TechTaming

Clean your expensive LCD, TFT, and HDTV screen properly

2007-10-24T07:25:00.000-07:00

I use my notebook computer a lot and drag it from place to place, including my night classes. I wipe the screen off occasionally, but lately I notice that it has some scratches and marks that don't seem to come off. -GS

In the old days (2-3 years ago) you could clean your glass CRT monitor with a piece of dry, lint-free cotton cloth. But the LCD screens on newer desktop computers and notebooks have a much more sensitive display surface that is likely to get scratches from dust particles or fingerprints if you use a cloth alone to clean them.
Of course, you could use expensive LCD monitor cleaner solutions or monitor wipes that are available. In fact, Ask Yahoo and Answerbag offer some other options. But, if you have some vinegar on hand, then you already have much of what you need to clean your monitor. Here's how:

Turn your monitor off so you can easily see the dirty areas of your screen.

Dilute the vinegar with distilled water [1:1] and spray or drip the liquid onto a microfiber (or cotton) cloth, not onto the LCD screen. (Tap water can be used, but it might leave white marks on the screen.)

Using light pressure, wipe the screen in one direction from top to bottom.

Be sure that the LCD screen on a notebook is dry before closing it. This method should apply to HDTVs, projection TVs and Plasma TVs you might have at home, too.

USB Flash drives that keep your data private: Sandisk Cruzer Biometric, Corsair's Flash Padlock

2007-10-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

Removable USB Flash drives for your computer are nothing new. With increasing storage capacity and falling prices, it's easy to shuttle around tons of important photos, presentations, spreadsheets and documents. The trouble is that the more you carry, the more you risk if you misplace a drive or leave it plugged into a public computer somewhere. Whether you transport sensitive data, figures or passwords, or want to add a strong layer of security in the event of loss, here are two recommended products.

Sandisk Cruzer Biometric USB Drive - At about $30 street, this is a 1 Gb capacity removable drive that uses built-in fingerprint identification technology to restrict access to the designated user of the unit. PROS: robust protection at a low cost. CONS: Two-piece design can be inconvenient to carry and use. Can't be shared among a team if that's your interest.

Corsair's Flash Padlock USB Flash Drive - At about $30 street for the 1 Gb capacity/$40 for the 2 Gb capacity, this newer approach allows the user to program in a PIN, much like an ATM machine. PROS: Robust protection at a low cost. Larger capacity options. Lock/unlock indicator lights. Auto locks when unplugged. CONS: None.

Tip: If you plan to use this hardware with Windows Vista, visit the manufacturer's site for compatibility information.

Google Search Tips - Top 10 Advanced Things to Know

2007-02-07T18:42:00.000-08:00

Already mastered the basics? Then you're ready to move on to:

Top Ten advanced things to know about Google Search:

While Google ignores common words such as where, entering where new york will also yield maps and hotel guides.
Quickly look up definitions -- define: rss will yield several explanations for Rich Site Summary (Or, get even more dictionary definitions via Dictionary.com)
You can find synonyms of words -- entering ~house will also yield pages with home on them.
Google will recognize some natural language expressions -- weather philadelphia, pa produces and up-to-date local weather report.
Using the lesser known “numrange” operator -- 2000..2005 (that’s two dots in between two numbers) will find pages with 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 in them.
Use Google for Q&A -- enter Population of USA and the answer 298,444,215 will be displayed in addition to page results.
Use an upper case OR for special searches - eagles win OR lose will find Philadelphia Eagles-related pages about wins, or those pages about losses . Lower-case won’t work in this situation, and would
simply search for occurrences of the word “or”.
Find backlinks by using Google Blog Search or by using the link-operator, for example, link:blog.searchenginewatch.com
You can restrict your search to certain types of domains and servers -- apply site:.edu will yield apply pages on college and university "edu" domains. Also try Google Scholar, or use Google UncleSam, to limit your search to material from government sites.
Finding out who links to a Web page -- link:www.cnn.coom will yield a list of sites that link to the home page of CNN.

... and Web developers especially will want to know:
Some documents are not completely indexed by Google. Indexing of the text in Web pages stops after the first 101Kb (For PDF, it's 120Kb.)
Not every Google version offers all of Google's features. For example, using Google on the Washington Post site does not offer the cache or similar page options.
Limiting by date can be a problem. Date searching is reliable only when Google can consistently identify them as it does with Usenet message (Google Groups) and news (Google News).

Windows: Upgrading to Vista; Using XP and Vista on the same PC (multiboot)

2007-02-03T11:26:00.000-08:00

I'm using Windows XP Pro and have lots of design software applications installed that I use frequently -- many I've purchased myself. Our organization is moving everyone to Microsoft Vista in a few months and I've heard that some of my software might not work when that happens. How can I tell what software upgrades I'll need to purchase? Can I run Windows XP and Vista at the same time? - B.S.

