Bay Area Computer Training Blog Site

You Tube

2006-10-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

By now you must have heard of YouTube. a popular free video sharing web site which lets users upload, view, and share video clips. Google Inc., announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for $1.65 billion in Google's stock. The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2006. The wide variety of site content includes move and TV clips, music videos and amateur content such as videoblogging.

Check out http://www.youtube.com and sign up for your free account.

Cool Text - Great Graphics Generator

2006-10-04T14:13:00.000-07:00

Cool Text is a free graphics generator for web pages and anywhere else you need an impressive logo without a lot of design work. Simply choose what kind of image you would like. Then fill out a form and you'll have your own image created on the fly. http://www.cooltext.com

Celestia - 3D Space Animation

2006-10-02T16:13:00.000-07:00

Is a real-time 3D space simulation that lets you zoom through the solar system and beyond. Also provides real-time accelerated views of plantes, moons, comets, stars and even the hubble telescope. Check out this free program at www.shatters.net/celestia

Dropload - A free email delivery service for large files (up to 100 mb)

2006-09-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been stuck trying to send a large file to a friend, family member or co-worker? Most email programs have a limit on the size of an attachment that you can send.

Here is a free email delivery service that you can sign up for and use. Dropload (www.dropload.com) lets you park files as large as 100MB on a web server for seven days. Dropload sends the recipient an email and optional note from you with instructions for downloading the file. The file must be retrieved within seven days and you only get one opportunity to download the file.

Dropload is very easy to use and the person receiving the file does not have to sign up for an account or register in order to download the file. I personally use dropload all the time.

In case you are wondering about Spyware downloads, McAfee's site rating gives www.dropload.comt a green light. . They have tested the site and do not find any significant problems with it.

Email me if you have questions about either of these programs kdickinson@aol.com

Surf The Web More Safely!

2006-09-28T18:19:00.000-07:00

Here are two free services that can help you surf the web more safely. Scandoo (still in beta) and SiteAdvisor use automatic crawlers that scour the Internet for potentially dangerous web sites. They both use a color coded icon system to specifiy risk factors for the sites that appear in your Web search results.

Scandoo runs right off their web site. SiteAdvisor requires you to download a plugin for Internet Explorer or Firefox. SiteAdvisor will offer you detailed information about a site link that you are about to click on. Particularly if the site downloads popups. Check them out at these locations. Scansoft is at www.scandoo.com and SiteAdvisor is at ww.siteadvisor.com

Email me if you have questions about either of these programs mailto:kdickinson@aol.com?subject=I

X-Ray PC Identifies Startup Programs and Processes that may be slowing you down

2006-09-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

Here is a free tool from XBLock Systems - X-RayPC (free, www.x-raypc.com) that is a small program you download and run on your system to detect startup programs and processes that may be slowing your computer down. After you run the program you can click on the Online Analysis button and identify applications known to be "good" programs, thereby narrowing the search for parasite programs.

The program is a single file download, with no external runtimes, DLL's or libraries. There is also no installer to mess with. Simply run the executable and delete the file when you are done with it.

Runs very fast, will give you a complete analysis of your system in just a few seconds. Please contact me at kdickinson@aol.com if you need help with this program

Microsoft Office 2007

2006-09-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

Microsoft is set to release their new Office 2007 product next year. Office 2007 includes a dramatic shift in the user interface through the elimination of the menus (at least in Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access).

You can check out an interactive Beta Version of Office 2007 live on the web by visiting the following Microsoft website.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/testdrive.mspx