blockhead's Blog
Category Computers-and-Technology:Personal-Tech
Electronic device manufacturers and content producers have
got to back away from the forest and see the light filtering
throught the trees. Consumers want to control the content
they purchase and want to be able to use their electronic
devices together without restrictions placed on them. Standards and interoperability will have to come to digital
devices, just as Google co-founder Larry Page said in his
Consumer Electronics Show keynote speech when he introduced
Google Video. Right now, only those video's purchased through
Google Video that are NOT copy protected will play on video
iPods and Sony PSP's - the rest only work on Google Video. http://www.google.com/press/podium/ces2006.html That news about Google Video and Digital Rights Management
(DRM) standards of interoperability had me fuming about my
inability to use my content (photos, movies, music) on
devices made by different manufacturers or between cell phone
providers. Today I ran across a story about an Anti-DRM group
in Britain campaigning to demand an end to DRM. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/18/drm_consumer_opposition/ Obviously I'm not the only one disturbed by the fact that I
cannot move digitally recorded movies from my Tivo to my DVD
recorder (purchased for exactly that reason, but before I
knew it wouldn't work) I only found out that I couldn't
record movies from the Tivo to the DVD recorder when I called
Pioneer customer support to ask why the recorder wouldn't
record my movies. It seems that I can only move digital
movies from the Tivo to my computer (which I found I could do
with free Tivo Desktop software when I called Tivo customer
support.) So instead of recording directly from my Tivo to my Pioneer
DVD recorder, I have to move the movie over to my computer
via Tivo Desktop software, then burn a DVD from my computer.
Very smart move on Tivo's part, as it means I definitely
won't buy the DVR from my satellite TV provider because they
don't support skipping commercials, nor do they support
moving movies to my computer. This also means I don't NEED my Pioneer DVD recorder - so
their DRM which stops Tivo digitally recorded movies from
recording to DVD means that I won't use that Pioneer DVD
recorder and will now sell it. The other DVD player connected
to my other television will suffice. If I want to record
something, it goes on the Tivo because it is so easy to use
and works so extremely well. I'll use the free Tivo Desktop
software and move it to my computer and burn DVD's of my
recorded television and movies there. Clearly Tivo is doing all they can to make their device
consumer friendly - but they are being besieged by television
and movie content producers, who are screaming at them to
stop the 'piracy' of their users. Tivo now disables the 30
second commercial skip button daily (which you have to know
how to program - Select, Play, Select, 3-0, Select). They do
this via automatically updated internal software because
advertisers screamed at them for several years about the
consumer ability to skip commercials. The result is that I
reprogram that function daily anyway - annoying, but not
nearly as annoying as not being able to control my own device
the way I want to. I'm convinced that content producers will lose this battle
over the long term and I'll do all I can to fight them
myself, like supporting anti-DRM groups wherever I find them.
And I'll research more thoroughly before buying products
which contain DRM to make certain they will work with my
existing devices - meaning no Sony CD's or DVD's. There have
been rumors that Apple is creating a set-top box and service
similar to Tivo and I'd buy one in a split second as I'm sure
I could use my iPod, iMac and iPhoto seamlessly between all
devices. Maybe they'll make a phone with a Mac OS and a PDA as well (I
actually used to own an early Apple Newton PDA and oh, how I
wish they had continued to develop that wonderful little
thing). I'm happy to use anything Apple produces - but I
won't switch cell providers or switch my Satellite TV
provider. Interoperability and standards are essential to me.
It's about choice. Pioneer limited my choices and lost a
customer and Motorola lost my ROKR iTunes phone business
because the device is only available from Cingular. Obviously, I'm a Mac user and had studiously avoided
purchasing Windows machines until I had to buy a Windows box
to run business software not available for my Apple machines.
