4 Alternative Uses For Your Blog

Software list- I often blog about new software I find and use. When setting up a new computer you can use your blog to recall all the little programs you usually use. It much easier to find programs on your blog then searching the web, since you are the one that organized it all.

Tweaks and Tips- little tricks I've found and like, I blog about. Its often easier for me to show someone a how-to on my blog rather than explaining the whole process to them. It also saves me time with not having to explain the same thing to different people, everyone is able to view the blog.

Online Organization- a blog can be used as an online organizational tool. Its a central location to store any thoughts or ideas you write about for quick future in the access. Its much easier to have ideas on your blog rather than trying to remember every little things. Also the data is accessible from anywhere, so you don't have to be at your own computer to access your data.

Digital Toolbox- I've done a couple posts on fixing problems that I've had with my computer, and cited programs that I use for cleaning up my computer. This information come in handy when I have to work on friends and family computers. I just got to my blog and get all the tools and information I need in one location.

With all these alternative uses for your blog, the more you blog, the more useful it is.

The All-In-One Device: Is It Really Useful?

With the iPhone, Nokia N95, Blackberry, and numerous Windows Mobile phones, the phone is becoming more and more like a computer. The phone is now the center of our mobile entertainment. And with 4G data networks (Sprints XOHM) on the horizon, these phones mobile media centers are going to become that much more powerful and convenient to use. But, is this move to the all-in-one device good?

I am currently in the market for a new cell phone and found myself really drawn to the new smart phones. They can do everything, what can be wrong with that? I was all but ready to buy a new Windows Mobile phone from Verizon, when I took a minute to think about what I was buying.

The obvious appeal of the all-in-one device is that now you can do everything with one gadget. No need to carry around a laptop, a phone for business, a phone for personal use, an mp3 player, a PDA, and anything else you may need. But what happens when you combine all these gadgets into one? Now you are no longer separating business from personal/pleasure. You're business phone and personal phone is one in the same, and your corporate email is always able to reach you. How can you ever unplug? You now rely on one device for both business and personal, so it needs to be on at all times. You can't separate yourself from your work. You are essentially accessible 24/7 by your job. Now throw in your mp3 player. Do you really want your music ringing? Now you can't even zone out for a bit, or escape from communication. When you go running, you don't bring your phone, specifically so you can't be called or interrupted. Its a way to "zone out" for a bit. But if you phone and mp3 player are in one device, you don't have a choice.

I ran into this problem with my current phone, the LG Env from Verizon. Its about as close to a smart phone as you can get without being classified a smart phone. I was going to use the phone for its media functionality, I wanted it to be my mp3 player as mine at the time was broken. This turned out to be a bigger problem than I anticipated. Keep in mind these are phones first and everything else devices second. So the controls and menus aren't designed for media, this caused problem with things like adding music to the phone, accessing the mp3 player on the phone, and generic tasks like switching songs and changing volume. These seem like pretty trivial tasks, but they add up to the over annoyance of the device. Then while I'm listening to music if I get a phone call or text message, I have to go through the whole process of accessing the mp3 player all over again.

Its minor things that add up. And its something to consider when looking at the all-in-one device. Just because it can do everything doesn't mean it should. You need to look pretty realistically at the phone and what you are going to use it for. While its nice to have all these cool features in a phone, how many of them can be done much better by a device you already have, and how much extra are you paying for useless features. Smart phones not only cost more for the actual phone but you need a specialized data plan with the phone, costing usually an addition $50 a month.

5 Reasons College Students Should Have Blogs

Show You Have a Passion for Something- most jobs that you apply for want to know what you do beyond school in the field you want to work, a blog is a great way to show you have an interest in the work and have knowledge on current events

Stay Current- being in school you sometimes get detached from the world outside campus. By writing a blog and staying current you are forced to read news form outside of school and stay up to date with current events

Practice Writing and Communication Skills- depending on your major, outside of core classes you don't take many English classes, or writing intensive classes. Its good to stay up to date with these skills as you will most likely need them in the future. Blogging allows you to practice putting ideas and thought into words that everyone can understand.

Showcase Your Work- give yourself an online presence. If you have good ideas or interesting things you've done, a blog provides a nice platform to share your ideas with anyone you want to.

