Just Gotta Share This

Multicolr Search Lab

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:21:00 +0000

Lady Banana shared this on Twitter today, and it's so much fun. You can select up to 10 colors, and it searches for Flickr images with those colors. I'm not sure if there's any practical use to it, but it's fun to choose different colors and see what comes up. If you find a photo you really like, you can click to view it on Flickr.

Check out Multicolr Search Lab and try it for yourself.

Fun with Photos

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:27:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Today's Giveaway of the Day was some kind of program to create shapes with your photos. After reading through the comments, I decided not to download it, but I grabbed some links to programs I can get later if I want. The first two are for photo mosaics,which is more what I was interested in. They take your photos and create an image, like the seagull here. The last one takes photos and arranges them into shapes, which could have some fun uses.

Mazaika - photo mosaic tool
Foto-Mosaik-Edda - photo mosaic
Shape Collage - free automatic photo collage maker

Now, if only I can find the time to play with them...

Changes in my Feed

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:09:00 +0000

Image via CrunchBase

I've been using twitterfeed for a while now. I love it, because it automatically tweets my blog posts. You just have to add your blog's RSS and enter your twitter information, and you're good to go. The only problem is, my posts stopped showing up on twitter. I finally figured it out - I had to change my twitter password, so twitterfeed was using the wrong password, and couldn't post to twitter. All these automatic things are great, but if anything changes, you have to remember to make those changes everywhere.

The only problem is, that since I've updated my twitter password, and twitterfeed has told me it checks out OK, only one post has actually been tweeted. So far I've only posted on my other blog Beth & Cory's Mom, so this post is mostly a test to see if this feed is working properly.

After reading the following related articles, I'm thinking I might start using Google's Feedburner to tweet my posts. Decisions, decisions.

Read Books Online

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:06:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

I recently found a site called OnRead.com. There are all kinds of books available - best sellers, new releases, etc. Each book is available in several versions: .rtf, .txt, .pdf, .epub, .PalmDOC, .FB2, .lrf, downloadable and playable on various media devices. From what I can tell, you can download books for 99¢, but you have to load your account with a minimum of $10 to get started. It's a little confusing because I haven't actually added any money to my account, so I'm really just guessing about that. That's a pretty good deal for books, but that's not what interested me.

What interested me was the option to read the book online for FREE. I don't have any devices to read books on, except my computer, so I really have no need to download the books. How much online reading will I actually do? I don't know, but it's kind of fun to play with. You can choose book or document format, choose your font and font size, and even add bookmarks to the books you're reading, so you can find your place later. It even keeps a list of the books you've looked at recently. It might just be a good way to check out a book I'm thinking about reading, before I request it from the library.

I also want to check out Read Print. It doesn't have the new books, but there are a lot of books available - a lot of classics, which I almost hate to admit that I've never read. I guess I have no excuse now, except for the usual 'So many books, so little time' that I always use.

Screen Capture Tools

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:31:00 +0000

Giveaway of the Day offered a Screen Capture program today that was not very popular. I didn't bother to download it, because I've been using PicPick for a while, and I really like it - and because everyone who looked at or tried this one had nothing but bad things to say about it. The good thing about that is that there were a whole lot of suggestions for free screen capture programs and tools. I went through all the comments and tried to list them all here:

MWSnap
FastStone Capture V5.3
Screenpresso
Gadwin PrintScreen
Jing by Techsmith
ScreenHunter
greenshot (I like the little frog on this one, but that's beside the point)
jetScreenshot
Screenshot Captor
Snippy
and Windows Vista or Windows 7 include a program called “SNIPPING TOOL” to capture items from your screen and store in a folder of your choice.

I haven't tried any of these, except Jing, which I liked but never re-installed after I re-formatted my computer. I really should, I liked it. But if you need a screen capture tool, I thought it would be nice to have a list to choose from. Hopefully something here will work for you.

Keep Your Widgets

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:09:00 +0000

I'm thinking about changing the layout on my other blog, eventually. I've found a layout I really like, and I've even messed with personalizing the header. But what about all my widgets? You know how you start to upload a new template and blogger asks you to confirm widget deletion? I don't want to have to delete my widgets and then have to build them all up again. The HTML/Javascript ones would be OK, because I could just copy the code to notepad and add it back, but things like blog lists take a lot longer to put together.

So, I started searching for ways to change my layout without losing all my widgets and ran across a really good tutorial on keeping your widgets when changing your template. I tried it out on my test blog, and even though I didn't have many widgets there, Blogger wanted to delete them. So, I followed the tutorial and saved them all! I've got a few tweaks to make on the template and some code I need to grab from my blog, and I think I can change my layout relatively painlessly. So maybe eventually will come sooner rather than later?

Free Web Conferencing

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:38:00 +0000

I did a quick search for free web conferencing solutions - because someone we know wants to spend $500 for another year of Go To Meeting - and we really don't use it enough to justify that. If we hosted larger meetings and more often, maybe, but for what we do one of these free options will work just fine.

