Tech Talk
I’m an Apple IIc. I’m a PCJr.
Friday, January 23rd, 2009For those of you who might have thought that Apple’s current “I’m a Mac; I’m a PC” ad campaign is “Thinking Different,” check this out:
The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh?
Categories: Primetime TV, Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
IE7 Suddenly Disabling Add-ons?
Thursday, November 20th, 2008Yesterday, for no apparent reason, Internet Explorer 7 decided it didn’t like add-ins anymore. The yellow message bar that sometimes appears below the URL said this:
Internet Explorer is currently running with Add-Ins disabled
Typically, when something like this occurs, you can right click on the message and choose “Enable Add-Ins” or even “Permanently enable add-ins and leave me alone already.” This time, though, the only right-click options were to help pages that described what Add-Ins were, and what the yellow message bar was. Not particularly helpful.
I Googled around for answers, and found several other folks with the problem. Proposed solutions involved making sure you weren’t intentionally running without Add-Ins (an option if you right-click from the desktop), going to Tools–>Internet Options–>Programs–>Manage Add-Ins and enabling them (all of mine were enabled, as was the case with many reporting the problem), and even going somewhere in the Windows Control Panel and resetting all of Internet Explorer’s settings to the factory standards.
None of these were particularly appetizing, but then I noticed something: whenever the Add-Ins message appeared, the Google Toolbar did not appear. The Manage Add-Ins dialog told me that the toolbar was enabled, but it still seemed to be missing whenever the error appeared.
So, I reinstalled it. The Add-Ins message went away as quickly as it arrived.
Bottom line: I don’t know what was causing this weird scenario, but it’s gone now. If you have the same problem and you’re a Google Toolbar user, try re-installing the toolbar and see if it helps you out.
If not, well, please remember what you paid for this free advice.
Categories: Tech Talk | Comments Off on IE7 Suddenly Disabling Add-ons?
The First Presidential BlackBerry?
Monday, November 17th, 2008
From today’s Associated Press:
Obama May Have to Bury his Beloved BlackBerry
The president’s e-mail can be subpoenaed by Congress and courts and may be subject to public records laws, so if a president doesn’t want his e-mail public, he shouldn’t e-mail, experts said. And there may be security issues about carrying around trackable cell phones.
Obama transition officials haven’t made a decision on what the new president will or will not carry, but those who have been there say it’s unlikely he’ll carry his BlackBerry and he may be in for some withdrawal pains. President-elect Obama has often been seen avidly checking his e-mail on his handheld equipment. This past summer, news cameras recorded him checking his BlackBerry while watching his daughter’s soccer game, only to have Michelle Obama slap at his hands, prompting him to return the device to its holster.
“This is a decision President-elect Obama will have to face,” said former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan, who added that Obama’s legal advisers will probably recommend against an e-mailing president. “While he has pledged an open and transparent government, I doubt the president-elect is interested in subjecting his own personal communications to that standard,” McClellan wrote in an e-mail interview. He added, “He will have to think very hard about whether he wants to make his own words that subject to open records by having his own e-mail and his own BlackBerry.”
On the one hand, I hope he keeps it, because a) it will help him maintain that “everyman” image that he’s got nailed so well right now, and b) because, over time, it will redefine real-time personal communication as a necessity that the law will need to deal with rather than something that would otherwise be useful , but is foregone to avoid legal issues. After all, if a law is discouraging people from legal, productive behavior, then we should change the law, not the behavior, right?
On the other hand, the point of a blackberry is to remain in real-time contact with those who need to reach you the most. The President’s entourage serves that purpose for him, in that people who need to reach him can contact one of the people that travel with him constantly. In that sense, they’re like those people in the Verizon Wireless commercials, and they obfuscate the need for a blackberry entirely.
Separate, but somewhat related note – Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also did not use e-mail:
A few days before Bush took office in 2001, he sent an e-mail to a few dozen close friends saying he would no longer use e-mail: “Since I do not want my private conversations looked at by those out to embarrass, the only course of action is not to correspond in cyberspace. This saddens me.”
Bush was unhappy about losing his e-mail and mostly used the phone to talk to friends, McClellan wrote, adding, “I am sure the president looks forward to being able to communicate with them via e-mail again come January 20, 2009.”
Note that back in 2000, Bush wasn’t worried about legal ramifications, but about the tabloid press. Also note that the BlackBerry was invented in 2002.
Categories: Political Rantings, Tech Talk | 9 Comments »
Oops, I’m Late!
Monday, November 10th, 2008As the iPhone has proven to us, any application that makes use of an internal GPS or gyroscope is inherently cool. LifeHacker provides us with one called Oops, I’m Late that isn’t for the iPhone, but it’s cool anyway.
Oops, I’m Late checks the calendar on your phone for meetings and their locations. It then uses the GPS device in your phone to determine how far away from the location you are and your current speed, in order to determine an estimated time of arrival (ETA). It can then send an e-mail, twitter, SMS, or Facebook message to each scheduled attendee in the meeting saying, “I’m running late, I’ll be there in X minutes.”
That’s pretty good use of multiple datasets in one device to create something inherently useful. Bravo…
Categories: Tech Talk, The Future is Now | Comments Off on Oops, I’m Late!
When Excel Gets in the News…
Monday, October 20th, 2008As a self-proclaimed spreadsheet jockey, stories like this hurt me in places I don’t like to talk about.
Categories: Money Talk, Tech Talk | Comments Off on When Excel Gets in the News…
Did POP3 suddenly stop working on your Yahoo mail account?
Sunday, August 17th, 2008Consider this part public service announcement, part documentation for myself in case I need to refer back to it later:
Yahoo recently changed the way they handle mail for their GeoCities Pro customers (and possibly for others, as well.
Categories: Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
Measuring Earthquakes – Web 2.0 Style!
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008Los Angeles had a 5.4 magnitude earthquake yesterday.
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging, Tech Talk | Comments Off on Measuring Earthquakes – Web 2.0 Style!
iPhone – the $200 Flashlight
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008How’s this for a lede in a Forbes article:
The geeks are at the gates, and they’ve brought their virtual light sabers. When it comes to nerdery, the legions who camped outside Apple’s stores last month to buy the iPhone have nothing on the developers Apple let loose to write software for it. At least three applications turn the $199 iPhone 3g into a flashlight. Another, World 9, lets out a vintage Nintendo bleep every time you bump the phone. In less than 15 minutes you can load up the iPhone with enough junk to make esthete Steve Jobs lose his vegan lunch of brown rice and broccoli.
The article goes on to describe several other App Store choices.
Categories: Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
Another step toward iPod gold…
Monday, July 21st, 2008
I’ve been saying for many years now that the killer app on the iPod has not yet been written.
Categories: Tech Talk, Words about Music | 1 Comment »
Allow Me to Give You the Tour…
Thursday, July 10th, 2008Now that it’s done, allow me to point out some of the super-cool features of my new site.
Categories: Blogging about Blogs, Tech Talk | 1 Comment »