Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Mouser

11:30PM Tamar Weinberg | One year ago, you took control of the mouse with the keyboard using the Mouser application. More »

The latest on troubleshooting Leopard

12:55PM Sarah Stokely | While some of us are still waiting to get our hands on the new Apple OS, the guys over at APC mag have been putting the cat through its paces. They’ve published a couple of useful articles looking at the state of play with application compatibility and Leopard, as well as an interesting article looking at the features which Apple seems to have dumped from their new OS. Logitech mouse and keyboard users will hopefully already be aware that one piece of software it installs, Unsanity’s Application Enhancer, needs to be uninstalled before installing Leopard to avoid a system “bluescreen of death”  at start up. On the plus side, there’s a growing list of newly updated apps which are Leopard compatible, including “Filemaker, EyeTV, BBEdit, Newsfire, Transmit, XTorrent, Parallels (Beta, Build 5540) and Audio Hijack Pro.” David Flynn’s article looking at what’s been cut from Leopard is an interesting read. Apparently its new version of Address Book no longer lets you “use Bluetooth to dial your mobile and send SMS messages from the Address Book, and then to read and reply to incoming SMS messages on your Mac”. The article looks at a third party app which will help, and looks at other features which have gone MIA.  Leopard Giveth and Leopard Taketh Away [APC] Leopard Compatibility: The Story So Far [APC]   More »

Storage strategies for the home PC

12:45PM Sarah Stokely | ExtremeTech has published an overview feature on storage solutions for the home PC – which looks at using NAS or a home server to store and share data on a network (nice to see an article which considers not only backing up but how to make information available too). It also looks at RAID and flash drives, external SATA and online backup and storage services. It doesn’t go into them in depth, but gives an idea of when you might use them and what’s involved. So it’s a starting point for people just starting to think about backup and storage solutions. (I’ve recently started using Windows Vista’s built in backup system (running it the first time took hours even though this is a pretty new system with not a lot installed on it), but I haven’t even looked into storage solutions for the Macbook yet!) If you read the article, check out the comments because there are a couple of useful reader tips about what’s worked for them. Ten Storage Strategies for the Home [ExtremeTech] More »

Broadband

12:38PM Sarah Stokely | So did you notice our broadband speed up? Neither did I. But according to the OECD, Australia is now ranked 10th in the world  – ranked according to average advertised broadband speeds.  More »

Maximize Money Saving with Customer Loyalty Programs

10:00AM Adam Pash | If you’re not taking advantage of the wealth of customer loyalty programs offered by your frequented retailers, weblog Simple Dollar says you’re missing out. To help you start saving, the post suggests six steps for making the most of customer loyalty programs. Step one: Get a new, separate email address. I signed up for a Gmail account specifically to collect the mailings that come from these programs. This prevents my normal email from getting inundated with such things, plus whenever I plan on visiting a retailer, I log into that email address and search for available offers. The author then recommends searching your dedicated email address before you go shopping, which in effect turns that email into a dedicated Super Saver for your favourite stores. If you’re a customer loyalty program pro, share how you save cash in the comments. How To Maximize Customer Loyalty Programs – Even If You’ve Never Tried One [The Simple Dollar] More »

How to reformat Windows and reinstall only freeware apps

9:26AM Sarah Stokely | I don’t know about you, but I have this dream of computing nirvana which starts with a tabula rasa of a freshly reformatted PC, the installation of only the essential programs and the start of a ‘best practise’ regime of backups and clutter-killing on a regular basis. Well, today I found someone had beaten me to the first part of this geek dream. The Freeware Genius blog has a very detailed post on reinstalling Windows and outfitting your system with only freeware applications. First he takes you through the programs he uses to backup and partition the hard drive (he recommends a couple of programs I hadn’t heard of including Unstoppable Copier and Amic Email Backup). Once you’ve reinstalled, he recommends a heap (53 in total) of freeware programs for starting again from scratch. He describes each program, so it’s worth browsing the list to see if there’s anything there you’d find useful. I’ve bookmarked this one for reference when I find the time to reformat my computer! Reinstall Windows and outfit your system with all freeware programs [Freeware Genius] More »

Quicksilver

9:20AM Adam Pash | Our favourite application launcher and then some Quicksilver has gone open source, which will hopefully mean we’ll see lots of new life in the Quicksilver realm. [via] More »