Did you know you can make calls using your cell phone?
I’m about to lose the battle of a texting-free home. There isn’t anyone that communicates electronically more than I or that can appreciate how technology has enabled all kinds of ways to communicate. I just believe that texting should be used infrequently. Sure there are times where texting is the BEST way to contact someone (at the movies, in class, in a meeting, etc.) but I believe those optimal moments are the exception. I believe texting is abused by most kids creating unnecessary chatter and wastes time not to mention turns people into social introverts. I’ve asked David and Cassidy not to bring their iPod Touchs into restaurants. What’s next? A scrolling LED readout of people’s twitter posts on a wristband (I’ll be updating this post when this becomes reality, seriously).
Here is an example of how the latest social media trends have turned kids minds into mush:
WINVER not defined, defaulting to…
WINVER is a symbol that your Windows application is suppose to define to declare the oldest version of the OS that your application is designed to run on. If you do not define it, you will get a warning and it will default to the OS on which you are building.
ox501 is the value to use for Windows XP. You can define it in stdafx.h or in the preprocessor settings of your project.
Read more about it at here.
Going paperless
I received an email recently from a Bank Manager regarding a visit I made to him. His email signature included the following:
I kinda laughed because his email was informing me he had faxed a form that needed to be filled out and faxed back. Not particularly environmentally friendly.
Ideally, forms should be in PDF that can be filled in electronically! They can be emailed back and forth and only the final filled-out version should be printed (if at all).
Even if they aren’t interactive, forms should be in PDF (please, no more Word .doc files) so they can be printed at home and filled out, scanned (not faxed) and emailed back.
Fax quality is inferior to scanning and emaling anyway.
Are you still mailing Microsoft Office files around?
Then stop it! That is, unless you need the recipient to edit and send it back (but that’s another post, you should be using Google Docs).
Word or Excel files are not universally compatible. A person may have an older version of Word, Excel or Office and they won’t be able to view a file or view it the way you intended. And if you send it to a Mac person they are even more likely to have problems with it.
It is pretty easy to create PDF files of ANYTHING and to email those files instead. PDF is a univeral format that displays the original data just as it was originally created.
Mac’s have PDF support built in. For PCs EVERYONE should install a program such as CutePDF which is a printer driver. That means anytime you are looking at something you want to send to someone, be that a word doc, a spreadsheet, a webpage, an email message, a map, etc. , just select to print it using the installed CutePDF driver and out will popout a nice PDF file for you to email.
CutePDF is free, so what are you waiting for?
KLUX for Elevator Music
I don’t expect to get many takers on this but even though this will place an old fogie label on me, I’m secure enough in my music tastes to write that there is a time and place for even Elevator Music (besides the elevator). Sometimes I just get tired of other genres. Playing music at work, it’s easy to overplay the same tunes. I actually discovered this station when we were staying at a Condo in Port Aransas. The calming tunes just seemed to fit our laid back vacation and we kept it on this station most of the trip. The KLUX website is here which contains several streaming links.
This is a Catholic station so you will get religious service announcements. You’ve been warned.
There may be other similar stations but I don’t know any, feel free to recommend others that would be worthy replacements.
Update: Someone pointed out that those are an unfortunate set of call letters. True enough but I discovered things could be worse.
Connecting to Windows machines on network after upgrading to Leopard
After upgrading my MacBook Pro from Tiger (10.4) to Leopard (10.5.8), I was no longer able to see the other Windows machines on my network. What appeared to work is to select Sharing from the System Preferences, clicking the Options button and turning on Share files and folders using SMB. Then in the Finder menu selecting Go…Connect to Server… and entering smb://ComputerName for each. This doesn’t seem to be permanent between reboots however.
Here is a thread discussing this issue.
One suggestion from the thread is to go System Preferences…Network and select Assist Me at the bottom. Trying to setup a connection sets some values (DHCP?) which may fix things.
A lesson in social networking
I’ve posted before about my favorite advice columnist on Slate.com.
I want to reproduce a recent letter which I found very valuable.
Dear Prudence,
I wrote something not so flattering about a co-worker on my Twitter page, and she found out about it after someone on my friend list showed it to an acquaintance of hers. The co-worker went to human resources and complained that I was talking about her on Twitter. Because I tweeted on my own personal time, the only thing H.R. could suggest was to be careful about who my friends are on Twitter. So I deleted friends of friends who know the co-worker. My page is marked “private,” so only the people I have chosen as friends can see my entries. Now the co-worker I talked about has made other co-workers give me the cold shoulder. All these women are over 40 and are acting like 5-year-olds. Can you suggest some options for dealing with such a hostile environment? I love my job. so I don’t want to look for work elsewhere.
—Cold Shoulder
Dear Cold Shoulder,
Your adventure shows that social networking really works. When you throw out a piece of information juicier than what you had for dinner last night, it travels the network in ways you can’t control. I know everyone is now compelled to make visible each passing thought, but you might want to give a passing thought to the purpose of your tweets. Sure, we’ve all had the experience of sending an embarrassing e-mail to the wrong person or finding out an e-mail has unfortunately been forwarded. But when you write an e-mail to one friend, there’s an assumption that it’s not for mass dissemination. Twittering is about spreading your thoughts far and wide. You’ve also just gotten a good lesson in how well privacy settings on social networking sites protect you from yourself. As for your office relationships, let’s agree that both you and the woman you disparaged have behaved in a juvenile fashion. But, as they say on the playground, you started it. So own up to what you did—sit down with you co-worker, and tell her you behaved like a jerk. Say you are truly sorry for your ill-considered, hurtful remark and that you hope she’ll accept your apology. And be glad that given Twitter’s limitations, your disparaging comments were blessedly brief.
—Prudie
Can’t login to mac from Vista
For sometime I’ve had problems connecting from my Vista laptop to my MacBook Pro. I’ve only been able to connect the other way. Finally a solution.
This thread recommends the following:
On the start menu in the search field type “gpedit.msc”, hit enter. This will open the group policy editor.
Go to “Computer Configruation” –> “Windows Settings” –> “Security Settings” –> “Local Policies” –> “Security Options”
In the pane on the right side of the screen, select “Network Security: LAN Manager Authentication level.” By default this read “Send NTLMv2 response only.”
Change “Send NTLMv2 respone only” to “Send LM & NTLM — use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated”restart the client
If you use a famillial vista try this. You must modify the BDR
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
DWORD named : LmCompatibilityLevel must set to 1
Wedding Daze 2007 (R)
Wedding Daze ** NFK. This is a bizarre little film. Over the top comedy. Mildly enjoyable. I guess it is a typical Jason Biggs (American Pie) movie.