Benefits of Online File Storage
Posted September 8, 2011 – 11:41 am in: computersOnline storage is an excellent cloud-based service that businesses of all sizes should take advantage of. We are pleased to publish a guest post by Shelly Towns, a writer and tech enthusiast, who writes for Maytech.net.
Description: Most online file storage providers have a list of features to sell about their services. But how will these features benefit your business?
Today’s cloud-based computing solutions include a number of online file storage options for businesses that need a place to put their big files. For some companies, however, their needs for online, off-site storage are eclipsed by their lack of in-house technical experience. This generally results in solutions to file storage and transfer that are unsustainable, inconvenient and usually expensive.
Security is important to most businesses and the concept of sending potentially sensitive materials across the Internet into and from their storage facility can be scary. One of the benefits of selecting a high quality online file storage provider is they tend to have all the latest encryption schemes to ensure ones business intelligence remains private and proprietary.
No Comments | Tags:RSS Feed Readers: Changing from Netvibes Wasabi to Google Reader
Posted July 29, 2010 – 3:55 pm in: computersI’ve finally done it: I’ve changed over from Netvibes Wasabi to Google Reader as my main RSS reader.
Back in March, I did a detailed comparison of Windows RSS readers and concluded that Netvibes Wasabi and Google Reader were the two best feed readers.
For desktop viewing, the main tradeoff at that time was between design / readability and feed handling. Google Reader was hands-down better at handling a wide range of different types of feeds. Netvibes was, to my eye at least, the hands-down winner in terms of design and readability.
Despite the problems with the feed handling, I ended up sticking with Netvibes.
But as of yesterday, that’s changed: I have now permanently switched over to Google Reader and dropped Netvibes.
The reason for the change was three-fold:
- I have some new responsibilities and simply can’t work around Netvibes feed handling issues any longer
- I found a Chrome extension that allows you to easily create your own skin for Google Reader, so I added some custom CSS and now have a Netvibes-type layout (see separate post)
- I’m need better mobile access to my feeds and that favors Google Reader by a lot
Giving up on Internet Explorer
Posted January 7, 2010 – 9:06 pm in: computersI am dumping Internet Explorer today! I just can’t take it anymore. Too frustrating.
I do this reluctantly, however, because IE is still the dominant web browser on the planet – and since I build websites, I want my sites to work properly in it.
Until now, I have always tried to do some major tasks each day in IE as well as in Firefox and Chrome. I thought that it was important to use all the major browsers regularly to stay up to the minute with how they worked.
But over time, I’ve used IE less and less because, for whatever reasons, it just seems to break an awful lot – plus it is slow and lacks the add-ons / plug-ins that have become so valuable in the other browsers.
Instead, I’ve used Chrome and Firefox more and more because they hardly ever have problems, they are both a lot, lot faster than IE, and their plug-in libraries add lots of great functionality. When, from time to time, those programs do have problems, they normally fix themselves with a quick shutdown and restart of the program.
No Comments | Tags: computer tipsiYogi complaint: too hard to get my refund!
Posted January 6, 2010 – 5:12 pm in: computersI’m having a helluva hard time getting a refund out of iYogi. Today, they secured $15M in follow-on funding, so maybe they’ll be able to pay up.
iYogi provides remote technical support to solve computer problems and whatnot. After comparing their services and prices to several other firms, I decided to give them a try. They seemed to have something that could be pretty useful.
I signed up in mid-January 2009 — but then closed the account within 2 hrs because they didn’t service 64-bit Vista machines (which they could have made clearer on their website).
I asked for a refund and received immediate confirmation email that they’d processed it. The email appeared official and definitive.
“Based on your request we have processed the refund for your subscription. This will reflect in your bank records/credit card statement within 7 business days, depending on your billing cycle.”
Silly me, I never checked my bank account. Only last week while doing year end financial tallies did I realize that no refund ever hit my account.
Spoke to them at great length on Dec 29 – routed thru about 3 people with each needing to hear the story in detail asking the same questions again and again and again. Was finally assured by a woman that they would call back within 24 hrs to confirm refund. Never heard from them.
On Jan 5, I spent about 2 hours on phone or on live chat in a series…
6 Comments | Tags: computer tipsWhich version of Java for a 64-bit Vista machine?
Posted December 16, 2009 – 10:01 pm in: computersI was recently trying to clean up things on my computer and noticed for the several’th time that I had 2 versions of Java installed and running on my laptop (a 64-bit Windows Vista machine).
Java is a programming language used in browsers – like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. Java plugs into these browsers and helps them to do things like display graphics, play games, run widgets, etc.
I wasn’t sure if I needed both versions of the program or not, so decided to investigate.
It turns out that one version of Java on my machine is an x64 version (64 bit) and the other is an x86 version (32 bit).
Did I need both? Answer is ‘yes’ – at least in my case.
Reason is that I need the 32-bit version to run in tandem with 32-bit browsers that I use – and I need the 64-bit version to run with the lone 64-bit browser that I use (Internet Explorer x64).
Further information can be found here: Java on 64-bit Windows.
Need Java? Java downloads
No Comments | Tags: computer tips