On Demand Online coming to Comcast

Comcast sent me a letter today inviting me to test their (Beta) of On Demand Online. I don’t know how exclusive this list is but it will be interesting to compare their online experience with some of the others that are available currently like Hulu and others. They have the technology for streaming and the ability to do on demand with their digital boxes so this shouldn’t be a big stretch. I’ll let you know what I think once I have tried it out for a few weeks

SurveyMonkey.com

If you are a service oriented company, you probably want to know how well you are performing your job from your client’s perspective. It is very important to know how well you are doing and to find out when you are not performing to your client’s expectations. You want to know where you are doing well, and mainly where you are not so that you can fix problems quickly before they start hurting your reputation.

SurveyMonkey.com provides an automated web service that allows you to create a survey questions in many different formats and styles. Then you can either email the link that they create to your survey or you can embed the code in your website that will allow people to fill out a form and submit it back to SurveyMonkey.com. You then have access to the results of the surveys and can determine how well your are doing or not!

You can choose between a free service that limits you to 100 responses per survey and only 10 questions per survey, Monthly Pro Account that costs $19.95 per month and allows you to have a total of 1000 responses per month with an overage charge of $.05/response over 1000 responses, and an Annual Pro account for $200/year with unlimited responses per month and no overage charge. For a more detailed look at the different Account Plans click here…

If you don’t know how you are going to use it, or how many people you are going to have respond to your survey's, you will want to start off with the free account. If you find this product useful you can then jump into the more advanced versions at any time.

Installing Windows 7 Using a USB Flash Drive – Part 1 – Prepping the Flash Drive

I decided to document the process that I need to go through to install Windows 7 onto a new Netbook that I am prepping for my father. I decided to try to do this without using an external USB DVD drive.I needed a 4GB drive which I didn’t have one free so I decided to use one of my SD Flash cards I use with my camera. I have previously reviewed the Mizco SD Reader that I use to read my SD Flash Memory Cards. It turns any SD Flash Memory Card into a USB Flash Drive.

So the first thing that you need to do is to set the memory card as a bootable USB Drive. I am doing this from my Windows 7 Desktop and the procedure is as follows:

Step #1: Format the Drive

The steps here are to use the command line to format the disk properly using the diskpart utility. [Be warned: this will erase everything on your drive. Be careful.]

1. Plug in your USB Flash Drive
2. Open a command prompt as administrator (Right click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and select “Run as administrator”
3. Find the drive number of your USB Drive by typing the following into the Command Prompt window:
   diskpart
   list disk
   The number of your USB drive will listed. You’ll need this for the next step.  I’ll assume that the USB flash drive is disk 2.
4. Format the drive by typing the next instructions into the same window. Replace the number “2” with the number of your disk below.
   select disk 2
   clean
   create partition primary
   select partition
   active
   format fs=NTFS
   assign
   exit
   When that is done you’ll have a formatted USB flash drive ready to be made bootable.

Step 2: Make the Drive Bootable 
Next we’ll use the bootsect utility that comes on the Vista or Windows 7 disk to make the flash drive bootable. I am using an ISO file formatted file for my Win7 install disk and since I have the new version of WINZIP that can access an ISO file directly I am accessing the files in that manner. However, you will probably have a Win7 install CD and I will document accessing in that manner as well. I dropped the contents of my ISO file into a folder on my desktop and that’s how I gained access to the files the same way that you would to your CD.

(Turns out that WinZip was missing files when I performed the above procedure. I eventually burned a DVD and copied the files across as stated below. That worked like a charm. I have had great success running WinZip on ISO files and installing directly from there. That seems to work just fine.)

In the same command window that you were using in Step 1:

1. Insert your Windows Vista / 7 DVD into your drive.
2. Change directory to the DVD’s boot directory where bootsect lives:
   d:
   cd d:\boot
3. Use bootsect to set the USB as a bootable NTFS drive prepared for a Vista/7 image. I’m assuming that your USB flash drive has been labeled disk G:\ by the computer:
   bootsect /nt60 G:
4. You can now close the command prompt window, we’re done here.

