The Bloog

Scott Kelby announced today on his blog a new Nikon Tips show which he seems to co-host with his partner in crime, Matt Kloskowski.

The first episode is already up and looks promissing. I personally like the format: short and to the point, yet very clear.

I’ll be checking it out weekly to see if they can show me something I don’t already know about my D300.

Link to Kelby’s blog post: New Weekly Nikon DSLR Tips Show Launches Today.

Watch the first episode at http://www.nikondtown.com/

I remember the first time I used Google as well as my first Paypal transaction. These services changed the way we use the internet; a better search engine and a simpler, more secure way of paying online. 

Here comes another name and service that is bound to cause some change: Noca. Until now, Paypal, while ubiquitous in the e-commerce world, has been charging a hefty fee to merchants for processing transactions. The fee is not far from what credit card companies like Visa & Mastercard charge merchants to accept credit cards in their place of business – from 3% to 4%.

Noca tries to change that. The new service promises a zero cost payment system to merchants. But to be fair it’s not exactly zero; 0.25% to be exact. It also allows customers to pay with their chequing account, rather than with a credit card.

Read more at Noca’s site: Noca – Transact freely

We’ll have to see how many (online) merchants will jump on the wagon and how soon. Noca definitely has potential and I will look forward to making my first transaction as soon as it will roll out internationally (currently available only in US).

More information in this CNET article.

What do you do when, all of a sudden, your computer’s monitor goes black and doesn’t turn back on? You can hear the computer still running as normal but you no longer see anything on screen… what then?

Well, let’s start at the beginning. For a while, the X-Fi Platinum sound card has been acting up, allowing me to use the headphones jack of the front panel just fine but not do the same via the digital out port that is connected to a sound system. From time to time I have to reinstall the sound card driver to restore the sound through the speakers. This time, I thought, I should also try reinstalling maybe the chipset drivers… maybe there is a conflict at that level. So I did. That’s when the screen went black and it remained so.

Intel’s chipset drivers setup must have caused some serious damage at the driver level, which caused something to interfere with the graphics drivers. It was late at night and I was just getting ready to watch a movie. This was definitely not the right time for trouble.

(continue reading…)

Last year I made one of the best moves ever as far as backing up goes. I built my own Windows Home Server system. With seven systems in the home, a mix of desktops and laptops, backing up was becoming a struggle and in some cases even completely ignored. I had external hard drives that I would use, ocasionally, to backup some files here and there, on one system or another.

Then, there was the issue of media sharing. There were shares on every computer and it had become quite a mess and just a big pain. That was before Windows Home Server.

Windows Home Server has made everything a joy. It has taken the pain out of backing up of all systems, automatically and daily, and brought the pleasure back to file sharing.

I built my own system simply because I had spare parts laying around and it seemed like a waste not to use to build a server. My only purchase was the operating system “Windows Home Server”. Had I not spare parts, I would have simply gotten an HP MediaSmart Server.

These devices are just beautiful. Unlike my homemade system, they don’t take up space and they’re not noisy. They’re way smaller than online pictures will let you believe. They’re only slightly bigger than the average external drive and look just gorgeous even on a desk. 

Now the real reason of this post, besides praising Windows Home Server the OS as well as the (HP) machine, is to bring up the fact that as of recently, Mac users will also be able to enjoy the benefits of Windows Home Server in a mixed PC and Mac environment. It has to be mixed, at least for now, because it seems you still need a PC to be able to administer the server; the administration console which allows you to setup user accounts, backups, share folders and a bunch of other cool things, will only run on a Windows OS.

For more information on Windows Home Server and how it fits in a mixed PC and Mac environment, read MediaSmartHome’s article:

Managing Your Digital Lifestyle With A Mixed Mac & PC Environment 

I installed the update for Google Earth today, bringing the program to version 5.0 that was made available starting today. What a difference! It feels completely rebuilt with scrolling and zooming smoother as never before.

Try the SpaceNavigator for a complete 3D experience when using Google Earth.

Ever since I got the 3dConnexion SpaceNavigator, using Google Earth was always a joy. But at times, panning and zooming around could get slightly sluggish and jumpy, although the system is very capable.

With version 5.0, using the SpaceNavigator to pan and zoom rapidly is smooth as milk. No more jumpy frames, no hickups, nothing. Just a very pleasing moving and flying from place to place that makes anyone wanna spend hours discovering the planet only for the sake of the smooth experience.

So if you haven’t done it already, go ahead and update your Google Earth today.

Download Google Earth.

I used to use Outlook 2007 to read feeds that required authentication. Everything went fine for a while, until it completely stopped working. The feeds would no longer update and it seemed to me that the RSS functionality in Outlook had simply broken.

Indeed it had. The RSS folder icon in Outlook 2007 was no longer an RSS icon. It was simply a folder icon, just like the rest of the folders. Additionally, right clicking on the RSS folder would no longer give me the option to add an RSS feed. I only the same options as for regular folders: copying, moving, deleting… 

So I just gave up on it for a while. Until today.

Committed to find a solution to this problem, I did. It seems that some files Outlook 2007 uses for RSS purposes and for establishing a connection to the Common Feed List in Vista had become corrupted. The solution was to simply delete these files, restart Outlook 2007 and let it rebuild these files with “fresh” ones.

See this article for more information: Outlook 2007 RSS Feeds not Updating — a Solution… - Realtime Windows Server.

So I did. But that fix didn’t do anything at first. 

It occured to me that upon restarting Outlook, it was launching just too fast. And the files I had removed were not being rebuilt. I closed it again and brought up Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Escape) to check the Processes tab and make sure that Outlook was not running anymore. But it was still running although I had exited the program! I right clicked and selected End Process and launched it again. Outlook started normally, the files were recreated, the RSS folder icon was back to normal and Add a New RSS feed was again available as an option in the right click menu.

Oh joy!

There is one trick however to getting authenticated feeds to work in Outlook 2007. Make sure that Outlook 2007 is not set to synchronize with the Common Feed List.

When you first start it, or when deleting the files mentioned above, Outlook 2007 will prompt you with a window asking whether you want it to synchronize with the Common Feed List. You should answer No. If answered Yes or if you no longer remember what the setting is, go to Tools/Options click on Other tab and then Advanced Options: Sync RSS Feeds to the Common Feeds List should be unchecked.

Then, you can add rss feeds by right clicking the RSS Feeds folder and selecting Add New RSS Feed. Paste the link to the feed and then you will be prompted to enter the username and password for the feed.

Enjoy your (restored) Outlook 2007 RSS Feed functionality.