Archive for the ‘Software’ Category

Our servers, that is.

The OffAssist QuickBooks and file servers will be down this weekend, from Friday evening until Monday morning. We will be moving to a new server software during this time. We have done some initial testing and it appears that it will take care of the printing issues some of you are experiencing when using Vista – and in some instances, XP.

Within the next two months we will also be upgrading the QuickBooks version on the server. We’re holding off until we can make sure the new server software is going to work well. We will, of course, let our clients know before we do this.

It should be pretty seamless for you guys, and the changes minimal.

If you have something you need to do, please get it done before Friday afternoon. We will be unable to easily access files during the upgrade.

As always, we appreciate your patience during this upgrade and rest assured that complete backups are kept and will be made once more before the upgrade happens.

If you have problems, please call the tech support line at 512-339-2255 or email tom@offassist.com.

The coffee area is stocked and we will all avoid looking the IT guy directly in the eyes for the next few days *laugh*

PS – I’ve heard he likes brownies, if you want to offer your support

If you are, like many of us, not a fan of MacroSoft (you know who I mean!), then this recent Linux Journal blog post may intrigue you as much as it did me.

There’s no denying the Big Company is having a bad year. The Europeans picked on them and fined them a bunch and Vista is, frankly, a disaster.

I remember the fuss over 95, because it was such a change from 3.11 (gee, my geek is showing!), and again from 95 to 2000 (uhnother mistake!), but it was nothing like the antipathy generated by Vista. I wonder if we’re just all a little braver now that open-source has become so much more user-friendly for those of us who are not programmers and need easy-to-use GUI. Heh… GUI. I just like to say it, typing it isn’t as much fun.

Yep. It’s true. Vista is so overwhelmingly popular that Microsoft is making XP Home available for another couple of years.

If I understood the article at arstechnica.com right, the main reason is because of Vista’s heavy-duty graphic requirements. Some of the new uber-budget-friendly systems that have been coming out, usually around back-to-school time, just can’t handle the OS without doing major hardware changes that would adversely affect their price point (read that as not cheap anymore).

In my non anti-Microsoft moments I wonder if this is what it was like when the big switch was made from MS-DOS to Windows, or maybe from 3.11 to 95 (that was a HUGE change, I am, sadly, old enough to have been a working grown up when it happened)? Are we all going to look back in 5 or 10 years and wonder how we ever worked on XP?

Yes, free.

Of course, it’s not the full version of Photoshop, or even the light version, Elements.

With online image editors becoming more popular, Adobe has decided to add the not inconsiderable weight of their brand name to the game with last week’s beta release of Photoshop Express. Express is designed for use by the casual photo manipulator; people who just want to clean up a picture before posting it on the web or emailing to friends. There will, of course, be upsell opportunities, mostly to Adobe’s Elements–lighter than Photoshop, more significant than Express.

Check out the full skinny at Wired.com, or head on over to the Adobe Express site and see for yourself.

At long last…

There has been beta buzz and nifty new features touted, but soon, in 2-3 months, we’ll be able to see the new Firefox 3 for ourselves. A spokesperson for Mozilla told Reuters last week that they hope to roll it out to the public in June of this year.

Check out the full article for more info!

Yep, if you can’t conform to the so-called norm, Microsoft can’t handle you. Say, for example, if you happen to be that most unusual of days, February 29th.

February 29th is an odd day, literally, and many MS products had trouble handling it. Microsoft appears to be aware of the problem and yet hesitant to fix it, according to a recent accountingweb article.

Sources say MS even tried to incorporate the leap year bug into their OOXML file standard.

Plus: The software giant now has almost 4 full years before it’s a problem again.

Minus: The software problem with leap day has existed for over 20 years, so who knows how long it will take to fix?

Last October we reported that Mozilla was working on a mobile version of the Firefox browser.

Mozilla has recently announced that they expect to release mobile Firefox versions for embedded Linux and Windows Mobile by the end of the year. We think that’s great.

Now if only we can get Candy to stop pouting in the corner because they won’t have a version for Morris (i.e. Palm OS) this year…

Google recently released a new, “Team Edition” of its software package. It is, apparently, designed to make collaboration between team members over the web easier. I haven’t had time to check it out yet, but trust me, I will.

Find the news article I read here: “Google Releases New Online Software for Businesses“

Find the goods here: Google Apps Team Edition

I doubt I was the only one trembling in my boots last week when the word went out that MegaSoft (you know, they really should change their name, they haven’t been “micro” in a looong time) was putting the moves on Yahoo!

Why? Yahoo has history. Way back when I was heading back to work after the birth of my daughter, our house flooded and I needed a web-based email to use in applying for jobs that didn’t have a goofy old bbs handle in the address. I went with Yahoo and, well, EVERYTHING is tied into it since I’ve had it so long. I really don’t want to have to switch, but I will if Microsoft takes over. I do NOT want Bill Gates in my inbox, connected to my groups, filtering my mail, etc. No No No.

I, like most of us at OffAssist, am an open-source fan, but I am not a fanatic and still prefer to do the bulk of my word processing, spreadsheets, and desktop publishing in Microsoft applications because I know how to use them. So, they are not all bad, I’ll grant them that, I just think they are too hungry and there is already too little competition in our modern world.

The MS search engine leaves a lot to be desired, and new media is the way to go, but I’m concerned by Microsoft’s history of ‘free’. As in things only stay free til you’re hooked, like a dealer handing out penny bag samples, then they’ve got you!

Yahoo! You go! Fight back. But in case you lose, I’m off to open a gmail account.

PS – Happy Valentine’s Day y’all!

Back in August–yes, I am waay behind the times–Mashable put together a list of some of the best and brightest plug-ins and toolbars available to Firefox. You can check out the list here.

Like all things Web-related, though, since it is a whopping six months old it may now be woefully out of date. Or, at the very least, if you are one of those lucky enough to be beta-testing the latest Firefox you can count on a lot of them not being available or fully functional for your version of the browser.

Tips include links and info to:

23 Social Networking Toolbars & Plug-Ins
40+ Blogging Add-Ons
50+ Plug-Ins to Enhance Security and Privacy
Over 30 Goodies for Downloading Videos, Photos, and Files
30+ Search and Bookmarking Plug-Ins

Plus translation tools, time-wasters, more.