DimDim - So simple anyone can use it. Unlike other web conference products, Dimdim does not require users to install software on their computers to attend web meetings. Users can start or join meetings with just a few clicks. Dimdim is available for free so everyone - not just big companies with big budgets - can use it.
Yugma - Yugma free web conferencing allows anyone, anywhere to instantly share their desktop and ideas online with others - up to 20 attendees. I'm thinking the Skype Edition looks really promising.
Vyew - free for up to 10 attendees, has ads. Browser based with no download required.

All of these are upgradeable if you need additional features - and for less than $500/year.

For phone conferencing there's:

FreeConferencing.com - up to 1000 callers with NO reservations, free recording and downloads.
Free Conference Calling - up to 500 callers - on demand conference calling, free recording and MP3 playback, and conference call security.

Zemanta for Better Blogging

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:56:00 +0000

Image via CrunchBase

I think I've mentioned this before, but it just upgraded when I started my browser this morning, so I was reminded. I've been using Zemanta for a while now, and I really love it.

Zemanta is a free Firefox extension that helps enhance your blog posts. It's also available for other browsers and supports all popular blogging platforms.

As you type your post, Zemanta automatically suggests images, tags, links, and related articles. You can include any of the suggested items with a simple click of your mouse. Zemanta also gives you the option to open images and related articles in a new window or tab so you can get a closer look before inserting them. I've found some very interesting images and articles this way - even if I haven't inserted all of them.

Here's a short video on how Zemanta works:

Zemanta in 60 Seconds from zemanta on Vimeo.

It's not required, but if you create an account with Zemanta, you can add your social networks so Zemanta knows who your friends are and can suggest them and their content for your posts. And Zemanta can suggest your own images if you set your Flickr username.

There's more - here's a whole list of advantages of using Zemanta. If you're not quite ready to download and install the browser extension, you can try the demo on the site to get an idea of how Zemanta works.

bing cashback

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:22:00 +0000

If you do any shopping online, you'll want to check out bing. All you have to do is create a FREE account, and then whenever you do any online shopping, start with bing. You can search for what you're looking for right on the bing site, and bing will list prices at various stores and also show you the amount of cashback you can get, so you can pick the best price. Then just click through to go to the store and make your purchase.

You can also just choose a store from the list of cashback stores, click through and do your shopping on that site. Once you make a purchase, bing will send you an email to confirm your savings. There is a waiting period of about 60 days before you can claim your cashback, but then you can request it to be sent to your PayPal account or have it deposited into your bank account, as long as you have at least $5 in your account.

So far we've earned almost $75 in cashback, shopping at stores like Newegg.com, Buy.com, and Walmart.com. The savings really add up when you order big-ticket items like a laptop computer, but the little things add up, too.

And, through December 2, bing is offering extra cashback, so the savings are even better - 15% cashback at Walmart.com, 14% cashback at Barnes & Noble, and 25% cashback at Footlocker.com, just to name a few. I ordered a bunch of DVDs at Walmart.com this morning at really good prices, free shipping to my home, and that 15% cashback. Gotta love it!

So, if you're going to be doing any shopping, and who isn't? - you might as well get some money back for doing it, right? Claim your cashback from bing.

Free Video Downloaders

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:32:00 +0000

Cory likes to download videos once in a while and put them on his Zune. He had a couple programs he liked, but then suddenly they weren't free any more. Don't you hate when that happens? So, when I saw that today's Giveaway of the Day was a YouTube Music Downloader, I thought I'd check it out.

The reviews don't look too promising, but there were several suggestions for FREE video downloaders that he might be able to use:

Video Download Helper Firefox add-on - an easy way to download and convert Web videos from hundreds of YouTube-like sites. Also for audio and picture galleries.
MP4 YouTube Downloader - another Firefox add-on
YouTube Downloader from Biennesoft - allows you to download videos from YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, and many others and convert them to other video formats. Just specify the URL of the video you want to download and click OK.
Orbit Downloader - download videos, Flash games, and large batches of files.
ClipNabber online downloader - allows you to download video from a bunch of different sites, and if you just want the audio, try TuneNabber.
KeepVid - another online downloader - enter the URL of a video you want or add the bookmarklet to easily 'Keep It'

I'm not completely sure if all of these convert the downloaded videos to the format you want or not. If you need something else, you can use the Free Video Converter to convert to the format you need.

Hopefully there will be something here that Cory can use to get those videos onto his Zune. Let me know if you've tried any of these and what you think or if there are some others that should be mentioned. Thanks.

Be sure to check out that second Zemanta-suggested article, because Clipfinder HD sounds like it just might be the best of them all.

The Yak for Java

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:09:00 +0000

I found this today (Actually, I found a magazine page I had ripped out of a magazine ages ago that mentioned this, so I looked it up.

The Yak Java applet - free kit that allows you to create buttons and animations. It supports sound and up to 100 images per animation. It's supposed to be pretty simple, fast and light-weight. I haven't tried it out, but it sounds like it might just come in handy. (And I'm linking to it here so I can find it again - and I tossed the magazine page out)

Have any of you used the Yak? What do you think?