Step 3: Copy the installation DVD to the USB drive
The easiest way is to use Windows explorer to copy all of the files on your DVD on to the formatted flash drive.  After you’ve copied all of the files the disk you are ready to go.

Step 4: Set your BIOS to boot from USB
This is where you’re on your own since every computer is different. Most BIOS’s allow you to hit a key at boot and select a boot option. On most Acer notebooks/Netbooks you will be pressing F2 to jump into the Bios setup when booting your system. Go to the Bios page that controls the boot device order and make your USB device the topmost choice in the boot sequence.

Note: As it turned out, I wasn’t able to complete the install of Windows 7 on this machine this past weekend because the controller couldn’t take being loaded from a USB Flash Drive. Whoops. So we stuck a USB DVD drive on the Netbook and installation went just fine. So much for trying to be inventive to work around not having a portable USB DVD drive.

Adesso Rollup Keypad

I acquired one of these a few years back and was completely taken with it. It takes awhile for you to get used to the feel but it has some really great characteristics that will make you take a look at it.

Adesso has four models in this keyboard group. Three in black: mini, compact and full size and white in full size. The keys have a wobbly feel that if you are not striking straight down you can miss a stroke because you haven’t made good contact on keystrokes. This is about the only negative that I see with the product.

So, I said there were a lot of positive features and here they are:

The flat, comfortable design offers easy typing which eliminates negative-angle stress to your wrists. Its improved raised keys provide better tactile feedback than previous flexible designs.
We've put this keyboard through rigorous testing and could not destroy it. We've tried to rip, tear, pull and yank the keyboard but it held up. We even took it to an extreme and ran it over with automobiles and machinery and guess what, it still worked!!! So while we do not recommend that you try to destroy it, you can see that it should be able to handle any environment where you need a portable, waterproof, flexible keyboard.

Waterproof
With its water-proof silicone material, you don't have to worry about damaging the keyboard because you can't! You could spill a beverage on it and all you have to do is simply wipe or clean it off and continue to use it, good as new!

Washable
The keyboard is completely sealed preventing germs from entering anywhere inside the keyboard. Great for medical facilities since the keyboard surface can be washed and disinfected at any time to avoid the spread of infectious disease
Portable
The keyboard is lightweight, ultra-slim and very compact. It would be a perfect companion for travel, school, and many industrial or medical environments. It fits easily in your briefcase, backpack or notebook carrying case and you don't have to worry about any sharp edges.

Dirt & Dustproof
The keyboard can be used safely in highly dusty environments. Perfect for factories, industrial warehouses, retail facilities or anywhere where dust may be a present.

Who can benefit from this device? Dusty, greasy or wet environments. These keyboards are completely sealed so they can easily be cleaned with mild cleaners and liquid cleaners. Hospitals, Warehouses, Manufacturing facilities and Garages. If you are on the road and you want an easily transportable keyboard, voila!, this is a perfect choice for you.

These units can be found for around $29.95 each so they are really priced well for what they give you.

Laurel Mountain Post September-October Issue

I have a great article in the LMP this month discussing the upcoming release of Windows 7 and the differences between each of the versions. This issue is the LMP’s final FREE distribution. They are moving to a paid subscription model with the next issue. There is so much good local information in the magazine that I hope they will be able to sustain it with this new venue.

This is obviously the Halloween issue but I didn’t keep with that theme. Next issue I will again approach with gadget gift buying for the upcoming Holiday Season. It’s September and I am thinking of Christmas already!

Hope you all enjoy the article and find it useful in making your decision to move into Windows 7 or not and which version would be best for you. If you are still confused don’t hesitate stopping buy and talking to us about it.

When upgrading and PC, It pays to do a little prep work to make it a smooth transition…

I have gone through seven system reloads in the past four months and with the last one it was made clear to me that you can never be too prepared for your transition from the old to the new. There are a few things that you need to think about, find and have ready at hand before you start the procedure.

