Home & Small Office Computer Guide

Well, after a couple of days down in the salt mines working on the pilot for a major project a client wants us to undertake I’m back. That project has taught me a lot and before we get started on the full version of the project we’re going to have to upgrade two of the computers, add a fourth monitor and re-arrange the office but I’ll talk more about that another time.

One thing I noticed in those couple of days when I was almost right out of the loop is that I need an appointment calendar for the computer. Something that will pop up and remind me of things I have to do.

I think that’s a problem that many small business or home business people have. Sure you can make a note of them in your diary … but then you have to discipline yourself to keep on checking your diary.

You can write them on sticky notes … but they have a tendency to fall off wherever you stuck them and the appointment is forgotten.

If you work in front of your computer all day you can always use Outlook to remind you … that of course depends on whether you use Outlook or even want to have it installed on your computer.

If you’re one of those fiercely independent people that don’t want to use outlook then here are links to two little programmes that definitely do look interesting.

The first is AnnoMate and it describes itself as “an online personal organizer featuring calendars, contacts, photo albums, file storage, to-do lists, invitations, bookmarks, grouple sharing and more.”

It comes with a thirty day free trial and from then on it’s $3.95 a month or $29.87 a year.

The second is Rainlendar and it describes itself as “a customisable calendar that displays the current month.” Its features include the ability to synchronize between several clients, localized for multiple languages, shows an alarm when an event is due and it also includes a to-do list.

It appears to be free although a donation via Paypal is requested.

I have no affiliation with either of these products and I have not had a chance to try either of them. I simply offer them to you based on the recommendations of others that I work with.

ATP Electronics Inc. has announced the release of its USB ToughDrive. The ToughDrive is a high speed USB 2.0 flash drive sporting a stylish, yet functional rubber housing. Water resistant and extremely shock resistant, the ToughDrive also features a 30MB/s data transfer speed for faster file transfers and seamless multimedia streaming.

The ToughDrive was designed with the main goal of performance along with functionality for users in a variety of environments. Its robust, rubber housing offers protection from water and moisture, as well as shock absorption from accidental drops and other rough treatment. Grip lines along with this texture are intended to make the ToughDrive extremely easy to grip while maintaining a slim, compact size storable in any pocket or purse.

The ToughDrive has been designed with DuraSkin construction. DuraSkin is a protective compound layer which completely encompasses all internal components, offering a second layer of protection against extreme temperatures, and additional protection against the elements.

The ToughDrive data transfer speed of 200X or 30MB/sec is designed for high quality multimedia streaming and less lag time for file transfers. Using the same high quality flash components as ATP flash cards, the ToughDrive also offers a read and write lifetime ten times longer than other standard USB flash drives.

The ATP USB ToughDrive will be available everywhere in the capacities of 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, and 2GB in the middle of September. Look for a 4GB ToughDrive to be available soon.

If you’ve been wandering around places where computers are sold you may have noticed that in the last 12 months or so there has been a quiet revolution going on. The good old CRT monitor that have known and loved since last century has gone and in it’s place there are all those bright, shiny and big flat screen monitors.

That doesn’t mean that the bulky old monitors have gone from homes across the world, it just means that no one is selling them as part of a computer system any more. I’m sure that most of the people who are reading this are able to do so thanks to a CRT monitor.

However, let me suggest that if you are you really should be thinking of pensioning that old monitor off. You might think that it’s still working fine but I can tell you that image quality degrades as the monitor ages. You won’t notice it because you live with it every day but it is happening.

You also need to think about getting rid of that old monitor because they are a definite health hazard. They emit harmful radiation that, over time, can have a terrible effect on your health.

And you also need to think about ditching that old monitor simply because of its size. It takes up a huge amount of room on any desk and you won’t believe how much space suddenly becomes available when you pension off that old monitor.

Just in case you don’t believe me on the space issue here is a picture of my workspace. Don’t be put off by the three monitors - that’s a productivity thing that I’ll talk about some other time - but as you can see I have three flatscreen monitors and each of them is a 17″ model.

If I still had to rely on my old chunky CRT’s I would only be able to fit two monitors on there and I would lose a lot of the desk space that I currently have.

Finally the cost of flat screen monitors has come down in the last few months to the point where they really are affordable. Here in Australia you can pick up a new 17″ flat screen monitor for around $300 and when you do buy one you will wonder how you ever managed to live without it.

Just recently Toni bought a PDA for the business. We had both found that there were times when we were just sitting around, away from the office just waiting. At times like that a something small to use to start articles, jot notes and even write emails would be invaluable and so she bought a PDA.

It has proven itself to be everything we had hoped it to be and we haven’t regretted the purchase for a moment.

At the time we didn’t buy any accessories for our PDA simply because we didn’t know that there were any but I just found PDA Den on the web and the range of accessories is amazing. If you want specialised accessories for most brands of PDA this looks like the place to go - and they ship world wide too

There are some new critical updates now available for Firefox so if your browser isn’t telling you that already perhaps it’s time to head over to the Firefox homepage and grab them for yourself.

Wireless Cables, Inc. has announced the release of its AIRcable HiFi Headset, which lets users listen to streaming music from their PCs via a wireless Bluetooth® USB “blade” that requires no setup or installation.

The lightweight, cable-free and hands-free design looks to be ideal for office workers, travelers, or home users who want to tune into their personal music or videos. In addition, the AIRcable HiFi Headset serves double-duty as a convenient cell phone headset.

The headset is truly a “plug-and-play” wireless accessory that is compatible with computers running Microsoft® Windows® 2000 XP, Apple® Macintosh® Mac OS®, and Linux. Bluetooth software is embedded in the hardware, the USB blade.

