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From time to time, I buy hard disks, the biggest size I recently bought was in fact 80GBs. I had a bunch of disks of that size for my office, naturally, I was surprised to find out that typical drives these days are about 160GBs of space, and in fact, I was offered one with 320GBs for about $100. I ordered two drives, instead, of the smaller kind. And to think, my first hard drive was 80MBs of space running Windows 3.1 in 1995. Things have come along way.

But this report in the BBC NEWS | Technology | Drive advance fuels terabyte era suggests that far bigger drives are just around the corner…

Drive advance fuels terabyte eraHard diskHard drives currently have a one terabyte limitA single hard drive with four terabytes of storage (4TB) could be a reality by 2011, thanks to a nanotechnology breakthrough by Japanese firm Hitachi.The company has successfully managed to shrink the read-write head of a hard drive to two thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair.The smaller head can read greater densities of data stored on the disk.

Looks like we’ll have lots of space to store all those pictures, audio and movies! I think we’re going to need it!

But I do have an odd question: what do you do with still functional hard drives that you have pulled out of your computer for various reasons. I have two portable drives right now, but now I have an extra 20GB disk drive that I don’t quite know what to do with. Suggestions?

Blogged with Flock

Firefox was quite a development in its own right, but with its origins in OpenSource, it has spurred some interesting developments of its own. First there was Flock and now there is SongBird. Read about them.

Flock is a browser based on Mozilla technology. It is a web browser for Social Web Era, with support for RSS feeds inbuilt, photos, videos, blogging, uploading, etc. Currently version 0.9.1.2 is available. Of course, as with FF, it’s multi-platform, multi-language, with versions in many languages, and support for Windows, Mac, Linux. Like FF, it is also extensible, skinnable and can work online and offline. I’m particularly interested in versions for my new CRUZER!

The second is SongBird which relies on Mozilla technology, but follows the same principles using, the developers at SongBird have created a browser as a “desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and skins feathers.” Like FF and Flock, it is multi-platform and will, likely, be multi-language, but it hasn’t been released except as a ‘developer’s version.’ Its expected launch date is 2008.

Are you aware of any other Browser developments? How is Firefox or Mozilla being used to develop new products? Comments, please…

I have already done my Christmas shopping for myself .

I recently lost my Kodak Camera C360 with batteries and New 2GB SD ram card… so with the holidays approaching, and no way to take pictures for my family or my blog readers or for my students, I was faced with a difficult choice: keep looking or give up and buy a new one!

Today, I’m announcing that for me Christmas has come early : with my purchase of a Panasonic Lumix DMC. I’d have used a Panasonic coupon code to buy one from CouponChief.com, but I was dumb. I didn’t really think about doing that. Instead I ran out to the store, asked an attendant who wasn’t so well informed, didn’t manage to get extra batteries, either; and didn’t get a discount!

Instead, I could have got a FREE SDRam card with 256MB or 512MB of space for those shots. Or I could have checked out the Sony Store with the Sony deals and got upto 15% off some deals on their camera products.

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Online shopping has become increasingly popular for a wide range of products, such as watches that are supplied by many reputable manufacturers; jewelry that use costly materials such as diamonds, etc. can be very much more expensive; and modern fashion designers do create lots of different earrings for customers. All available on the Internet.
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Consider that I paid nearly $300 for my camera, either of these deals would have been quite sweet. In one case, I might have saved nearly $45 for use on other presents! So, if you are a cautious spender at Christmas, then checking out CouponChief before swiping might be a good way to ease your Christmas burden, find good presents, and all without leaving your computer!

On a trip to Costco, I came across a really good deal for a SanDisk Cruzer^{®} Micro 4GB. I have always been using two or sometimes three computers, so my data was always on the wrong computer. I am already a PortableApps user, so switching to U3 was easy.

I’ve linked directly to the item on SanDisk’s page for you to have a look at. I also managed to get it at a very good price, approximately $45.00.

It has 4GB of space, though in practice, with the programs installed it works out at a lot less. I added a number of U3 compatible programs for convenience, including Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice. There were a couple of neat features, including the internal links to the SanDisk download center and the internal browser that made installing a number of extra applications very simple.

OK, when you connect your Cruzer, you get the loading information as usual, but then this little box appears on the bottom right of your desktop. Clicking on the screen loads the Cruzer Start Menu (very much like the regular Start Menu), in which you will find all the programs loaded on the USB drive.

In the drive below, you’ll see that I have loaded a number of popular programs onto my Cruzer, including Firefox, Thunderbird, Skype, and OpenOffice. All of these programs are available from the U3 website browser. To access this click on the words, “Add Programs” and you can be taken to the U3 store or download central, which I’m including below.

