Archive for “Computer Stuff”

The following entries were made in the “Computer Stuff” category.


Hey Microsoft, Don’t Push Me Away

Posted March 18th, 2009 by Mike Cherim

The doomsayer said the end of XP is near and the doomsayer foretold correctly. On April 14th, 2009, Microsoft plans to end mainstream support for the Windows XP operating system (OS). Even though critical support — whatever that means — will still be offered until 2014. This leaves me with some choices, none of which may be as good for me, or Microsoft, as just continuing the needed free mainstream support would be. Here are my options:

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The Minutiae Motherload

Posted April 3rd, 2008 by Mike Cherim

It’s time to get a couple of nasty old Post-It notes off my desk. They’re dusty and faded, they no longer stick to anything, and their edges are curled. A sad and all too typical sight no doubt. On them I see what may be little nuggets of one man’s wisdom, and maybe a question or two (hard to read). Some of it is crap, some of it is gold, that is up to you. Since none is really worthy of an article of its own, I locked them away in a Post-It note safe so to speak. I am now opening that safe — and the contents are spilling out. If something looks good to you, feel free to grab it.

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How Many Buttons Do You Use?

Posted October 23rd, 2007 by Mike Cherim

I have several remote controls throughout my house. Televisions, cable boxes, a DVD player, satellite radio, air conditioner, and more. It’s crazy. They’re all over the place (maybe I need a holster with a universal remote). Most have a multitude of buttons. This thought occurred to me the other day: All those buttons, yet I only use four, or seven, or ten — a fraction of what’s available — I have to wonder, is this an indication of poor design, or is it just me while the rest of the world uses these devices to their maximum potential.

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Message Rules for a Cleaner Email Inbox

Posted November 14th, 2006 by Mike Cherim

Tired of trying to find important email messages in your cluttered Inbox? Establishing a few simple “Message Rules” can help make your wish a reality. If I’ve lost you already and you’re wondering what the heck I’m talking about but can relate to the cluttered Inbox syndrome, I’m about to make your day. In this tutorial I will show you how to set up a message rule for a mailing list you may belong to using Microsoft’s “Outlook Express” client-side email software. Specifically in this exercise I will create a rule to capture mailings from the Web Standards Group (WSG) mailing list.

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The IE6 Alternative

Posted August 16th, 2006 by Mike Cherim

If you’re like me — and you’re a web developer — you’ve been testing your creations in Internet Explorer (IE) version 7 (beta 3). (You should be, anyway.) But this leaves one problem: Trillions of Internet users are still visiting your sites with IE6, thus you still need to test with it. One solution is to have two computers, one running IE6, the other IE7. But this may not be feasible for everyone. Another option is to run concurrent versions on the same (Windows XP) computer. This scares me, though. I’ve never considered myself a computer guru so anything as involved as this sounds makes me as nervous as a cat in a house full of rocking chairs. Being the Luddite I may seem to be, I have found another solution. One that’s doable for even someone like me.

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Great News for Rotten Smellers

Posted November 21st, 2005 by Mike Cherim

Oops, I meant to write “Great News for Rotten Spellers. Silly me. Anyway, I have some great news about some software I downloaded that will help me spell things correctly — and it may help you too. But let me back up a bit. To those who’ve been on the receiving end of instant messenger with me know just how bad my fingers can type. I am one of those people that must have spell check. I can spell just fine, but my blazing fingers don’t check with my brain before adding characters to a correspondence. I make lots of mistakes and must go back to find them. It’s a pain, but I deal with it. But I admit it, I need spell check. So what do I foolishly do the other day? Yep, I accidentally deleted my computer’s spell check utility. Uh oh. Here’s what happened.

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Developer’s Toolbar for IE6

Posted September 24th, 2005 by Mike Cherim

I’m not sure if this is going to be news to anyone other than me, but I often float around the web checking out various things and found something pretty interesting over at Microsoft.com of all places. What I found was available from a large list of popular downloads.

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Firefox Dominates

Posted August 6th, 2005 by Mike Cherim

Amazingly, Firefox users recently exceeded users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (MSIE) on one of my servers. This is not just one site on the server either. It’s all of them. Even the ones not out for review to the web development community (three are: GreenMethods.com, GreenBeastCMS.com, and AdagioSpa.com). The numbers? Well, they are presently averaging as follows:

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Web Developers and Firefox

Posted July 12th, 2005 by Mike Cherim

When checking my server logs I see a whopping 90% of visitors of all combined domains (I have a bunch) using Microsoft Internet Explorer, IE, when they visit my sites. The only time I see radical changes to this is when I have a site out for review or critique and it’s linked from one of the web developer forums I visit on and off. When a site is out for review I notice the number of other browsers goes up quite a bit, especially Mozilla’s Firefox (IE-using visitor numbers drop to 70-80%). It makes sense to me. After all one of the largest Firefox followings is from the web development community. That’s because web developers know and understand the clear benefits to using such a good browser. So, during these review periods I have a lot of Firefox-using web developers visting. Otherwise, the number drops once review time settles down. The masses revert to IE. So what am I getting at? What’s my point?

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