I don’t often go out for Black Friday. I like the idea of deals, but do not like dealing with people. So this year my wife asked to get the nest (nest.com) – The learning thermostat. Lowe’s had the system on sale. So instead of heading to their store with thousands of other people. I got up in the morning and …
Every Time I upgrade my Laptop I take inventory of my bookmarks or Favorites. I tend to get a bit sloppy so I just organize by cleaning house. The one thing I don’t get rid of is my google reader feed and the blogs on that feed. In an attempt to share some links I decided to post a few that …
I have been asked twice from new windows 8 users on how to close an application. I find it funny to think that people have been running apps in the background and not know how to shut them down. There are 3 basic ways to close an app in windows 8: 1. In a Metro app you use your mouse and …
I have been a longtime user of Jing from Techsmith. Until recently this was my go-to software for screen captures or video. I have watched people be amazed when I just take a screen capture circle an area make a comment and upload to screen share. Recently, I have noticed that Jing has become a bit slower and somewhat of a …
I have been doing more mobile web sites recently. My preference has been to use responsive design that allows for any display size. The display size can range from Desktop, TV, tablet or phone. However, I have found it is important to know your target audience and also do testing. Not all browsers are understanding of the @media and HTML5 components. …
I read this article on the Verge this morning regarding ThinkPad turning 20. I was just amazed that it has been around that long. I remember the first ThinkPad I saw. It may have been one of the first laptops I had ever seen. It was this large black square (amazing). Over the years the ThinkPad has evolved, but it still …
I hate toolbars on my browsers. I despise unwanted software, this is why I was very upset recently with a java update that was being installed on my wife’s computer. For some reason the most recent version of Oracle Java has added the McAfee Security Scan into it’s install. I am not sure if it was a java update or the …
I had the need to generate a few GUID’s for a project recently. Because I typically use Visual Studio I had GuidGen available. It is a feature in Visual Studio from (TOOLS > Creat GUID) Because I often have the urge to simplify things, I quickly put together a Guid generator site. This page will generate any number of GUID’s for …
I’ve been pushing to get a lot done outside of work lately. Some deadlines on applications and other technologies. In doing so, I decided it was time to re-do the theme on my blog. I’ll push out more details regarding the theme once it’s done. I figured the only way to make sure that I completed this project was to just …
I was reading an article on gigaom regarding how bandwidth is getting cheaper. http://gigaom.com/2012/08/02/guess-what-bandwidth-is-getting-cheaper/ The article was not about our home or business bandwidth but rather IP transit costs. The cost to move data from one location to another (overseas). The reference the value from a business perspective, if that business buys a lot of bandwidth. Companies like netflix, google, etc… …
A Mashable article states a list of social savvy cities. They list many large cities. grand Rapids is not one of them. However, they do mention that Grand Rapids has a high percentage of small businesses with face book pages (29%) Read the article here – http://mashable.com/2012/05/17/social-savvy-cities/
Dell has just launched a developer focused laptop. The cool thing about this version is that it runs Ubuntu (linux) and is on a 13 inch laptop. (check out the hardware here) The article that I found regarding this was focused on the Sputnik project. I think this is a great start. I’m a fan of small portable computing and the …
When did listening become illegal? After reading this article I got to thinking more about how the concept of wireless is flawed. http://gigaom.com/2012/05/01/google-wi-fi-snooping-and-the-ever-shifting-creepy-line/ As a technology it uses public airwaves to send data. This concept works great when the data is suppose to be freely available. The success of this can be seen with radio and TV. People are able to …
I have been evaluating my broadband connection at home lately. I currently have a cable modem from Comcast. I’ve been a cable modem user since @home. There was short period where I had a $14 DSL line from yahoo but that did not last long. We have recently had service issues in our area based on signal strength. In doing some …
I recently updated my laptop configuration and did some spring cleaning. It was time to re-install the tools and get the machine ready. I do most of my development in Virtual Machines (virtualbox) but I typically have Visual Studio on my local machine for ease of use. I realized that there are a lot of coponents you have to instll to …