Minneapolis Update: The Snowblower(?)
Learning the local trends, became a landlord, and was advised to get a snowblower by the locals. I’m not even sure that I know what snow really is, much less understand how to ‘blow it’.
Sync iPhone with Google Calendar and Contacts
I’ve got tons of pictures and videos to post later this weekend, but wanted to document this article on Google Calendar and Contacts syncing with the iPhone.
http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740
Ella’s Swim Survival Lessons
A few months ago Jenn and I signed Ella up for a program that teaches children to survive if they fall into a pool or water. It’s 20-something lessons every single day in a row for 10-minutes each. What’s amazing is that the program teaches children to float on their backs to breathe (even with full clothes on) and then swim under water to safety (or just wait for help by floating on their back). Below is one of Ella’s final lessons.
Free FTP Client - FireFTP
If you are looking for a great FTP client, I’ve been using FireFTP which is a plugin to Mozilla’s FireFox browser. I had spent the last few months looking for a FTP client that would work with the Mac like I want it to. I had been using CuteFTP with my previous windows machine, but now that I’ve switched to OSX I wasn’t so sure. The tab feature is nice on FireFTP as it provides you a status as you browse other website.
Fast and easy, just like I like it (… not to mention FREE!).
How to Miniaturize a Scene in a Photo
Great article over at Wired about Miniaturing a Photo Scene. In short, all you need to do is use the Gradient tool in Photoshop, set to Reflected Gradient, and then move the cursor in the direction of the blur. Then use the Filter > Blur option to finish it out.
How to Use Google 411
The folks at Google have released GOOG-411! Instead of using 411 (which is a paid service), you can now use this service by dialing 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) for free. In addition to that you can say “map it” during the call and it will send you a free text message to your mobile phone. Not sure about you folks, but I travel quite a bit and am often having to dial 411 via my cell and often take advantage of the text messaging feature. Now I’m not saying saving a couple of bucks is going to go a long way, but it sure is worth trying.
Happy hunting!
Transfer Firefox Bookmarks > Windows to Mac
So with my new MacBook Pro, I’ve been trying to get everything from my old windows machine sync’d over to my Mac so I can officially decommission the windows machine. There’s a great article over at mozillaZine that tells you how to find the proper bookmark.html file. There’s no way to import bookmark’s from Firefox > Firefox, so you just have to copy the files.
In short, you have to navigate to the Mozilla folder in the “Documents and Settings” folder in windows instead of the Mozilla folder you find in the “Programs” folder. The one in the Programs folder is simply the template for bookmarks with Mozilla. In the mac, just navigate to the Firefox folder and replace the “bookmarks.html” that you pulled from the windows machine and import to the Mac. Make sure you restart Firefox and bam! Instant success.
Gmail: It’s a Must
Back last summer I wrote an article on Gmail and why you should use it. Because I’m a heavy email user that uses several email addresses for several reasons, I receive a lot of messages - whether that be from friends, family, colleagues, companies, etc. Because some folks I know don’t have the best mail practices and are constantly getting their inboxes owned by viruses, I want to reiterate why Gmail is one of the next best things in managing your mail.
One of the Best Home Theater Builds
Go through all the galleries, pretty impressive.
Useful Excel Tricks
Hey all, good article over at Lifehacker about using two Excel spreadsheets at once. For those of you that don’t have dual monitors, which is utlimately the best, use the “Window > Compare Side by Side.”
ASAP Utilities: Excel
Hey folks, for those of you out there that use Excel a lot (like myself), here’s a pretty cool tool from ASAP Utilities for Excel. It’s not bad as it cuts back on a lot of time. I’ve already used it some and it’s not bad!
Encrypted Drive: Follow-up
About 2 weeks ago I wrote an article on TrueCrypt. Now that I’ve used it much more on a consistent basis, I’m really liking it alot. There are two main features that I like with TrueCrypt:
1. It’s encryption technique and set-up process
2. The fact that you can mount it as a drive, just like you would with Daemon tools, but as an actual partition.
For those of you that carry laptops, which is most of us these days, I highly recommend that you consider rethinking how you secure your data on your machine. At some point in time some of us may have our laptops stolen, lost, or compromised and at that very moment you need to know your files are safe. For instance, for those of you that file your income taxes digitally this would be an applicable scenario for you. Additionally, for those of you that use your laptop primarily for work and do not want non-disclosed documents ‘disclosed’ by some catastrophic event as described above, then this would even pose as a greater solution for you. I already use it on my laptop for all of my documents and even at home for the documents that people do not need to see.
Creating an Encrypted Drive for Your Files
Very good article over at Lifehacker that details data encryption via an open source program called TrueCrypt. Some of you think that having a machine in your home or even behind a router is protection enough. However, it’s easy for intruders to get on your machine - even past a router that acts like a firewall. TrueCrypt is unique in that it allows you to create an encrypted partion or drive on your machine.
