The Really Good Computer Blog

OK to start off with I have never really liked drop box. There i said it , its out in the open. you see it has a few limitations that I will not go into at this point but i find that other services of the same vein not only surpass the features but even give over twice as much free space on the begging account. But its the clear winner when it comes to overall saturation and soooo many applications plug into it its untrue which means that I end up using it to satisfy certain applications i use. But there is a new kid on the block, box.net if fresh its young and it seems to making ground on the daddy.

I have tried it out over the last few days and I am very happy the 5Gb of free space is a good start but the simplicity of the web interface is the clear winner for me. Sharing files and folders is also a doddle, and the support for mobile devices is top notch. If like me you are looking for an alternative to the obvious then take a look at box.net you will be very happy you did.

box.net

Whenever the release of a new version of Microsoft Office is imminent, the question I keep getting asked is: “Should I upgrade?” and after many years my answer has almost always been: “That depends.”
Not since the release of Office 97 – however many years ago that was – have the changes to a version of Office been so significant to warrant an unconditional “Yes, upgrade now!
From Office 97 to Office 2003, the accumulation of some minor but useful new features over two or three versions were the main reason to upgrade, but more practical was the need maintain compatibility with other users or other software. Office 2007 changed the game and
looking at Office 2007 more generally, for anyone who needs to use graphics, then the new SmartArt options make the diagrams in earlier versions look very limited and insipid. But Office 2007 wasn’t just about good new functionality. In fact, it wasn’t at all about functionality. Office 2007 was all about the ribbon and the complete change in the user interface that the ribbon implied.

So, for Office 2007, there were certainly features that would make upgrading worthwhile for many users, but that you needed to consider the implications of a complete change in the user interface. It wasn’t just an upgrade that you could inflict on users without them really noticing. There was pain to balance the gain The ribbon interface is still there in Office 2010 and has spread to Outlook and the rest of the portfolio. But my my answer to the upgrade question is as close to an unequivocal “Yes” as I’m likely to get. This positive view is mainly down to Outlook, the Office application I use most.

At times, the amount of paperwork that one person has do deal with can become extremely overwhelming. Many people find that a pile of unorganized paper can have drastic effects on the amount of work that they accomplish. For many of us, the motivation to organize the chaos is sometimes too much to even contemplate. However, an enterprising business has found a way to make the lives of the ordinary person much simpler.

Shoeboxed.com is an organization that provides a service that categorizes and organizes your receipts in a hassle-free manner. There are several levels of service that the company provides. One is the free version, in which you must scan in or direct your online order receipts into the account and organize them yourself. They also offer Basic, Classic or Express accounts.

The Basic account offers international service for customers with a relatively small volume of receipts to process for a price of $9.95 per month.

With this option, Shoeboxed will scan in and organize your receipts for you and shred them to protect your privacy.

The Classic account is their most popular account that is suited to one’s personal or business use at $19.95 per month. With this account type, Shoeboxed processes and organizes your receipts, scans them, and sends them back to you in an envelope.

The account level with the most options and fastest service processing is the Express account. For a fee of $59.95 per month, Shoeboxed provides even more efficient service to a client, with tasks being processed in 1 business day. The Express offers the same options and processing capacity as the Classic version, but the Express completes processing the task in a shorter amount of time.

Because so much of a person’s time can be taken up by frustration and disorganization, the service that this business provides would be very helpful to anyone that either does not possess that knack of organization or simply does not have the time to organize and keep track of their own receipts. The system is straightforward and fairly easy to understand, and also provides the option to export the scanned-in receipt information into Excel spreadsheets and other programs that work with large amounts of financial data. Someone who does not have a substantial number of receipts to keep track of would most likely not benefit from this program. However, for those that are searching for a way to keep control of their purchase records, this tool could become indispensable.

shoeboxed.com

Most mobile phone providers in the UK still charge their users for calls to 0800, 0808 and 0500 numbers. 0800Buster lets you call these numbers using your mobile’s inclusive minutes, by providing you with a UK landline number to dial instead.

