In this post, I’d like to do two things.  First off, I want to plug a really cool site called PortableApps.com that has some really cool software in the form of … well, portable apps.  What these are, are common widely used applications that have been transformed in such a way that they can run right off of your thumb drive, no install necessary, hence the term portable.  They have lots of cool stuff that you can download, absolutely free, and use right off your thumb drive, or hard drive, or anywhere really.  It’s nice being able to have firefox and open office (and much more) with you, no matter where you go, even with all of your own settings and customizations.  That’s hard to beat!  Go check it out, you won’t be disappointed I am sure. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know about anyone else out there, but I am a big fan of tabbed interfaces. If you have used the Firefox web browser within the last few years or so, you no doubt have come to appreciate this as much as I have. If you haven’t seen this in any apps that you are using, you don’t know what you are missing. Even Microsoft jumped on the bandwagon when they released Internet Explorer 7 by adding tabbed browsing support, no doubt inspired by how popular that feature is with Firefox users.

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I am always thinking about ways that I can not only improve the site here, but also ways that I can provide something useful to visitors. Along those lines, I decided to put some network tools online fo visitors to use. You never know when you might need to ping or trace something from an outside source when troubleshooting a problem. There is also a Whois option, and even one to show the IP address that we see you coming from. That’s useful when trying to configure IP based access somewhere. I’ll be refining the tools and working to add more and improve the existing tools as time moves on. Let me know what you think, if you have any problems with them or suggestions, hit the contact link and drop me a line. Now, go check ‘em out!

I do!  Or should I say, did.  I am not a huge IM (Instant Message) junkie, but I do have friends and family that I communicate with that way.  This means that I have several different IM accounts, because no one can seem to agree on just one.  Many people reading this are nodding in agreement sharing my frustration right now.  Until recently, I have used Trillian on Windows because it spoke all the different IM languages (AIM, YIM, MSN, ICQ, IRC, etc) so I was able to consolidate all of my separate clients into one.  Lately though, I have been having some troubles with Trillian crashing a lot, so I went on the hunt for a new client to try out.

One thought that I had was about Linux, and the fact that on Linux I used GAIM, and IM client that was much like Trillian in that it talked to everyone.  One thing I liked about GAIM (among many things), was that it was fast, lightweight, and powerful.  It just ran really well.  On a whim, I searched for GAIM for Windows and low and behold, I found that not only did the name change (it’s now called Pidgin), but it’s setup for many different operating systems with Linux and Windows being two of them.

I decided to give it a try and I haven’t looked back.  It’s very much like the GAIM I am used to on Linux, and it’s very slick.  It looks good, it runs good, and hasn’t crashed once! :)  So far, I think I have found my IM client of choice and I highly recommend it to anyone that is looking for a robust cross platform and multi protocol client.  Check it out here on Wikipedia, and download a copy from the Pidgin homepage to see for yourself!

When you thought of word processors years ago, everyone thought of WordPerfect.  Now, everyone thinks of Microsoft Word.  Spreadsheets are the same way, Quattro Pro in years past, Excel in the present.  Well, I want to share with you an alternative to the current champion of the office software suite Microsoft Office.  This alternative is free, robust and powerful, runs on many different operating systems and can even read and write lots of files, including Microsoft Office.  You can even export your documents as a PDF file, now how cool is that.  The software I am talking about is called OpenOffice and it’s put together by the community, with a lot of help from big names in the industry like Sun Microsystems.  I have been using OpenOffice for years, and it has really come a long way, to the point that I prefer it over Microsoft Office.  Also, consider the price if you are on a budget and it’s even better.  There are some people out there who will argue my sentiment, and that’s fine, it’s a free country.   I bet though, if you check it out you will find you like it.  Enjoy!

Time for another Cool Tools entry, and I have a great one for you if you have any amount of pics and even videos sitting around. It’s a tool called XnView, and it’s available for a bunch of operating systems; Windows, Linux, MacOS to name a few. It’s an awesome picture manager, providing a fast and pleasant interface to thumbnails and even basic image editing tasks. It makes slide shows easy, and can create web pages, and more. It can even thumbnail and play your movies too! There are lots of features in this tool, and it’s free. You gotta love free software, but don’t forget that someone put lots of time and effort into this, and authors love good feedback, compliments and donations that help keep them writing the software we all love.

Now, I am a dad, and I have over 8,000 pics and videos of my kid to take care of and manage, and she’s not even two yet! The point is, XnView makes browsing, viewing, and even some editing a breeze. It has become my default media tool, and has been for years. I highly recommend this, even for the Picassa users out there. Picassa is great, but I don’t think it can hold a candle to XnView unless you are using the Picassa web services to which it joins right up with. So, go check out XnView today!