December 8, 2008 - Reading time: 17 minutes

In a previous post, I mentioned how to get Windows Server 2008 for free (students only). For those of you who take advantage of that offer, rest assured that you can turn Server 2008 into an excellent workstation operation system. With a tiny bit of work, Server 2008 can look and act similar to Windows Vista.

Undoubtedly, someone is bound to ask, why on earth would you waste time turning Server 2008 into Vista when you can just use Vista?

It’s a good question, and I doubt I will answer it satisfactorily. Yes, Vista and Server 2008 share the same code base. If you already own Vista, you have no real need to switch to Server 2008. In my case, I do not own Vista, so this guide is geared more toward people like myself. Read more

December 5, 2008 - Reading time: 4 minutes

This is neat. How would you like the ability to create your own standalone webapps on your Mac OS X desktop? In other words, what if you could turn any website into a Mac desktop application?

Fluid can do just that.

Download Fluid – requires OS 10.5 or later

In seconds, Fluid can take a given website – such as Gmail, Google Docs, Facebook, eBay, YouTube, or whatever you want – and package it into its own Site Specific Browser (SSB). The SSBs can then run as complete and independent Cocoa applications, complete with their own dock icons and menu bars! Fluid SSBs are based on Safari’s WebKit rendering engine. Read more

December 4, 2008 - Reading time: 6 minutes

UPDATE: Looks like iAntiVirus is dead.

There has been quite a bit of fuss in the news recently about whether or not Apple recommends anti-virus software for Macs.

My take: I’m not a fanboy of any sort. I am comfortable with multiple operating systems, and I simply prefer to use whatever tool I deem best for any given job. That said, no one can argue that the overwhelming majority of malware writers target the Windows operating system. I also doubt that anyone can convincingly argue that every single Mac needs anti-virus software. Mac OS X is inherently tougher for malware writers to penetrate, but no operating system is perfect. I agree that the best defense against malware is common sense, but lots of people are gullible, and social engineering will find ways around users’ better judgment (or the lack thereof).

As a lover of free software, I choose to run (free) anti-virus software on the Windows-based computers that I manage. I also choose to run anti-virus software on my Mac. Read more

December 3, 2008 - Reading time: 4 minutes

UPDATE: Looks like MozBackup is dead.

If you frequently hop around between various Windows-based computers, you might find it handy to keep the same Firefox profile with all your custom settings, extensions, and other info. One easy way to backup and restore your Firefox profile is with MozBackup.

Note: MozBackup also works with Thunderbird, Flock, Sunbird, SeaMonkey, and other Mozilla software.

The MozBackup download comes in both an executable and Zip (standalone) format. I prefer the Zip since you can just pop it onto a Flash drive and carry it with you. Read more

November 29, 2008 - Reading time: 5 minutes

Update: Looks like it's dead.

Any time you put a photo on the Web, you run a risk that someone will claim it as their own. If you are okay with this, then please ignore this post. However, you can easily add protection against image theft by adding a watermark.

Sure, many photo editing programs (such as Photoshop, GIMP, Picasa) can add watermarks to images, but in a pinch you can just use your browser to upload photos to PicMarkr and easily add a watermark online.

Adding watermarks using PicMarkr is a simple three-step process.

Step One – Upload

First, you need to get your image(s) into PicMarkr. Using their browser upload tool, you can upload up to five pictures at once, with a total file size up to 25 MB. Read more

November 27, 2008 - Reading time: 3 minutes

I have this love/hate thing with open-source technology. It’s great that it’s free, bugs are openly discussed instead of hidden away, and ultimately I think the open source technologies are more robust.

But here’s what always gets me: the packages and their dependencies.

Perl

At the bash prompt, you can type:
perl -e 'use Some::Package'

If the package is installed, nothing will happen. The one line script executes without complaint. But if you DON’T have that package installed, you’ll get an error like this:
Can't locate Some/Package.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi
[...]
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8 .) at -e line 1.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at -e line 1.


Read more