Origins of Festivus
Microsoft Office 2010 Public Beta
You can get the new Office 2010 Pro or any of its components to try out during the beta period.
Get it here!
Blackberry Desktop Manager 5.0.1.18 Software Now Has Integrated Tethering Setup
I recently upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 and realized that my Blackberry tethering configuration was no longer working. After quick inspection, the modem entry for my BlackBerry had been removed during the upgrade. No sweat, I’ll just set it up again. Although it wasn’t that simple. I couldn’t get the device to show up as a modem.
As with the few issues like this post-upgrade, I determined that I needed to do a refresh of the BlackBerry Desktop application in order get the BB modem drivers reinstalled and registered. Of course I didn’t have the original source files, so I had to visit RIM’s website and download the app to get this process going.
Everything went according to plan and when I was in the new Desktop Manager for the first time, I noticed a new option called, “IP Modem”. Oh yea, was I excited. A quick "Configuration” (telling the system I was a T-Mobile subscriber) was all that was necessary. A click of the “Connect” button had me connected to the Internet within seconds.
Not that the old process for setting up tethering and connecting to the outside world was terrible, but you had to have the Desktop Manager application open anyway before launching the modem connection, so this eliminates a step and no longer requires a somewhat moderately technical configuration to get started.
Thank you BlackBerry!
Pearl Jam – Just Breathe
Fix for Gmail Crashes Firefox
Problem: Every time you close your Gmail tab in Firefox or close a set of tabs that includes Gmail, Firefox crashes.
Solution:
There are many solutions out there that didn’t work for me. If you have made it here, chances are that they haven’t worked for you either. The problem seems to be related to the Google Talk application. It took me a while to find this as the problem because Google Talk wasn’t installed. However, I finally remembered that I did install it at one time but ended up removing it because it was high jacking my webcam from Skype. Further, I didn’t think this applied to me because I used Revo Uninstaller and performed an “Advanced” uninstall which is the most thorough option available.
Apparently a single file was left behind that caused me weeks worth of woe, all my installed plug-ins, passwords, bookmarks, and every other customization I had built up my Firefox install with.
The file I deleted to solve the problem was:
C:\Users\AccountName\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\plugins\npgoogletalk.dll
Other suggestions that did not work for me included:
- Disable and/or remove plug-ins
- Specifically, Firebug is listed quite often as the culprit
- Create a new Firefox profile
- Uninstall/reinstall Firefox
I hope this works for you and saves you some time and troubleshooting pain.
Miscrosoft Security Essentials
Microsoft has finally released their free antivirus product, called Microsoft Security Essentials. It doesn’t seem to be a bad product, but it continually is getting rated towards the bottom of the free antivirus class of products.
More to come on this I’m sure.
Google has righted the ship
GMail is back up!
GMAIL is DOWN!
Yes, Google mail (GMail) is currently down. There is no ETA. Stay tuned.
Don’t fret, you can still get your e-mail even when GMail is down:
How to check GMail when it’s down!
Google Voice!
After several months of waiting for an invitation my number finally came up today, literally! In a nutshell, Google Voice is a telephone number service from Google that allows you to rein in all of your different phone numbers and be reachable by everyone through a single number. You decide where to forward those calls and this can be done on a per caller basis – when your friends call, you can have your cellphone ring; When your family calls, you can have both your cell and home phones ring; When your boss calls after hours, well, he or she can get straight to voicemail.
I see a real advantage to signing up for this service but if you need some more convincing, take a look at the video below –
You can’t sign up immediately, but you can get on the waiting list. Do it today!
WordPress 2.8.1 Released
Get the latest installation and upgrade today!
If you already have a self-hosted WordPress site, you’ll see an upgrade link at the top-center area of your admin dashboard. The automated upgrade was very fast and worked as advertised for me.
Here’s what’s new:
Highlights
- New drag-and-drop widgets admin interface and new widgets API
- Syntax highlighting and function lookup built into plugin and theme editors
- Browse the theme directory and install themes from the admin
- Allow the dashboard widgets to be arranged in up to four columns
- Allow configuring the number of items to show on management pages with an option in Screen Options
- Support timezones and automatic daylight savings time adjustment
- Support IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite Module
- Faster loading of admin pages via script compression and concatenation
Read the rest of this entry »