There is just one thing missing in all of the programs that I can’t find, that’s a blogging client, apart form ScribeFire which runs in FF. Odd thing is, I’d have thought it would be one of the first things to be included.

I haven’t made much use of the device yet, as my PC at school ONLY is Windows 98SE, and I haven’t upgraded it. I can never find the time to do that! But I’d better…

For those dedicated Ooo users, Version 2.3 is now out. You can pretty much try it out, even if you don’t keep it! It installs simply, and removes simply. Even on Windows 98se it doesn’t need a reboot usually. I wish I could say that of most other software.

Anyway, OpenOffice.org says:

OpenOffice.org 2.3 incorporates an array of new features and enhancements to all its core components, and protects users from newly discovered security vulnerabilities. It is a major release and all users should download it.

Plus: It is only with 2.3 that users can make full use of our growing extensions library.

It really is available on many platforms from Win32 to Mac to some very esoteric platforms (including Solaris). I do think that Ooo isn’t yet COMPELLLING as software, but it is developing some characteristics that are making its adoption in the future a certainty.

Why? Well, compared to Microsoft’s product, it offers a number of advantages:

• 1. it’s got a growing base of user components (intriguing)… just like Firefox at version 1.0+, it was the components as much as anything else that drove adoption.
• 2. it’s got a wide userbase, with platforms supported from Windows 98 to Linux to … and a wide range of language options.
• 3. it’s a full user suite including a database (unlike many versions of Office proper).
• 4. its upgrade cycle seems to be speeding up, too.
• 5. early niggles have gone, but there are some niggles like setting default pages and some screen refreshes don’t play well.
• 6. it doesn’t use MS’s new proprietary document formats.

Though it is quite a jump from lower end office applications like MS Works, or Apple Works, and there are few ways to import text directly from some of these alternatives. For example, to get text from Works, you first have to save it as an RTF file or HTML or even a DOC.

Many companies have already adopted it, as has ours. We’ve got five operational computers, but we only use MS Office on two systems, as we still run Win98se on two ‘old’ systems. Eventually, that will be reduced to one. Then zero when the oldest PC dies.

We will not purchase new copies of Office at all. Integration and standardized systems make things much easier, but CDs with serial numbers, activation, and the continual problems with the Genuine Advantage program really distract from the point of buying software: to get the job done!

You can find out more information from the Wikipedia pages on OpenOffice as well as the comparison of Office Software page.

What is your attitude ot OpenOffice vs. M$Office?

The Mooncake PC

Chinese Engadget has a tutorial on how to make a PC-in-a-mooncake-box. I recently came across this picture in a search for something to do with the Moon Festival. Enjoy…

Yes, it’s a full PC inside the equivalent of a cookie box (no word on how hot it runs, though!). But a good thought for those of us enjoying the Moon Festival.

Wikipedia has some good information on the stories surrounding the Moon Festival, and there are a lot of different versions!

We had a horrible experience last year with printers and copiers. The machines we had all seemed to point at just one thing: trouble. At one point, I was running between printer, copier, my lesson plan, and several computer terminals as I tried to get printouts for my colleagues and my own classes done. It was quite a frustrating experience.

At that point, we made several decisions: one to replace the photocopier machine, and to buy a laser jet. While we didn’t get a good replacement for the copier until just a few months ago, we did find a good replacement for our printers. We opted for a laserjet printer that could handle about the level of our workload, approximately 2,500 pages per month with ease. It also eased having to run between the photocopier and the printer, which is what we had been doing when we were using inkjet printers (which btw were horribly expensive, too!).

If you take a look at Dell’s website, you’ll see an equivalent printer, the Dell Laser Printer 1110, which is about the same price and standard, though this is not the one we bought! We didn’t have the choice!

For our current needs, though, given that we have a full copier available that is networked, I think we’d opt for a much different model. I have my eye on something like the top of the range model:

This is the Dell Multifunction Colour Laser Printer 3115cn. This printer scanner copier really would serve a lot of our small business needs. It has a bigger cartridge that can print nearly 5,000 copies, monochrome for worksheets and letters, color for graphics, cards and flyers, scanning (of course) for the students ‘works of art’, and a fax machine!

