A cheap shot at Microsoft

Once you start reading this, I am sure you are going to think that I am a complete Anti-Microsoft Nazi. Well, I'm not. I see many Microsoft products as the industry standard. I do, however, think that Microsoft has settled for mediocrity in many of their products for the sake of the almighty buck. It is for this reason that I am taking a cheap shot at Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer.

As a person who loves Google, I am constantly looking at their products and development platforms. I think that Google will come up, at least, in the top 5 internet software providers. I did recall reading an article in USA Today a year or so ago in which Ballmer was quoted describing some features of Google's Document application as saying, "You can't even put a footnote in. Now, last time I checked, that's still kind of important to give attribution. (Laughter.)" I'm sure Steve-O wasn't born yesterday and missed out on the break-neck speed with which Google has implemented many web-based services that are extremely robust. Unless Steve was thinking about Google not making any innovations to their product (like his company, HA!!), I am sure he could foresee them adding this feature. I personally saw this remark like telling an aircraft carrier mechanic that a pebble dinged up against the hull when it left port. I think that Steve was taking a cheap shot at a company that could be a real threat to Microsoft.

As a side note, I checked Google Docs earlier today and they have implemented a Header/Footer functionality to their program. Sorry Steve. Reload and take another shot!!!

To read the original article from USA Today, click here.

The Amazon Kindle: You'll want one, too

I just happened to be surfing YouTube (a future past-time of mine, I'm sure) and I came across a video describing a piece of consumer electronics manufactured and marketed by Amazon.com. WAIT!!!! Amazon is the internets answer to Borders, Walmart, and every other store. Why would they make their own gadget? Well, as many of you know, Amazon started out simply as an online book store, ergo the Kindle was made.

The Kindle is a an e-book reader. But, unlike any other e-book reader, the Kindle allows you to buy books in electronic format from Amazon and download them directly to your Kindle. The technical cretique of how this is accomplished is a bit long winded. Let me just say that it's not dependant on Wi-Fi and there is NO SUBSCRIPTION FEE!!!

OK, so this is just another way for Amazon to make a buck, right? Of course, they plan on making millions on digital book sales, I'm sure. But what if I have an electronic file (word document for example) that I would like to have available on my Kindle? Well, through some conversion features offered by Amazon, they will take your document, convert it into an acceptible format, and deilver the converted file to you so you can put it on your Kindle. WAY COOL!!!!!

I have to say, as an avid user of PDF's and digital documentation, I have been waiting for a device like this for years. I hope this takes off like a rocket. Here's a video describing the Kindle.

The Best of Network TV Online

In spite of the fact that I can't get CBS to come in on my new digital TV tuner, they are quickly becoming my favorite network TV website (www.cbs.com). I am a person who overall favors the classic TV shows (with the exception of Lost). If you want to catch some reruns of classic TV shows like MacGyver, the original Star Trek, or the Twilight Zone, you may be forced to either buy an expensive DVD set or wade through your local TV schedule to find these. But where other networks have failed to step up and make use of the internet in this way, CBS has succeeded by streaming video-on-demand of many classic TV shows from their website. This is a wonderful thing that they have done and I hope other networks follow suit. Please check out all of the great classic TV shows on www.cbs.com.

What is a Blog

Since you are looking at this article and it is on a Blog, I can only assume you know what a Blog is. But, what is the advantage to a Blog over traditional internet media sources or even traditional non-digital media? Blogs are able to harness the main advantage of the internet: worldwide instant communication. This video was made by the same people who made the RSS video I posted a while back and it is very informational.

A True Digital Library

If you have been exposed to the internet for any length of time, you have more than likely heard of the analogy comparing the internet to a huge library. Well, I have found a few websites that are truly a digital library, providing classic literature, reference, and archives of all sorts.

The first site is a reference site of sorts: www.ibiblio.org. This site contains a plethora of reference information on topics from literature and theology to technology and mathematics. This site also offers scholastic news articles and many radio stations of a public nature.