So I bought an extremely cheap $299 PC to run the three
programs that won't run on my Mac. That cheap machine now
serves as my DVD burner for movies (with a cheap external
hard drive as movie storage drive). Pioneer lost a customer
because they don't allow me to record movies to DVD from my
Tivo. How about a Tivo/Apple partnership? That would be a
marriage made in heaven due to the customer-centric design
and usability so elegantly addressed by both companies. I'll put up with Apple's walled garden (iTunes and
proprietary AAC files) and their own DRM only as long as
everything they make works seamlessly together. Apple
products always have worked elegantly together and probably
always will. Somehow most third party software seems to
interact well with everything else on the Macs. The moment
Motorola makes that ROKR iTunes phone available through MY
cellular provider, I'll consider buying that phone. Being in the market for a phone, I had been looking at a Palm
Treo 650 phone/PDA and was excited when they introduced the
new 700 model, just as I was about to make that purchase. So
I read a few reviews and discovered to my horror that Palm
just fell victim to the dominance of Microsoft and replaced
their own well designed Palm operating system on that new
Treo 700 with a buggy, slow and cumbersome Windows OS! In the process they lost another customer, because I can't
stand the clunky way one must navigate with Windows
(reviewers agree) and refuse to buy that machine now, the
same way I avoided all other PDA's running Windows for the
past 10 years. This is all because Palm couldn't port
Microsoft documents and Windows related bits to the Palm OS
when corporate users required that interoperability. Thanks
to Gates & Company, Palm lost another customer - and their
own elegant OS. If mainstream electronics device manufacturers continue to
take the path of least resistance by kowtowing to content
producers, lowest common denominator software and stifled
functionality and interoperability, then consumers will
eventually find a way to take back the control. We'll avoid
buying products (CD's & DVD's, 'rented' music) that don't
work with their existing devices (Tivo's, DVD recorders,
PDA's, iPods) and will find companies that make all of this
stuff work together and buy from them - but only so long as
ALL devices and ALL content work with each other
interchangeably. Mike Banks Valentine is a Search Engine Optimization
Specialist and blogs about web content at:
http://
weblogs.Publish101.com and distributes articles about
business at: http://
Publish101.com while operating a small
business ecommerce tutorial at: http://WebSite101.com
DRM, digital, rights, management, ipod, cell, phone, video, music, Apple, Mac, movies, music, photos
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There is an alarming trend in the IT service organizations in today’s service world. It is the lack of quality services provided by small business computer service and network organizations. Could it be the shortage of skilled computer technicians? Or is it really the inability for the leaders in these small computer support companies to see what is happening in their market? Computer support organizations, especially those that focus on the small business marketplace, need to put their focus on their client base. This focus is vital with the emergence of larger players in the small business computer consulting space that are developing an interest in servicing your client base. The three things that all small business computer support companies need to master are: - Anticipate your client’s needs – Computer Consultants need to actively anticipate their client’s business goals now and in the future. Small businesses can change direction on a dime since their decision making hierarchy is very direct. So it is important that the small business service organization has the ability to anticipate what their client’s needs will be now and have the ability to foresee their short term and long term needs. An information technology consultant with the ability to see the opportunities of their client’s needs will entrench themselves into their client’s business for a long period of time. - Proactive Support – Once you can master the anticipation of your client’s needs, the next step is to take the appropriate steps to ensure that the items they have anticipated coming down the pipe are now proactively put into place. Small businesses cannot work successfully in a reactive mode. When their technology support company does not take the steps to proactively service their client base they run the risk of their clients suffering unnecessary downtime. Most of the time, it comes back to an issue that could have been prevented with proper anticipation of their needs and then taking the proactive support to implement the needed steps to prevent any downtime. - Service The Client – Service companies need to consistently service their clients. When you have put into place the steps needed to anticipate their needs and then proactively implemented these solutions, small business consulting companies need to service their clients consistently. Stop servicing your clients and you might as well hand them over to your competition. I cannot speak enough about the enhanced level of service that small business clients require—they will always depend on the expertise of their IT consultant the most . Consultants today cannot assume that things are just working at their clients. You need to be in there all the time. These are three main areas that today’s small business consultants need to focus on to ensure their success. If you do not take care of your clients, your competition will. You can bank on it. Information Technology companies today are so concerned about service metrics, managed services and many new trends in servicing clients that they are failing at one major area—actually servicing them. Small Business consultants seem more concerned about the perfect service plan, how to charge their clients and designing the perfect solution. This preoccupation has them leaving the front door open to their competition who understands the importance of servicing the client, anticipating their needs, and taking the proactive steps to understand their needs, goals and desires when it comes to technology. It is time to get back and focus on what the client’s needs are, anticipate their direction, proactively address these needs and then service the heck out of them. Stuart Crawford is a business leader in the Calgary, Alberta small business computer consulting business. He has taken his best practices of success in this market and is sharing this with other IT consultants throughout the world. He can be reached at stuartc@youfactor.ca. |
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Many people buy new computers when their current one starts running slow. With rapidly
increasing processor speeds and larger amounts of memory becoming cheaper, spending a few
hundred dollars does not seem so bad if it will get you back to the speeds you are used to.
