Archive for the 'Software' Category

Office 2007 Color Schemes / Themes

Published on December 20, 2007 in Gripes and Software. 3 Comments

In an effort to keep all us little monkeys up-to-date, we were all just upgraded to Office 2007 here at work and the first thing I noticed was the nasty default “toothpaste” color scheme. Don’t get me wrong… blue is one of my favorite colors, but that shade was just plain offensive. And so I proceeded to search for the “Themes” option to make a quick update. Unfortunately though, Office 2007 is different enough that even if my very existence had depended on it updating the color scheme, I wouldn’t have been able to locate where to make the change. Luckily for you though, I’ve now located this elusive option and I now share this information with you (it’s much easier than I was making it).

First, open any Office 2007 application (besides Outlook) and click on the nifty new “Office Orb” in the upper left-hand corner.

Second, at the bottom of the menu that appears, click on “-application name- Options” (where -application name- equals the app you happen to have open).

Third, on the default “Popular” tab of the new options window, select your color scheme from the drop down menu on the right. Please note that this option changes the color for all Office 07 apps so you can’t set each to a separate color scheme.

There you go. That’s it! You can choose from one of the follow schemes so hopefully you can find one that works with your windows theme. I’m just glad to be rid of “Zesty Cresty Blue”.

The Sad State of Smartphone Software

Published on October 17, 2007 in Gadgets, Random and Software. 0 Comments

I was going through my blogs today and stumbled on a note from the guys at Smartphone Thoughts. I like these guys, but again, it was a plug for a piece of software they hadn’t tried, in the vein of “looks kinda neat – anyone try it?”. This brought me over to the best-seller list on their site, where the current top dog is a clock program. Yeah, a freaking clock program.

<rant>
So what’s going on here? We’ve got a reasonably powerful device with web connectivity, and a clock is the best we can come up? Surely the other top sellers will be better. Let’s see; we’ve got a mediocre home screen customizer with really tiny Windows 95-style graphics. There’s CorePlayer, which is decent, but it used to be free (back when it was still TCPMP). There’s a tweaking app which makes tweaks to the registry for you and may have some other useful features. Next is a notes management app, and then ANOTHER STUPID CLOCK.

I can’t put money down for this stuff, especially when I see some very nice free apps on the market. Google Maps is very well executed. Windows Live Search is very functional and simple to use. Yahoo! Go is a pretty good piece of software, too; a little slow, but it’s a beta still. These are all free.

Where are the professional, useful applications? Where are the real developers hiding?

What about all the wonderful Web 2.0 (forgive me) web apps available? I’m talking about Google Docs, Mint.com, and similar. Where are useful apps like those in a portable format? So far the only strides have been online versions of Gmail and Google Reader ( and a few others). Where is the creativity? Where’s a blog tool that supports WordPress? Where’s an IM tool that works? Where’s a real replacement for Microsoft Reader (MobiPocket really sucks)? Nah, we don’t need that; we need a ringtone manager or seven different weather apps.
</rant>

Here’s my point, in case I haven’t hammered it in enough. Before developing another alarm clock or home screen plugin, step back and see what would REALLY be cool. Until then, I suppose we could always take our agendas to the eXtreme.

Zarch’s Network Closet

Published on October 2, 2007 in Computers, Random and Software. 0 Comments

I took the opportunity to upgrade my Smoothwall to the new version 3 last night, and took some pictures of my “network closet”. I think this serves as an example of how NOT to EVER treat the heart of your home’s connectivity. My network closet is currently just an area of my unfinished basement with a little table set up to hold everything. There’s a big, ancient, 3Com switch, a smaller gigabit switch, my cable modem, my trusty Asus wireless AP, and the router for my VoIP service. Note the huge power strip on the floor, right next to my water heater.

So last night’s project brought up a unique case of jury-rigging. The little Compaq thing I’m using for the Smoothwall used a laptop CD drive, which has gone bad. The power connector wasn’t a standard Molex, and I could not find a splitter anywhere. My power supply supplies have suffered severe losses, so I couldn’t do a dual power supply thing. Luckily, I found a fix.

