Friday TechTips

Construction Behind The Scenes

Andy Morton — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:09:19 +0000

Friday TechTips is currently receiving a behind the scenes upgrade, however the site should remain available as normal.

Friday TechTip – Growl (also get a free MP3 from Amazon)!

Andy Morton — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:19:59 +0000

Today’s tip highlights Growl, a unified notification system for both Windows and Mac. Us Mac fanboys users have had Growl to keep us company for a long time and alert us anytime an IM arrives, email lands in the inbox, a new track starts playing in iTunes, etc. Growl for Windows is now up to version 2.0 and there’s a new beta version out. Growl is handy because it allows you to turn off the default notification system (assuming one already exists) in your favorite application and channel all notifications into Growl. This gives you one utility to alert you to new system events. Did I mention that you can customize Growl’s appearance? There’s even a plug-in giving Growl the ability to use text-to-speech to give you a voice alert, perfect for your cubicle mates! All kidding aside, I really like Growl and appreciate it’s low profile appearance versus the default Outlook notifier.

Growl’s Home – http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/default.aspx

App Plug-Ins – http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/apps.aspx

Growl Displays (skins) – http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/displays.aspx

Bonus Tip!

Amazon is currently giving away a free MP3 of your choice in recognition of gaining over 1,000,000 followers on Twitter (http://twitter.com/amazonmp3). To claim your MP3, go the celebration site and follow the directions. You’ll need to press a button which brings up a pop-up box where you enter the code (FIRSTMIL) which is displayed on the page. This gives you a credit to then go purchase your song. Why not download your favorite song to kick off the weekend?

Free MP3 site – http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=dm_tw_firstmil?ie=UTF8&gcIsProcess=1&gcpcCode=FIRSTMIL&&docId=1000420651

Tip for August 28, 2009: DailyBurn

Andy Morton — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:52:30 +0000

Let’s face it, most of us cycle in and out of eating better and exercising. Today’s tip provides a tool that will help you in both areas. After creating a free account with DailyBurn you can start tracking your weekly exercise routines and each exercise you perform. There’s a vast database of available exercises to choose from, and if you do one that isn’t included you can manually add it. DailyBurn’s other main feature allows you to track everything you eat each day. There’s an even larger database of available food items to choose from when adding your entries. You’ll really start to see the benefit of DailyBurn over time as it will provide visual tools such as graphs and charts to help you track your progress. You can also track your weight and BMI. Other fun features include the ability to set goals both in terms of exercise and nutrition. There are also ‘challenges’ created by others uses to help motive you further such as ‘Lose 5 Pounds,’ ‘Burn 5000 Calories,’ and many others. I’m using DailyBurn myself in my newly adopted motto ‘get fit this fall!’ As an added bonus, there’s also an iPhone and iPod Touch app to help you track yourself on the go.

DailyBurn

Tip for August 21, 2009: Memiary

Andy Morton — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 03:18:42 +0000

Today’s tip is all about remembering the things you’re working on and keeping a log to help you remember your daily activities. Such a list can come in handy when preparing for a meeting and especially during your annual evaluation! If you’re looking for a tool that requires zero setup, backup, or maintenance, then Memiary is for you! Memiary let’s you record five items (or memories) each day. It even auto-saves each item as you record it. It’s incredibly simple to get started. Just choose a login name and it will then prompt you for a password. Likewise, if you already have an account just enter your login name and it prompts you for your account password. Hit enter and you’re in! I personally use Memiary and highly recommend it. Tools like this are especially useful during the fall and spring semesters which tend to be our busiest times of the year. That’s when Memiary’s strengths really shine. It’s a no-muss, no fuss, no filing solution to help you track the most important things you worked on each day. Additional features include the following:

Reminders via email or Twitter
“Subscribe” to your entries via RSS or within a calendar app that supports iCal

Best of all Memiary is free!

Bonus Tip!

Speaking of fall and spring semesters, classes start at UR on Monday (oh summer, we hardly knew ye)! Here’s a post from the Professor’s Blog you’ll definitely want to share with your students and student employees. The authors provide 10 quick tips for success during the first week of the semester. Good luck!

Tip for August 14, 2009: Meeting Schedulers!

Andy Morton — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:48:49 +0000

Meetings, we all have them. Some days it’s all we do. Fortunately we have Exchange / Outlook / Entourage to help manage our on-campus meetings. What about external meetings? How do you arrange a meeting time with a colleague from VCU or schedule time for a visit from a vendor? As the trendy new expression goes, there’s an app for that! There are two services that I’m highlighting today giving you the ability to schedule meetings online with external colleagues.

MeetingMade lets you create an account and then block out the times you aren’t available. You then invite other meeting attendees to do the same. This gives you a common point of reference within MeetingMade where you can decide on the times that work best for everyone. MeetingMade’s goal is to eliminate all of the back and forth E-mail and phone calls which happens especially when trying to organize an event with multiple attendees. MeetingMade offers a 30-day free trial, however since it is in beta status it’s free to use until they decide a pricing plan. My instincts tell me that a free option will remain.