But, any reliable computer technician will tell you that even a five or six year old computer
can still run reasonably fast if it's tuned up properly. For a computer a tune up is almost entirely software related. Every time you install a program
or visit a website or download anything, there are changes made to your system that, over time,
can drag performance down to a crawl. One quick way to check your systems health is to look at
your resources as follows: 1. Right-click on the taskbar (this is the solid area to the left of the Start button) and
choose Task Manager. 2. Click on the Performance tab and look at CPU Usage and Physical Memory Available. 3. If the CPU is running more than 15% and you have no other programs running, you may have a
hidden process running in the background. Click on the Processes tab and click on the CPU
column to show the item using the most of your processor. If the name of the process is
unfamiliar, look it up at www.tasklist.org for a better definition. 4. You can follow the same procedure if you find that memory available is low. A very common cause of memory and CPU usage is spyware or malware. These are hidden programs
that get installed inadvertently when you download something or try a 'free' software program.
If you suspect that you have some of this unwanted software, the good news is that you can
usually remove it completely and gain back a lot of performance. A search on Google.com for 'spyware removal' or 'adware removal' will give you many options of tools to clean this unwanted software from your computer. Most of them are free and are very effective. Another alternative is to re-install the operating system, but that will require re-installation of all programs and documents. Just make sure you have everything backed up to CD, tape or an external drive before you try this. Home computers today commonly contain important documents and digital pictures that may be irreplaceable if lost. Sean Graver is the author of many articles on computer troubleshooting for both desktop and server platforms. He is the Lead Systems Engineer for a software company in Redmond, WA managing datacenter operations in the US, UK and Australia. His computer experience extends back the late 70's and he regularly works with small business owners to automate repetitive process and streamline operations. Please visit his website, SafeguardComputer at =>http://www.safeguardcomputer.com |
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Have you ever wondered how to make a screen shot? Just click the 'ctrl' key and the 'prt sc' key at the same time―but then what? Where did it go to? Actually, it didn't go anywhere―it's on hold in the same way as when we *save* something. When we *save* something, we have to put it somewhere. Well, the same holds true of 'ctrl' (meaning control) and 'prt sc' (meaning print screen). Is all that happens is that you took a shot (or picture) of the screen from your keyboard. Suppose the whole page doesn't fit on the screen? What then? Read on, and I'll tell you how get it all. 1) To start, adjust the screen (with your scroll bar) and frame your picture. Then, click the 'ctrl' key and the 'prt sc' key at the same time. 2) Open up Word, and paste the screen shot in there. You will have to crop it, because your whole screen is visible. Click on the image, select your crop tool, and crop it. After it’s cropped, click on the white part of the page to change the tool icon back to an *I beam.* Now, click back onto the image and with your pointer, size the image to the approximate size you want. Right click on it and *copy* it. 3) This sounds weird, but this is the easiest way to turn a non-jpeg into one. Paste it into an email and send it back to yourself. Your firewall may warn you that it is a virus, but it's not. Just override the warning and proceed. 4) Open up your email and right-click the image. Next, *Save Picture As* to your PC and change the ridiculously long geek name to something like *ScrnShot* (to make it easier to find). After you find it, you will see that it became a jpeg and website friendly. 5) Repeat the process to get the second half of the webpage. You should have two sections. The screen shot only captures what is visibly seen on the screen. 6) Open up Illustrator CS and paste both sections together in this software. Now, 'Save For Web.' (revised 2/15/2006) Debbie Jensen, Photographer, Graphic Designer http://www.debjensendesigns.com
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