Digital Extension of Your Resume- a "read more" button for your resume. You can show your resume in action, talk in more detail about items on your resume and show you really know what you are talking about. Blog about your experience and what you've learned from them, let people look at your blog after reading your resume to really get to know you.

*bonus* It's free- Blogging is a free hobby and a free way to waste time/entertain yourself, which is important to the college student who is always low on cash.

Entrepreneur.com Launches Tool Set To Help Organize A Business

Entrepreneur Assist is a free set of tools to help you stay organized when starting a business. It offers numerous programs and templates for use, and integrates into Entrepreneur.com to help save useful content as you surf their site. The service seems pretty useful if you use Entrepreneur.com a lot. All the services are only available on the website, so it really has to be the center of your organization to take full use of the tools. From my experience there is no syncing available to other services such as Outlook or gCal. I will use this service only for its web clipping ability to save articles I like on the website, since I already have programs in place to handle all the other services provided.

HP Enters The Sub-Notebook Market

HP recently released the Mini-Note sub-notebook that comes is a variety of flavors. The notebook is aimed to be a competitor with the Asus Eee PC which has blown the industry away with its sales. The ultra mobility, reasonable specs, and very modest price (sub $500) is attracting many new consumers who need a secondary computer just to carry around or play with. HP's entrance into this market is showing that there is a big potential for this market to grow. More companies are speculating entering the rapidly expanding market which will create good competition and hopefully keep prices low. Look for more and more of these pint size laptops showing up in 2008. Asus is already planning a second generation of the Eee PC less than a year after its initial release. These notebooks are meant to be used as a secondary computer for quick access on the go. They are by no means a replacement for your usual computer, but at their cheap prices, they are becoming more impulse buys than thought out purchases, as a main computer would be. I personally have an Asus Eee PC and think it's perfect for students, as I carry it from class to class to take notes with. Its also a fun toy of sorts for modders and hackers, as it is Linux based and has a thriving homebrew community.

*update: Liliputing has put up a guide showing all the different sub-notebook computers currently available

All I Want From Apple Is A New MacBook Pro...

..and I may be getting my wish.

These are supposed fake mock ups of the long rumored redesign for the Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro has been long overdue for a redesign. Apple has been using the same design for 5 year (if its not broke don't fix it, I guess). I haven't been the biggest fan of Apple's design direction lately so it'll be exciting to see how they change such a staple product as the MacBook line. There is no release date and no official word from Apple yet on the redesign, but it has been rumored by Apple insiders for some time now, and certainly seems overdue.

Via MacInsider, MacRumors

The Software I Use Everyday

Operating System

Microsoft Vista Home Premium- the standard Vista Operating System that comes pre-installed on most computers today, including my computer.

Internet

Firefox- the free web browser of choice for many people. Firefox continually gains market share again Microsoft Internet Explorer every year. Its very customizable with numerous extensions.

Thunderbird - I have to actively check about 6 e-mail addresses everyday (school, work, personal) and this program makes keeping tabs an ease. This is a free program offered by Mozilla and is a great alternative to Microsoft Outlook if you only need it for mail or RSS.

Pidgin- an open source IRC client (aim, google talk. etc...). Very customizable with lots of add-ons and plug-ins.

uTorrent- popular torrent downloading software. If you know what torrents are, I highly recommend this light weight torrent application. If you don't know what torrents, I suggest doing some research before you start playing around with it.

Blogging

Windows Live Writer- Previously mentioned here. A free blogging desktop publisher from Microsoft. Most the posts on this site are written with this program.

Music

iTunes- A standard for most everyone using an iPod. I've been meaning to move my music collection to a different program like Foobar, but just haven't found time yet.

Design

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008- given out through the Microsoft Dreamspark program, its a great programming and web development tool. Has many add-ons and plug-ins to create almost anything.

Macromedia Fireworks 8 - great photo editing software. Older but still not outdated (there is now Fireworks CS3). Tends to run a little expensive. A nice free alternative is the web based Adobe Photoshop Express.

Games/Miscellaneous

Frets on Fire- Guitar Hero like game that allows you to use your keyboard as a guitar to play notes that movie across your screen. (I recommend playing with an external keyboard if you can)

TightVNC- free remote control software combined with Touch Pad Pro to control computer with iPod Touch. (great for watching movies or other media through your computer)

Vista Battery Saver- free through codeplex that helps conserve battery power when computer isn't plugged in. Shuts off the visual battery draining aspects of Vista (Aero and Sidebar).