ScheduleOnce offers to accomplish what MeetingMade performs, but utilizes Google Calendar to facilitate the process of choosing a common meeting time. ScheduleOnce is a free service and works by downloading a Google Calendar add-on for your browser which then connects you to the service and the people you are trying to meet with. The only disadvantage ScheduleOnce has when compared to MeetingMade is that you have to have your Outlook calendar synced with your Google Calander. Don’t dispair, there’s an app for that too! The Goolgle Calenendar Sync tool will sync your Outlook calendar data with your Google Calander. If you’re concerned with losing data in Outlook, you can set the tool to only update your Google Calender, not import data from Google into Outlook. I’ve been using this personally for quite a while now and have found it to work flawlessly.

Speaking of meetings, since they do tend to take up a lot of our time, its important they be productive and stay focused. Here’s a short list 7 Tips from Web Worker Daily to help you keep your meetings on-task.

Bonus Tip!

Forbidden City – For a while I was really excited about Second Life and the potential it brought to online learning, meetings, discussions, etc. In my opinion it has really jumped the shark. However in a related note, The Forbidden City project offers much more educational potential, at least if you’re interested in Chinese history. Through a collaboration between IBM and the Palace Museum, you can download a fully digitized virtual version of the Forbidden City and tour it in real-time. It’s available for PC/Mac/Linux and offers a great opportunity to tour an incredible facility that you would otherwise have to travel thousands of miles to see.

Tip for August 7, 2009: Vanish!

Andy Morton — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:00:42 +0000

In this era of hyper-data portability securing your information is becoming more important than ever. Tools such as old-fashioned email and newcomers like Facebook, blogs and practically anything that can be associated with Web 2.0 have made it almost enjoyable to create voluminous amounts of content. It’s possible that you have not given too much thought to the things you send into the ether, but you need to be prepared for it to live in perpetuity and also be found with Google.

These are the issues which lead a research team at the University of Washington to create Vanish, a tool which will render your messages (and more) unreadable after 8 – 9 hours. The Mission: Impossible producers would be proud! To use Vanish you will need the following:

Java 5 or above and FireFox 3.x
The Vanish System
Vanish Plugin for FireFox

If you are interested in trying the system before installing, they provide an online version to let you create self-destructing messages, one by one. Their site points out that while the Vanish system is fully functional, it is still a research project and should be treated as such. If you’re interested in trying Vanish, I strongly recommend you spend time reading about how it works and what to expect. They provide several screencasts and screenshots to explain their objectives and how to properly install the system.

Bonus Tip!

Are you envious of all the people who have found fame by starring in a video that has gone “viral?” If so, you’re in luck! Don’t worry about taking the time and effort to create your own video, just superimpose your face on any of the most popular viral videos and become your own star with family and friends! Just connect your webcam and head over to Fun Face Cam. You can choose from some of the most popular videos, like Laughing Baby, Numa Numa, or my personal favorite David After Dentist.

Today’s services: Vanish & Fun Face Cam

Tip for May 15, 2009: Backups!

Andy Morton — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:07:27 +0000

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

Tip for April 17, 2009: Rethinking Email

Andy Morton — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:52:02 +0000

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

Tip for April 3, 2009: Xobni

Andy Morton — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:44:10 +0000

Let’s face it, most of us spend each work day living in our email inbox, no matter if it’s through a locally installed application (Outlook, Entourage, Apple Mail), or web-based (Outlook web interface, Spidermail, GMail, Yahoo, etc.). Since we as modern workers need to be email ninjas, it’s critical that these applications be flexible and offer features to help cut out “the noise” created from thousands of messages and attachments. Xobni (pronounced zob-nee) offers to do just that. It’s an add-on which installs an additional panel in your Outlook client and offers the following features:

Much improved searching for emails, contacts, and attachments compared to Outlook’s built-in search features.
The ability to locate your contacts in your social networks (Linked In, Facebook).
Threaded conversations (one of GMail’s best features) where you can see all of the emails you’ve exchanged with a contact in one place.
A complete statistics package showing you have many messages you’ve sent to your contacts, what day you email the most, who responds to you the fastest (so you can treat them to lunch), etc.

If you download Xnobi be prepared for the installation process to take about 10 – 15 minutes. After installation Xnobi will launch Outlook and begin indexing your messages, attachments and contacts. After 10 minutes Xnobi will index in the background in order to allow you to get back to managing your inbox. If you want to know more before downloading visit the Xnobi Learn More page. There are tutorial videos for each feature.

Xnobi

Bonus Tip!

Speaking of email, let’s take a lesson from a drummer and learn some unique exercises to help prevent carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis! This video was featured earlier this week on several websites as a way to beat the arch-nemesis of technology and desk workers. Watch the video below, or head over to YouTube for the larger version. Start stretching! And one, and two, and three…

Friday TechTips Special Edition – Conficker

Andy Morton — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:27:40 +0000

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:

PC World – http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/162178/ghostnet_highlights_evolving_threat_environment.html

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!