1. Make sure you have your data backed up. The old adage, measure twice cut once is never more true than when you are about to transition to a new operating system. If you hold to the best way to clean up a system is to wipe it clean and start fresh, then whatever you had on the machine will no longer be there when you complete the new operating system installation. There is no going back to get the data so if you forget something, and you don’t have it backed up, well, it is gone in to the wind. It is important to remember how applications work. Recently I lost a year’s worth of notes because I was too cavalier about how well I had things backed up. I had thought I had everything already moved off of a workstation and moved onto the network storage (as it should have been) and it all went up in smoke. I have readjusted the way the application data is handled now, but it is too late for all of that historical data. Take it to heart that even the ones that preach backup can be bit when they are not careful enough. At the office we backup a system to a new drive before we even start a transition. As long as someone doesn’t get in the way and state that they have taken care of the info, if you look at what you are using and where you have it, you can take the steps to protect you precious information.
2. Take inventory of all the applications that you use. This will insure that your system will be up and running with all the tools you use as quickly as possible. Gather all the disks for you applications and their keys so that you can work right down the line to get the machine up and running the way you want. Here is my list of applications that I made when I prepped to install the new Windows 7 RTM on my home systems. The first thing I did was to reload Office when I finished installing the operating system so that I had access to my checklist. If you are well prepped with all your programs and unlock codes you will be able to breeze through the installation and keep your frustration level to a minimum.
3. Make sure you have available the current versions of your programs and that they are compatible with the new operating system. If you are installing into a office situation this is much more critical then in a home environment. Realize that this is the time to trim the fat. My systems tend to get bloated with all of the software installs that I perform on weekly basis to try out new things. Curiosity of the cat and all. This is one of the prime reasons that I reinstall a system as often as I do. It is easier to just start fresh sometimes then to try to make a system come back to peak performance with tweaking. This is suggestion is another attempt at limiting your frustration with the process.
4. Make sure that you have blocked out the time to do your upgrade. You don’t want to be losing your place or forgetting some key programs because you have split your attention between different projects.

Transitioning can be as painless or as painful as you allow it to be, the best way to get through the process is pre-planning the event.

Product Research has just gotten easier…

We have committed ourselves with a company that is helping us to provide information on a large number of products that we are able to provide our customers. We draw upon over 25 different distributors and many manufacturers directly to provide you, our customer, with just the right product to fit your needs.

With this research tool you can easily compare different products and request pricing from our support staff in a quick and easy manner. This system also allows us to provide you with feature products that we think might be useful to you. We also will be providing you with bi-weekly newsletters to keep you informed of different things happening in the technology industry that might be of interest to you. And don’t forget our technical blogs for more useful information that we are providing you on a daily basis. Remember Computer Connections for all of your technology needs.

Evernote, a great tool to give you access to your information anywhere you have an internet connection…

I have been a big fan of Microsoft’s OneNote application and it is still a central part of my daily data collection and storage for all of the research that I do. But the one thing that I miss with it is the ability to access it from wherever I am when I have Internet access.

This online software package has clients for Windows, MAC OS X, iPhone, IPOD Touch, Blackberry, Palm Pre, Sony Ericsson X1 and Windows Mobile. Just about anyway that you would touch the Internet, from your desktop or phone you  can create and view information that you want to store and share with this application.

If you hare aware what OneNote does, your will be able to understand the concept of Evernote which has been modeled after it. This software program is available as a free application and if you find yourself bumping the limitations of the free version you can upgrade to the premium version for only $5/month or $45/year for a yearly subscription. Evernote Premium gives you bigger upload capacity, supports more file types, and offers enhanced security. Plus, you get PDF searching, faster image recognition, and no ads. The following chart shows you a few of the benefits of the upgrade:

I am finding this an extremely useful application that provides me with the link that I’ve been missing to bring data to my iPhone as well as any desktop that I am currently using. Try out the free version to see if it has a place in your software arsenal. I think that it just might.

What has NASA been doing for the 10 Years?

My friend Tom sent me this link from USA Today showing the evolution of the International Space Station over the last 9 years. This is an interesting flash video to watch even if you are only a little interested in Space, the next frontier!

The list on the right is active and gives you more information about each of the stages/units in the make-up of the International Space Station. I don’t know too many people who aren’t interested in what NASA is doing and what their next steps are. I think that it is amazing that they  have been able to coordinate with so many countries to develop what they have so far. It is going to be interesting to see what is going to happen in the next 9-10 years.