No registration or set-up is necessary, and the service is completely free*. Just dial 01237 20 0800, enter the full free-phone number you want to call at the prompt, then press #—it’s that simple!

0800Buster.co.uk Instructions

1. Dial 01237 20 0800
2. Enter the 0800, 0808, or 0500 number you want to phone
3. Press # to start the call

http://www.0800buster.co.uk/

This is one of the best hacks or tricks that I have seen in a long time. Coming from JKontheRun the trick allows you to have all the options to control your PC with Windows 7 in one folder. Is not that cool?

God Mode is easy to set up too, just do this:
1. reate a new folder anywhere.
2. Rename the folder by pasting this name exactly as it appears (copy it first):
3. GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

That is it.

Windows Server 2008, released a few months ago, is Microsoft’s latest server operating system. This entry is not meant to be an exhaustive thesis into all of the benefits that Server 2008 can provide, but to serve as a brief introduction to the enhancements over previous versions.

1. Server Core Installation
Server Core installations provide a minimal environment for specific roles. This simplifies management of the server, updating and patching, and there is a smaller attack surface as the machines footprint is smaller since the number of files to support it has been reduced. Core servers have no desktop or GUI so they are managed via a command prompt or using the remote administration tools of another server. Server Core supports, but is not limited to, the following roles:

Active Directory Domain Services
DNS/DHCP
File and Print Server
IIS

2. Hyper-V
Microsoft loves talking about Hyper-V, the virtualization technology built into Windows Server 2008. Hyper-V provides a layer between the hardware and the operating system which allows virtual machines the ability to communicate directly with the hardware, bypassing the host operating system and increasing performance.

3. Terminal Services
With Windows Server 2008, Microsoft has 3 new Terminal Services components, RemoteApp, TS WebAccess, and TS Gateway. These concepts will be familiar to any Citrix administrator. In Citrix terms, RemoteApp is synonymous to Publishing Applications, TS WebAccess to the Web Interface Server, and TS Gateway to the Citrix Secure Gateway. These new features would give administrators the ability to grant users access to specific applications hosted in a TS environment over a secure web (HTTPS) connection.

4. Self Healing NTFS
With Server 2008, there is a worker thread which runs in the background that corrects the NTFS partition should any problems be found. I’m sure this is an oversimplification, but it’s pretty much a live, running version of chkdsk.

5. Support for Hot Swappable Components
Some new servers can be purchased with the capability to replace memory, processors, and PCI cards while the server is powered on. Windows Server 2008, while it is up and running, will acknowledge any hardware changes when hot swapping components.

6. Network Access Protection (NAP)
NAP keeps non-compliant computers off your network. NAP can monitor specific computer settings to enforce your workstation compliance standards.

7. Others
Windows Server 2008 includes IIS 7.0 which is a new build that is more capable of delivering streaming media, ASP, and PHP content and applications. It also has an updated management tool which allows you to manage multiple IIS servers from a single MMC.

There’s Read-only domain controllers for branch office deployments, SMB 2.0 which optimizes the file transfer rates between 2008 Servers, and over 800 Group Policies.

This list is but a small sample of the benefits of Windows Server 2008. I encourage you to research further and we’ll explore some of these features in further detail in upcoming posts, starting with Server Core.

A few posts back I mentioned a wonderful application called Evernote in brief it is a note taking application that allows you to synchronise all your web enabled devices to see your notes, This is made possible by cloud computing as the note repository is based somewhere on the web.
to make things easier you also get your own Evernote email address which allows you to add notes via email.

This is where Dial2do steps in. Dial2Do allows you to send voice email messages that end up as text messages in your recipient’s email inbox. You can have up to 100 contacts in Dial2Do and Evernote can be one of them. So for example if you can call Dial2Do and leave a voice message that ends up as a text note in your Evernote account. Very cool. Both services are free though Evernote also provides a premium account. never loose a note again.

happy computing.