NeutralAxis

There’s a glitch in RocketDock that only shows itself in Windows 7 where stack docklets lose their settings when the computer is restarted.  The problem is related to Win7 security and is easily fixed.  Here’s how. (continue reading…)

I took the plunge and updated to Thunderbird 3  now that the Lightning Calendar (1.0b1) has been updated to work with it.  There are a few differences, both positive and negative, in the change. (continue reading…)

LogMeIn Express is a simpler version of LogMeIn’s popular remote desktop software for Windows, which requires no prior installation to work.  If you’re the one in your family who provides tech support to the rest, keep this one in mind.  LogMeIn’s standard product requires the person who wants to share their computer to install a program that runs at startup and sits in the system tray near the time.  This new tool doesn’t require that installation and is started from the LogMeIn Express website.  Being the time of year when families are getting together for the holidays, this is a good tool to bring to their attention. (continue reading…)

Dropbox, previously written about here, has a limitation that you can only have one account at a time.  But a workaround has been developed that lets you have as many open accounts as you want.

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This 15.6″ laptop is part of Acer’s Timeline series of very thin, very long battery life models based around a new Intel ultra low voltage Pentium processor.  Its supposed to get up to 8 hours on a charge and is 1″ thick.  I’ve managed to avoid Vista up to this point by buying custom systems where Vista wasn’t bundled, so this is also my first experience with Vista.  First impressions are not good.  [Update: Its going back to Walmart.  The "Moon" trailer in HD is my test video and it performed terribly trying to play it full screen.]  See my new post about the Gateway EC5801u and EC5802u which are nearly identical but higher performance. (continue reading…)

Google’s going to make an attempt to crawl a little deeper into our lives with their announcement of a new open-source operating system for PCs called Chrome OS.  With the exception of the login barrier between normal Gmail accounts and Gmail for domains, I’ve been very happy with all of Google’s offerings and look forward to seeing what they come up with. (continue reading…)

My collection of music in ALAC (Apple Lossless) format has served me well, but I’ve decided to convert it all to FLAC format.  With FLAC it should be easier to do the encoding without iTunes but I think it will still be as playable as ALAC with all the devices I’m using.  The question became, How to do it. (continue reading…)

Its never too late to learn something new.  I’ve used AutoCAD professionally since the early 1990s and just today learned how to take advantage of a bug, or perhaps it would be more accurate to simply call it a limitation, that has helped to save me from some tedious work. (continue reading…)

In an effort to see if I could reasonably dump Windows entirely, I decided to get my feet wet running a windows application in Ubuntu using Wine.  I only have three applications I use on a regular basis that still tie me to Windows.   iTunes, EAC (Exact Audio Copy), and PC-Control.  With iTunes and EAC my first attempt was only partially successful. (continue reading…)

I’ve used Carbonite for a few years ever since having to cross my fingers that some data could be recovered from a crashed hard drive.  The weakness in their system has always been that backed up files could only be accessed from the computer they originated from.  No longer.

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