Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Link dump

Ok I want to close some of the 60 odd tabs I have open in Firefox.

Heres what most of them are - the ones I wanted to keep the link to anyway.

Australia's Digitial TV Forum good place to find reviews on hardware, electronic program guides and all other aspects of digital TV in Australia.

OzForex Foreign Exchanmge website - great for tracking rates and more. I use this seeing as I have international clients and contractors working for me.


Ross and Jan Grant - my mates Ross and Jan are currently in Kenya doing church planting training work. Awesome news and stories to read from their time over there.


HotDockets - free discount vouchers for use in Australian businesses - great way to save money - simply find what you are looking for and print them out! Everything from pizzas to dry-cleaning, movies to travel.

The biggest web page ever! Check it out - it really is BIG!

NineMSN Slideshow website - slideshows from one of our local news networks.

Real Live Preacher kicks off his career in video blogging and follows up rapidly with his second attempt!
Meanwhile his wife launches her own site selling handmade soaps

I recently upgraded my SBS server to an ASUS server with Dual 3Ghz Xeon CPUS and 4Gb RAM. In the process of the migration from the old server I came across several websites that were helpful with a number of problems.
Microsoft Exchange Server Tech Center
Calendar Connector Architecture
Exchange Server Interoperability and Migration Guide
Completing Setup for Microsoft Windows Small Business Server Premium Technologies
Updating Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 Computers
Chad - on Swinging Your Companyweb

And i'f you've made it this far, heres a link to Zodee Lingerie - where I bought lingerie for my wife this week - a great Aussie site!

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Posted by: Jethro | 12:04 AM |

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Google In Pictures

Google, which just launched its free Wifi wireless Internet service in Mountain View but denies plans to create a national free Wifi network, has purchased a photo recognition company.

We've been working to make Picasa (Google's free photo-organizing software) even better when it comes to searching for your own photos—to make finding them be as easy as finding stuff on the web. Luckily we've found some people who share this goal, and are excited that the Neven Vision team is now part of Google. [Source]

This means that in the future Picasa will not only search your harddrive for pictures but will classify them for you. Perhaps it will recognize all the pictures with granny in them and automatically label them "grandmother" and so forth.

In other Google news, they have released to beta the first major revamp of Blogger since its aquisition from Pyra Labs in 2003. (oops. That article is from May 10, 2004 Thank you Jonathan Hickman for point it out.) I still hate blogger and advise against using their service due to poor business practices. I was burned by Blogger and lost much writing and advise that you blog using WordPress on a hosted solution. I will happily help anyone setup their very own WordPress blog.

India has begun blocking Blogger and others such as Typepad. India following in China's footsteps?

Doug McCaughan's personal blog is Reality Me and he consults as Superior Internet Designs.

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Posted by: Doug McCaughan | 10:22 PM |

Thursday, August 10, 2006

How fast are you?

Our children will never appreciate the handshake of a 300 baud modem. The thought of transferring anything at 1200 baud is unthinkable even if we invoke the sacred z-modem. Now-a-days you are more likely to talk about megabits per second (a data rate) instead of baud (a symbol rate).

I find it amazing how our data communications have increased in such a short time. We used to drool over a T-1 connection (1.544Mbit/s). Since only businesses could afford such luxuries, people would plan weekend gaming sessions at their work place or stay late to download and surf in ways that the average home user could only dream possible. Now, your cable connection is likely faster than a T-1. Comcast advertises 6Mbit/s standard with 8Mbit/s for some extra money and is currently testing 16Mbit/s in Richmond, VA. The near future promises even better (28Mbit/s)!

What is your speed? Online testing services such as http://www.testmy.net/ and http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/ can help you see if you are up to snuff. Your internal networking equipment can cause slowdowns so by-pass your router, hubs and other gear by plugging your computer directly into your cable or dsl modem when speed checking. You may need to power cycle the modem after connecting directly. http://broadbandreports.com/ (aka DSL Reports) is a fantastic resource when troubleshooting or investigating network speeds.

Your system software can influence speed. Tools like SG TCP Optimizer can greatly improve your Internet connection by adjusting network settings you may not even know exist.

See also It's the latency, stupid for more understanding of speed issues. Read about hacking the Linksys router and Linksys Blue Box Router HOWTO.

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Posted by: Doug McCaughan | 12:31 PM |

Friday, August 04, 2006

Bizarre and Unusual Web Links

Todays post is a listing of some the unusual and bizarre stuff I have bookmarked recently from J-Walk and Reality-Me. Both John and Doug can be relied on to find the absolutely off the wall stuff that makes the itnerent a fun place to be!
Incidentally this is made easy by the RSS reader I am using currently, the Google Reader. Any items I want to come back to I simply click the star - similar to in Gmail.

So without further ado:

From Reality-MeSome developers have too much time on their hands. Despite initial appearances, this is work safe.
Now Amanda is unboomed we have to watch Ze Frank (uses adult language)

From J-Walk
Show your kids what it was like back in the old days. Download some MP3s and burn 'em on a CD for your offspring: Kiddie Records Weekly.
Macro Insect Photography Olaf Wolfram's Digital Makrogalarie.
More macro insects by Igor Siwanowicz.
This has been making the rounds: Cursor Kite. This is excellent! Take the time to study the pictures and work out who is flying the kites
This is one link in a monitor chain. I must remember to post my dual monitors in the chain!
In North Carolina: Field of the Wood Bible Park.
One I have been watching and commenting on in here for some time now, the RIAA law suits.
Interesting: RIAA Will Drop Cases If You Point Out That An IP Address Isn't A Person.

If you want to win a lawsuit from the RIAA, you're best off opening up your WiFi network to neighbors. It seems like this strategy might actually be working. Earlier this month the inability to prove who actually did the file sharing caused the RIAA to drop a case in Oklahoma and now it looks like the same defense has worked in a California case as well. In both cases, though, as soon as the RIAA realized the person was using this defense, they dropped the case, rather than lose it and set a precedent showing they really don't have the unequivocal evidence they claim they do.


Posted by: Jethro | 9:21 AM |

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Windows XP and Outlook goodies

Following is a collection of links I have bookmarked recently regarding Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Outlook tips and tricks.

J-Walk asked the question "Can I print the directory listing from Windows XP"?

Doug Klippert answers the question with "How to add the Print Directory feature back into Windows XP"

Doug, the source of all Unoffical Office Stuff, also supplies these goodies.
How to make your computer automatically log you on.
Using Digital Signatures
List Word and Excel Files
Office Toolbar Come Home
Towson University provides Self-Help Training Documents for many applications.
Creating Hyper links in Outlook. I may do some more on this in detail later.

From Slipstick comes a number of Outlook Specific tips and apps.
Outlook Duplicate Items Remover
Use OsaSync to share or synchronize your Outlook contacts, calendar, and tasks with one or more other computers on your network
GroupCalendar for Exchange
Support WebCast: Spam filters in Microsoft Exchange 2003
Support WebCast: Introduction to Desktop ActiveSync

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Posted by: Jethro | 1:43 PM |