There are some big questions to answer here, but you're not alone -- many people are trying to figure out if the move to Vista is right for them, or what they'll have to buy to get there. Know that if you plan on working in the Windows operating system over the next several years, you really have no choice but to upgrade. Microsoft will ultimately cease offering upgrades and support for older versions of Windows as time goes on. So, it's only a question of when you need to upgrade.

I'll assume that your organization will probably require or provide the edition of Vista you'll ultimately use, and may do the same with hardware. But if options are open to you, let's address the first question by going to the source -- Microsoft. Use the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor tool to determine if your PC system is ready for the upgrade, then spend a few minutes deciding on which of the five editions is right for you by comparing the various options and features. Personal opinion: Windows Ultimate may be overkill for you current computer, your everyday needs, and your wallet.

Next, you'll have to do some research to plan for the software upgrades you'll likely need as you move to Vista. Sure, you could consult the Microsoft compatibility guides. But instead, I recommend visiting the web site of each software application you currently use. You may find free or minimally-priced Vista upgrades (or if you're really lucky, learn that an upgrade isn't needed). At the same time, try to decide if you really need all of your old software. For example, you may no longer need the application you use to play and burn DVD/CD discs and opt to use the improved Windows Media Player instead. Or, you may be able to get along with Vista's own clip tool and skip your next upgrade to TechSmith's Snag-It screen capture program.

The second question is both easy, and hard. Yes, you can configure your computer to run "either" XP or Vista on the same machine (called a dual or multiboot). But, it may tax your your patience and technical abilities. The procedure to do this is beyond the scope of this column, but there are many well documented sources to consult if you want to pursue this. I recommend browsing some of the better documented approaches from TechRepublic , PC Magazine, and APC Magazine. Of course, you can always bring your system to a consultant and hire them to do the work. In either case, you should consider the future. Someday you will outgrow this situation and will have some additional technical work ahead of you to undo this dual boot approach.

Google Search Tips - Top 10 Basic Things to Know

2007-01-19T19:07:00.000-08:00

If you've glanced at "Google Search Tips - Before you begin", then you're ready for:
Top Ten basic things to know about Google Search:

Google searches are NOT case sensitive -- so just use lower case. (Exception: see the OR case in an upcoming post).
Google allows you to enter up to 32 words within the search query.
Google returns pages that include all of your search terms -- so, don't bother using and unless it's part of a phrase.
Be specific in choosing your terms -- luxury hotels Maui is better than tropical island hotels.
The order of your terms matters, too -- vacation beach fishing yields different results than fishing beach vacation.
Google ignores common words and characters such as where and how,as well as single digits and single letters, If a digit or letter is essential to your query, include it by putting a space then a "+" sign in front of it, or put quotation marks around two or more words. Example: star wars episode +i or "star wars episode i"
Phrase searches are particularly effective if you're searching for proper names ("george washington"), lyrics ("the long and winding road"), or other famous phrases ("this was their finest hour").
You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard. Example: "george * bush" finds George W. Bush. Example: "to * * * to be" finds "To be or not to be". You can also use this to find email addresses: "email * * ", or for example "email * * cnn.com"
Avoid a word or concept by putting a space then a "-" sign in front of it. For example, bass -music will find more mentions of bass fishing, while bass -fishing will yield pages related more to music and guitars.
Consider limiting the scope of a search by using the syntax for file type (filetype:). For example, filetype:ppt TechTaming finds mention of TechTaming in PowerPoint slides. Other formats include .pdf (Adobe Acrobat), .doc (Word) and .xls (Excel). Other search engines also let you query these formats.

Google Search Tips - Before you begin

2007-01-04T20:02:00.000-08:00

Before I proceed, I should emphasize that Google is not the only Web search tool out there. Take a look at Ask, AllTheWeb and Vivisimo or MSN search. Also, Search.com is a metasearch engine that spans dozens of leading search engines at once. Of course, there are specialized search databases too --LawCrawler is for all things law related, The Wayback Machine archives web sites, images and text, and SMEALSearch indexes freely available scholarly business information, to name just a few.

Google offers step-by-step instructions for searching and browsing its products on its Help and Basics of Search pages, and there are third-party sources such as Nancy Blachman's Google Guide if you want them.

The following two segments are a concise combination of the most useful information you'll find there, plus many more suggestions I've found and can recommend that you won't find there.

Podcasting: File format for posting to an Intranet

2006-01-18T22:53:00.000-08:00

What format would you normally save audio/video in to stream it on a corporate Intranet – avi, move, wms, other? I’m clueless on this podcast and need to have our agency produce this for us. Any help is appreciated. -B.D.

