Looking for a place to store pictures and share with family and friends? Most online sites have restrictions and limit the space that you have. Google’s Picassa offers 1 Gigabyte of space for picture storage for free. You can learn more or sign up here.
You can get their free Picassa software for managing your photos on your own computer here:
http://picasa.google.com/#utm_source=en-us-more&utm_campaign=en-pic&utm_medium=et
Stephen
This article came out today on www.itbusiness.ca on 101 freebies for your computer. It lists some software and web based services that are free and can come in handy. Going over the software in the first part of the article I found loads of software that I have used and have recommended in the past.
You can see the list here:
http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=42920
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Stephen
A little while ago I posted about podcasts and downloading them. Here are a couple of my favourites. These are both comedy based podcasts and are great for a 5 minutes diversion when you need a laugh. You don’t need an MP3 player to see these (both are video). You can view them on their respective websites or subscribe to them via iTunes free!
Ask a Ninja http://www.askaninja.com
My personal favourite is episode 32! I have laughed out loud every time I have watched it. It is exactly what the title is!
Tiki Bar TV http://www.tikibartv.com
Vancouver based, Dr. Tiki, Johnny Johnny and LaLa come up with drinks to cure what ails you! Some episodes have explicit language, not suitable for children!
I will post more of my favourite podcasts down the road but enjoy these!
Do you have favourites? Let me know by adding a comment! (please note comments are moderated to prevent spam)
Stephen
I read an interesting article today; I almost forgot that Windows Vista included speech recognition. Speech recognition is nothing new, it was available with Office XP and Office 2003 with Windows XP, but now speech recognition comes built into Windows Vista, and it really works! In fact I am writing this entire entry using speech recognition and dictating the post into word. Even Windows Vista home basic comes with speech recognition, you can use it to dictate into your computer or even perform commands a mouse clicks using it. It does take a little bit of getting used to but for the most part it works extremely well.
In fact using speech recognition I can open documents, save documents, change text formatting and more without having to touch the keyboard or mouse.
To use speech recognition in Windows Vista click on your start button, and type speech. You’ll see the speech recognition program appear in the search results. Click on it and the wizard will start and walk you through setting up your microphone, adjusting the levels and starts the tutorial for speech recognition. Tutorial walks you through how to dictate into your computer, how to control applications and how to issue voice commands. If you ever run into problems all you have to remember is to say “What can I say”. This will open up the help for speech recognition. Under control panel and the speech options you can trade the system even further.
Like I said earlier, I have done this entire post using speech recognition. I had to touch the keyboard a few times but that was more because of my own screw ups then problems with speech recognition and recognizing what I am saying. I am sure that dictation will only get better as the computer learns the way I speak and the words that I commonly use. But so far it has been really neat to be able to dictate this in as opposed to try to type everything myself. I think for the first time that I have used it it has done a very admirable job, it has been slightly slower than me typing everything in but the mainly because I am still learning the system and it is still learning me.
I will update my experiences with voice recognition as I use it more and more often.
In fact I have even use speech recognition to go back through this post and correct things that I found wrong again without touching the keyboard.
Stephen
I have to admit I am hooked. Although Podcasts have been around for some time now I have really gotten into them. What is a Podcast? To put it simply it is an Audio or Video file that you can listen to. It can be a round table discussion or an interview like I TV show. There are many podcasters out there that use it as a blog. You can listen to the file on your PC or transfer it to an MP3 player. You do however require a Video capable player if you want to watch Video podcasts on your player.
I have found a few Podcasts that have caught my interest. There are some very good technology based ones as well I have some Astronomy based ones. Using the include ZenCast software that came with my Creative Zen Vision M 30 GB players I can set up subscriptions, automatically update them from the web, and download the audio files to my PC. After that I sync them to my Creative Player so that I can listen to them anywhere at any time. Most RSS Reader Software will also let you subscribe to podcasting feeds (including IE7), the only problem is that it may be a manual transfer to your player, which shouldn’t be a big deal if you know how to transfer music.