What’s encryption? Basically it takes your data and jumbles it mathematically by means of a password key that you select. This would be very useful for folks that are sole-proprietors or contractors that provide services for different vendors and clients. It allows you to securely store information on any machine by preventing your data from being exposed. This is one of the main components that end-users forget about when setting up their home system - Security. I’ve got a pretty sweet set-up here for my files using the file server. Basically, I mount the encrypted file located on the file server to a local partition on my PC. All I have to do is drag and drop files to the partition, which actually sends the files to the file server, and then unmount the file using TrueCrypt thereafter.
By the way, you don’t need TrueCrypt installed on every machine you use. Some folks recommend putting the TrueCrypt.exe, .sys file, and encrypted file (the one you make) on a USB drive or iPod.
TiVo’ing Content for Mass Distribution
Ok folks, here we are again back in the digital distribution conversation. I promise, this one’s going to be a good read.
So most of us know of TiVo; it allows you to record your movies from your favorite satellite/cable provider and store them on its hard drive using it’s proprietary software. How proprietary is it? Well just ask DishNetwork - whom is getting sued over it. Well, they just anounced that they are doing downloadable digital content to their units that reside in the consumer’s home. Good stuff, but honestly it’s something that we’ve predicted and quite frankly we all expected. However, what’s neat is that they are taking streams from a video blog at Rocketboom. Now I’m not that interested in Rocketboom, but it can be entertaining none the less. Ahh, but this does lead into another thought of mine.
Gmail: Storage Solution
As all of us know, Google created Gmail a while back. Now I haven’t used Gmail for quite some time as I really haven’t had much of a use for it because I like to manage my own mail and use Google’s desktop program to search my mail that way. For those of you that don’t know, I save all my mail including all the mail that I’ve sent out. I mainly use it to search valuable information - whether that be for work, personal, or other misc items. Very very useful for archiving conversations, documents, and important information. However, here recently I’ve been using Gmail as a filter/storage solution for all of my mail from the multiple accounts that I have (minus my work email).
It’s worked out great as you can easily set up filters (aka folders) and take advantage of its forwarding feature as well, not to mention the great archiving and search options that comes with it (hence Google). While I don’t plan on using Gmail directly as I already have enough accounts to manage, I will be forwarding all my mail to it, then back to another account on my mail server so I can check it directly. I’m really using this for two reasons:
Transforming your DVD’s into digital media
So a lot of folks have been asking me on how one would back-up some of their movies to a file server, then stream them over a network for playback on a PC our computer just as if you had the DVD in the drive itself. Before we begin, I should tell you first off that copying any material that is not owned by yourself is illegal and therefore I do not encourage it. However, you are all big boys and girls, so you can do as you please. Let’s begin, shall we?
First what you need is what’s called an emulator for your digital media. The emulator that I have chosen is made by Daemon-Tools. Daemon tools allows you to make virtual DVD drives on your computer. This will be handy as this program will recognize the files that is needed to emulate a DVD digitally. For your convenience, you can download daemon-tools from my Filecloud directory.
Now you need two more files. The first is called DVD Decrypter, which since has been outlawed and the site taken down. DVD Decrypter does exactly how it sounds. It takes your DVD in your DVD drive of your machine and then converts that into a massive directory of files. How massive? Like 4GB massive. So you need some beefy HDD space. You can download DVD Decrypter from my Filecloud directory.
The last file you need is DVD Shrink. This program takes the files that DVD Decrypter made and converts it into what is known as an .ISO file. An .ISO file is an ‘image’ of your DVD. Basically, it’s the DVD all packaged up into one file. You will use this file with Daemon-tools so that your machine recognizes it as a true DVD. This allows for playback just as if you had the DVD in your DVD drive. You can download DVD Shrink from my Filecloud directory.
So, I’ve given you a brief overview of what the files do, but not a how-to. There is an excellent how-to for DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink here.
Let’s talk about Daemon-tools real quick. Once you have gone through the DVD Decrypter / DVD Shrink process and now have your own .ISO file, you now need to ‘mount’ it with Daemon-tools. After installing Daemon-tools, you will notice its icon running in your system tray by your clock. Right-click on it, select ‘Virtual CD/DVD ROM’ and then select ‘Set number of devices’. This will set the number of virutal DVD drives in ‘My Computer’. After you’ve set them, go check it out. Now what we need to do is find your .ISO file, which is the virtual DVD, and ‘mount’ it using Daemon-tools. So go back to the Daemon-tools icon, right-click, select ‘Virtual CD/DVD ROM’, select ‘Device 0: No Media’, and then select ‘Mount’. Navigate to your .ISO file, select it, and presto. Open ‘My Computer’ and you will see your movie as if you had the DVD in the drive itself.
*Disclaimer: Remember, friends, you shouldn’t do this unless you own the media and have checked out all copywrite laws. While I have extensive knowledge on how to do this, I am in now way stating that I copy media illegally for my own personal use or distribution. I’m just sharing information :D.
Questions? Comment on this thread.
