Joost - Slick and Definitely Worth a Look

After poking away at the page for about 20 minutes (apparently their servers are quite finicky handling the new load of the expanded beta) I got into the Joost beta today. off of the provider mentioned on Gizmodo. I wished someone had helped me out with an invite earlier though--if you happen uppon this page and would like an invite, leave your e-mail in the comments. (and I'd encourage you to add me to the feeds that you read if you like what i write about!)

Some notes:
After downloading and installing Joost, it asks you for your e-mail address that received the invite, and for you to select a username and password. I did, and then it said that it was checking my username for about a minute. Then it bounced me back to to the page to provide username, e-mail and password . Although it doesn't say anything right now, apparently if you don't receive a dramatic error message, odds are your username has been successfully registered (there's no "success" message).

Once I got through the hassle of the signup, the Joost software seems to work like a charm. Within seconds after selecting a show, the p2p system gets the show to the screen. Quality is a little pixelated for the first few seconds, but as more content gets to your machine it rapidly improves. So far the content is fairly limited, but there are some episodes of Transformers, Punkd, and Starsky and Hutch with more to come as they make deals with content providers. There are quite a few music videos as well

I dont' think I'll be using it too heavily until there's more to watch, but for now Joost is certainly a great way to get quick access to some quality videos. Again, if you'd like an invite, leave a comment!

Mozy--Setting up an Effortless Backup Plan

Computer backups are one of those things that I'd occasionally do every month or so after reading a horror story about someone's drive crapping out. I'd basically copy my entire user folder over to my external and replace the previous backup. I've always meant to set up a more regulated system so that I don't lose anything important (my files for school are constantly changing and I'd hate to lose them). The school has some sort of tape backup mechanism in place, but I'd rather not be tied to the VPN to do my backups. Ideally, I just want it to stay out of the way, but be available easily should something happen. So the other day I had some free time and made investigations around the net into a good backup strategy.

Enter Mozy. For the price of an e-mail address, Mozy provides 2 gigs worth of encrypted backup space, plus another 256 megs for each person that uses your referral code (you also gain 256 megs of free storage space when you sign up using someone's referral code). You download and install Mozy's backup client, modify the default filters so that the file types and folders you need backed up are taken care of, and then you let it do it's thing. The initial backup will probably run overnight, but from there on out it will just run in the background and upload any new files or file changes onto the Mozy servers when your system is idle. According to Windows Task Manager the mozy software uses only ~20 megs of my 2 gigs of ram, and I personally haven't noticed any slowdown. The Mozy tray icon gives you easy access to all of Mozy's controls and to quickly suspend it from making backups. Backups can be easily accessed through Explorer--Mozy adds a "Mozy Remote Backup" location to your system which contains all your backed up files and folders in their original filestructure layout. In the case that your entire hard drive kicks the bucket, you can also access your complete backup from the Mozy website.

All in all Mozy is my new solution for everyday backups. It typically will make a backup of my files about 4 times throughout the day so it's always up to date. It's incremental, so I don't have to backup my whole drive every time I want to backup. I get over 2 gigs of storage free, with the option of unlimited storage for $4.95 a month. Based on my experiences with it thus far, it's likely I'll be upgrading to the unlimited plan and backing up my photos and music there in the near future. If you're looking for an excellent budget plan to backup your most important everyday files, Mozy is an excellent utility and service that I would highly recommend. I'll be installing it on all the computers I do IT for in the near future.

If you'd like to sign up for Mozy using my referral code 7DDRS3, we'll both get an extra 256 megs of storage when you complete your first backup. You can automatically sign up with the referral code by clicking here. If you do, thanks!

Alternatively, if you don't want the extra space or want to use someone else's code, see the main Mozy site.

Office 2007 -- Engineering and Math Finally Get Some Respect

Office 2007 has been right alongside Vista in receiving all manner of poor reviews and complaints, primarily revolving around the new file formats (such as .docx) and the replacement of the old toolbars with the ribbon. After spending a fair amount of time working on a huge engineering paper the past few days, I feel I can safely say that Office 2007 is the best thing to happen to writing as an engineer.

As someone who has muddled with the old "Microsoft Equation Editor" that has remained almost completely unchanged for years, Office 2007's equation editor is one of those "Why didn't they do this years ago???" sort of things. Press the arrow under equations and get instant access to a list of built-in equations.

If you click on the equations button, an entire chunk of ribbon opens up with every amount of functionality from the old equation editor had, and then some, all instantly accessable directly from within Word without having to deal with another window to insert the equation components.