Think Microsoft Home Server…

Ken was trying to tell me that many of the features that I was describing in the Cisco Network Magic article are also in the Microsoft Home Server. I will have to install one of these at the house and see what my limitations are. We have been quite successful using removable media and the Home Server software to create a great backup solution. We even have it being used as the key part of our off-site storage as well. I’ll be getting into more detail on this in the next couple of weeks.

Cisco’s Network Magic

Cisco makes some inexpensive tools to help you manage your home and small business networks. Sometimes I just want to be able to bookmark product so that it is easy to come back and grab it again when needed. So… here they are. Both can be used in a trial basis for free and if you need to have a permanent copy for yourself. For what you get, the price is very reasonable.

$49.95

Network Magic Pro 5.5 Ideal for the small business owner or someone who needs advanced networking capabilities With Network Magic Pro 5.5, you can skip the tech support phone calls, online forums and expensive on-site consultants. Network Magic Pro provides do-it-yourself tools to help you set up, manage and secure your network like an IT professional. With point-and-click ease, you can: Connect your devices together in minutes Share Internet connections, printers and files Protect your network with enhanced WPA security capabilities and status alerts Repair your network and Internet connections to stay online and productive Control access to the Internet and track online activity with remote desktop screenshots

$29.95

Network Magic Essentials Perfect networking tool for beginners who need to do the basics Does the thought of setting up a network stress you out? Relax. Network Magic Essentials helps you easily share an Internet connection, printers and files with point-and-click ease. No technical experience is needed–just do-it-yourself: Print from any computer Share music, photos, and files between all the computers on your network Protect your network from intruders Repair connections and optimize your network's performance

If you have purchased a Linksys router recently you probably have an entry level version of these programs. It is a lovely program that provides detailed information about the devices on your network through auto-discovery. The program that comes with the Linksys router is called LELA (Linksys Easy-Link Advisor) and it has the same characteristics of the programs above.

The installation is very simple. Put your router in place in your network. Connect the WAN port to your broadband modem and your other devices to any of the other 4 ports on the switch. Place your installation disk in your computer and run the installation. That is pretty much it. It does request Net Framework 3.0, and will error if you don’t have that version installed. I’m running Win7 which is running 3.5 so it barked at me but seemed to work just the same. You will initially lose internet connectivity but it will bounce back right away…

The display looks like this: 

This is a picture of my network setup showing all the devices that are connected to my network, and how they are connected to each other. You can see the detail of each device and when you click on the drop down arrow you will see specific network data about the device.

I blurred the addressing for security reasons. The program allows you to change the security information, add computers and other devices, setup your wireless connections, show you summaries about the health and setup of the network, and get an easy to read network map showing all of the devices connected to the network and to your workstations. Cisco’s Network Manager gives just a little more control.

The setup is simple and the choices you make can be changed very easily after you have completed the installation.

Notice some of the extra benefits of Network Magic Essentials allow you more in depth control of your network. The program looks at the health and wellness of your systems on the network. One of the added benefits is that it tracks current antivirus and Microsoft update conditions and provides alerts to state of all of the machines on your network. If you look at the image below you will see by looking at the network map you can instantly see any alerts that appear for any systems on your network.

In the screen view above you will see that the PC labeled E8400W7U-MC has an alert while all the rest of the devices appear up to date. In this case there are three problems with this machine, the antivirus is out of date and not turned on, and there are critical Microsoft Updates that need to be installed. You can run the updates from this screen and get everything up to date.

Besides the map, you have a series of utilities for setting you machine up on the network including the wireless connection, drive-file sharing, control internet access, look at another system’s desktop and capture and image to see what that machine is being used for, and general reports on computer usage. Though these features are not extremely granular they will give you a simple method for managing you home network. You can put password control on the key management options to keep prying fingers off of the main control features.

The network history report shows you the network access for each of you listed devices to give you some ideas of how you are accessing the network.

If you have a dual screen monitor you can capture both screens even when they are of different sizes. Notice on the right side that you get a list of all the programs that are running on that machine as well. It will also list all of the previous screen shots that you have captured as well and allow you to click on them and review them from this screen.