The term "podcast" is used to widely to mean audio (and sometimes video) content that is updated frequently for subscribers to view online or download it to a portable player. Video files produced for general viewing (not suitable for broadcast) are posted to a site in .FLV format, then streamed within a page using an embedded Flash player. Example: http://www3.lehigh.edu/about/news/vidmenon.asp. Adjacent to this example, note there are downloadable videos in iTunes (.MP4) and Windows Media Player (.WMV) as well.

However, it seems like you want to post a web video file for a select audience to download and play on their desktop/notebook computers. I assume you just want the people to view it, and don't intend for anyone to rebroadcast it professionally in any way. If so, that should be relatively simple to direct. Record video digitally to .AVI format as a source for the agency. If your Intranet audience is made up of predominantly Windows users, have the agency convert to .WMV and post that file. If that audience is made up of predominantly Mac users, have the agency convert to .MP4 and post that file. (Or you could offer both.) In either case, your agency can reduce the video aspect ratio proportionately down to 320 x 240 pixels if resulting files sizes are too large and unwieldy at the original size.

Converting from Pantone Color to RGB or Hex

2006-01-12T20:51:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to resolve a color variance. When we develop web pages in our office that are to match printed brochures, colors within tables and text colors are different between our machines. For example, a red similar to a PMS 186 on one screen is pretty pink on mine. A reflex blue tone on my screen is darker than on a colleague's. - RN

Since PMS (Pantone® Matching System) colors are exclusive to printing inks, the Web-based equivalents to them will be approximate at best. Also, there will always be slight variations as to how a color will be perceived on one computer or another due to ambient light and the computer's video hardware configuration.
About the only practical way to avoid what you're experiencing is to use a color model that's common to every user. Specifically, that means specifying a color either in RGB or Hex (Hexadecimal) values.
Since you deal with commercial printing, you could opt to purchase one of the Pantone color utilities -- but you might not need it. If you have access to Photoshop, you can specify a Pantone color fill then note it's RGB equivalent. There are also several Pantone to RGB conversion charts floating around on the Web. You may consider using a reference chart like this http://www.sandaleo.com/pantone.asp or this http://www.logoorange.com/color/color-codes-chart.php to lookup what you need.

Web statistics lingo (Page View, Visit, Hit explained)

2005-11-15T20:50:00.000-08:00

Can you please tell me the difference between a hit, a page view and a visit? We can get reports from our hosting services, but don't know what they mean. -LS

The terms involved with studying site statistics (a.k.a. Web analytics), can be confusing. Therefore, I recommend that you only concern yourself with Page Views and Visits.

Here's the difference:

Page View- Each individual Web page a visitor browses to is tracked as a single Page View.
Visit- When a visitor arrives at your Web site, hopefully they proceed to browse one or more pages. Depending on the tracking software used, the whole experience from the time the first page is viewed to the time the visitor leaves your site -- and everything they do during that time -- can be referred to as a Visit. One individual visitor can have many visits to your site over time and is then referred to as a returning visitor. A unique visit refers to someone visiting your site for the first time.
Hits- Each of the number of files downloaded when a visitor views a page is referred to a Hit. For example, if you had a Web page containing only 6 photos, viewing that page would generate 7 hits (6 for the photos, and one for the HTML file that contains them). A page view can contain hundreds of hits and so hits are not a reliable way to measure website traffic. This is the reason to focus on measuring page views, and not hits.

To provide an example, 1 "Visit" to a Web site might include 3 "Page Views" and a total of 21 "Hits". In addition, a site might have had 1,000 visitors within a month comprised of 100 unique visitors, each of whom visited the site 10 times.

Podcasting: Organizing your work after the recording

2005-11-03T22:03:00.000-08:00

When you record a podcast, it creates a file on the digital recorder that must be uploaded to your computer. If you use a computer to record the podcast, you will see a series of files that you've created. Using a spreadhseet or ___Google doc, draft some notes and keywords from your recording session that will be important later.
Make a note of which files you created and in which folder they are located on the recorder (there are 5 folders: AE)
Create a title, short description, and keywords for each recording, and match these with the file names
Example:Audio
Filename: Folder C / 27
Title: Banzel on Pop Culture
Description: CoDirectorMike Serano explains the unique perspectives that boomers can share with their children.
Keywords: ______, ______, ______, ______, ______, ______, ______,
Decide how your podcast should be used – with a news story, on its own page with graphics, etc.