In my rummaging, I turned up an unused USB-IDE hard drive case. I stole the power from that and plugged the IDE in from the Smoothwall box, and was able to make the upgrade from there. Ugly, but workable.

So how’s Smoothwall 3? It’s a decent upgrade, actually. I wouldn’t run and upgrade if you’ve got a good system going, but the built-in QoS should help when I’m trying to torrent and make a phone call at the same time, and there are many more configuration options right in the GUI. I’d say consider it if you’re needing a little extra bandwidth management or switching from a store-bought router/firewall.

My Mind Is Blown!!!

Published on June 8, 2007 in Geek Fun and Software. 1 Comment

Every now and then you see something that makes you say to yourself, “Wow! It’s too bad I’m so stupid or I would have thought of that.” The video below made me have one of those moments just now.

Interconnectivity and “community” are a few of the important terms in today’s techno-world, but these dudes skyrocket that idea to a whole new level. I can pretty safely say that this is the most amazing bit of software I’ve seen in quite some time:

I guess it’s just one step closer to when we can all just jack into “the collective” from our “cerebral connection enabled” couches. What a glorious day that will be.

Windows Vista = Windows ME?

Published on February 10, 2007 in Software. 0 Comments

Well, I don’t have a lot of hard theroizing on this one; it’s more just a gut reaction after the Vista launch. The more I think about it, the more this is similar to the situation Windows users were in back in 2000. Windows 98 SE was the strong player in those days, very similar to what Windows XP SP2 is today. Anything you wanted to do worked pretty well on 98 SE, and it was pretty stable. Then along comes much-maligned Windows ME (Millenium Edition, for you youngsters out there), sporting some small upgrades to the interface and media handling, but pretty much just a patch on Windows 98. All the time, Windows XP was waiting in the wings – just like “Vienna” is only a couple of years out today.

Personally, I had no trouble with Windows ME, and I expect I’ll have no trouble with Vista. There’s a lot of contention out there about whether or not it’s worth upgrading, what the exact benefits are, and whether the new OS will “take” or not. I guess only time will tell.

While we’re talking about time, I wonder what the future of the OS is. There’s a lot of talk about virtualization these days, and with Macs running Windows, and VMware running anything, it makes you wonder what things will look like 10 or 20 years from now.

To close, here’s a completely unrelated link sure to BLOW YOUR MIND.

This Aint Your Fathers Black Mesa

Published on February 5, 2007 in Games and Software. 0 Comments

So I was trollin the vast expanse of the interweb the other day and stumbled across a nifty little gem with a huge amount of potential. The Black Mesa: Source project could very well entice me to revisit the doomed Black Mesa research facility and take another crack at saving the world… Gordon Freeman style.

Back when Half-Life 2 was released, Valve re-released the original Half-Life, but upgraded to run on the then new Source engine. Unfortunately, this only updated the physics of the game. All the image maps were left the same and the result was not much of a change from the original. Well, there were a few fans that thought it could have been a little better and so decided to rebuild the whole game on Source, including a new look.

Like all things Source, this mod looks to be pretty killer. Unfortunately, like many of the mods out there (cough… Goldeneye: Source… cough…), it’s been quite a long time in development. They don’t have a release date posted on the site, but they seem pretty optimistic that they’ll be finished “soon”. I’m not going to hold my breath until they actually get done, but I do plan to keep my eyes on this one. As long as it runs well, this could be one of the coolest mods to hit Valve’s Source engine since its release.

Update On Ubuntu Wireless Issues

Published on January 2, 2007 in Software. 0 Comments

So a couple days ago I blogged about my recent experience with Ubuntu Linux and some of the issues and successes I’ve had. Well, one of the big issues I’m still having is in regards to getting my wireless card to connect to a DHCP enabled access point. I’ve been tinkering with this for countless hours over the last week and it turns out I’ve been tinkering in the entirely wrong place (silly me).

