Gotoassist's Blog

Look what I found — TheFind.com

gotoassist — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:13:32 +0000

The other day I was searching for some trainer tape for my daughters soccer shoe. Anyway I started at Google and on the second page of links I found a new search engine for shopping online. The site I found was simply named thefind.com It had listed with images several pages of companies selling exactly what I wanted. I went on to search for a few other things that I need, projector bulb and a snow plow solenoid, again I was offered several sites with images of the product. I know the first place to start now for my Christmas shopping.

WiFi at Panera Bread

gotoassist — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:55:20 +0000

I have been sitting at Panera Bread enjoying the free WiFi for the past two hours and it is absolutely great! More and more places are cutting back on this free service because some people abuse it by setting up shop for the whole day. Not this Panera, they are actually expanding the store space and this place has been busy since I got here. More devices are wireless now like the iPhone and such and with wifi available here I could use either my laptop or my phone with wifi speeds.

Installing Windows 7 on VMware for testing

gotoassist — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:39:30 +0000

I recently installed the latest version of Windows 7 on VMware. It went surprisingly well. Everything was working except the Network Card did not have a driver installed. I began my search for the answer on VMware’s Knowledge Center and was disappointed that there was no one else having this issue.

After about an hour searching various forums I found what I believed was the issue and it was with the VMX file and a minor change to have Windows see the card as an Intel adapter.

Settings in the VMX file

The following line needs to be added to the very end of the VMX file.

ethernet0.virtualDev = “e1000”

You can find the VMX file in the directory associated with Virtual Machine you are running. Restart the VM running Windows 7 and it should recognize the adapter and install the drivers.

Latest Kindle from Amazon

gotoassist — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:03:00 +0000

It is often hard to write about a product you don’t actually own yet but are thinking about getting. I am not much of a book reader but my father is but in the past few years he has developed macular degeneration. He has been using audio books to get his cravings satisfied with a tape player that runs the tapes at various speeds so he can skip ahead or roll it back more quickly that a CD or an MP3 player. This is all well and good but he can’t get the best sellers or even the newspaper that he loves to read.

A friend of mine recently asked me about my thoughts on the new Kindle from Amazon. I told him that I had never really thought about getting one but I have seen many in use and I thought it was a little pricey. He asked me if I heard anything about its ability to read the book for you, and I looked at him in a surprised state saying “it can do that now?” I began my research for my father believing that I had found the Holy Grail!

The new Kindle can read to you using the experimental Read-To-Me Feature. While experimental, the Text-to-Speech feature, can read English newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you. You can choose from both male and female voices which can be sped up or slowed down to suit your preference. I talked to my father yesterday about this and he is interested but said since its experimental, he wants to wait for the next version.

SMS and the iPhone

gotoassist — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:49:13 +0000

I have to say that I waited with anticipation like most iPhone users for the SMS update only to be disappointed in myself. Why is that you say? Well I haven’t actually used it except for the first day. Not for lack of trying but more for lack of need. I also have found that since about two weeks before its arrival my iPhone has been having more issues with dropped calls and overall signal loss to AT & T ‘s network. On the positive side in a little over two months AT & T will lose its exclusivity contract with Apple and the flood gates will open with new options. For that I can not wait….

Free DVD copy and burn software

gotoassist — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:57:33 +0000

Yesterday I was challenged with finding free DVD software for a friend of mine when his Roxio software stopped working and he couldn’t find the disk. My journey began and ended at CNET where I found Burn4Free. This software is small and easy to use. While the menu has to many buttons and it tries to jam a toolbar on your browser, it is free.

Windows 7 – Must Have Applications

gotoassist — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:15:50 +0000

Microsoft’s Windows 7 launch is October 22, 2009

The time is upon us to prepare for this new operating system. Part of this preparation involves determining what software we should install to complement the change. There are many changes from expanded security software to interesting, photo-editing tools should make that list. Picking the best can be difficult. How do we know which secturity software to use? Which video application is ideal for Windows 7? Answering those questions might be more difficult than we think. That’s precisely why I compiled this list of the top 5 things.

Top 5

Microsoft Security Essentials – This preloaded free security package for home users is a must-have for any consumer. According to most security experts, the application does a fine job of detecting malware. In these times we all need to secure our data and Windows 7 is just as vulnerable to hackers.
Office 2007 – I know that Office 2010 is right around the corner but you will need to manage your email and create documents. A must have if you want to get work done. If you don’t already have it than try to get just what you need Word, Excel and PowerPoint. This can save you a few dollars.
AVG Anti-Virus – Microsoft’s Security Essentials isn’t enough to keep a Windows 7. It’s a best practice to also install another anti-virus software. AVG’s Anti-Virus 8.5 is still free. While it’s not guaranteed to keep users safe, but combined with Security Essentials should make for a more reliable computing experience.
Photoshop Elements 8 – Taking pictures has become such a key part of daily life, it’s probably useful to have quality photo-editing software on game day. Adobe makes awesome software and you could blow a lot of money on a full version of PhotoShop, but most users can get by with Adobe’s PhotoShop Elements 8.
iTunes – I know it’s not a windows app but Apple’s free iTunes software is a digital hub providing a gateway to music, movies, television shows, mobile applications, podcasts, and more. It’s a must-have for anyone (especially iPhone and iPod owners) configuring Windows 7 on game day.

File Renamer

gotoassist — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:08:38 +0000

In continuing my digital picture theme. We are no longer bound by 24 or 36 pictures to a roll of film. Now we are restricted to the size and available space on a memory card. This has many drawbacks the first of which is that the files are named in sequential order in a numeric format. Often we rely on our memory to reflect back to that date the picture was taken to locate the desired pictures.

We need to rename these files shortly after we take them. Doing this individually can be a real pain. There are several out there. Some cost money others don’t. In my research I found this tool, ‘File Renamer Basic’ .

This tool is a windows based batch file renamer and proves that free software doesn’t necessarily have to cut corners. The interface is straightforward; every tool you’ll need is accessible directly from the main menu. This program gives you detailed options for renaming files, letting you specify prefix, suffix, unique parameters, and extension. You also can find and replace any text string.

Why you should use external storage

gotoassist — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:04:26 +0000

With the growing use of digital cameras, more people have enormous numbers of pictures from as far back as 2001. While this is much better than boxes and boxes of physical pictures, it is also much easier to lose them. With that said it Is important to have a secondary location to backup these files. I got a external USB drive that I store these files on and then store that drive in a fireproof safe. Here is a link to some external drives at Amazon.com I will follow-up with another post on how to rename these files in bulk fashion.

WinDirStat

gotoassist — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:16:02 +0000

I found this cool tool the other day when I was trying to find out what was taking up all the space on our network drive. WinDirStat is a free tool that graphically displays disk usage statistics thru a viewer.