Easter & Cloud Software I like to think a lot and draw connections between things. The pending release of Ubuntu along with continued enhancements of Google Apps along with Easter made a thought pop into my head.

Jesus allegedly died on Good Friday, and on Easter Sunday he rose from the dead and floated off into the Clouds (heaven) right?

Well perhaps this weekend would be a good opportunity for Good Christians (and everyone else) to do the same thing with their use of applications.

Take some time this long weekend to experiment with applications that exist in the Cloud, move away from the current old school desktop office applications which tie you down to this mundance existance.

Google Apps including their Spreadsheet, Word Processor and Presentation applications will allow you to work with all of your documents online, through your browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox), from any computer that is online. You can import existing documents, you can easily redownload them again, export to PDF, even share and collaborate with others.

The future is in the cloud, don't be afraid! Give it a try!

If you can get comfortable with using these application, and you move the majority of your working documents, email, etc, into the cloud, then you have the freedom to use whatever operating system you want, you can get out from under Microsoft and being to use free, open source software like Linux. When you're shackled to Microsoft Office, that's not an easy decision to make.  ¶ 10:42 AM 0 comments

  Nokia n800 Internet Tablet Overview This article will provide an overview of Nokia's n800 Internet Table device with my opinions based on several days of use.

First off, what is the Nokia n800?

I suppose you might call it a PDA, or a Pocket PC, basically it's a tiny computer that can fit in your pocket...

Features:
Hardware
Small Form-Factor 75x144x13mm
800 x 480 Resolution Touchscreen
128MB Built-in Memory, SDRAM Support (providing up to 2x8GB (16GB) of Memory Expansion)
Built-in Wifi & Bluetooth Support
Camera
FM Receiver

Software
Runs Linux, Nokia's "OS2008"
Firefox-based Web Browser
Skype
Google Talk Internet Chat
Tons of Available Free Software

What can you do with the n800?
Basically it can do pretty much anything your PC can do...

You can surf the web, the browser works really well, it's quick, also has Flash support. I'd say 95%+ of the web sites I've visited have rendered and worked totally fine. I can play Scrabulous on Facebook! :)
I've also used Skype and it works great as well, both speakers and Microphone are built-in, or you can use the supplied earbud/microphone combo which is also included.
I've installed a eBook reader, so you can use it like a book.
You can listen to the radio, or if you prefer, podcasts...

Best part. This little beauty is only $229CDN right now at Tiger Direct.ca Think of it like a much more flexible and powerful iPod touch :)  ¶ 9:30 PM 0 comments

  Modding a Wii Well, looks like my boys are getting a wii shortly, so time for me to get up to speed on the modding scene and share what I've found...

First off, my old modding guy, Gary from OPA is nowhere to be found, his shop Games In the Beaches has been gone since August 2007, and I can't find any up to date contact info for him...?

So I've found a new guy, based in Brampton, Bovaird & Dixie Rd area. $130 for the current version of the Wii, this is for the d2ckey mod chip - http://www.d2ckey.com/

I've just read an article on how to 'backup' Wii games - http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/471073 - Seems a little dated perhaps, but the funny part is, apparently there are only 4 models of DVD-ROM drive that will work trying to rip Wii DVD's, I happened to have a small stack of CD/R, DVD/R drives on a shelf downstairs that I'd pulled out of older machines that I was throwing away, and guess what? I have one of the LG drives!! This is good news, so it should be fairly straight forward to just rent games from Rogers Video and make copies :)

I'll post up some additional comments/videos after we've got the Wii happening...  ¶ 11:02 PM 0 comments

  The First Help Desk Call   ¶ 11:09 PM 0 comments

  GPS

I've wanted a GPS for years now... I've always gotten a kick out of map software, making routes, playing with Google Earth, finally saw a really good deal on a GPS unit and picked one up.

Just played with it by going for a quick drive tonight, it works great.  Using Microsoft Streets & Trips 2006, it provens both textual and spoken directions, very cool!  I can't wait to go on a road trip now! :)

  ¶ 5:43 PM 0 comments

  tasklist and taskkill XP Command Line

Way back in the day, when I was working at Merrill Lynch, I was introduced to some Unix utilities, ps and kill.  I would use these utilities to identify processes on the traders workstations that were hung, and terminate them.

Windows has had a graphical way to do this for a while, and there were Windows versions of these utilities that came with the resource kit - tslist.exe and kill.exe.

While working on a recent project I needed a way to tell if a process was running, if so, then kill it, so I was digging around to get copies of these utilities when I discovered that XP now has new versions of these utilities built in!

tasklist and taskkill

They basically have the same role as those other command-line utilities!  Try them out, open a Command Prompt and run 'em, tasklist shows you your list of running processes (sort of like Task Manager), and then taskkill can be passed a process ID or program name and it will terminate the process.

  ¶ 11:22 PM 0 comments

  GDrive Shell Extension

http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

This is a super cool little app - freeware, easy to install.

Once installed, it creates a 'GDrive', basically it's a interface that appears under 'My Computer' that links into your Google Mail account, letting you drag 'n drop files in there. 

So you could install this at home, and at work and it's a super easy way to transfer files back & forth! 

  ¶ 11:19 PM 0 comments

  More Nintendo DS Hacking Info Here are some pictures I took for a friend who I recently helped out w/ a Revolution R4. Someone might find these useful...

These are a follow-up to a previous article Hacking the Nintendo DS

Also, here's a great site with lots of info on Nintendo DS ROMS

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  ¶ 6:08 PM 0 comments