Reviews

May 15 2007

OpenCD: Free Software To Try Out

Linux users are very familiar with open source software. In any operating system distribution, it comes with thousands of applications of which some are very useful. The supplementary programs that come with Windows are usually trial versions or scaled down applications of their commercial counterpart. Windows users generally don’t have a very high regard for “free” software.

The OpenCD project hopes to change that. This group has compiled a series of high quality applications that fit on a single CD. You can find these programs yourself, but it’s estimated that on Freshmeat alone there are over 30,000 projects. An entire evening can easily be wasted downloading and examining software.

Fortunately, the OpenCD team picked the best programs for a wide range of applications. There are design tools for creating 3-D animation, editors for bitmaps and vector graphics, web design, and even a children’s drawing program.

You can try out various Internet applications such as web browsers and e-mail clients. When you get bored, there is even a miniature golf game to play.

Business users can install OpenOffice which is a Microsoft Office clone and can read its file formats. A surprising addition is PDF Creator which can make a PDF from any program. You won’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on Adobe Acrobat.

Essential utilities are also included. Abakt can back up your critical data and ClamWin can protect your computer from viruses. There is also WorkRave to prevent and treat Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI) which every long term computer user needs to be familiar with.

OpenCD can be downloaded as a 526 MB ISO image which will need to be burned to a CD as an image. This is a large download but worth the effort. You can find OpenCD at www.theopencd.org.

By Johan • Applications, Reviews • 0

May 13 2007

Think and Grow Rich

There are some books that are worth reading over and over again because each time you do, something new is learned. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill is one of them.

The Secret has recently received quite a bit of attention. This movie explains the Law of Attraction through a series of interviews and dramatizations. The law states that you will get whatever you think about. The universe will award you with what you focus on. This is not a new concept. It’s taught by many motivational speakers and believed by many successful people. It’s also the central theme of Think and Grow Rich.

Napoleon Hill’s book was the result of an agreement made with Andrew Carnegie. There is a secret which, if known, would lead to riches. Carnegie wanted to share this secret with others and asked Hill if he would be willing to spend the next 20 years of his life preparing it to take to the world. Carnegie was concerned that many people would otherwise go through their lives as failures without this knowledge.

Napoleon Hill interviewed over 40 millionaires to learn what they did to become rich and successful. Think and Grow Rich summarizes the major characteristics into 13 laws for personal achievement. He discusses the major causes of failure and how to overcome them.

The principles taught in Think and Grow Rich can bring wealth and can even be used to achieve any other goal. You can succeed by knowing what what you want and then making plans to attain it. Opportunities can be taken advantage of if you are looking for them and are in a state of mind (i.e. thinking positively) to accept them.

An important thing to remember is that money isn’t everything. Wealth and success is useless if it’s just used to make your life comfortable and not sharing it. Your truly rich if you make a positive impact on other people’s lives.

Every software developer should read Think and Grow Rich. This isn’t just for the purpose of becoming wealthy, but the principles learned can be used to build and complete successful applications. Most software projects fail and you have to wonder why. It obviously takes more than a good software engineering course to write good software.

By Johan • Reviews • 4

May 9 2007

Review: John Chow dot Com

There are about 118 million web sites online according to the May 2007 Web Server Survey from Netcraft. Technorati claims that there are about 71 million blogs. Many of these web sites, and especially blogs, remain relatively unknown due to poor or non-existent marketing. If you build it, they won’t come. You need to let them know your there.

This is where a blog like John Chow dot Com is useful. He discusses various techniques on how to make money from an online business. There are many people claiming to be experts here, yet few have attained the level of success that John has. His advice comes from real world practices that have brought him financial independence.

While many posts are blog related, the marketing advice behind them can be applied to any web site. In addition, John gives tips on investing, real estate, and managing your money. All of these things are good to know once your making substantial profits in your online business.

John also writes about various computer hardware and consumer electronics that he uses. He has a great deal of experience and knowledge here since this is what his business is about.

Apart from the money making aspect of John Chow dot Com, John writes about other areas that interest him. There are many posts on cars which have a prerequisite of being a Dot Com Mogul to be able to purchase, and there are also reviews on restaurants. I’m not referring to supersized meals at fast food places, these are restaurants that require lots of room left on your Visa to eat there. If you’ve ever watched Iron Chef, this is the kind of food that is served there.

Overall, everyone who has an online business should be reading John Chow dot Com regularly. The cost of reading it is free, the advice from it is priceless. If you want to make money online, you can review his blog and he will then link to you which will send your site lots of traffic.

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By Johan • Reviews • 6

May 8 2007

Windows Live Writer

I’m always looking for better ways to do things and I’ve spent some time thinking about how I can make blog posts an easier task. It’s not really a difficult thing to do, but the editor that comes with WordPress really isn’t that great. Web-based editors tend to be slow and sluggish.

I did a Google search for a WordPress client and found a large number of blog editors available for Windows. After trying a few of them, I decided to use Microsoft’s product, Windows Live Writer. The software is in beta still but I haven’t experienced any problems with it, other than it crashing a few times but I’m running Windows so these things are to be expected. :)

Windows Live Writer can post directly to Windows Live Spaces or to any blog that uses Really Simple Discovery, the Metaweblog API, and the Movable Type API. This allows it to work with Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, and WordPress.

The advantage of posting to your blog with this application as opposed to using your blog’s web-based editor is speed. The editor is very responsive and you can easily add links, pictures, or maps from Microsoft Virtual Earth. The pictures can be uploaded to a specific folder in your blog by FTP. I like this feature because I place images by the month and year of the blog post.

You can switch to HTML view by pressing the F12 key, and switch back to editor view by pressing F11. I normally edit the HTML to add the Google Adsense code after the first paragraph. A preview of how the blog will actually look in your web site can also be seen.

Windows Live Writer has the standard functions that are typical with editors, such as making text bold, changing colour, and making bullets. Of course, there is a spell checker for peeple whu haf trubel speling. A grammar checker would be nice, but you can always drop your blog post into Microsoft Word for that.

I recommend this program for people who want to become probloggers. You will probably make more posts with this software because it’s just a matter of typing your text and pressing the Publish button.

You can download Windows Live Writer at windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com.

By Johan • Applications, Reviews • 2

Feb 11 2007

XML Notepad 2007

The typical application for editing an XML document by most people is either with the default Notepad or Wordpad applications that comes with Windows. While these editors are sufficient for getting the job done, they are not the best way for working with large files or deeply nested XML trees.

Microsoft’s XML Notepad 2007 addresses many of the concerns that developers have for working with XML documents.

A very useful feature is its tree view. You don’t have to spend time searching through deeply nested XML tree to find a node. Everything is listed in an easy to use tree with collapsible branches. For those who insist on viewing the XML code, there is a source view option with colour coded text for enhanced viewing.

XML Notepad 2007 supports the standard editor features, such as search and replace, and also includes Intellisense. Experimenting with XML documents can be done without fear with the infinite levels of undo and redo that are available. Nodes in the XML tree can be dragged and dropped anywhere in the document.

With all of these features, the most useful one is the XML schema validation. This will verify that your XML code is correct. You don’t want your applications rejecting invalid statements in an XML document.

You can download XML Notepad 2007 from Microsoft by clicking here.

By Johan • Applications, Reviews • 0

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