The next two sites go together in their main purpose: www.librivox.org and www.gutenberg.org. The purpose of these sites is to disseminate classic literature in audio and print format respectively. Project Gutenberg (as the name implies) provides literature in print format. For the literary works used on this site copyright is not an issue, as all of the offerings have entered the public domain. Librivox is an extension of Project Gutenberg. Taking the print literature from Gutenberg, librivox uses millions of worldwide volunteers to read the literature and provide it in audio format for download on their website. All your favorite Mark Twain and L. Frank Baum are available for free in print and audio format.

The final website is a very general archive of all sorts of content: www.archive.org. To start out with, the Internet Archive offers a video library including many things from educational videos to full-lengthpublic domain movies. They also have a library of audio content which includes music, audio books, and much more. Like any good library, the Internet Archive has many thousands of articles on many subjects. In my opinion, the most valuable feature of the Internet Archive is the Wayback Machine (the name harkens to Adventures of Peabody and Sherman). This is a feature that allows you to search for versions of almost any website that may have existed in the last 15 or so years.

Check out all of these great useful websites. You might find something of interest to you.

Meeting Announcement

With the adverse weather and the prediction of up to 20 inches of snow on the way, we would like you to determine whether or not it is safe for you to travel to our meeting tonight, and plan accordingly. At this time Meagan will not be attending (babies and their mamma's are better off at home), and Dorene is going to try to make it in. She has a new toy that she wants to demo! At last word, Andy too was planning on attending.

If the weather gets worse than it is at 4pm, Dorene will stay home.
Tonight's presentation will be a practice presentation and will be given again in March, so please don't feel that you will miss something important if you decide not to attend. Happy traveling, or in my case, happy staying home! Have a lovely evening!

Free Phone Services

Back in December we discussed some phone services that are available for use for FREE!!!!! Let recap what was covered.

First we covered a directory assistance phone number: 1-800-FREE-411. This is a great 411 (Directory Assistance) number. It allows you to look up any residential or business from any phone. It also allows free connection to any business (I became aware of this feature since the presentation).

Another 411 service we looked at was 1-800-GOOG-411. This is a service provided by Google. GOOG-411, unlike the FREE-411, is only able to search business listings. Google's service also offers the free connection. Even though GOOG-411 has less features than FREE-411, I am still holding out. Google has created some great products and I don't think they will leave GOOG-411 where it is.

The final service we spoke about was Google SMS. SMS (Short Message Service) is a technology used to send and receive text messages on cell phones. If you send a formatted text message to 466453 (the numeric value of GOOGLE), Google will send back information based on the message you sent. For information on how to format your text messages, go to www.google.com/sms/. This is a perfect example of some of the great services offered by Google.

RSS: What is it anyway

Hello everyone. I'm working on getting a posting out detailing my phone number presentation in December. But I ran across a video online and thought it best to share it. I feel that among most computer users, something that is very useful and not well understood is RSS. RSS (which stands for Really Simple Syndication) is a method of retrieving news headlines with links to the whole article without going out to many sites. Take a look at this video. It's really helpful.





See y'all next month. PEACE!!!!!!!

No Meeting Tonight!

Tonight's meeting of the Princeton Computer User Group will not be held.
See you in February! (Bring your sweetheart and maybe I will bring mine?)

The Library Classes held on the 2nd Wednesday of each month will now be held at 10am. Mark your calendars!

Happy New Year!!!

December Meeting Misprint

The December Meeting of the Princeton Computer User Group will be held on December 4th, Tuesday, at 6:30 pm at the Matson Public Libary. The News Tribune mis-printed our meeting date as December 6th. Hope to see you there!

New Meeting Place for the PCUG

As some of you might know, the Princeton Public Library has opened at it's new location at 698 East Peru Street (the old BOGO's Grocery Store). Yea, I know what you're thinking. A grocery store got turned into a library? Ha!!!

But, it's unbelievable once you see it. It has far more accessibility and expandability that the old building didn't offer along with a contemporary architectural design. I urge you to go check it out if you haven't already.

Anyway, for those of you who are interested in attending our September 4th meeting, we are going to meet at the Princeton Public Library. WiFi will be available!!! Hope to see you there!!!

For more information about Princeton Public Library, visit www.matsonpubliclibrary.org.

Save the Internet!!!

OK, I know that I have been really bad about not writing much lately, with work and 10,000,000 other things, guess what falls by the wayside. In my random surfings earlier this evening, I came upon something that I wasn't sure about at first, but I now see that it is something that should be of the utmost importance to us all.

Network Neutrality.

Huh? What is that? I confess that when I first found these words, it sounded like a set of words that meant absolutely nothing that some guy got payed way too much to make up. That's what I thought. Until I looked around a while. Let me give you the skinny on Network Neutrality.

Imagine you are searching for a recipe or trying to locate a family website. You'd go to Google (or some other search engine) and search away. Now, imagine the website your looking for is restricted. That's right. A 100% clean website would be deemed unaccessible. This is a possibility with respect to certain pieces of legislation that could be handed down to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Why would the FCC do this?

Like anything else, it would be for money. There is a wide-area communications medium that they currently have very little control over. They would have web hosting facilities pay a fee to guarantee Quality of Service (QoS) for their internet connection. Organizations that do not pay this fee, will not be given QoS and therefore not be accessible (or at least not as easily). This is a huge problem!!! Many private or non-profit organizations provide content that is useful, unique, inspiring, and not available, in some cases, anywhere else on the internet. Imagine such content being wiped off of the face of the internet. In my mind, this is one step closer to big brother being fully realized.

I urge you as soon as you can to look into Network Neutrality. For more information, visit http://www.savetheinternet.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality. If nothing else, please be aware of what this legislation is and what it could do. The internet was partially founded as a means for wide-area educational purposes. Don't let someone tear this textbook in half.

To let the FCC know what you think, visit http://www.savetheinternet.com/yourstory and fill out the form. Be aware that as of today (July 8, 2007), we only have 7 days to make a difference. Please help keep the internet open.

Isn't Technology Great?

I thought some of you might enjoy this link, which depicts penny postcards from all over the State of Illinois. I especially loved those in Bureau County, and the Clark Hotel in Princeton had me smiling.

July meeting cancelled.

There will be no JULY 3rd Meeting of the PCUG. The June meeting will go on as planned, but July will be canceled due to it's close proximity to Independence Day! Everyone have a great holiday.

Tuesday May 1st Meeting

Tonight is the May 1st Meeting of the PCUG in the basement of the Clark House in Princeton, at 6:30. No specific topics planned, so come with questions!

Something Every Household Should Have

Being the prepared individual, I am constantly thinking. My husband recently told me of someone who has all of their important documents in order, kept in the safe, and ready to evacuate with him in the event of an emergency.

This set my head to spinning. What if there was a fire or a flood or a tornado and I had to head for cover or leave my home? What if my home were destroyed? Would I be able to lay my hands on my insurance policy numbers? A Copy of my own personal identification? Contact Information for people I need? No.

At Target last weekend, I came across a product that I think would be beneficial in every household and could be a lifesaver for anyone, regardless of age. It's called a Life Doc Binder. It comes with computer software (which you can use or you may fill everything out by hand) and it allows you to keep all of your important information in one place. Then if anything ever happens to you, your family will know exactly where to find the information they need. If you ever need to leave your home, you can grab the binder and take it with you.

I think this is an excellent idea and I think everyone should know about them. Check the office supply area at Target. You can also look inside the binder, read details, and purchase online at http://www.getbuttonedup.com/shop/life_doc.php?pid=%22shop%22

And what an excellent gift for couples just starting out, new homeowners, the parents of a new child, or even your family members and yourself.

Tonight's Meeting!

Tonight's Meeting is at 6:30 in the basement of the Clark House. We hope to see you all there. We don't have any "topics" so please bring your questions!

Another interesting thought. We have had 96 visits since we launched the site a month ago and NOT ONE comment. In case you didn't know, bloggers thrive on conversation and feedback about their posts. They love a little discussion now and then. So for those of you "silent lurkers" please post a comment and let us know you were here, and what you have enjoyed!

Who's been here so far? Click the Image for a Large View.

My Top 5 Open Source Software Picks

As promised, I have compiled a list of open source software. After thinking about it for a few seconds and in an effort to not overwhelm anyone, I decided to only list those software items that I use on a daily basis at my job. This will demonstrate the real-world usability of these packages. It should be noted that all of the packages I am explaining below are available for Windows, Linux, and MacOS X.

OpenOffice.org – Think MS Office, only without the $500 price tag (not sure exactly what it costs). OpenOffice contains a word processing application equal to MS Word, a spreadsheet application equal to MS Excel, a presentation application equal to MS PowerPoint, a layout application similar to MS Publisher, and a database application that is almost on par with MS Access. In fact, the word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application is almost 100% compatible with MS Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, respectively. In the area of macros, I believe that StarBasic (comparable to VBA in MS Office) is capable of doing most common automated tasks. But for the average small business, I feel that OpenOffice can provide a superb alternative to MS Office.

GIMP – Adobe Photoshop has become an “industry standard” in the world of graphic design, be it for print design or web design. I should mention that of the commercial software companies out there, Adobe is one of my favorite. However, spending $1000 on a suite of software that I might or might not use every day is an investment I'm not ready to make, especially since I'm not that good at design. But the Open Source community has come through again and provided a tool that, in my mind, is 99% as capable as Photoshop for editing photos and creating pixel based artwork. It's the GIMP (which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program). The GIMP offers many tools for image manipulation and adjustment. Some of the more advanced ones are: image level and curve adjustment, Gaussian Blur and Unsharp Mask. It is easy for a novice computer user to get lost in the complexity of the GIMP. It is again my hope to post a tutorial on some of its basic functions.

Inkscape – Again, Adobe holds the market in vector graphics editor with their Adobe Illustrator software package. And again, the Open Source community has thrown a punch back at them with Inkscape. If you are unfamiliar with Adobe Illustrator, you might wonder what vector graphics is. A vector is a mathematical term for a line, thus vector graphics is artwork that is created through the use of lines. In vector graphics software packages, like Inkscape and Illustrator, lines can be given texture, shape, colors, and some other cool effects. The advantage to vector graphics is amazingly enough the same downfall of pixel based artwork (the GIMP does pixel based): the inability to make an image larger without losing quality. That is, you can take a piece of vector artwork and increase the size of it indefinitely. Therefore, vector graphics is extremely useful for printing artwork or when you need multiple sizes of the same piece of artwork. In all of these basic areas, I have found that Inkscape is very comparable to Illustrator.

Audacity – Most computers have a plug-in on their computer for a microphone, but I imagine that the majority of people don't use it. This might be because there was not an easy-to-use, inexpensive recording software package. Audacity is this software package. The Open Source community again came through and created a very robust software package that turns your computer onto a digital sound recorder. In the same way that you put a cassette tape in the recorder and it the record button, when you click the record button in Audacity it begins recording every sound your microphone picks up. When you are done recording, you can save your recording as a WAVE audio file or an MP3 audio file instead of fumbling with those tapes (you must some additional software to save as an MP3). A couple cool features of Audacity is the ability to do multi-track recordings and add special effects to your recordings. Audacity is very comparible to any audio recorder I have used that you have to pay money for.

OpenClipart – Unless you are a extremely creative artist (which I am not), if you want to add some flavor to a document or presentation you reach for a piece of clip art. OpenOffice, unlike MS Office, doesn't come with a complete clip art library. Don't worry, because again the Open Source community has come together to create an extensive library of vector based (Inkscape) and pixel based (GIMP) artwork. The library contains many categories with hundreds of pieces of clip art. If you want to place a piece of clip art directly into OpenOffice or whatever application you are using. If you want to tweek the artwork a little bit before you use it, you can open the vector based artwork in Inkscape and save it as a pixel based piece of clip art. This might seem confusing, but I plan to do a post on this vector-to-pixel conversion process.

