open source

I really hope this finds its way on Facebook - my options are (1) it does so pour myself a nice glass of iced coffee and sit bag smugly or (2) it doesnt so slap myself on the forehead, groan and slowly pull my hair out one strand at a time!

The FBCONNECT module (for Drupal CMS based websites) looks promising and once I had figured out how to create a Facebook application to link my signin and publishing details it should be straight forward.

Here is a my first test blog to see what happens: Obviously I would rather that this get posted to  Facebook, which means I wont have to launch the laptop out of the window.   ;) 

/me breathes on windows and stands ready to write naughty words if it fails..

The documentation says:

-- SUMMARY --

I've used CAMTASIA for a while and it's a great tool for recording screen demo's, snaffling screen shots and recording nice youtube style screen scrapes of things your doing.

But wait! if you dont want to pay (and who does?) for the full product you can download Techsmiths excellent application called Jing, which is basically a Camtasia Lite, from here:

http://jingproject.com/

I use it for various short tutorials and screen shots of everything from technical setup instructions to simple in instructions to my mother-in-law on how to setup her email.

A few ways to use Jing

Re-installing my trusty little Thinkpad Z60T is a process that I've been through a dozen times since I first fired this little beauty up in late 2005. It's had just about every flavour of operating system installed from Windows95 through Vista to various flavours of Linux (Ubuntu was definitely my favourite by the way)

After this morning nasty little virus interlude, and as it's just been a long time since I last installed anything exciting on it, I think it's time to try out the Windows Seven Beta... or maybe Ubuntu... or perhaps just plain old Windows... [insert hmmmmmm here]

So this is the process that going to happen this afternoon... probably...

Install Windows 7 - I've download the Beta from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx

- or -

Install Ubuntu - from http://www.ubuntu.com - its neat and just simply works, but, I had some problems with skype last time so I'm not sure... that was about a year ago mind you.  :-/

- or -

The latest Beta release for Thunderbird 3 is finally out and it rocks!

This beta release includes:

• Tab interface for Mail
• Improvements to IMAP for faster message viewing
• Improved message reader view
• New Add-ons Manager
• Improved Address Book interface
• Improved import of mail from other Mail clients
• Integration with Windows Vista search
• Integration with Mac OS X Address Book

(1) Download and install the latest Beta Build of Thunderbird

Installation of Thunderbird itself is simple. If you have used the old Thunderbird 2 then the first thing that will look different is that you now see a tabbed view of the main email windows (in the same style as Firefox). But wait, there is loads more under the hood.

As the Developers say:

it’s far from a typical beta. In particular, unlike the traditional definition of a beta release, we’re definitely not done making feature changes, including some pretty significant feature work that we expect will be integrated in Thunderbird 3 in later beta releases, some features that will live as optional add-ons, and some experiments which may end up in later releases of Thunderbird or not, depending on the result of the experiments.

So having taken the decision to REPLACE Microsoft Office with something else it's a strangely worrying, yet cathartic time for me: I feel like I'm kicking a bad habit like smoking, drinking or chainsaw juggling - I know Office may not be the best thing for me, I know it costs me a lot of money but I like it and I've been using it for years.  It's in my comfort zone.

I definitely think its time for me to stand up and announce "my names Nick and I'm an addict"... it's time to go through techno-rehab.

This blog will be edited after succesful installation.

Short lists so far

• Thunderbird 3
• BAT
• Live Mail

NOTES ON WIP:

BAT - nope. just dont like it. very dated feel. clunky. not for me.

Microsoft Live Mail - Love it. email is great and very outlookish. doesnt calender and hooks into windows contacts which is nice. great email client but obviously the light little brother to outlook.

Thunderbird looks best so far. I'm not the biggest fan of its visual style but the junk mail handling is good and its theming abilities allow me to change the looks. The New TB3-BETA version looks to be an Outlook killer. It incorporates email, calendar (lightning) and contacts:

I've been a longtime user of Microsoft products from the early days of Dos through to the current incarnation of Vista. On the whole they are great and despite rumblings from the nay-Sayers of Microsoft is evil or Bill Gates controls the black helicopters and Vista stinks you should use mac/Linux/OS2/etc whichever way you look at it the last last 20 years of human evolution has been guided by the firm corporate hand of Microsoft to an incredible amount.

Anyway, before I start ranting about software - I've been a long time user of Microsoft Office products but the latest incarnation Office2007 has just left me feeling slightly miffed. 

It's crippled the response times on my old trusty Thinkpad Laptop, I just don't like the visual interface in applications like Word or Excel (I know its a learning experience but maybe I'm just too long in the tooth to learn new things every year) and my personal pet peeve is Outlook 2007.

Outlook is my most frequently used application - bar none - from emails to calendars to to-do-lists to contact lists and then synchronizing it all on my Blackberry.

I stumbled across a great open source power tool for windows Vista (which I'm running on this laptop) The Image Resizer PowerToy Clone is a free Windows Shell Extension that enables you to resize one or more image files on the fly by simply right-clicking on them. Exactly the same as the standard Microsoft one for windows xp - which is not included with Vista and for the life of me I cant figure out why.

I didnt realize how much I missed the old one until recently when trying to resize a huge batch of holiday snaps - vacation photos - now I've got it back its invaluable.

This little utility is great.... open windows explorer and look at the folder with all you huuuge photos in it.... find the one (or multiples) that you want to resize... right click and select the image resize options.

Version 2.1.1 (which works perfectly with Windows 7 64bit - which I'm running here) is attached to this blog but you can always download the latest version from here

Open Source Software is a fantastic concept bringing the advantages of free software to computer users all over the globe.

Want to phone someone for free? Use Skype!

Want the latest antivirus and antispyware for free? Use AVG!

Want to Microsoft Office software but dont want to spend your hard earned pocket money? Check the incredible FREE Openoffice!

The amazing thing is millions of internet users dont know these applications exist and still wander into computer shops and online ecommerce sites and spend $$$ when then they dont necessarily need to.

Our core aim for every customer is to leave your computer with so much free (and completely legitimate) software that our bill will pale into insignificance when compared to the savings you have made. Here's an example:

I've just got the most excellent Ubercart ecommerce system to work with Paypal for paying and then auto-downloading digital media in the form of an eBook.

I thought I would jot down the process, as a memory jogger for me and if it helps anybody out there in inter-web-cyber-highway-net-land then it's worth the wasted minutes of typing   ;)

So lets start with the basics, obviously replace http://www.projex.com with your own website name... duh!

Setting up Mrs Finkpad's laptop today and trying to install the DLINK wireless network range extender [DWL-G710] I had to open an installation PDF (yes I know... /me hangs my head in shame). Of course she didnt have a PDF view installed so I went searching for a freeware one.

I found SumatraPDF an opensource viewer thats utterly free, and much much quicker than the Adobe PDF Viewer. Dont get me wrong, I've nothing aginst the Adobe viewer, it's just that its grown into this bloated thing over the years. Sumatra, on the other hand is very small, very quick and easy to use... Just perfect for the laptop and, more importantly, for Steph.

Get it from here: http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/

What is Sumatra PDF?

Sumatra PDF is a slim, free, open-source PDF viewer for Windows.

Why another PDF viewer?

There's nothing wrong with Adobe Acrobat... except for annoyingly long startup time. Sumatra PDF is small and starts up fast - just the way I like it.

Sumatra has a minimalistic design and simplicity has a higher priority than a lot of features.

It's also portable i.e. it's just one file with no external dependencies so you can run it from external USB drive with no problems.

Screenshots

Here's how it looks in action: