The Casual Tech

For years, Firefox has been the browser of choice here. It started as a love affair with tabbed browsing that continued to flourish with each new extension and add on. The built-in spell checker was a constant reminder of how deep the love really was. I just read a book about this intense, passionate affair between two people that ended in tragedy because the male character had an extremely dark side. And while the affair with Firefox didn’t end in tragedy, it did end and it was because of its dark side. You see, Firefox has this problem with leaking memory that would drive me crazy numerous times a day, every single day. I wanted to enjoy all of the things I knew Firefox was capable of, but it was frustrating having to close down and restart the entire browser on a repeated basis.

A friend recommended Flock a few weeks ago, and as frustrating as the Firefox experience was turning into, I didn’t think the answer was a new browser. It turns out I was wrong. After reading a review on TechCrunch for Firefox 3 Beta 1 that had a huge plug for Flock’s lack of a memory leak, I decided I was going to take the plunge. I’m so glad I did. Flock has all of the things I loved about Firefox (since it’s built on the same rendering engine), plus a few new features I didn’t even know I was missing with none of the dark side. Opening 20-30 tabs doesn’t mean I will be restarting the browser soon because its memory use has spiked, tripling and even quadrupling that of other high powered applications like Photoshop.

Flock is touted as the social media browser – when you first load it up, you’re prompted to configure the browser to recognize all of your accounts such as Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, del.ico.us, and Photobucket. I don’t think I’ve completely tapped into the true power of the social media aspect of this browser just yet, but I’ve been enjoying the integration and ease of connecting to my favorite sites.

The eleven Firefox extensions (or addons) I was using (Ad Block, Firebug, Forecast Fox, Greasemonkey, IE Tab, Picnik, SearchStatus, Stumble Upon, TabMixPlus, TwitterFox and Web Developer) work beautifully with Flock. Although I would have liked the ability to export my Firefox extensions to import them into Flock, this move gave me a chance to dump a few extensions I wasn’t really using anyway.

Importing my Bookmarks into Flock went smooth, although I didn’t initially like that all of my imports were in their own folder instead of sitting at the root of the Favorites menu. It took a couple of days debating on rearranging using the Favorites Manager before I decided I actually liked how they were set up. One thing I don’t like is the way Flock handles adding a new Favorite. Firefox asked me where I wanted each new Bookmark to go, but Flock takes some configuring before it will mimic that behavior.

My biggest complaint about Flock was the way it handled new tab events. Some times a new tab would open to the right of the tab it originated from, some times it would open as the last tab on the right, some times it would open to the left of the tab it originated from – it was all pretty random and confusing. To make matters worse, the new tab’s text didn’t always stay red to make it easy to find. This was enough to make me seriously contemplate which was worse – the memory leak or the faulty tab behavior. Thankfully, I didn’t have to contemplate long because I came across a fix for the tabs thing.

If you want all of your new tabs to open to the right of all other open tabs, do this:

• In the browser’s address bar, type “about:config” (without the quotes).
• Find the setting for “browser.tabs.openNewTabsOnTheRight” and set it to True (double click on it)

Voila! Tabs behaving the way you’d expect them to. So far all new tabs have been opening with the red text and staying that way, as well. Hopefully the Flock developers add the ability to change this via some more obvious menus soon.

Have you been having a problem with Firefox’s memory leak issue, but love everything else about the browser? Are you into social networking? I’d highly recommend making the switch to Flock!

The internet has brought so many great innovations into our lives, both personally and professionally. When we lived overseas on military assignment in the late 90’s, many of our colleagues spent hundreds of dollars per month on telephone bills because the rates to call back to the United States were so high. We avoided those costs because we took advantage of web conferencing to stay in contact with our friends and family back home. Not only did we not have to pay outrageous sums of money to stay in touch, we also were able to see our loved ones since we utilized video capabilities as well.

It turns out we were ahead of our time back then, as we learned from our business associates once we came back stateside and left the military behind for the business world. When I had my first web conference at work, I was already very familiar with the technology and the software, which went a long way towards impressing my boss. It led to me organizing and leading many web seminars for our department when we communicated with vendors.

The same cost benefits that we experienced while living overseas are being realized by the business world today when they take advantage of this technology. Web conferencing means no airfare, gas, toll, hotel or other travel related costs and no long distance phone call rates. Even when commuting with a few people, travel expenses can sky rocket – and how frustrating that must be when the result of a visit does not end in a sale. Smart companies are regularly using web conferencing as a means to connect with potential customers while paying close attention to the bottom line. If the meeting doesn’t result in a sale, much less is lost.

Have you taken advantage of web conferencing either personally or professionally? What were your experiences with it? Mine have been mostly positive – I’d be interested to hear your views.

I’m a big fan of anything that helps me do my daily tasks more efficiently. I’m also a lover of all things that I deem geeky-cool. Greasemonkey, a Firefox extension, is definitely high up there on the cool factor. Greasemonkey gives you the ability to run nifty little scripts that run the gamut from neat tricks to complete essentials that you wonder how you lived without. I was first turned onto Greasemonkey while using Flickr. I saw someone responding to other users’ comments, referencing each user’s icon in their replies. I had to know how it was done, and from there, a Greasemonkey disciple was born. More on the Flickr trick later.