Users simply plug the blade into the USB port, and the device appears as a new speaker set on their desktops. The AIRcable HiFi Headset gives users immediate access to music and videos, and even acts as a mobile phone headset with its built-in microphone. The device can also be set to receive incoming calls automatically or manually while the user is listening to music.

The headset works as an audio headset with two new Samsung cell phones—Samsung SGH-i300 and Samsung SGH-D600 models—which support the MP3 audio player and Bluetooth A2DP. These innovative and versatile new mobile phones can be used as music players, complete with stereo.

The AIRcable HiFi Headset, which normally retails for $199.00 is available for a limited time for $149.00. It can be purchased at online at www.aircables.net.

Features include

* Streams music from your PC instantly
* Works with any A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) music source that distributes high quality music content such as MP3 files
* No software to install
* Simple-to-use 5-way control button
* Mobile phone headset/stereo audio functionality (stereo audio compatible with Samsung SGH-i300and the Samsung SGH-D600 cell phones)
* Switches to mobile phone mode automatically or manually when calls come in
* Rechargeable long-lasting Lithium-Polymer battery
* Comfortable, light-weight headband
* Compatible with Microsoft Windows 2000, XP; Mac OS; and Linux

Earlier this week I had a big rant about Firefox and mentioned that I thought I might return to Internet Explorer. Well I haven’t done that just yet but I noticed today that I was spending a whole lot more time using than I was using Firefox.

And now maybe I might try something else instead of returning totally to IE. I’ve just read over on Home Office Voice that Opera is now free.

I tried Opera a year or so ago and found that I quite liked it but I couldn’t handle the advertising. You see if you wanted the free version you had to put up with advertising and if you wanted to be free of that you had to shell out $39.00. That’s not a big amount I know but … well … like most people I’m always drawn to anything that’s free.

Anyway Opera is now free and you can find it right here

Thanks for the pointer Martin.

It still appals me just how many people have absolutely no idea about how to protect their computers. I’m not talking about protecting them from theft but about the damage that comes from inadvertently downloading trojans or viruses.

Quite often when we’re down at our friend’s computer shop we see at several peoplen come in with their computer tucked under their arm to have it fixed. It might be running slow or they can no longer connect to the net and sometimes if they can connect they find that their browser has been hijacked and they can’t get to the sites that they want to see.

Invariably a quick scan of the machine turns up some virus or trojan and the owner of the computer is completely mystified as to how it might have got there. They instantly throw up their hands and say that they have never been to a site that might have downloaded something like that to their machine.

It’s quite obvious that they are trying to say that they have never been to an adult site because they are the only ones that could possibly do such terrible things to their machines - or so they think. And sometimes they are genuine, they really haven’t been visiting any naughty sites but that doesn’t matter one little bit.

It’s not just adult sites that can drop those nasty things on your machines. There are quite a few mainstream marketing sites and even just general sites that will do exactly the same thing. Quite often you will pick up garbage like that when you respond to some free offer for smilies or similar things and at other times all you have to do is just click on a link.

Quite often the computer owners will declare that they have Nortons or this or that anti-virus software installed and they just don’t know how something like that could have got through.

Well the fact of the matter is that most anti-virus software is not half as good as you might think it is. There is a lot of hype and hoop-la used to sell anti-virus software and most of it is little more than smoke and mirrors.

Right now the very best anti-virus software that is available is called Kaspersky. You can find it at http://www.kaspersky.com.

You can do a free online scan of your machine (although that does take some time) or you can download a trial version that will last for a month. After that you will have to pay a very reasonable amount for a year’s subscription.

Kaspersky will scan your machine and your incoming email and it will also update itself three times a day so it is far more current and up to date than most of the junk that people think will keep them protected.

We use it on all of our machines and surf a wide variety of sites every day of the week. We have had only one minor problem since we installed it. And at the time we first installed it and it ran its initial scan it found a virus in an attachment that had come in an email three years before and was archived on one of the machines.

Several other anti virus programmes that people often recommend had missed that attachment but not Kaspersky.

We have a friend who runs a small computer business that specialises in custom built machines and computer repairs and from time to time we’re down there talking computers while he works on the machines that come in for repairs.

And I have to tell you that some of them are amazing. It’s quite common to see machines full of dirt and I mean with thick dust on the floor of the case and fan vents choked with thick fluff. Quite often we see computers where parts of the motherboard have been corroded by mouse urine and the list just goes on.

Computers are not as robust as they may look. They do need some care and some cleaning from time to time. You should never have the computer sitting on the floor and nor should you have it set up in the car port as guy admitted to our friend. Unused PCI slots at the back of the machine should be kept covered and not left open.

And if you can’t take the time to care for your computer then spare a few minutes to take it to someone who can look after it for you. When they stop working they’re expensive to replace and how much corrosive mouse urine do you think the printed circuits on the motherboard can handle?

There was a time when computer cases were like Model T Fords - you could have any colour you liked as long as it was grey. But like most things on this planet, that’s all changed and gradually computer cases have become fashion statements.

Perhaps the wildest computer cases that I’ve seen on the market today that are within the reach of ordinary mortals like you and me are these cases from NZXT.

If you’re one of those people who love to know what’s happening inside the box then you will love this one. It even comes with a digital display of various internal function.

As you can see they come in a range of colours and there are also 3 or 4 basic designs but the top of the range would have to be the Nemesis Elite.

All these boxes are available in the US, Europe and Australia and if you’re up where we live on the Fraser Coast in Qld then give give Rick at Fraser Coast Computers, a call on (07) 4125 3791 he will be only too happy to sell you one of these bad boys and build a killer game machine to go inside too. (And don’t forget to tell him where you saw one these monsters)

I don’t know, maybe I’m old fashioned but I still like the grey and black machines that sit on my desk. I’m not sure that I could work with something called Nemesis glaring at me all day.