Open Source...A Community Effort

The world of computers contains a vast array of people who control the electronic destiny of us all. Some of these people are motivated by a profit to keep them sitting pretty into their retirement years while other are idealists of sorts. This second group of people found that if other idealistic computer enthusiasts are provided with the tools of software development and productivity software, they can shape their own electronic destiny, and in so doing, benefit the global computing community. These visionaries started what has become the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and have shaped the way all of us, even those profit seeking pseudo geeks, use our computers every day.

The GNU (pronounced with a silent G) Project was founded in 1983 by Richard Stallman. At the time, the project was set up to develop a computer operating system (OS) complete with development tools. Their intent was for the GNU software to be distributed to people all over the world and have the recipients continue creating software that could be redistributed to others.

The community-and-sharing idea is central to what GNU was founded under and has taken on a more globally applicable form in what GNU has evolved into: a legal mechanism. Currently, the GNU project focuses much of it's effort towards keeping GNU software legally accessible to anyone who wants to use them. The GNU General Public License (GPL) is a legal description for software that is to distributed in the same manner that GNU software was.

To aid the progression of the GNU project and similar projects, in 1985 Stallman established the Free Software Foundation (FSF). This non-profit organization provided funds that were used to pay developers to create software for the GNU project. Many of the applications developed for the GNU project are still used every day by software developers and end-users. The FSF has also worked to develop, update, and maintain new versions of the GNU GPL.

In the grand scheme, it seems that the GNU OS (which was originally at the center of the GNU project) didn't see the light of day, relatively speaking. This full-flowering and reception of the GNU OS was hindered by another community effort, actually a community of 1. In 1991 Linus Torvarlds, a Finnish software developer, began development of a operating system to replace a previously GPL licensed operating system. Since the mid-1990's Torvalds' operating system (Linux) has been developed by the free software community. Thanks to the community effort put into Linux, it's abilities rival those of commercial operating systems like Windows and the MacOS.

Thanks to a few probably misunderstood geeks, the software industry has been rocked on it's heels and has been changed forever. The hope of the free software community, I should think, is that whenever you need a piece of software to do a certain task you will look to them for a solution. The community-minded efforts of the millions of software developers to create freely available computing solutions have not been in vain. But if we allow the community to fail and their purpose to stop being realized, the efforts will fail.

Preface:

I urge all who read this article to research open source software. Unless you are a seasoned software downloader, I advise against downloading software. I will be providing a list of viable open source software in subsequent posts. PEACE!!!!!!!!!

Sources: Wikipedia

Turkey shuts down online access to You Tube

Internet Customers in Turkey found a rude awakening when trying to access "You Tube" this week.

Access to www.youtube.com site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/384 dated 06.03.2007 of Istanbul First Criminal Peace Court.

According to Reuters "A Turkish court banned Google Inc.'s
YouTube because it showed a video ``insulting'' the country's
founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Vatan newspaper reported.
The video-sharing Web site will be shut down in Turkey after
judges ruled in favor of an Istanbul prosecutor's petition
against YouTube for showing images of Ataturk and a Turkish flag
that included obscenities in English, Vatan said. It is against
Turkish law to ``insult'' Ataturk.
Unidentified officials at Turk Telekomunikasyon AS, the
fixed-line phone monopoly that runs the national Internet
infrastructure, told Vatan that access to YouTube will be blocked
as soon as they receive legal notice. The state owns 45 percent
of Turk Telekom.
The Turkish Justice Ministry has appealed to the U.S.
Justice Department for help in tracking down the person
responsible for the video, the newspaper also said. California-
based YouTube also featured a video alleging Ataturk was a
homosexual, Vatan said. That video has been removed."