To experience the Greasemonkey goodness yourself, start out with this great article on LifeHack which lists the Top 10 Greasemonkey scripts to increase productivity. My favorite from that list is probably the Gmail attachment reminder [link goes directly to JS file, you'll need Greasemonkey installed first to use]. How many times have you crafted a great email, checked and double-checked the spelling and grammar, made sure all the correct recipients were listed, mentioned the attached file and then clicked send without actually attaching said file? We’ve all done it. This extension puts an end to that nonsense.

Okay, back to my favorite Flickr trick.

• First, you have to make sure you’re running Firefox. (If you’re not using Firefox, we need to talk.)
• Next, ensure Greasemonkey is installed.
• Last, get the Flickr Buddy Icon Reply script and install it.
• Start replying with buddy icons on Flickr! Fun! You can see a screen shot of this in action on LifeHacker.

Technorati Tags: Greasemonkey, Flickr, Firefox, Firefox extensions

I am sure I am not the only IT Manager that is struggling to find robust tools that can help with asset management, networking stats and help desk functionality. Budgets get tight and it is nearly impossible to find something that is well suited for your needs without the Accountant Gods coming down and shutting down the cash flow to purchase a decent product.

Last summer, I was reading a trade mag, (Network World) and I was reading this great story about a start up company that believed they could set up a very cool web-based product that could give you help desk functionality, asset management, and basic network statistics. The company is called Spiceworks.

I was cautious when I first saw the site. Who is going to give out a tool that does so much for free??? Well they do have a catch, but it is very minimal. You can install the software and then run the web console in under 3 minutes. When you start the configuration you will notice on the right hand side, there are ads for technology products and services. I was nervous. Will I get pop ups? Will there be any downloading of unknown content? NONE OF THESE! In the privacy terms for Spiceworks, you can see they download stats that are basic and not specific to your network. It is just for statistical purposes.

After installing this on a network monitor server, I ran the console and set up the network configuration. I am now on my way. I run the scan and it starts to discover your network assets.

I have to say I am blown away. The web console has so many different tools on it. You can see a summary panel that tells you how many network devices you have on the network. If you mouse over the items, it pops up some cool stats in flash. We use Landesk at our company and I am not very pleased with it. When you run this Spiceworks tool, it does about 60 percent of what Landesk does, only better and for no cost at all!!

Some of the features are;

* Inventory and report on your company’s hardware and software assets automatically.
* Monitor and troubleshoot the hardware and software on your network.
* Run an IT Help Desk for your company that’s easy to use.

Check out the site and download it for your company network. It is not an enterprise tool, but for those companies that need a product that is robust and does not break the bank. This is a winner!

Technorati Tags: Spiceworks, Networking, network tools, help desk software, asset management

I have been a Microsoft fan for nearly 20 years now. I have never bought into the arguments and the debates about Microsoft being a “Evil” company and so on. I felt Microsoft was smart in the 80’s and 90’s and built an empire on making a very “nerd” like world into something the common person can use. I have now been an IT Manager for nearly 5 1/2 years now and I have been using Microsoft products for our company. In the last two years, I have begun to get frustrated with Microsoft. The Security issues, the lack of tabbed browsing in the Internet Explorer product and Outlook becoming such a complicated product with pretty much the same features since 2000.

I began using Firefox Browser about a year ago and I have not turned back since. I love it. Very flexible, pop ups are virtually non existing and the extensions and add ons are very useful and easy to use.

I have just downloaded Thunderbird. This is a full featured mail client which for the most part to the common user, would relate and work just like Outlook in basic form. It is easy to use, the application is stripped down and does not try to be an all in one product.

I have noticed you can import your Outlook client settings easily like Firefox does for Internet Explorer. Also, Thunderbird works with Active Directory for exchange server access. I am going to test this thoroughly and possibly use this for now on. I think for a company that does not want to spend lots of money on licenses, this may be a viable option!

Good Evening to you all! I finally sat down and installed the RC2 version of Vista this evening. I had an HP 9600US Laptop with a 3.06 Intel processor with 2 gigs of RAM and 128 Video RAM. The hard drive was an 80 gig HD. I started by formating the HD with Vista. WOW, what an improvement from the old DOS looking GUI from the past versions. This was quick too. I was able to delete and create a new partition in less then a minute. What a nice change. I then formatted the HD. I then hit a few buttons and we were off installing Vista. This is by far the easiest installation you can possibly do.

Within 45 minutes I had a complete OS, personal setting as completed and then installed Windows Office 2007 beta.

If you have enough memory and video memory you will see that the Aero “3D Glass” theme for your windows is very cool looking. I do not beleive Microsoft has any leg up on Apple, but I do believe it is much more advanced then it has been in the past with it’s bland colors and boring visual effects.

Another cool visual app that Microsoft has now included with Vista is the Windows switcher. If you click on the switcher ICON in your Quick launch, it then sets all your windows in a 3d looking organized pile and you can select the primary window to work on. It is quite neat.

If you are a corporate company user, this new OS is not exactly going to make your life any easier at all. According to Gartner, only 5% of corporate users will have Vista on their PC’s by the end of 2007. Vista will not surpass XP as the primary OS on PC’s until 2010. This is not something Microsoft likes to hear. The OS is a great improvement, but XP has been so stable for so long, many are still recovering from 98/2000 and they challenges that presented itself then. Why mess with a good thing. Microsoft will more then likely force you to Vista by stopping support for XP in the near future.

If you are going to use Vista, do me a favor! Format C and start fresh! If you do an upgrade, expect to take about 3 hours for the complete process to complete and risk a possibility of problems. A good clean install will give you a better chance of a good expeirience with Vista!