tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69663882009-10-18T13:21:28.381-07:00Cratchit.org maintains the VIC CRM and TimeTool open source projects.Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comBlogger132125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-20264548206190358922009-10-18T11:31:00.001-07:002009-10-18T13:21:28.391-07:00

Loathe as I am to do it, today's post is a solid "I told you so". Not once, but twice.First... in my last post ("You're a pirate, and you don't wash your hands") I suggested that you should turn off automatic updates, and examine security patches before applying them. Friday, ZDNet posted a story exemplifying what will happen to you if you don't heed this advice ("Microsoft exposes Firefox users

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/10/i-told-you-so-i-told-you-so.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-68592737571226634642009-10-12T06:22:00.001-07:002009-10-12T08:06:14.845-07:00

OK, maybe you're not, and you do. But according to the Business Software Alliance, 41% of all software on personal computers is pirated (link). In the U.S. that figure is around 20%, and higher in the rest of the world.The funny thing is that this doesn't have to be the case at all. With OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, the GIMP, and other great Open Source packages around, there's no

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/10/youre-pirate-and-you-dont-wash-your.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-7334808998415624632009-10-11T09:23:00.000-07:002009-10-11T09:52:38.506-07:00

We've got our second story in a row on Rupert Murdoch, Soooper-Genius.Over at Newsweek, Weston Kosova reports that Murdoch thinks Google is "stealing" his content, and wants them to pay him. According to Murdoch, linking == stealing. Definitely read Kosova's commentary, as he has it 100% correct.Google doesn't steal anything from Murdoch. If you do a news search in Google, you get a list of links

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/10/rupert-muroch-puts-his-foot-in-it-again.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-74062384790409242192009-09-29T11:23:00.000-07:002009-09-29T11:29:25.494-07:00

On ZDNet, Larry Dignan asks, Is Barry Diller Delusional? Barry Diller is the exec formerly behind Fox Broadcasting and USA Broadcasting, and is currently in charge of the lukewarm IAC/InterActiveCorp. Larry's post contains video of Barry (once again) declaring that people should pay for Internet content.There are gobs of media moguls out there who feel that they should be paid for access to

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/09/mammals-shouldnt-take-advice-from.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-14369893196686598522009-09-07T10:42:00.000-07:002009-09-07T11:52:07.306-07:00

In response to my previous post, Cloud Computing is Baaaad, Mmmkayyy?, I was happy to receive a most thoughtful comment from Greg Charland. Greg writes in part:Really, though, it comes down to the math.I'm not even going to go in the direction of google as I'm not convinced that their email solution is business-worthy.But I can offer hosted Exchange & SharePoint through a well-known provider for

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com3http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/09/cloud-computing-still-bad.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-48455308546381326112009-09-04T17:59:00.000-07:002009-09-04T19:36:23.770-07:00

Cory Doctorow has a story in the Guardian (link) describing the "real" purpose of cloud computing.The tech press is full of people who want to tell you how completely awesome life is going to be when everything moves to "the cloud" – that is, when all your important storage, processing and other needs are handled by vast, professionally managed data-centres. Here's something you won't see

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com4http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/09/cloud-computing-is-baaaad-mmmkayyy.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-73596755190430779372009-09-01T17:12:00.000-07:002009-09-01T19:09:41.959-07:00

If you've read this space at all over time, you'll know it's no secret that I'm a serious fan of OpenOffice.org, the free alternative to expensive desktop software like Microsoft Office. Recently we've been provided with additional reasons for making the change.Reason one: A District Court has issued an injunction banning Microsoft from selling Word in consequence of losing a patent-infringement

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/09/software-patents-word-and-openofficeorg.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-92002846649414382532009-08-16T06:42:00.000-07:002009-08-16T07:25:10.368-07:00

Marc Andreessen is backing a new web browser, to be called "RockMelt". What no one can figure out is, why? The RockMelt website is no help (link), and neither, apparently, is Andreesen himself, who is quoted as saying, "There are all kinds of things that you would do differently if you are building a browser from scratch," in an interview with the New York Times. Perhaps so, but we're in the

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/08/please-marc-why-rockmelt.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-32629254754416359412009-08-14T07:21:00.000-07:002009-08-14T12:51:19.022-07:00

I can kvetch forever about California's budget crisis and the fiscal irresponsibility that led to it, but in the midst of that bad news is this wonderful example of how the Creative Commons works to the betterment of society.Some time back Gov. Schwartzenegger launched and initiative to "Open Source" digital textbooks for students (press release). Technically, these aren't "Open Source"...