You are limited to allowing internet access, not allowing access ever or at scheduled times. You don’t have web filtering control but you can deny a system from accessing the Internet. Team this up with a home set up of Astaro and you can have it all.

AVG Anti-virus Product Promotion

You have heard of the term BOGO, well AVG is offering a third year upgrade to your purchase of a new Business Class Business Product, either new or a renewal to your contract. You will qualify for a third year free if you purchase two years of any of AVG’s Business Internet Security Products. When you buy the second year you get 50% off of the 1 year price for the second year now the discount is even better!

This promotion is lasting until the end of the year, 2009.

Have you encountered issues with your clients becoming infected due to missing Windows Updates or social engineering tricks that infect their workstations?  AVG Internet Security products have several unique innovative features that prevent this from happening.  They protect not only against virus attack but also poisoned web pages and threats not included in the definitions via behavioral analysis.  So they not only block users from downloading threats they also scan web links in Search Engines for the poisoned content.

Two key features that differentiate AVG Internet Security Network products from other products:

• Linkscanner Technology:  Protects you against poisoned web pages before you visit them
• Identity Theft Protection: Intelligent real-time protection that looks for new threats based on unusual patterns of behavior, complementing the signature - based protection afforded by the AV/AS engine.

Other features include:

Webshield technology:  Looks for threats while you browse in real-time.

• FREE upgrades to the latest major version releases of AVG during the license period, including version 9.0 due this year.
• Unlimited domestic technical support
• Easy install and deployment – Install it stand-alone or managed, your choice.
• Anti-spam component at no cost in the Email Server Editions and SBS products

To order, be sure to contact Computer Connections by dialing 800-640-7506 or by emailing us at: sales@paconnect.com.

To see more information about AVG for Business Users visit: http://bobstechtalk.squarespace.com/solutions/2009/8/25/avg-for-business-users.html

SoftPerfect Free Download Utilities

SoftPerfect makes quite a few utility programs for working with your PC’s and Network Devices. They have several free utilities that are interesting that they hope will wet your appetite to purchase their more advanced paid versions of their software. Here are a couple of their free ones:

	SoftPerfect ® NetWorx FREE A simple, yet powerful utility for measuring your bandwidth usage and the speed of all kinds of wired and wireless network connections (Dial-up, Ethernet, ISDN, DSL, 802.11b etc.). The program provides the ability to measure your network throughput, graphic and numeric representation of incoming and outgoing traffic, highly customizable alerts, statistics about dialup connection duration, weekly, daily and monthly Internet usage reports, etc.
	SoftPerfect ® LAN Search Pro FREE A powerful utility for fast file searching across your LAN. You can search for specific file names or for specific file types (e.g. all MP3 files). It comes with a built-in password manager to store your network logins for resources with restricted access. LAN Search Pro provides a lightning fast search engine that lets you search hidden network resources, restricted access resources, IP subnets, LAN FTP servers and much more.
	SoftPerfect ® Network Scanner FREE A multi-threaded IP, SNMP and NetBIOS scanner with a modern interface and several advanced features. It is intended for both system administrators and general users who are interested in computer security. The program pings computers, scans for listening TCP ports and displays which types of resources are shared on the network (including system and hidden). In addition, it allows you to mount shared resources as network drives, browse them using Windows Explorer, filter the results list and more.
	SoftPerfect ® Personal Firewall FREE A free network firewall designed to protect your PC against attacks from the Internet or via a local area network. SoftPerfect Personal Firewall offers customizable security using user-defined rules for packet filtering. It supports multiple network adapter configurations. The program is easy to use, comes with a set of predefined rules and it is completely free. Additional features include password protection, logging and more
	SoftPerfect ® File Recovery FREE A free and useful tool to restore accidentally deleted files from hard and floppy disks, USB flash drives, CF and SD cards and other storage media. It supports the popular file systems such as FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and NTFS5 with compression and encryption.

