidays? If so, let me know and I’ll share your thoughts or experiences with our colleagues!
Bonus (health) tip! Lifehacker.com documents a few of the Worst Foods in America, 2009 from Men’s Health Magazine. So yeah, that healthy pecan crusted chicken salad you had at TGI Friday’s last week? A mere 1360 calories. Don’t forget dessert!
Enjoy your weekend (and watch those salads)!