Podcasting: What to do while recording

2005-10-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

Here are some common sense tips. While recording a session or guest interview with a digital recorder or microphone, use these tips:

Avoid jarring or bumping the digital recorder or equipment while in use
Hold the recorder or microphone about a hand's length from the subject (podcaster)
Start the recording a few seconds before the interview begins, and continue recording a few seconds after it ends. This makes editing easier as the extra time can be trimmed off.
Have the subject introduce themselves on the recording, and spell out their name.
Remind the guest to speak clearly and articulate their words.
Record a separate segment for each subject. Separate file are easier to edit later.
Take a picture of the subject if you would like to include one with the podcast.

Podcasting: Tips before you record

2005-10-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

Take some time to become familiar with the computer software, or the portable digital recorder, you will be using. Make some practice recordings until you no longer have to think intensely about what your are doing, or fumble around looking for buttons and switches.

Reduce all the background noise that you can (situate yourself near a curtain or acoustically absorbant surface if possible)
If you are recording a public event or lecture, set up the microphone on, or position the recorder near the podium. If that's not possible, sit as closely to the speaker as possible and use the proper microphone. Examples of microphone types: ________, __________, and ___________.
If you will be recording an interview, prepare your questions ahead of time so the conversation will gosmoothly. Again choose the right type of microphone.� Decide on the purpose of your podcast and direct your interview accordingly

Podcasting: What do I need to get started?

2005-09-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

What do you need to create audio podcasts? You really only need either of two things, and the good news is, both are inexpensive.

Recording software and microphone. There are many cheap or even free applications available for your Windows or Mac. With this method, you're stuck sitting in front of your desktop system (or notebook) where you and anything else you want to record are available. PROS: This is usually a cheaper and easier approach. CONS: Not very portable.
recommended software: _________, _________, and ____________ (my reviews)
Portable digital recorder. You can use any one of the many portable recording devices that let you upload your files to a computer or web site. PROS: Portable and inconspicuous CONS: More expensive; Can be complicated.
recommended equipment and software: _________, _________, and ____________ (my reviews)

Podcasting: What is it? Why should I care?

2005-09-06T19:21:00.000-07:00

So, what exactly is a podcast? Generally, it's a short recorded audio dialogue on a topic of interest that can be played from a web site, or downloaded to a portable player such as an iPod. Podcasts are a great way to enhance your other written documents (eg., web sites, Powerpoint presentations, instructional procedures, news, stories, etc.) or they can be served up by themselves (eg., interviews, how-to tips, audio tours, lectures, etc.).
Why should I care about creating a podcast? Podcasts are a great way to enhance your other written documents (eg., web sites, Powerpoint presentations, instructional procedures, whitepapers, etc.) or they can be served up by themselves (eg., interviews, how-to tips, audio tours). If you're a professional in the communications field, then you may have frequent opportunities to record podcasts (events, lectures, interviews, photoshoots, etc.)
What makes a podcast "good"? Just like any other multimedia competing for your time, your level of interest, the content, and the delivery is what makes you come back for more. The podcast should focus on quality content (relevant, interesting, and hopefully, original) that's to the point. If the podcast is designed to enhance other material, then avoid being redundant and offer only content that adds value in some way.

Examples: ___________, ___________, ___________,

Easy-to-use macro software for creating time-saving keyboard shortcuts

2005-01-15T06:38:00.000-08:00

Tired of copying and pasting the same text over and over while you write? Inexpensive macro software makes it easy to create preprogrammed actions (keyboard shortcuts) that are triggered whenever a certain series of key strokes are typed. These shortcuts can range from something simple -- such as inserting your full name when you type CTRL+SHIFT+N -- to complex strings of specifications you don't want to type in each time you need them. Pasting in predefined text is useful, but these shortcuts can also be configured to do things such as open your email or control your sound system. For example, I prefer using macro software to keep frequently used pieces of HTML code handy whenever I'm working on Web sites.

To get started, all you need is a small piece of software for creating and managing keyboard shortcuts. For Windows computers, I recommend Active Keys from Softarium which is powerful and easy-to-use. You can download and install a trial version, and the registered version will only set you back about $20.

Tip: If you've created a number of detailed keyboard shortcuts using Active Keys, you may want them to be available on other computers you use. To do this, locate the "Shortcuts.aks" file on the computer where your custom keyboard shortcuts were created and copy it to a flash drive or other removable media. (On my system for example, "Shortcuts.aks" can be found in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\Application Data\Softarium.com\Active Keys). Next, install the Active Keys software on a second computer. Finally, copy your customized "Shortcuts.aks" file from the first computer to overwrite the default version on the second computer.

It's done! I've moved.

2004-12-12T20:37:00.000-08:00

Okay, I finally moved the old posts that were hiding in various web pages and forums and the email advice over to this new blog. From this point on you can find those articles, tips and suggestions right here. Unfortunately, I'm not able to move visitor comments over, so they are noticably absent.