Goodbye SoapBox

I know that I am a little late in reporting this, but if you have been following my blogs since the beginning of this odyssey, you may remember that some of my early reasons for using Microsoft’s Live Spaces for blogging were because of the integration of all the different applications and the ability to easily share this data between those applications. Well, SOAPBOX has succumbed to the almighty Google and YouTube. Of course, now the ease of interacting with YouTube with the applications I use on a daily basis makes this a no brainer to have already made the move but it is still sad to see a system bite the dust even if it wasn't used much. So here is a raise of my glass to a program that worked just fine but didn’t have the recognition that it could’ve had.

Your Kindle can't do this, local library ebooks now available on the Sony Reader | The Mobile Gadgeteer | ZDNet.com

I love reading but I do so either with an electronic book or I listen to them from my downloads from Audible. Here is a listing of libraries that have registered themselves with Sony Library Finder that carry both audio and electronic books.

I wonder if we are truly headed towards the ability to get all our literature from our local libraries or is this just a part of my very long wish list. The big news this week was Google’s announcement of their making available over 1 million books in the ePub format. EPUB is an open-source format that is readable on a slew of devices, including Sony and Plastic Logic readers, the iPhone, and Google Android. Prior to this news release they were only available in PDF format. Take a look at Google books.

Many people still like the touch and feel of a real book and that is their favorite method of reading a book. But there is something to being able to pick up you SmartPhone, or Ebook Reader and begin reading a book where you left off. This is definitely something to think about. I have been playing with Stanza on my iPhone and the interface is very nice and with the flick of finger I am turning pages with a graphic response that is enjoyable to watch.

So my question that I pose is whether this a way for our local Libraries to maintain patronage, along with their brick and mortar and books in paper formats or is this something that is going to go to centralized storage repositories that can maintain the traffic for downloading requests that might someday be required?

I do love my local libraries, the helpfulness of the library personnel, and the beauty of the physical books on the shelves. I would hate to see this disappear into the ether(net) totally.

Your Kindle can't do this, local library ebooks now available on the Sony Reader | The Mobile Gadgeteer | ZDNet.com

Fancy Bullets!… Add-in for Live Writer

As I was working on setting up my newly reloaded I7 workstation at home I began decided to load up on some of the add-ins

The image below shows you the dialog box that comes up when you click on the Bullets!… menu option. You have three tabs across the top for bullets that are preinstalled, a section for adding new bullets and the last tab points to some links for added support for the program. I jumped to the link listed for more more bullets and the way you add new bullets is to right click on the bullet image you wish to add and choose “Copy Image Location”. This places the URL pointer to the image that you want to add to your bullet list. Next you click on the Add Bullets button shown in the dialog box below.

A new dialog box will pop up. Paste the URL you just captured into the first field. If you want to view what the bullet will look like, press the Preview Button, otherwise, press OK and you will have the new button in you list as above.

To use the add-in, click on the Bullets!… insert choose in you menu on the left hand side of you screen. Highlight the bullet you want to use, and choose the number of space between the bullet and your text, and the number of bullets you want to be displayed. I would suggest creating you list prior to using this add-in and then inserting the text into the appropriate locations. That way you know how many bullets you will need to create. It doesn’t create them on the fly.

Get this program by clicking on the Add a plug-in… menu choice.  or…

Update on Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 1:47PM by Bob Appleby

Thanks Lance. Let me know how it works for you.

How far has technology made inroads into your life?

I am laying here on our back porch, a little before 10:00 on a Friday evening, my feet up, cocktail at hand, in my hammock. All non-tech so far, but I have my earplugs in, listening to a computer generated playlist of songs, coming to me wirelessly over my home wireless network connection using my cell phone to access it, typing this column on a netbook, connected through the same network back to the internet. Now, is this just a little geeky or is it the place we are all heading.

I was thinking to myself, should  I go downstairs and work on a project, finish installing my I7, or watch some HULU, or catch up on some more podcasts. Or, I could jump in the pool and just take a late night swim and then do any of the above, later… Life can be so terrible, don’t you know.

I was thinking  about how I was able to interact during a meeting I was at this morning, passing along my responses to conversations that I was having with people, doing on the spot research to questions that came up and making sure the people that needed it had the exact information we were talking about. I was able to send them the information so that when they got back to their offices after the meeting, all the information that we spoke about was already there waiting for them to work with right away.