Serve up some Nintendo on your PC
Man, I just thought about this for some of our faithful readers. I have this Nintendo emulator that let’s you play vintage Nintendo games on your PC. I think the last time I actually played it was on my laptop about a year ago on a camping trip. For those of you old-school folks, you remember the old elementary days of serving up bragging rights to your pals on the playground after defeating Mike Tyson on Punch-out.
Welp, I’ve put all my Nintendo files along with the emulator in my Filecloud space. It’s currently zipped up, but all you need to do is download it and unzip it using Winrar. For you new.b’s, you can also download it here from my Filecloud account. After that, simply startup the Play Nintendo icon and then select your game. Bam! Instant classic on your desktop.
Want a complete listing of all the Nintendo games? Go here, download, and save!
*disclaimer: these are games that I ‘own’ and have ‘backed up’.
Online Gaming & ISP’s: Bandwidth Consumption
Often times I’m asked what it is that I do at Speakeasy. For those of you that don’t know, I manage our enterprise division. That includes all of our managed services, collocation, etc. One of the initiatives since I was brought on 3-years ago has been online gaming. More specifically, we target online gaming to where we host the online infrastructure for end-users and developers/publishers.
Any time that I mention what I do to people, they typically think that I’m in the gaming scene because it’s new and cool. However, that’s not it at all. While I consider myself technologically advanced and up with the times (and even play some online games), it goes far beyond that.
First thing to consider: anything that utilizes bandwidth is attractive to an ISP. Like video streaming, which uses a lot of bandwidth, so does online gaming and is very similar to video streaming and its associated bandwidth utilization. However, what is interesting about bandwidth consumption as a whole is that ISP’s typically peak with max usage during the day. Because all ISP’s are billed on peak usage, they are basically paying for the bandwidth that they use during the day. This leads us to our next topic.
Online Gaming - Bandwidth consumption: I know what some of you are thinking; doesn’t using a lot of bandwidth like video streaming only increase costs? Yes, but not necessarily like one would think. You see, online gaming is traditionally done during the weekends and at night. It makes sense, right? Gamers come home from school & work and they unwind by playing online games. This takes advantage of an ISP’s bandwidth consumption habits. As mentioned before, ISP’s typically peak during the day time hours and have a lot of bandwidth available during the evening, causing a skewed graph for bandwidth utilization. This means that they don’t have nearly the bandwidth consumption during the evening, which is called Gap bandwidth. Therefore, online gaming uses that gap bandwidth during the evening hours. So as long as an ISP utilizes bandwidth during the evening and does not go over its peak usage during the day, the costs are much lower.
What does this mean? It means that we target online gaming on purpose; not because we think it’s cool (which it really is), but rather because it makes sense. We are always interested in balancing our bandwidth consumption and this niche market helps us accomplish that. We maximize our profits and create an avenue for creating very useful peering relationships with other ISP’s.
So there you have it, that’s one of the main reasons why we have lead an initiative towards online gaming. Of course there are other valuable reasons why we target this industry, such as the type of demographic that plays online games, but we’ll get into that later.
I’ll be doing a series on Online Gaming & ISP’s each week for the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned! Next week I’ll talk about online gaming specifically and how it relates to the latest technologies in software development. I touched on this earlier at the beginning of this article, but I’ll elaborate more on what particularly makes up online gaming in regards to software.
NCAA Tourney Bracket - My Secret Formula & Picks
Ok, maybe not so secret, but being that I feel I know a thing or two about basketball I have made a simple formula that weighs more heavily on 3 aspects of the Team game.
Steals, Rebounds, and Assists
I’m calling it the MM Super Stats (”MM” being my initials). I’m a firm believer of statistics and defense, so I’m making two picks this year. One based on my own personal analysis of all 64 teams. The other will be based off the statistics that I generated for all 64 teams. While I am sure that my model is flawed and have honestly not spent much time thinking about it, below are the stats that I used to determine a point value for each team:
PTS, REB, AST, TO, STL.
I took the value of the points (PTS), then added the total rebounds (REB) times 4. I then added in the assists (AST) times 2, but then subtracted the number of turn-overs (TO) per game. Finally, I added the average number of steals (STL) per game and multiplied by 3, giving REB the most significant weight of the formula. So, this is what you have:
PTS+(REB*4)+((AST*2)-TO)+(STL*3) = Team Value
Using this formula, I see that it is in some cases close to what I would pick based on my evaluations of the 64 teams, however, staying true to my word I will list the Final Four teams along with the eventual winner. I have George Washington, Memphis, UConn, and Montana in the Final Four, with UConn defeating Memphis for the National Championship. The biggest surprise to this Final Four is Montana (which is shocking) as they are a 12 seed. However, they are coming from the weakest bracket in the bunch and have some descent numbers.
So there ya have it, that’s my statistical winner based on my super formula. Tomorrow I will provide my own personal bracket based on the information that I’ve gathered. I typically factor in quality of wins, win streak, and player sizes (as well as the above stats).
Everyone should go get your own printable bracket. I usually print out 4 or 5 of them and have them spread around the house. I recommend you do the same and even post one on your fridge.