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com1http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/08/now-thats-how-you-do-textbooks.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-44576987227419420032009-06-17T06:19:00.000-07:002009-06-17T06:56:33.291-07:00

I hate it when "clever" headline writers mislead their readers. Take this one, for instance, from ComputerWorld:Hacker cracks TinyURL rival, redirects millions of Twitter users This borders on the irresponsible. There you have TinyURL, prominent and mostly in caps, with that tiny little "rival" next to it. This story has nothing to do with TinyURL, but they're the one associated with the hack by

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com1http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/06/cligs-cracked-tinyurl-is-ok.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-69199552492997853642009-06-16T17:52:00.000-07:002009-06-16T23:55:32.008-07:00

This is one of those posts where I really don't want to be mean, but I have to be.Often the computer systems that we create today don't hold a candle to the things that were envisioned for computers at the very outset. For instance, I'm still in awe of what Douglas Englebart was able to accomplish back in the 1960s. (I've written at length about that in "Why you need VIC CRM".) On the other

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/06/project-xanadu.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-33030843016823970292009-05-28T10:33:00.000-07:002009-05-28T12:44:24.423-07:00

There have been a few new product announcements that have really amazed me lately due to their obvious "me-too"-ness where the press have somehow been hoodwinked into believing that there's something innovative going on. All I can conclude is that the computing media are made up of sheltered children who never saw a computer before they graduated and got their current jobs.Specifically I'm

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/05/theyre-reinventing-wheel-again.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-15622259155845952202009-05-03T06:51:00.001-07:002009-05-03T07:46:31.258-07:00

I don't know how I missed this talk by Randy Pausch on Time Management, but it's excellent. Please, please, please make the time to watch it: you'll be glad you did.Not only does he pass on general principles in an entertaining way; he provides advice on specific techniques and tools to make you more productive.Now here are my totally self-serving observations: Randy mentions that [as of the time

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/05/randy-pausch-on-time-management.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-61519881062519023872009-04-20T19:23:00.000-07:002009-04-20T19:25:17.779-07:00

This article by Matt Asay says quite enough.

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/04/microsoft-to-open-source-please-dont.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-46956349276220286242009-04-10T19:47:00.000-07:002009-04-10T21:11:07.378-07:00

Here's a neat little Easter egg I just learned about for Microsoft Word (if by this time you don't know that an "Easter egg" is a hidden feature, then get educated here).In Word, type in "=lorem(p,s)" minus the quotes where p is the number of paragraphs and s is the number of sentences per paragraph. Entering "=lorem(200,4)" will give you about 10 pages of output that looks something like this:

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/04/egg-for-easter.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-60315338063745096072009-04-07T08:06:00.000-07:002009-04-07T14:52:24.240-07:00

Today I thought I'd pass on a few interesting and useful websites I've run across.Some are reference, some are tools... the only real rule I've got here is that I'm not posting links to any Google websites... I've got a separate list for that. I'm also steering clear of the obviously popular sites, such as Wikipedia and IMDB. I'm also limiting myself to a baker's dozen this time 'round.So, with

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/04/cool-websites-you-should-visit.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-42208205797384071842009-02-17T07:26:00.000-08:002009-02-17T12:31:17.284-08:00

In the course of a discussion on Paul Murphy's ZDNet talkbacks, Roger Ramjet noted an issue with accessibility features for Linux.First, background. Able people often don't consider the difficulties encountered by the handicapped in using a modern computer. With text-based (DOS) computers it was pretty easy... a screen reader for the blind and you're pretty much done. But with GUIs it's really,