All of this is perfect for writing entire equations out with great ease. However in engineering writing I frequently need to put in a single greek letter to reference a value. In older versions of word that meant either using a character map, the symbols font, or inserting a single letter through the equation editor. Now, just to the right of the equations button is the Symbol button. Initially it contains a few basic symbols, but as you choose from the attached character map, Office will automatically save the symbols you use. When you need the symbol again, you just click the symbol button on the ribbon, and select the symbol from the nice drop down list.

Just these two tiny additions to Office have made a big difference to how I use it on a regular basis, and I couldn't be happier.

Thunderbird 2 and my Top Extensions

Thunderbird 2 came out last week, and it's been more useful to me than ever. I currently have 4 e-mail accounts, and I use Thunderbird to manage all the mail, plus a few RSS feeds that i don't have time to read on a daily basis.

Just a quick rundown of the extensions I've found to be the most helpful in my day to day e-mailing and such.

1. Thunderbird Tray (TB-Tray) -- My favorite Thunderbird extension isn't really even an extension. TB-Tray sits in your system tray and allows Thunderbird to minimize there (so it doesn't take up space in your taskbar). For someone like me who has Thunderbird running ALL the time, this is essential. Another true extension called MinimizeToTray adds this functionality as well, but I found it to be a bit buggy when I last used it. Plus, TB-Tray allows you to instantly write an e-mail or call up your address book directly from the system tray.
2. Nostalgy--Nostalgy lets you quickly navigate your folders and move messages within Thunderbird simply by using your keyboard. I'm a bit of a pack rat and have a lot of archived e-mail. Nostalgy makes saving messages a very natural ~4 keystroke process, and finding them again is just as simple.
3. Lightning--Mozilla's calendar extension for Thunderbird. It's improved a lot since they started development on it, but in Thunderbird 2 I've finally started using it full-time because of....
4. Provider for Google Calendar--This extension allows for 2 directional gCal access through the Lightning extension. Fantastic! When I'm on anyone's computer, I can access my calendar through the online interface, and when I get back to Thunderbird/Lightning I have full access to my up to date calendar. (This extension requires Thunderbird 2 -- won't work with 1.5) You can find instructions on how to get the two in sync here.
   
5. Buttons! -- This extension adds new buttons you can add to your Thunderbird toolbars. I don't need most of the functionality it offers except for one button: "Select SMTP!" With a click of this button you can quickly change the default SMTP server that Thunderbird uses for outgoing messages. This is great if you run multiple e-mail accounts through Thunderbird; you can instantly change the e-mail address you're using to send a particular e-mail.
6. Send Later -- Sometimes I need to send an e-mail to someone-- just not right now. Or, I want to send myself a reminder e-mail tomorrow so that I remember to do something. The Send Later extension makes things so that a ctrl+shift+enter invokes a dialog box where you can choose the date and time for the message to be sent.

These 6 extensions make an already excellent program even better!

Software - CrossLoop

Last night a friend in another state was having a computer problem. It's easier to fix most problems if you can sit down at the machine, but when you're miles away that's not exactly an option.... unless you can remote desktop in.

Usually getting a remote connection up and running to do tech support is not worth the effort, but I've been meaning to try CrossLoop since it was featured on Lifehacker a few months ago.

CrossLoop works like a charm. Within minutes of receiving the phone call I was looking at my friend's screen, moving his mouse, and typing in stuff in search of the problem. All it takes is for both you and your friend to download the CrossLoop software and install it. Your friend chooses the "HOST" tab, gives you their access code, and hits "connect". On your end you type in the access code and click "Connect" He approves the connection and within seconds you'll have access to your friends computer.

Only downside is CrossLoop only works to connect two Windows computers running something newer than Win98 (including Vista!); Doesn't work with Linux or Mac

Crossloop will definitely be my go-to choice for quick and easy remote support for the time being.

Reconfiguring Boot Order - For the Linux newbie like me

As much as I'm drawn to Linux and I've had very positive experiences with it, I still prefer to do most of my work in Windows (It's a matter of preference -- not to mention that a lot of my classes require software that only runs on Windows). So, I was a little frustrated when upon first installing Ubuntu last year it claimed itself as the first item in the boot order. I'd restart my laptop from linux to go back to Windows... only to end up back in Ubuntu. So, here's how to simply rearrange the boot order in GRUB. (Note: you should probably back up your menu.lst file before doing this)

Open up a terminal and give the command:
sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

This will open up the menu list that GRUB uses to generate the list you see when your computer boots. If you scroll to the bottom of this file, you'll find a list of nicely commented commands for the various OSes on your computer in the order in which they appear in the GRUB loader.

