Friday, May 27, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Memory Utilities
I was using a 32" monitor the other day and needed to test memory, but when booting a test cd and running simple "DOS" looking programs, the monitor was unable to display anything. Boo.
So wound up for this situation looking for some memory testers which would run in Windows and hopefully walking through the free RAM that system had. Not sure of these, but found a lot of possibly good utils at snapfiles. See the following
Clean Mem - handles Win7
Mem Max - older, is from 2001, but may work.
And Mem test
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Goggle Voice
There are a lot of fancy ways to use Google Voice. However even the basics can be somewhat complicated...as it can provide replacements for land lines. Integration with a mobile phone or not changes the picture quite a bit. Although there are many uses, even the initial purpose of providing one number that can then forward calls to you wherever you are (home, work, mobile) can be quite handy dandy too.
In case you didn't know, a very nice feature of using their Voice Mail is Google will attempt to render a written transcript of the call and you can have these emailed to you or you can be alerted by text etc.
To get a handle on many of the possibilities, LifeHacker has some pages on good uses.
Helpful Ways to Use Google Voice
Top 10 Clever Tricks
In case you didn't know, a very nice feature of using their Voice Mail is Google will attempt to render a written transcript of the call and you can have these emailed to you or you can be alerted by text etc.
To get a handle on many of the possibilities, LifeHacker has some pages on good uses.
Helpful Ways to Use Google Voice
Top 10 Clever Tricks
Phones - Local Calling
Long Distance = basically anything beyond your LATA. Sometimes there was a slight difference in who might handle things within a state beyond a LATA but that is mostly by the wayside now..and Long Distance includes that as well as inter state calls.
Remember if you live close to a LATA border and are calling someone just a mile away on the other side...it would be at long distance rates, while within your LATA you might be able to make a local call for 10 or 15 miles.
Local long distance. ??
Basically these are intra (within) LATA calls but not local calls...so toll calls. The term Local Long Distance has also lost some overall meaning, since it was confusing. Instead I think "toll call" is a better term. That or "non local", lol.
Local Calls
If you need to find out what calls in your LATA are local...for ATT use this:
ATT Local
Zone 1 and Zone2 and the weird not always applicable Zone 3 are Local.
Good info, for who handles prefixes, exchanges, within or outside LATAs
Local Calling Guide
More on LATAs and Maps
LATA Maps
Remember if you live close to a LATA border and are calling someone just a mile away on the other side...it would be at long distance rates, while within your LATA you might be able to make a local call for 10 or 15 miles.
Local long distance. ??
Basically these are intra (within) LATA calls but not local calls...so toll calls. The term Local Long Distance has also lost some overall meaning, since it was confusing. Instead I think "toll call" is a better term. That or "non local", lol.
Local Calls
If you need to find out what calls in your LATA are local...for ATT use this:
ATT Local
Zone 1 and Zone2 and the weird not always applicable Zone 3 are Local.
Good info, for who handles prefixes, exchanges, within or outside LATAs
Local Calling Guide
More on LATAs and Maps
LATA Maps
Friday, May 13, 2011
Win 7 - Example of "more" Problems
Darn google deleted a post when they restored or did work last night. So this is a retype.
At a website a client wanted to login and upload a file. The site ran a small applet to browse and select his desired files(s) which looked like a standard windows dialogue. It seemed to allow him to at first to traverse his network and select the file. But we had the following problems:
Chrome: The applet would show some network drives in a drop down, but as soon as you selected one, it said he had to authenticate to that (local) server, but no authorization would actually succeeed. Boo.
Workaround: Use IE
IE8: The same diagoue box would let him select and go to the network drives, but double clicking or otherwise selecting the file would not wind up populating the ultimate box for the files to upload.
Workaround: copy file to desktop or somewhere on his local pc, then use the applet to select the file.
XP:The applet worked fine.
Our thinking is the applet or dialgue box controls might have worked had we been give a chance to "run as administrator" but that opportunity wasn't really present.
CONCLUSION
Developers need to accommodate the "complexities" of OSes like Win7.
At a website a client wanted to login and upload a file. The site ran a small applet to browse and select his desired files(s) which looked like a standard windows dialogue. It seemed to allow him to at first to traverse his network and select the file. But we had the following problems:
Chrome: The applet would show some network drives in a drop down, but as soon as you selected one, it said he had to authenticate to that (local) server, but no authorization would actually succeeed. Boo.
Workaround: Use IE
IE8: The same diagoue box would let him select and go to the network drives, but double clicking or otherwise selecting the file would not wind up populating the ultimate box for the files to upload.
Workaround: copy file to desktop or somewhere on his local pc, then use the applet to select the file.
XP:The applet worked fine.
Our thinking is the applet or dialgue box controls might have worked had we been give a chance to "run as administrator" but that opportunity wasn't really present.
CONCLUSION
Developers need to accommodate the "complexities" of OSes like Win7.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Example of Win7 Issue
IE: A client was at website at which they were to login and upload some files. For uploading, a small applet appeared allowing them to browse and select the needed file(s). However though one could traverse network drives and select a file, the file name would not drop into the original dialogue box where he could hit UPLOAD and have the file be sent. That box remained empty.
Workaround: Copy file to desktop first, and then use the above browse and select to actually select the file.
Chrome: The same Browse dialogue box appeats, but browsing of network drives was not allowed at all, saying the user had to authenticate with user name and password (standard Win7 request box)...but none of his credentials worked.
Workaround: use IE.
ALSO: tried the above on Windows XP boxes and all worked.
CONCLUSION
Applet writers have to accomodate more OSes, such as Win7. Presumably a piece of the app needed to run as administrator, but the user had no real way of controlling the app's running.
Workaround: Copy file to desktop first, and then use the above browse and select to actually select the file.
Chrome: The same Browse dialogue box appeats, but browsing of network drives was not allowed at all, saying the user had to authenticate with user name and password (standard Win7 request box)...but none of his credentials worked.
Workaround: use IE.
ALSO: tried the above on Windows XP boxes and all worked.
CONCLUSION
Applet writers have to accomodate more OSes, such as Win7. Presumably a piece of the app needed to run as administrator, but the user had no real way of controlling the app's running.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Office 2010 - Warning
The Office suite is acceptable for most ordinary users, but it presents some hitches in the area of printing for people who are affected. Consider the following:
Outlook - when printing, there is always a Print Preview and for many web based emails, this can take a few minutes for the images and information to come in. Sometimes will see a message of "Contacting Server."
Some people have had some success by preventing automatic download of images (in Trust Center). One can also right click an email in the Inbox and choose Quickprint.
Word - similarly, when printing Word will show a print preview, and unfortunately if you edit 500 page documents, it can take perhaps 12 minutes for the "preview process" to finish so you can print some or all of the doc.
See this page for this example and other Word complaints
Webucator Page
Outlook - when printing, there is always a Print Preview and for many web based emails, this can take a few minutes for the images and information to come in. Sometimes will see a message of "Contacting Server."
Some people have had some success by preventing automatic download of images (in Trust Center). One can also right click an email in the Inbox and choose Quickprint.
Word - similarly, when printing Word will show a print preview, and unfortunately if you edit 500 page documents, it can take perhaps 12 minutes for the "preview process" to finish so you can print some or all of the doc.
See this page for this example and other Word complaints
Webucator Page
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