One of the negatives with all of this is that you always want to have that technology at your finger tips, no matter where you are and what you are  doing. You begin to feel lost when you don’t have a connection to the Internet. You begin to wonder what everyone else is doing, and how on earth they are doing it without your input. Just Kidding!

So, if I were to answer the question about how technology has become a big part of my life, well, I guess I have to be honest and say that yes, it is a big part. I love to interact with it. The ease of even, writing this, knowing that with a single mouse click it becomes available for anyone who wants to read it, to read it. The ease of correcting, changing and rearranging my thoughts. The wonderful backspace key that allows me to retract a thought, a misspelling or a completely air headed thought. 

The real fun though, is that I can let it sit until tomorrow morning and say, What were you thinking or I can just let it go and pay the consequences. Or, I can come back later and alter any portion of this as I please. Is technology a big part of life, please…. How about yours?

ETI Advisory Board Meeting

I spent my morning with members of the Education and Technology Institute (ETI) advisory board, for their annual meeting of the minds to discuss the past period’s new programs and internal milestone progress. I was very happy to see the progress in their support for their students and additional financial programs they are bringing to bear. They are working very hard getting the word out about their programs and daily/weekly updates through their blog and primary websites. They are discussing ways to bring some of the social networking sites into the mix as well. I hope that some of my suggestions will give them some more ideas to spur that forward. It is always great to see so many friendly and helpful community business people wanting to contribute to the betterment of our local workforce. Well done everyone!

You are in your car, driving along and then you hear: DING!

Resist… Don’t reach for your smart phone. Don’t take your life and those of you fellow travelers to risk.  DON”T TEXT WHILE DRIVING! Don’t read your email. Don’t become one of those accident statistics. Just say NO!

What is focusing my attention with this tirade is the recent release of a Web Video showing four deaths caused by a young driver who was texting while driving. A debate is raging what the best method of curbing distractions while driving in the U.S.

Many states are considering or have passed laws that ban texting while driving, using your phone at all while driving or even touching your phone while driving. Some experts think that dramatic videos like the 4 minute video produced by local police in Gwent, Wales, in the UK can have an impact in educational settings, especially with young drivers.

17 States and District of Columbia have already banned texting while driving. There are some  initiatives in play  towards educating users on the dangers of the different types of distractions that could cause accidents. A good article in Computerworld today talks about general overview of the problems and what is being done to prevent this real problem. Take a quick look.

The parting statement from the Chief Inspector of the Gwent Police site is very compelling:

Chief Inspector John Pavett from Gwent Police Roads Policing Unit hopes the serious message in this film will hit home to viewers:

“Making and receiving calls and texting whilst driving is still happening on roads not just in Gwent but all over the country.  Seeing a scenario, like the one Cassie goes through, played out right before your eyes makes you realise how extremely dangerous it can be and what devastating consequences it can have.

“I hope that after watching this film motorists will think twice before picking up their mobile phone when behind the wheel and realise that a quick reply to a text message or answering a phone call is never worth putting theirs and other people’s lives at risk.”

Camtasia for the Mac has been released.

If you read this blog you know that I am not an Apple guy but this is good news for all of our Mac friends that want to create online training content for their organizations. I love Camtasia in the PC environment and I’m sure that you will just as thrilled with this program in the Mac environment as well.

It is being released at a special price of just $99 for a limited time offer.

Here is an the copy from TechSmith’s News Release.

News: Camtasia...with an Apple flavor

Camtasia for Mac is here, and it's already got people talking.
For one thing, they're noticing the many ways it differs from Camtasia Studio. It acts and feels like a native Mac application...because it is one!

Camtasia for Mac delivers the core set of features that emerged from countless conversations, surveys, research projects, and testing with Mac users over the past few years. We can't wait to hear your reactions and suggestions as you put it through its paces.
It's a whole new product with a lot to explore, so let's get right to the links...
A great place to start is with the See It in Action video (which was itself created with Camtasia for Mac).
Don't miss the special tips for Camtasia Studio veterans, which should help you transition smoothly to Camtasia for Mac.
And, of course, if your Mac is handy you can just download the free trial and start playing around with it on your own! Or buy it now at the introductory price of $99—that's 33% off list!

Explore Camtasia for Mac »