Will Brown – Team Lead, Maintenance Crew
(and everything else at the moment…)
Tag Archive for 'Gear'
SoulCode is a technology consultancy: we understand your problem, recommend an approach, and provide a solution.
We analyze, develop, implement, and evaluate solutions for Internet Marketing, Website and Application Development, Content and Digital Asset Management Systems and Information Technology (email, file, print, database).
- More details about SoulCode services is available under Services.
- Samples of SoulCode work may be viewed on the Work page.
Below is partial list, with a link to examples, of our web development technology skills:
- WordPress – This site
- HTML and CSS
- PHP and MySQL
Articles regarding various technology topics.
We offer a wide and deep range of Information Technology services founded on over 20 years of experience. Our mission is to deliver Appropriate Technology – systems which enable people. In fact our primary service is one of perspective – with so many trends and so many promises, technology decisions can often be overwhelming. Technology should allow people to be more productive – but not at an overwhelming expense or debilitating destruction in work flow – not counter productive.
Our services include:
- Technical Writing Services: Every gadget tells a story
- Creative Services: Graphic, Audio/Video, Copy
- Website Concept, Design, Programming and Implementation
- Database and Application Design and Deployment
- Network Design and Deployment – Wired, Wireless and Mixed
- Marketing Consulting: From Brand to Position
I recently decided that I could no longer live with only 40 GB worth of storage on my laptop. So I decided that I would buy a larger hard drive and use the original drive as a backup drive. And I would buy a little USB enclosure to house the backup drive. You can buy these 2 items together (and maybe get backup software too)…. but it will probably cost you double.
I looked at Tiger Direct, where I have happily shopped before, but saved $10 by shopping around and trying a new vendor,Directron. E-commerce is business “Darwinism on steroids”… indeed.
I found a great deal on a new Toshiba Travelstar 100GB – 5400RPM – 8MB cache. As of this writing, I have had it for a week. So far, so good. But only the paranoid survive, so please, regularly defragment your hard drive, run an occasional check disk (for errors) and back up your data weekly.
Hard drives are moving parts… they fail. Its worth the money and time. So, I also bought a cheap little external drive enclosure for $10. Good enough to use for the purposes of backups and archiving. If I was going to use it every day, I would have spent more money on the enclosure. But enough about the hardware.
If you want to backup your data, you could just drag the files from one drive to another. But why copy files that haven’t changed? That is the beauty of backup software. Even a simple little product like Microsoft’s Sync Toyknows whether a file has changed and thus, if it needs to be copied over to the backup set.
However, simple little tools like Sync Toy, are not slick enough to copy the Operating System files. So, while you may have a safe copy of that important document, you will have to spend days re-installing Windows XP or whatever your OS. Unless of course, you use a product like Norton Ghost, which I will discuss further in another post.
I will write more about Backup software and its principles in another posting but for now be forewarned. One day it will happen to you, either prepare yourself to be up and running quickly or prepare yourself to be greatly distressed. It is your choice!
To enable cookies, follow the instructions below for the browser version you are using.
Mozilla Firefox (1.0 final release and earlier)
* Go to the “Tools” menu.
* Select “Options”.
* Select the “Privacy” icon in the left panel.
* Check the box corresponding to “Allow sites to set cookies”.
* Click “OK” to save changes.
Netscape 7.1/Mozilla 5.0
* Select “Preferences” from the Edit menu.
* Click on the arrow next to “Privacy & Security” in the scrolling window to expand.
* Under “Privacy & Security”, select “Cookies.”
* Select “Enable all cookies”.
* Click “OK”.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+
* Select “Internet Options” from the Tools menu.
* Click on the “Privacy” tab.
* Click the “Default” button (or manually slide the bar down to “Medium”) under “Settings”.
* Click “OK”.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x
* Select “Internet Options” from the Tools menu.
* Click on the “Security” tab.
* Click the “Custom Level” button.
* Scroll down to the “Cookies” section.
* To enable:
o Set “Allow cookies that are stored on your computer” to “Enable”.
o Set “Allow per-session cookies” to “Enable”.
* Click “OK”.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.x
* Select “Internet Options” from the View menu.
* Click on the “Advanced” tab.
* Scroll down to find “Cookies” within the “Security” section.
* To enable:
o Select “Always accept cookies”.
* Click “OK”.
Netscape Communicator 4.x
* Select “Preferences” from the Edit menu.
* Find the “Cookies” section in the “Advanced” category.
* To enable:
o Select “Accept all cookies” (or “Enable all cookies”).
* Click “OK”.
If you need a pdf document, then you need Cute PDF! This program is so valuable, you will be wondering how it can be free! Cute PDF is a free pdf writer program that is installed as a “printer” on your Windows XP computer. Thus, when you are in a word processor, web page, spreadsheet or any other program, you can “print” the page into the pdf format.
To get Cute PDF, you need to download the installer program and also a PostScript to PDF converter utility. Both of these are available from the Cute PDF website.
Installation Requirements
* Supports Microsoft Windows 98/ME/2000/XP (x64)/2003 (x64).
* Requires PS2PDF converter such as Ghostscript (recommended).
Installation Process
* Double click, read the box, click next, repeat
I cannot count how many times I’ve been saved by this program. It has helped me so much… I should probably make a donation. Well, maybe this article will help some…
Construction work has begun in southern Portugal on what is set to be the world’s largest solar power station. The plant near Serpa, 200km (125 miles) south of Lisbon, will produce enough electricity for 8,000 homes when it starts next January. Read more at BBC.
The 11-megawatt solar power plant will cover a 60-hectare (150-acre) southern-facing hillside. The project in the sunny Alentejo region has been developed by Portuguese renewable energy company Catavento, in conjunction with solar polar provider Powerlight and funded by General Electric Energy Financial Services. The project’s initial budget is 58m euro (£40m).
The system, to be made up of 52,000 photovoltaic modules, will use PowerLight’s PowerTracker technology which follows the sun as it moves across the sky throughout the day. The firm say this generates more electricity than conventional fixed-mount systems. The panels will be raised around two metres off the grass which, Catavento’s Piero Dal Maso says, the sheep will take care of.
“The Serpa solar power project, along with other renewable energy initiatives, helps lay the foundation for Portugal’s energy future,” he said. “It should provide energy enough for 8,000 homes. It will save 30 tonnes of CO2 emissions, so that is probably around 1% of domestic consumption of Portugal.
Portugal plans other solar plants to counter a rise in carbon emissions.
I have had several years of excellent service from this company. They respond quickly to issues, answer the phone and email and provide all the services that you need to register your internet domain and host and build your website.
Sunny and Beautiful
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
Skype – willibrown
Phone – email me…