I recently came across this article on how to de-clutter your mail box, specifically my postal paper mail. We get about a bin full of mail that we just recycle. We tend to recycle as much as we can. Our trash pickup costs $3.00 per bag, yes $3.00, and recyling is free. Take a look and let me know what you think, I will keep you updated.

De-cluttering

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If you are interested in keeping your computer safe, do what I do, use the following pieces of software:

SpyBot Search & Destory - excellent free malware removal and prevention  www.safer-networking.org
Avast Home Edition - excellent anti virus, free for home users www.avast.com
Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware - is an excellent free malware detection and removal tool, http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
more to come...

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I am on a Virgin America flight - right now - typing this blog entry via onboard wifi. Very cool. I am using GoToMyPC to access my office PC. My IP address is: Your IP: 12.130.118.3 Near: Itasca, Illinois United States (this info is courtousey of DNSstuff.com). I am not able to use anything but pure HTTP and HTTPS. I tried to make an RDP connection but no go. Attempting to make an SSH connection into servers also failed. But I can most everything I need to do via what I have here. There is a standard power outlet at my seat, in coach, so I have all the power I need! Ver cool.

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Amazon has announced the new Kindle. I think it might be time to consider getting one. I say might because it, in my oppinion, costs too much for blogs. When I first checked into the Kindle I wanted to use it read all of the blogs and web pages I keep up with, but quickly learned that blog subscriptions cost money. Eek.

Then I came across this article on MakeUseOf.com

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/kindlefeeder-kindle-app-pushes-feeds-kindle-free/

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Backup is very important. Having files on an external hard disk is not backup unless you store that disk at an alternate location. I use Mozy. Mozy is a service owned by EMC, which backs up your files to their data center over your Internet connection. It works with both Windows and Macintosh. It works well. By the way- did I mention it is free? You can backup up to 2 gigabytes for free. Just sign up.

2GB Totally Free Online Backup! Compliments of Mozy and Paul Parisi.com

Mozy Unlimited Backup - $4.95/Month

You can get an additional 10% discount by entering the code JUNE at checkout when you buy the Unlimited Backup!!!

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We are at an inflection point in our lifetimes. The Internet is broken, seriously broken. Why is it broken you ask? The root cause is trust, that there is trust built into the fabric of the Internet. Each “part” that works in the Internet trusts the other parts, think DNS, BGP and the like. When these were designed they were all designed in a framework where they could trust each other. I co-opted Ronald Reagan’s phrase of “trust but verify” for a previous company I started which was involved in corporate email forensics, that we should trust our corporate email users but be able to verify what is passing thru that system. Almost all of the systems currently in use on the Internet are based on implicit trust. This has to change. The problem is that these systems are so embedded in our everyday lives that it would be, sort of like, changing gravity, very difficult. There are many things that can be done and are being done, but the fact is they are almost all “band-aids” and do not really offer any substantial lurch forward. Or we could really fix it, how about we start with not allowing spoofed IP packets to be routed by ISP’s, this would go a long way toward reducing the risk, of course so would IPv6 and DNSSEC. But until something radical is done we should say “Houston, we have a problem”! So, as I said in a recent TV interview, if you are concerned about privacy, identity theft and the like, simply don’t use the Internet. I am out of time for now; I need to go check my bank balance…

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TeraCopy is a nifty little Windows utility which greatly improves file copy, and move, performance. Check it out at http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php. I like it enough to have bought the Pro copy to support the developers.

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Adobe Photoshop 6 and 7 are better than Photoshop CS and CS2? What? Huh?

Well not really, but one thing that version 6 and 7 did have, but was eliminated from CS and CS2, is the ability for Windows XP to display thumbnails of PSD images.

Since I had installed CS, and subsequently CS2, I noticed that I could no longer get thumbnail images to appear in Windows XP. I recently had a bit of time and tracked down the issue. Apparently, some people have had trouble with the thumbnail functionality so Adobe removed that feature. I have not had any real trouble with it. So I found out how to fix it.

Here is how to restore the thumbnail functionality. Download the thumbfix.exe or thumbfix.zip file from my web site and extract the files to a new folder. Copy the “psicon.dll” file to the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell folder. Once that is done, double click on the “ThumbsForCS2.reg” file if you are running CS2 or the “ThumbsForCS.reg” file if you are running CS. This will prompt you with a dialog box similar to the following:

Are you sure you want to add the information in ThumbsForCS2.reg to the registry?

Click Yes

You should see the following dialog:

Information in ThumbsForCS2.reg has been successfully entered into the registry. Click Ok.

This .reg file tells Windows how to use the “psicon.dll” file.

You should now have Thumbnails once again!

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What is your quest? My quest is to find the OS, the one OS to rule them all. Over the past twenty years I have been an avid Mac and PC user running both much of the time. About eight years ago I started using the PC most of the time, but the Mac was still nearby, on the next table, running Windows XP as my desktop. When Vista came out, I tried it and while I loved the new “eye-candy”, it had some idiosyncrasies. Mostly it seemed keen on making me wait. ; “Not Responding” seemed to be its mantra. So I began my quest for something better.

This was about the time when Windows Server 2008 was releasing so I did some research and with great expectation installed it as my workstation. Everything I read said it was everything Vista should have been but it was “stable”. It installed well and things seemed promising. After a few weeks I began to get pauses again. So much so, that I thought it must be a hardware problem. I created a diagnostic CD and ran a “level-1” diagnostic for a day - no problems were found! This was ridiculous. Now I have to tell you that this is my work computer. At home I had installed Windows XP x64 at about the same time I abandoned Vista and that has been going along just fine. Everything seems to be working well at home. So what should I do?, I thought. Being of the opinion that the “grass is always greener” and the utopian view that some other technology will be just great, I decided to take the plunge and install Linux on my work computer, Ubuntu 8 to be precise. So how did that work out for me? It’s been two weeks and it seems ok, it seems stable. Only a couple of times did it lose its mind, but at least it came back. I’m still waiting for the dust to settle, but I think this might just be a workable OS on my work computer. But…

Since we use Exchange as our corporate email server and I have been using Outlook Web Access with Firefox 3. While it is usable it is nowhere near as good as Outlook itself. I have a love hate relationship with Outlook; I love the functionality but I hate its sluggishness, talk about “Not Responding”. But its utility trumps its bad attitude. I did try Evolution and it is surprisingly good but not good enough. OWA is not great in Firefox, but it is more reliable than Evolution. I tried to use OpenOffice but it doesn’t work as well as Office 2003 or Office 2007. So I got WINE working and installed Office 2003 under Ubuntu.

I find that now I am doing less with my computer (in some ways because I am less familiar with how to do things in Ubuntu) and doing less seems to directly contribute to greater reliability. But since I am very used to Microsoft applications and can be very productive with them, I’m considering going back to Windows. Heck, Windows works pretty well, well except for Vista – so maybe I will switch to Windows XP x64 here at work. What do you think? Give me your advice, comments are welcome.

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Digital Photography Presentations

Inside the Digital Darkroom - Version 4.1 - May 2006

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