You can try Googling for podcasts for any subject you may be interested in, check the results to see if there are any podcasts that you might be interested in, for example you could use the terms astronomy podcasts . You might be surprised at what you find as there are podcasts for virtually any subject you may be interested.
If you don’t already have an MP3 player this may be the reason to get one!
Stephen
A little while ago when I was playing with the Office 2007 beta I noticed a great feature in Word 2007 that I could actually publish blog entries directly from Word. I tried it and it worked but I found I couldn’t post a category and it didn’t look quite right so I never used it again. Today while sitting in a Hotel I decided to give it another try. Well guess what. The interface seems to work better with WordPress (my site’s blogging software), So I am trying to post it again. Yes now I can even add categories.
If this works well I can actually post more as I’ll be able to do them offline as well and publish when I get a connection!
That’s it for now
I finally got Windows Home Server Beta 2 installed. On the machine I wanted to run it on it took several hours as it was hanging. Finally performing a Bios update on the machine got the software installed. This machine just meets the minimum specs so it will be interesting to see how it performs on it. I also installed it on Virtual PC 2007 while I was testing the downloaded images. It seems to work fine there and I will be reporting more after a few more tests. Now it is late and I am off to bed
 Stephen
Stephen
We have just received word that we have been invited into the Windows Home Server Beta 2.0Â Program by Microsoft. As I post this I am downloading the software to set up my first Windows Home Server. While it is anticipated that this will be sold as a complete hardware/software solution, we are getting the opportunity to try it in a PC that we have kicking around.
It is somewhat unusual for most Beta programs, but we have been granted the right to public disclose and discuss this product. This means I will post the trials and tribulations of Beta testing software here on the blog, after reporting issues back to Microsoft.
What is Windows Home Server? I discussed it in my previous post regarding backups, but it is proposed as a headless hardware/software appliance device that will connect to a users home network and do file and printer sharing, security checks and network health monitoring etc. It is based on Windows Server 2003 technologies. At this point I am still unsure if it will be available as a software only product.
Keep checking this blog out for updates!
Stephen
Like most home theatre owners we had a problem with remote controls. With our older TV we could get away with 2 remotes most times and needed a third at times. Our TV, DVD Player and Audio system were all controlled from one remote (all Sony Products) but our Motorola HD Digital Cable Box had it’s own remote as did our Linksys Media Center Extender. There were also separate remotes for the TV, DVD Player and Pioneer DVD Recorder. But these were rarely used. I suppose I could have configured one of the other remotes to add some of the functionality of one of the other devices but it didn’t give us all the control we needed.
Then we upgrade the TV to one from a different manufacturer. This created more problems as now we had at least 3 and sometimes 4 or 5 remotes. As well, with a couple of young children, we were always looking for one or the other remotes as they were behind the couch, under blankets etc. Because I set everything up I knew what combination of inputs were required on the different devices in order to watch a certain device. Anyone visiting the house and trying to just turn on the TV would be lost!
Enter the Logitech Harmony remote series. These have been out for a few years and they are fairly expensive. There are several remotes in the line going from Touch Pad screens down to a standard remote type. The premise with these remotes is that they are truly universal. Why? Becuase you program them via the internet from your computer and then download the code into the remote via a USB cable. There are thousands of devices available to be programmed on their web database.
For our home I decided upon the Harmony 880 Remote (available for 209.00). This remote features a LCD screen, a rechargable Lithium Ion battery, charger, AC Adaptor, software and usb cable. The charger itself is a flat device that sits on the a table and holds the remote level while charging so you can use it if your batteries run down. The disadvantage is that you need a coffee table with a power outlet nearby so that you can recharge the battery without having to put it in a another room.
When the remote arrived I pulled it from it’s packaging and read the instructions (yes I actually did). You have to put in the battery and charge the remote prior to programming it. I installed the software on Windows XP without any hitches. Once the remote was charged I plugged it into the PC via usb and it was immediately recognized. You start the up software and set up an account with Logitech. Then a wizard walks you through the process of adding activities and devices.