As a result of our experience, we learned a number of valuable lessons. When you are evalutating printing equipment, there are a number of things you need to be aware of:

reliability above all else – the machines have to work without trouble;

support is at hand – when they fail, and they will, you need to find people to get them operating quickly;

network stability and interoperability – we found this most perplexing as several of the machines we tried wouldn’t ‘plug’n'play’ with our mixed network ( we used English/Chinese systems running win98/XP/XPsp1/2 );

predictability of cost – while we weren’t so concerned about the cost, we found it difficult to figure out how much each page cost. This made it hard for our business to figure out what the value was – were we getting a good deal? could we buy a more economical printer?

quality of output – we had LOTS of problems with the old copier producing really poor quality copy. Printouts would leave the machine, and toner would literally crumble in your hands. Other times, the words or pictures would be really poorly copied. Paper would be torn by the machine, crumpled occasionally.

cost vs. benefit – we also found that with all the problems, we spent more time troubleshooting the printing problems than we had the patience to deal with, we were spending time, and therefore losing opportunities to work more efficiently at looking after our students, recruiting, and so on. Eventually, we realized that buying a cheap printer really did NOT make financial or economic sense. It was actually costing us money.

Once you have all of these in hand, you should find it much easier to purchase a good printer!

Sponsored by Dell.Uk.

Yes, today, we’re testing out Google Apps.. Originally, Google Apps started out with just a few additional programs or services, such as the Webpage, then creating webpages, then offered us a viable way to integrate them into our website.

Well, I tried it out for 24 hours, and it was quite impressive. Then I set up a domain as instructed. And logged out of my account. This is when I found that I could NOT log back in, no matter what I tried. I thought the service was tied to my Google Account. But no luck! And the password was restricted.

I tried the accounts that I knew about… Very frustrating. I’m normally VERY careful about stuff like that! But it seems there is a glitch in the system somewhere. I don’t know what happened.

Suggestion to Google: make sure that applicants get their new email addresses at least somewhere retyped so that they don’t forget. There is no way to retrieve such information at the moment!

Update: I remember what the email address is thankfully… but… it wasn’t an easy process.

Google Documents is relatively new to the scene, arriving significantly after Word XP, and even OpenOffice Version 2. Naturally, in some areas it is much weaker than its offline counterparts. But there are a number of areas where its ease of use, its online nature and its collaboration features really help to set it apart from its offline relatives.

Here’s what the editor looks like for Documents:

And the Spreadsheet Tools looks like this!

Ease of Use

Its entire interface is controled from the central area pictured below:

In fact the interface has been redesigned with drag and drop type features, folders and an increasing number of actions that can be performed on all files. Files can be saved online or downloaded in a number of important formats, including DOC, PDF and HTML. The Folders features has allowed something of a more effective way to drag and drop items and keep your interface tidy. I’m quite glad that Google decided to drop ‘tags’ in Docs… It just didn’t seem such a comfortable fit with the folder based desktop that is common on the XP/Vista/Mac/Linux desktop these days.

You can see in the above diagram how the item I selected changes to blue, and can be ‘dropped’ onto a folder on the left hand side. Very neat.

Its online, its offline, no, wait, it’s online!

While there isn’t much you can do when you can’t go online yet! But there are enough features that make waiting to go online much more desirable. Still, when you can’t access an online connection, it might make sense to download your documents in an editable format and upload your documents later. Naturally, when you do this, you will need to make sure that the documents are being edited as you are offline. When you upload the new document, you will surely overwrite the changes made between then and when you originally downloaded the document. There is certainly now no way to ‘merge’ documents in such a fashion, though this would be quite a desirable feature.

Collaboration Rules

But the one factor that stands head and shoulders above all the others must surely be the collaboration features that have been built into Google Docs from the ground up. You are able to set a number of collaboration features: including sharing (with viewers and collaborators), publishing including the document and posting to a blog; a revisions record that lets you see what has changed from the first time to the last time, and in Spreadsheets there is even a ‘Chat’ feature that you can use.

And the downside?

There are considerable downsides to Google Documents that a good Office program can easily remedy, including offline features, uneven development between the Document and Spreadsheets features, poor integration between the two (can you paste into one or the other? Well, yes, but you lose the formatting) and serious limitations in the size of the files (500K! What’s that a longish letter these days?).

However, for Bloggers who collaborate, are constantly connected to the InterWeb, and find the limitations imposed by WordPress for drafting, Google Docs might be a good solution. And you can post direct to your blog, too!… So, write out a draft, post to WordPress, edit and publish!… Let’s try it and see.

Having been quite a keen user of Google Docs, I came across this criticism reminding us toNever Store Private Details in Google Docs – Private Docs can be accessed through Public Link even after Deleting

This is about privacy issues in Google Docs. It’s a very good feature and I have been using it for a while till now. Every Google Doc has a public link if it’s been shared but it has been found that even private docs have these public links which can be accessed even without logging in to Google network. To add it all, these documents are not deleted completely even after you remove it from the trash bin and you can still access your deleted private file through a public link.

If you want to know more, read the linked article.