Like anything in the world nothing is really new. However I think that Cloud marks the final move of IT into its late stage maturity. Gone are the heady days of bleeding edge immature market. Virtual infrastructure, servers and applications available with “provide credit card here” means ICT is almost totally available as a commodity. We once had General purpose computers now we can have General Purpose Data centers, almost everything can be “Done in Software”.
DropBox is a fantastic service to share and exchange files on line. You can access your files from any browser of set up a client for your desktop computer, there is also an iPhone application (though I have not used this much yet).
DropBox starts with a free 2GB of space (Up from 1GB) and recommending new users gives you additional free credit. Follow this link and we can share the credit. The reality is if you keep media such as videos, and high quality audio and photos elsewhere 2GB goes a long way. It is also easy to share files with others but one word of warning the files you share comes of your quota and the other shares quota at the same time.
I use DropBox for my TiddlyWiki’s and KeyPass files – which I will document at a later date. I no longer carry a USB sick or portable hard drive with me everywhere.
I think one of the best features is the local client which creates a folder on each of the places you install it. DropBox synchronises the files on each computer with the web dropbox however once the automatic sync has occurred you can just treat the files as if in another folder on your PC. – Create a new folder add a file and it gets synchronised if you have an internet connection. this feature give a great perfomance. Just check the sync has occured before you open files or close your computer – but this is very simple and is usualy only if you have made lots of changes.
Although not a total substitute for backups this comes close because each of you computers (Say Work/Home/Partners) has a full copy of DropBox on it since the last synchronisation. So if Drop box disappeared you would have local copies and if you delete something from Drop box (Online there is a view deleted option). Because the files are local you can use your normal tools on the fires including Explored, command prompt, and JDisk Report I will tell you about in the future.
Make sure you send me your email and I will invite you and we both get extra free space.
One tip, careful when you are in a hurry. Give DropBox a little time after turning on or before you turn off your computer to allow the synchronisation process. You wont loose anything because dropbox will handle conflicts, it may just prove inconvenient.
Speaks for itself, I miss the two Ronnie’s
Have you considered you only have to use a common password once on a site that attracted you with “Free stuff” and they can login everywhere else they can see you may visit.
I use KeePass (the portable version on my DropBox) – that works well for me, I like the drag and drop user ID and Password including url if required. Except for common use accounts all my logins use unique passwords looking like this Ch4EDbTsBbcQx62WJ1Qt or nf4@@jxEuA’F`0m;%/`Y when not stored within my browser (a Portable firefox) I just drag and drop the user ID and password from KeePass.
SPF Lite
Which can be found at spflite.co.nr is a A Windows Editor for SPF Lovers.
SPF is an editor originally available only on IBM Mainframes and was one of those things I learnt in the Old days of COBOL Programming. Surely these days have passed and there all kinds of great editors out there ?
Well Yes and No.
COBOL and other programming languages often had a strong column wise format to them since mainframe files often contained fixed length records or Lines. At the time COBOL was popular line editors were also popular where editing took place one line at a time. SPF was an editor of it’s time and allows a range of actions on the text using both line and block commands, it shows the line number in the file and things such as search and replace can be limited to specific rows or columns.
If you are a competent keyboards user and want to edit data or programing files you may find SPF Lite both a productive and feature rich editor. There are somethings that are very simple in SPF Lite – which is an adaption for the Windows Operating system.
Some examples. Place a RR on one line number and RR on another following it and press enter – the block of lines will be repeated immediately after the second. Print screen functions write to the clipboard and multiple files are handled in tabs. It can monitor if files have been changed on disk, sort data, bookmarks, Macros, overlays, column wise shift, exclude lines containing, show lines containing, open a new file from the clipboard and much more.
The product is regularly enhanced and has programmable Keys and much more.
Check it out and make sure you pay George if you decide to use it.
Another example – Picture Strings, use in find change or exclude commands
| P’=’ Any character |
| P’^’ Any character that is not a blank |
| P’#’ Any numeric character, 0-9 |
| P’-‘ Any non-numeric character |
| P’.’ Any non displayable character |
| P’@’ Any alphabetic character, uppercase or lowercase |
| P'<‘ Any lowercase alphabetic character |
| P’>’ Any uppercase alphabetic character |
| P’$’ Any special character, neither alphabetic nor numeric. |
Did you know that where ever you can put and web address such as http://LaSource.com.au you can also usualy put a link as follows;
mailto://emailaddress@domain.com
This will open a new mail ready for sending if you browser is set up to allow this.
Emails can also be pre-populated with subject and boy text or CC/BC addresses. Cool eh ?
Google mailto link or see this example
I am reviewing some training material for work that I studied some time ago. The material has been updated with information on wireless networks. Here are a few tips that should assist you on the domestic wireless front.
Channel 11 is most likely to suffer from microwave oven interference. So it would seem you should avoid it.
Wireless antennas are best placed 20 feet or 6.5 meters above the recieving device.
For less than $30 AUD you can buy better antennas that replace your built in one with a lead.
If you have more than one wireless router try connecting them by wire and configure the same SSID but different channels with a signal overlap of 10-15%
Another trick I found when running a cable into an area with no reception that the presence of the cable made the wireless work.
I would think there was a way to determine which channels have the least interference, dose any one know how ?
This is my first post from my iPhone using the wordpress app to my own blog.
I can see the possibility of taking notes on the road and blogging. Have to see if I can post photos. Note this post will also be geo-tagged.
I will add more info via my browser.
Ok, so the Test photo Sucks. I re-sized it once accessing the Blog via my laptop browser (FireFox is my choice).
But it was snapped in poor light and show the blog before the iPhone Post.
The great thing was I could control the status of the post on the local iPhone. No Need to type and post – take your time, edit then post. Not to mention have multiple WordPress Blogs defined.
I think it would be a good idea to have a private blog, login but not visible to the public as a personal Blog – or more like a traditional log or diary, not for planning but recording your life’s activities.
It does look if my current theme does not support the geo-tag.
Oh. And now edited from the iPhone.
I was looking into using GPS (Global Positioning System) Using great application on my iPhone called trails. I will post more details on that in the future. But one of the tips opened up a whole set of new ideas.
See http://trails.lamouroux.de/geotag-photos-using-iphone-trails.html
But what was marvelous to discover was most modern electronic equipment has a fairly accurate clock. Often this results in a time being recorded. For example when you take a photo, when you record a sound, send a message or create a task. the particular tip suggested using a GPS to track your location, then after the event you can see exactly where you were at a given time, when you review your photos you can see exactly where you were at that time you took each photo. This Time code is the connecting piece of data. In the tip it showed how to add this GPS location to the actual photo data.
If you think about it you can see that this is a rather powerful tip. Forget Wireless and blue-tooth and all those special connections to link two tools together use the time as the synchronizing value.
I will post more ideas on this once I get some into practice.
Perhaps this is not the case for everyone but in my view;
The Internet and open source has come of age. It has never been easier to build a strong and dynamic Internet presence. The tools are just waiting to be used and a Website can be developed rapidly to meet so many requirements.
I now have a Hosting Account and can setup and deliver Internet sites quickly and efficiently. Sites most importantly must be easy for the content owner to update. Content is King – if you don’t have something to say, then don’t bother. So it is essential that you find website solutions you can attend to with the ease of emailing a friend.
Good website design in my opinion involves;
I now find myself in the position to do all these effectively. So can I help you ?
Finally – all this is only possible because we “stand on the shoulders of giants”, those people in the creative Open Source movement that precede us.