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/02/handicapped-features-in-linux.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-47246061909834127452009-02-01T12:47:00.000-08:002009-02-01T21:24:14.499-08:00

I had an older Windows box that needed to be re-installed. (It's an HP Optiplex). Now, this isn't a crap machine. It's a 2.2GHz processor with a very decent video card. But it didn't come to me with a restore disk, so I called Dell to get one. Sadly, they couldn't hep me out because it originally shipped with Windows 2000. The restore disks are no longer being manufactured. They couldn't send a

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/02/while-you-werent-looking-linux-got.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-15448266590913469442009-01-24T10:13:00.000-08:002009-01-24T10:34:15.310-08:00

My eldest son's computer contracted a nasty bit of malware a couple of weeks ago, which I had to remove manually (NONE of the antivirus software caught it). And believe me, tracking it down and removing it manually without knowing what it was was no easy thing. He's lucky I'm his dad, otherwise the repair could have been hugely expensive.It was the "Conficker" worm, aka "Downadup".Fortunately for

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/01/conficker-downadup-is-nasty.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-5278085072447184912009-01-06T20:04:00.000-08:002009-01-07T10:04:11.886-08:00

Every BitTorrent vendor promises you that BitTorrent provides blazingly fast downloads. This is a lie. Weeeell, it's not technically a lie, and it's not an intentional lie, but in practice it's a lie nonetheless.Here's the theory. BitTorrent works by having many users share pieces of the file among themselves. Seeds have complete copies of the file, and peers don't. By sending different pieces

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com2http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2009/01/why-bittorrent-is-slow.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-82520111452423655402008-10-14T04:19:00.000-07:002008-10-14T06:41:15.036-07:00

In my last post I related that in eWeek magazine (Oct 13, 2008), Jason Brooks asks "Does OpenOffice.org Still Matter?" He's wondering if, given on-line suites, if OpenOffice.org will matter in the future. Yesterday I addressed the quality of the software, but today I'd like to look at the on-line software concept and whether Software-as-a-service (SaaS or "cloud computing") advantages outweigh

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2008/10/is-cloud-computing-worth-it.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-73941015253084805472008-10-13T19:25:00.000-07:002008-10-13T20:38:58.370-07:00

OpenOffice.org 3 has been released. It's fast it's sweet, get it. You may have to wait your turn... the demand is so great that the servers have crashed. Here's the message that mailing list members received:All,We must apologize. OpenOffice.org 3.0 is proving immensely,staggeringly popular. And our site is down as a result. While we fixthings, we urge you to be patient and try again later on

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2008/10/openofficeorg-3-is-released.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-56238818003792328752008-09-24T06:41:00.000-07:002008-09-24T09:24:19.304-07:00

"Out of the box" VIC CRM is geared toward the worker who spends most of his time in front of the computer and on the phone. When you create a new JournalEntry the default JournalEntry type is always "Phone Call". The rationale here is simple: when you receive a phone call you need to be able to start documenting it as soon as possible, with no delays at all. Other systems require you to gather

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2008/09/using-vic-managing-calls.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-31850526477718591222008-09-15T12:26:00.000-07:002008-09-15T13:13:37.231-07:00

In my last Using VIC post, I described how to use Projects to manage complicated groups of tasks. These can be generic projects of the sort you'd use Microsoft Project for; or Sales oriented methodologies to help you manage a sale from working the lead to closing the contract. I also promised I'd show you how to turn the Project into a Sales Order and an Invoice.Remember that a Sales Project

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2008/09/using-vic-from-project-to-sale.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-34170769822767400632008-09-11T21:53:00.000-07:002008-09-11T22:05:27.744-07:00

For several years I've been distributing VIC CRM without any setup program. As a result, only hardcore bleed-yellow Lotus geeks have been able to get it to work without assistance.Well, I'm just about finished with the VIC Installer. If you're running Notes and want to be the first kid on the block to try this out -- pre-release -- email me with "Guinea Pig" in the subject. You shouldn't have any

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com0http://www.cratchit.org/blog/2008/09/guinea-pig-wanted.html