I know there are many capable free or low cost alternatives to Microsoft Office applications out there. But if you need to use Microsoft Office, or you simply prefer to, AND you don’t feel comfortable grabbing a free copy from the Peer-to-Peer world, Microsoft is offering the Ultimate Steal: aka Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 for $59.95.
Since Ts’ai-Lin invented paper in 105 A.D., taking notes has largely been a paper and pencil activity. And no doubt it remains so, as witnessed by a recent poll of the tech-savvy readership of the popular Lifehacker blog, which voted Pen(cil) and Paper number two on The Five Best Note-taking Tools.
Lets face it, backing up your files can feel tedious. Some of us, especially those whose livelihoods depend on it—artists working in digital media, web workers, pro bloggers, small business people—are paragons when it comes to protecting their data. And the threats are myriad: from failed hardware, crappy software, accidental erasure, spilled drinks, viruses and other forms of malware… not to mention fire, floods, lightning, and the unlikely but not impossible meteor strike. We all know we should do it, but most of us either don’t, or we get lazy.
I saw a girl at Gramstand yesterday who was using a new MSI Wind U120 “Netbook.” They are still not available in the U.S., but will be by year’s end. To anyone who does IT field work (ahem), using one of these would be like swapping out your Case Logic 180 disc album of software for a handful of flash drives in a smooth, velvet pouch! Okay, that sounds goofy, buy you try walking over, around, and under Manhattan all day with a cross-platform, full network support, in-home and on-site tech business on your back! Yeah, that’s right, I said it!
Bad Nvidia chips are thought to be causing problems in some MacBook Pros manufactured since May, 2007. Is your MacBook Pro acting loopy, distorted? Or did your MacBook Pro’s screen turn black one day and never come back on? Read Apple’s offical support alert from October 10th, 2008 to find out what to do.
In case you didn’t get that:
“Your network settings have been changed by another application.”
Oh, by the way,
“Your network settings have been changed by another application.”
That’s pretty annoying, right? Even more so when it’s a semi-automatic popup alert that won’t quit. If you’re a G4 user running Mac OS X 10.4.11, chances are you fairly good that in the last week or so, you have been bludgeoned with this extremely annoying and seemingly unprovoked nusiance after trying to open your Network settings in System Preferences. Or it is still out there waiting for you!
Doug Mirro over at Easy Tech Talk says, “As a former unhappy employee of Geek Squad I wanted to provide a list of reasons why you shouldn’t bring your computer to them for any kind of service….”
He then goes on to give some rather enlightening—if not totally unsurprising—examples of why you might want to think twice before calling up Best Buy to service your ailing PC.
Copyright 2009 Urban TekTonic