Apparently, it seems that this isn’t so much a Linux/Intel 2200BG issue as it is a “cheap-pile-of-crap-Qwest-provided-Actiontec access point” issue. I guess this particular access point has some weird DNS issues when you connect with a Linux based machine with DHCP enabled. Although you may be able to connect to the access point and ping pretty much any site on the entire interweb (I can both connect and ping), you will still get intermittant “failure to resolve hostname” errors when trying to surf. Apparently this issue has been going on for well more than a year now and Actiontec/Qwest are pretty much ignoring it. I suppose this is just one of those things you have to get used to when using a non-Windows OS.

So now that I know what the problem is, I’ve found a semi-solution for this issue by settings a static IP and gateway id within the Ubuntu Network manager. This isn’t really as big a deal as you might think as Ubuntu doesn’t have a Windows style “browse for available networks” tool so you kind of have to know the info about any access point you plan to connect to anyway. But if you’d rather leave DHCP enabled, here’s another set of possible work arounds. Just thought I’d share my newfound knowledge of this stupid issue.

Ubuntu… Linux never looked so good

Published on January 1, 2007 in OS Reviews and Software. 0 Comments

After years of proclaimed nerdery, I’ve finally decided to take the Linux plunge. That’s not to say that I’ve never used Linux before, but as nerdy as I am, it’s taken me a while to really get excited about switching from Windows to Linux on any of my day-to-day use machines. I’ve tried a few flavors of Linux in the past, but I always ended up having so much difficulty getting things working properly that I usually just gave up before I got to any point of satisfactory stability. I had a Macbook a few years back and tried running Yellow Dog, but I could never even get that one installed. That turned me off for a while, but I eventually got curious again and Handy Randy helped me get Fedora Core running on a old Compaq Proliant server that I keep in the basement and use strictly for file storage. That machine is stable and serves it’s purpose, but it’s not really a day-to-day use sorta machine. I do have one other Linux box (an old Pentium II 200Mghz Compaq) on which I have installed a firewall build of Linux called Smoothwall which serves to protect my home network. That bad boy rocks and I highly suggest a Smoothwall for any home network with a high speed internet connection. But that machine isn’t a daily use machine either. It does get used daily, but only in the fact that its always running. I hardly ever actually have to physically manage that machine.

Enter Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft)…

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Windows on a Mac… End of the World?

Published on April 19, 2006 in Hardware and Software. 0 Comments

Well, now its official. Apple beat the 1337 hax0rs out of the gate with Boot Camp. Question is… who out there is gonna actually use it?

Historically Mac fans and Windows fans don’t mix so well. Its like getting any two fans of opposing European ~~soccer~~, er… football teams together in the same room. Utter chaos! I mean, not even Nostradamus saw this one coming. So how will it play out? Will this result in some sort of space-time rift of love and harmony between these two groups?

Would any real PC fan drop their custom rig for Mac hardware (which is now mostly the same being X86 and all), only to run the same OS and software? Would any real Mac fan really ditch OS-whatever for the often complained about (and often rightly so) Windows? Can this end in anything less than the end of the world?

Only time will tell. But I think Scott Johnson sums it up pretty well in his latest ExtraLife webcomic…

Let us know your thoughts on this one… Leave a comment.

RockBox… The Firmware Of The Future!

Published on March 16, 2006 in Gadgets, mp3 and Software. 6 Comments

Firmware flashing is not for the faint of heart. Especially when upgrading to a 3rd party open source firmware that is not supported by the manufacturer of your device. By doing so, you potentially run the risk of ‘Bricking’ your beloved peice of electro-gadgetry, as well as the fact that you’ll definitely forfeit any remaining warranty you may still be relying on.

So… you can understand my reluctance to do so with my ever-so-beloved iRiver iHP-140 mp3 player. Even though my warrenty had long since run out, that just meant it would be that much harder to try to get support if I did happen to screw something up. But after reading the accounts of many successful upgrades on the RockBox forums, I decided to go ahead with it. With my fingers crossed and headphones on in anticipation, I followed the step-by-step (and quite easy) instructions. Once everything was in place I selected ‘OK’ to confirm the firmware upgrade and then held my breath…

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