The first step is setting up all the devices that you have. Before starting I would suggest that you jot down the model numbers and manufacturers for all of the components you want to add. You add all of the devices you want to control (you can add others later). Once this is done the software starts to set up your activities. For example to Watch my TV, it walks you through what input the TV has to be on, do you use the TV speakers or an Audio reciever, do you use a Digital or Satellite box etc. It also asks what inputs all the devices have to be on to accomplish the task. Once you have answered all of the questions and set up all of the activities you want to do, you download the programming into the remote and try it out. With our home theatre, now pushing the Watch my TV activity button, turns on the TV and set’s it to the proper input, turns on the Audio Receiver and sets it to the proper input and turns on the Digital Cable box. From the remote we can control most of the basic and some of the more advanced controls without having to push or switch the remote to a differnt device. Pressing the off button shuts off all of the devices as well. To change to another activity push the button for it, Watch my DVD, for example and the inputs are switched, the DVD player is turned on and away you go. After you hit the activity button a help window pops up and asks if everything was turned on properly, if you select yes it asks to hide the help function or if something didn’t work it asks you questions and help troubleshoot the problem. The remote has most of the common buttons programmed to use the most of the features you will need during the activity, but if you still need more control you can push the device button and, select a device and work with virtually any button for the selected device. Via the software these controls can be changed or more added, remapped or removed. In addition using the software if your device is not available in the database you can add it by using the two remotes and having the Harmony learn the controls.
I programmed my remote for the following activities. Watch my TV (Digital Cable Box) Watch my DVD, Watch my Media Center, Record TV on DVD Recorder. I downloaded the programming and went upstairs to test it out. I pushed the activity button and voila everything turned on properly. Then I pushed the watch my media center and the TV switched inputs as did the Audio Receiver and the Media Center Extender came on. It worked perfectly on every device I set up. The only beef I had was that it turned off unused devices when I switched activities, which was a pain because my Media Center Extender has to connect back through the network to the Media Center PC after it is powered off, which can take a couple of minutes. This was fixed easily using the settings online to leave devices on and re downloading the code into the remote. For some people this may not be a problem but for us we will often decide to record a program and have to switch to the MCE device to start the recording.
I was doing this late at night on a Friday, so I put the old remotes away and just left the Harmony out. The next morning my wife and kids were up before me and SWMBO figured out with no difficulties how to use the TV and she is not very technical.
One thing that can happen that the remote can come out of sync with your devices. For us it does not happen often as we only use the single remote now and just about everything we do is solely based on the activities. The remote remembers the status of a device (powered on or off) so if you happen to use another remote to power off the device and then go to the Harmony remote it will usually do the opposite of what you want. So if I power off the DVD player manually after watching a movie, then hit the off button it will turn everything off and then turn the DVD player back on. If this happens just shut everything down and use the Harmony remote to turn it back on or off again.
Battery life. We get about 4 to 5 days off of a single charge. Usually when we get the battery low indicator we put the remote on the charger as we head off to bed. So this has not been an issue.
Since flipping over to Vista I have installed the software and it seems to run fine (although it needs basic mode), I have not yet needed to reprogram the remote so I haven’t connected it back up yet but will be doing that soon to look for firmware.
In the month we have been using it has it been worth it? For us yes! Since we don’t get out much and DVDs and recorded TV are our usual weekend entertainment the Harmony 880 has made things much easier. Could we live with out it? Yes but then we would have the clutter of 3 to 4 remotes and the frustration of finding these when the kids knocked one behind the couch. Could this be accomplished with a regular Universal remote? Yes it probably could, but not to the same degree of control I have now, and adding a new device in the future is fairly easy. Another thing that is great is the fact that we can control the Set top Digital box, the audio receiver, and the TV without having to set the device type on the remote or flipping a switch as I have seen on some remotes.
There are several models of Harmony to choose from and they start at about 129.00 and go up to 500.00. Visit Logitechs website if you are interested at http://www.logitech.com and check out the different models. Some work with the Xbox 360 and other consoles as well. Let us know if you are interested and we can track down a price for you for any model.
Stephen
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