Weekend Fun: Block Poster

Block Poster is a neat web application that lets you upload any image and it will chop up the picture so it can be printed in a poster format across multiple pages. The site gives you a PDF to download that contains your image separated onto multiple pages, so all you have to do is print it. The pages fit together like a puzzle on your wall. This is perfect for the college student. It offers a cheap way to decorate the dorm. Print off movie posters, pop culture images, or original art. The only cost to you is ink and paper, and you are free to create any poster you want.

Lenovo, The Company To Look Out For

You may have never heard of Lenovo, but you have seen their laptops. They are the company behind the IBM laptop line. If you didn't know, IBM licenses their name to Lenovo to produce their laptops. They are responsible for the ThinkPad X300, the competitor for Apple's MacBook Air. Next quarter Lenovo will be expanding their X-series line of laptops. IBM laptops have long been the corporate standard for laptops. They are arguably the best laptop keyboard out there, and one of the most solid construction designs. These laptops are build to last. Withe the expansion of the X-series laptops, the ThinkPad line is becoming more than the choice for business, but a choice for the average consumer. The next time I'm buying a computer the X-series will be at the top of my list.

Lenovo is also making waves with their own branded laptops. The new Lenovo IdeaPad, is aimed directly at the average consumer. These laptops are made with lost of color and a lot of media rich features. This line also will be offering an ultraportable 12'' model, making it a very attractive choice to consumers on the go.

Look for Lenovo to make big gains in the consumer laptop market in the coming years. This company has been relatively under the radar in the past, but is rapidly becoming a big player outside the corporate world.

If They Made Money, So Can You!

This was taken from the popular blog, indexed. The blog offers sarcastic drawings on index cards, and I found this one pretty relevant to all the entrepreneurs reading.

Why You Should Start A Business In College

Twin Commas had a post recently about "why college is the perfect time to start a business." They offered seven reasons.

• Minimal Responsibility (most students don't even have class everyday)
  
• Youth (you have time to make mistakes)
  
• Inexpensive Labor (aka college students always need money)
• Access to Knowledge (there's professors at school right?)
  
• Access to software (this varies a lot from school to school, some aren't as tech savvy as others)
• Access to Equipment (this also varies a lot with your school)
• Financial Support (student discount)
  

For the most part I think this list gives a good summary to why you can start a business in college. The most important I think is the financial support and the fact that you are a student. I've used my student discount to get me most of the software I need and very reduced prices. Also people are much more willing to help a student (we are supposed to be helped). Getting a person to talk about their business and go on information interviews is very easy when you are student. You almost have a pass to go almost anywhere, as long as you are there for educational purposes. Also with being in college you are surrounded by many other people that haven't fallen into the 9-5 work routine yet. People are more willing to try new things and its much easier to find people willing to help or join your business. Also the student body provides a huge testing pool for you to try out new ideas. I can't think of another time in your life where so many people and friends will be so readily available to you (everyone lives on campus)

How To Change Your Start Up Programs

One problem with installing software is that most programs sets itself to run at the start up of your computer. This can cause your computer to start up much slower and create a lot of programs running in the background which takes up RAM and causes the computer as a whole to run slower. A quick fix to this is a Window's build in utility called "msconfig"

To run this program, in vista, click on the "start menu" and type in msconfig then press enter. (if you are on a Windows XP machine, open the start menu and select run, then type in msconfig and hit enter) A window looking like this should pop up.

Make sure you have the "start up" tab selected.

From here you have a list of all the programs that start when your computer first turns on. You can deselect any program that you don't want to run at start up. Once you have chosen which programs you want for start up, click apply. You will be prompted to restart your computer.

After your computer restarts you will be given a Windows system saying that you have changed the boot config of your computer. Check the box to never show the message again, and click ok. You're new settings will take effect from now on. If you ever need to change anything you can use the same process to add any other programs you need at start up.