It will look something like this:




If you scroll all the way to the bottom, it will list your other operating systems, ie. Windows. All you need to do is cut and paste the ENTIRE entry for Windows up to above the Ubuntu entries. You will want to paste it just below the text that says "## ## End Default Options ##." The entire entry you want to copy consists of (at least for Vista)

title Windows Vista/Longhorn (loader)
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

New menu.lst file:

Save the menu.lst file, and that's all!

With this entry at the top of the list, when your computer boots it will now default to Windows (or whatever other entry you chose to place first).

Note: I have heard that this trick might become switched back when there's a kernel update which edits the menu.lst file. Should this happen to you, it should only take a few moments to change it back.

Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn

Just got the release of Feisty Fawn installed and running in a dual boot setup with Vista on my Thinkpad. Initial opinion--very very slick.

Things that stick out from just my first hour:

1. Easy codec access--When you try to play an mp3 or another file that requires one of the restricted codecs you once had to manually install, Ubuntu informs you that you need to get a codec and after a couple dialog boxes and an admin password all the codecs are ready to go.
2. Beryl in 1 step-- Beryl is now included in the default repositories, and the video drivers (at least the ones for my T43p's ATI card) are up to snuff enough to run Beryl out of the box. sudo apt-get install beryl and I was all set. A basic version of Compiz that does the virtual dekstop cube and wobbly windows is included in Feisty, but I personally prefer the customizability of Beryl for now until the projects re-merge.
   
3. Networking--On my laptop, wireless access and managing it can be a pain. Luckily, Feisty has a nice new set of wireless controls easily accessible through the tray. It even picks up networks around my apartment that I could never see in Windows!
   
4. It's fast. Booting up seems much faster than 6.10 ever did, and within the OS it feels like I'm using a much faster computer than I am -- even running all the Beryl GUI enhancements.
   

Complaints:

• Thunderbird 2 (which I've made the switch to in Windows) isn't in the repositories yet so I had to put it on here manually. It sucks when I'm spoiled by Synaptic

VLC in Vista

Since I discovered it last year, VLC Media Player has been my video player of choice in both Windows and Ubuntu. Why?

Pretty much one reason -- It plays anything I throw at it.

Where WMP strapped to the gills with codecs fails, VLC reigns supreme. The only videos I've ever had it struggle with had other problems such as file corruption.

So I was quite surprised when I got things set up in Vista and VLC suddenly wouldn't play my videos anymore. Audio would work and all seemed well, but just no video output. After a little googling, I discovered the culprit seems to be Vista's new Aero glass interface and the modules VLC is using to output the video. Here's how to get VLC up and playing again in Vista.

1. Open VLC and go to Settings-->Preferences (or just hit ctrl-S)
2. In the left pane, navigate to Video-->Output Modules
3. Select the "Advanced Options" check box which will allow you to modify the output module. Yours is probably currently set to "Default"
4. Change this to Windows GDI Video Output or OpenGL Output. (Other settings may work for your as well)
5. Restart VLC
6. Enjoy your working video!

Hopefully this problem will be fixed in a future version of VLC, but until then I hope this fix is helpful!

Running Vista on my Thinkpad T43p - Initial Thoughts and Tweaks

Despite all the bad press Vista has gotten, I went ahead and put Vista Ultimate on my Thinkpad T43p. I was fairly optimistic since I ran the Release Candidates late last year and they functioned smoothly with no major driver issues.

Vista booted up smoothly, albeit very slowly on the 2GHz Celeron 1gig RAM, 5400rpm/80gig system. As I started getting myself up and running on the new OS, the first thing I did was disable UAC. It's too much of a pain in the ass when you have to click through 3 dialog boxes simply to install Firefox. I understand the point of UAC, but honestly, I know what I'm doing and I don't feel that it's a necessity for me.

The next thing I did was to modify the indexing (Orb-->Indexing Options). By default, Vista wants to keep an index of all the files in my Start Menu, as well as everything in my Users folder. While I do like the idea of keeping an index of my files for easy access, I modified the settings so that only my Start Menu and Desktop are indexed. This knocked my index size down from several thousand to ~500. Why do this? Well, the simple fact is that my hard drive is just too slow to maintain an index of my constantly changing User's folder. Full-fledged indexing works great on my friend's T60 with a 7200rpm drive, but it's too much of a drag on my system.

I've disabled a few more non-essential processes, but the indexing has made the biggest difference to the overall system performance on this slower system. Overall, Vista seems to be running well on here, especially since I took the plunge and upgraded my system to 2 gigs of RAM last week :)

More on Vista stuff later

New Beginnings

Since all but abandoning my livejournal months ago, I've decided to give this another go-- from the perspective of usefulness to me and potentially a googler or two looking for a solution to a problem.