FeedDemon is now FREE!
January 29th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
The best desktop client for reading and subscribing to RSS feeds just became free (imho). Newsgator, the creator of the software used to charge a one-time $ 29.95 fee to use it permanently (after your 30 day trial). FeedDemon 
is for both Mac’s and windows and provides the user with a nice initial assortment of feeds to start. Or you can export your feeds into an .opml file from your current reader and import that file into FeedDemon. It has many cool features and is VERY easy to use, even for beginners. Props to Newsgator for giving it up~!
25 million songs and they are all FREE to download beginning at 12 midnight EST tonight!
January 27th, 2008 § 1 Comment
No spyware, malware or adware included. There’s a new service in town beginning tonight, Sunday January 27th at 12 Midnight EST. You’ll be able to download their application (browser plug-in, not a desktop client) and then grab as many songs as you want, free of any charge. What’s the catch? None. Except, you’ll have to see or listen to an ad. Ads will be shown on musical devices as well. BUT, the songs are not portable to iPods (that won’t last as I’m sure someone will ‘jailbreak’ this). Its Windows only for the moment. Downloads should be relatively fast as it uses a peer-to-peer technology to get you the files. The ‘media player’ is browser based and is a plug-in or add on that you’ll grab from Mozilla/FireFox. The service is called Qtrax 
and according to Qtrax it has signed all 4 of the major music labels (although Warner Music has not confirmed this yet). iTunes has about 6 million songs and Amazon has about 3 million to put this in perspective for you. No doubt it has its drawbacks. Correction: it DOES have no DRM DRM restrictions and has a far larger body of music than anyone else (because its built upon the Gnutella P2P network). Someone will crack the portability issue soon I’m sure. But this is a website to watch. The legal subscription free/ad model applied to music is about to be tested. 25 million songs is a huge catalog. And on their site they scream for you to ‘come and get the music’. I’m sure that’s just what their advertisers are saying too. 
Migration to the web or how I learned to give up my Microsoft habit (software)
December 15th, 2007 § 2 Comments
I think I finally did it. But it wasn’t me. The web finally has matured enough so that I feel confident enough to allow my data and information to be stored somewhere else other than my laptop or computer at home. Since I can remember, I have used as millions have used Microsoft’s Office suite (Outlook, word, excel, power point, etc). I never had a choice. Especially with Outlook. Yes, Outlook. It has all of my contacts, phone numbers email addresses, special notes I’ve made about different friends or family remembers, my passwords and registrations for various sites and software +. I’ve always feared losing my Outlook or having the file become corrupted so over the years I’ve gotten to be somewhat of an expert or at least not a novice in understanding how to back-up and move around my Outlook file (called a “.pst” file extension). I had a computer at work so wherever I worked I needed my numbers addresses etc. So, I’ve had to keep current and up-to-date an outlook file for 2 places – home and the office. This has required that I copy EVERY night before I leave for another physical location (i.e., work) my Outlook file so any email messages or other data like new appointments I’ve entered that night get saved and travel with me to work the next day. Outlook .pst files are NOT small files. Mine is quite large. In order to do this, I’ve had to carry a small portable hard drive (now a flash USB drive because they are larger in capacity than they ever used to be) which I copied my .pst file every night or morning before leaving one place or the other. And there were times I forgot so I had to create workarounds. It was nothing short of a big PIA!
Last week I took the plunge and discarded Outlook – I’ve never been happier. In fact, I’ve discarded the entire MS Office suite. And I can still do everything that I want to do using other productivity tools for free on the web. So, here is what I have substituted for MS Office:
1. Outlook=Thunderbird + a Gmail IMAP account 
Thunderbird, Mozilla’s version of Outlook, looks and feels JUST like Outlook. Its easier to use, faster and backing it up is super fast and easy. Combine this with a free Gmail account (only using IMAP) and you can have your Outlook functionality, store your old email messages and folders and store your new messages as they come into your inbox whether you use a work email address (can be a POP account). Using Gmail’s new support for IMAP is one of the key’s. Think of IMAP as a place to store your email on a remote server/computer that’s always available (Google’s not going anywhere soon in my lifetime so I’m sure my account will be around forever). Think of POP as a local way to store your email information.
2. Calendar on Outlook=Lightning 0.7 
add-on for Thunderbird
Grab the free Mozilla add-on called Lightning. This will import your Outlook Calendar into Lightning. Looks and feels just like Outlook. Now, go to Google again and get a free Calendar. Now pay attention. Go get ‘Provider for Google’ another little add-on for Lightning and you’ll be able to save your calendar on the web in Google Calendar. You can add an event in your Thunderbird/Lightning calendar and presto, it shows up on your Google Calendar and vice-versa.
3. Google Docs= MS Word, MS Excel, MS Power Point +
Get a Google Docs account and you’ll be able to create Word or Excel type docs, store them on your computer/laptop AND store them on the web in Google Docs. They are always accessible as long as I have a browser if I didn’t save a local copy on my hard drive.
Backing up Thunderbird and Lightning is easy using Moz Backup. A few clicks of next and you’re done. There is even a way to sync all of this to your Windows Mobile Smartphone or Windows Mobile Phone using GMobileSync. So, even though there is a new vcersion of Office out now and new version due in 2008, I think I’m going this route. I’m no longer tethered to my computer. If I loose my laptop or it breaks – just fix it and re-download my apps. The data will still be there – as long as Google sticks around and they aren’t going anywhere as far as I can tell anytime soon.
Those ‘elusive’ online Academy Award Screeners for 2007…and the winners are:
November 4th, 2007 § 1 Comment
Its that time again. What do I mean you might ask? Its time to hunt down digital copies and watch this years Academy Award screener’s that are already starting to ‘leak’ their way online. Some even before they hit the theaters. So, we’ll keep a tally here as to which ones have shown up and where to find them. First one off the lot ‘honors’ goes to “AMERICAN GANGSTER” Stay tuned for more!
ps – they are all found right here 
.
UPDATE: (*note: not all of the below mentioned titles are ‘Academy Screeners’, some are art house pics, some are DVD screeners that were leaked earlier than their DVD street date -most likely by an employee – and all are found in the divx binary newsgroup as well as some others and are available for download for free by anyone with a newsgroup reader, newsgroup account, and some par files). If you need some help understanding how to do all of this, you can look it up on the web here (and its not an easy exercise to do and that’s why services like Limewire and Kazza thrived for so long) or try iTunes.
*The Brothers Solomon, King of California, Redacted, Fifty Pills, The Banishment, In Memory of Myself, The Edge of Heaven, Thieves, The Man Who Shot Chinatown, The Man from Earth, Shattered, September Dawn, Dragon War.