Keyboard Shortcuts In Office 2007

I recently bought a copy of Microsoft Office 2007 through the ultimate steal program that Microsoft was running. I've started using the software suit for taking notes in class. I'm a person that doesn't like to take my hands of the keyboard, I like continuous typing and use keyboard shortcuts quite frequently to format my documents. In Office 2007 I found some of my usual shortcuts did not work. I first notices this when i tried the "save as" command (ctrl + shift + S). When I pressed this I got an "apply style" dialog box. In Office 2007 the keyboard shortcuts work a little differently. Pressing the "alt" button on your keyboard will bring up a letter for each tab in the office menu.

Using these letters you can select which tab you want to use and a new set of letters will be given to choose a specific function you want to use.

I've gotten used to using these new keyboard shortcuts and are just as effective and productive as I was in older versions of Office. If you are new to Office 2007 this will be very helpful to know in the transition.

Resource: Microsoft Office 2007

4 Free Programs From Microsoft That You Don't Know About

Live Writer- I am currently writing this post in Windows Live Writer. This is a must have program for anyone with a blog. It offers the ability to work on your blog post offline and update your blog once you are online. It also functions as a back up for your blog by keeping a copy of each post on your computer. Paired with the numerous plug-ins available online this is a truly full featured blogging tool that is perfect for a casual or professional blogger.

FolderShare Beta- this is a great program that I just recently discovered. Basically this program allows you to access your hard drive from any computer. Its very easy to set up and only requires software on the computer you are trying to access. The hard drive is accessed through a web browser. You are free to view, download and upload through the browser to you hard drive no matter where you are.

Sky Drive- one of the first online storage solution to offer 5gb of free storage for all your stuff. Sky Drive lets you classify your folders as either public or private, which is good if you plan on sharing your files with others.

Office Live Workspace- This is like most every other online file storage option with one main difference. It includes a plug-in for you're Windows Office documents to save directly to your online account. The storage is capable of storing over 1000 documents. Its a must if you are a Windows Office user.

*Bonus*

Dreamspark -(for college students only) this is a program put out by Microsoft to help college students learn how to program. It offers full versions of Microsoft design programs for free.

For The Weekend: Bill Gates' Last Day

What would the richest man in the world do on his last day of work?

New Segway RMP Is Bizarre/Genius

This interesting version of the Segway is capable of moving 400 lbs and can move in any direction thanks to the bizarre wheel design. [via Make]

Website Tools: A Mailing List For Your Business

Bravenet is a service that provides free ad-supported tools for use on your website. They have a wide range of tools, such as, photo albums, guestbooks, polls, and widgets. One of the more useful features is the mailing list. In my entrepreneurship class, the teacher suggest that when you are first setting up your website it is good to have a mailing list. Even if you don't have a product or service ready yet, a mailing list is a good way to keep your site up for people to visit and keep them updated to when your product or service will be available. This will give you time to have a polished website for when you officially open for business.

Mars: Creating The Open Source Planet

Virgle is the joint venture between Virgin and Google. The goal of Virgle is to colonize Mars. Both companies feel that technology has advanced enough to create new colonies on Mars. It's time for us to expand. An interesting point to their plans is that the colonization of Mars is going to be Open Source. Every aspect of the creation of the colony is going to be open to everyone and free for everyone to participate. You can sign up on their website to become a "Virgle Pioneer" and be among the first to visit and colonize the red planet. All you have to do is fill out a short questionnaire and Virgle will email you if you are accepted.

The Labyrinth Security Lock, Be Extra Safe

For the truly perinoid in all of us, there is the Defendius Labyrinth Security Lock. This lock will ensure that not only can people not break in, but you'll have trouble getting out. Opening the door becomes a game with a maze you have to solve each time. Great for kids and adults a like, everyone loves a game.

Wireless Power Is Here

This amazing technology now allows people to extend their power cords over 300ft, wirelessly! This product is great for anyone having cords all through their living room. Hide them all, and go wireless. Also perfect for bringing your electronics outdoors. Have a stereo or TV by the pool, with the wireless extension cord you can use the outlets in your own home to power your electronics outside. For more information and ordering, go here.

Wii Games Coming To The iPhone!!!

With Apple's recent announcement of the SDK release for app development on the iPhone people have been lining up to develop programs for the popular little device, and Nintendo is now one of them. Nintendo, today announced that is going to release Wii Sports for the iPhone. Using the internal motion sensor and touch screen of the device, Nintendo will be able to mimic the gameplay of the Wii gaming system. Games are expected to ship in June, and cost $5 per game. Read the rest of the store here.