TV on Your Computer

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0000

A lot of people watch TV on their computers nowadays. It's really handy. If you miss a show and forgot to set the DVR, you can usually go online and watch it the next day. My son does it a lot. Today I found a site that looks like it will make it easy to keep up with all kinds of shows. You can find them all in one place instead of searching all over the Internet for them - viewing some shows on the network websites, some on Hulu, etc. This site pulls them all together.

It's called First on Mars. Why is it called that? I don't know, but it calls itself 'Your personal guide to network tv on the web' and there are a lot of shows available here. From the About Us page:

First on Mars' mission is to help you find, organize and share network TV shows available for free streaming across the web. You tell us what you feel like watching by selecting networks, shows or TV moods (dark, sexy, intense). We use that info to build you a personalized guide to your favorites which you can filter and change to make your own. You can always add networks, shows and moods using the drop down menus, heart icons or browse feature. We also offer a choice of six looks for the site which you can select using the skins button. Enjoy and let us know what you think!

You can browse through shows alphabetically or search by mood or by network. When you find shows you like, you can add them to your favorites so they're easy to find in the future. It looks like there are only a certain number of episodes available, probably whatever the network makes available, so you can't wait months to watch them, and it's not a good place to get caught up on a series you've never watched before, but to keep current with shows you like it looks great. First on Mars also lets you share shows with your friends and comment on the shows you watch.

I keep telling my husband that we don't need the satellite TV anymore - we could cancel that, watch everything online, and save a lot of money. So far he hasn't taken me up on that, but sites like this make it entirely feasible. And did I mention that First on Mars is FREE?

Free Fonts

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:09:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

My son Cory and his friend Travis had a great idea for a t-shirt, so Cory has been working on designing it. This afternoon he mentioned that he needed a fun font for it because he didn't like any of the fonts on his computer. (for the shirt, that is) Just yesterday I found a site full of fun free fonts, but then I closed my browser last night without saving it or sharing it. I hate when that happens! I really should know better.

Anyway, since I lost the site from yesterday, I just did a search for 'fun free fonts' and found this one - Font Freak. There are over 5000 free fonts, and you can either download them all at once or browse through and download the ones you like individually. I haven't actually gotten past the first page of the A's, but I've already found some I really like. A lot of them are available in both PC and Mac versions, which is really nice. Also, when you find a font you like, you can click on the author's name to see all the fonts by that author.

Dress Up Your Browser

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:55:00 +0000

Image via CrunchBase

I just installed Personas for Firefox last night. How long has this been around? I'm not sure, but I'm really loving it. Personas lets you dress up your browser with easy to install and easy to change 'skins' for Firefox.

watch a quick video demonstration:

Getting Started with Personas from Mozilla Labs on Vimeo.

Not only can you choose from the many 'skins' available on the site, you can even create your own. The instructions are right on the page. Here are some my brother, who found this first, has created - Personas by krayeg.

I had a little trouble getting this to work at first, I think because I had a theme installed. When I went back to the default firefox theme and restarted my browser, it worked just fine. The fun with Personas is that you can very easily change the look of your browser, and you don't have to restart your browser for the changes to take effect. You can even preview the look before you intall simply by mousing over the designs in the gallery. I'm having a lot of fun doing that, but you don't have to visit the Personas gallery. You can choose and change your selected Persona any time simply by clicking on the little fox mask in the lower left-hand corner of your browser window.

Free Blog Designs from Shabby Blogs

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:02:00 +0000

I came across another site for free Blogger templates tonight. It's called Shabby Blogs, and there are plenty of blog backgrounds and accessories to choose from. All of them are 100% free, and it looks like a lot of them are customizable, such as being able to add your own photos to the headers.

I haven't had time to browse through all of them, but there are some really cute backgrounds here, with headers and extras to complement them and help you put together your own custom blog. Did I mention it's free? Yes, yes I did! Free, cute blog backgrounds - and once again I'm tempted to change my blog design.

Good Deal on Sony Vegas

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:45:00 +0000

Cory has been wanting Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pack for a while now. I found it today at Buy.com on sale for $89.99 with a $30 rebate, which is the best price we've seen so far - so I grabbed it. If you're looking for some good movie editing software, this is supposed to be really good.

I'm linking to this here, because searching for Sony Vegas on Buy.com doesn't bring this page up. Instead you get the software for $90-something with no rebate mentioned. I checked Pricegrabber to find the best price, and when I clicked the Buy.com link there, it got me this page with the sale and rebate. It's only good this week, so grab it now if you want it.

Organize Events and Sell Tickets Online

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 04:10:00 +0000

Image via CrunchBase

If you plan events and sell tickets for those events, TicketLeap looks like something you'll want to check out. TicketLeap is FREE for event organizers, and buyers can use all major credit cards.

It's quick, easy, and free to set up an account, and then you can start by creating an event. Enter all the event details: name, category, description, date & time, website, location, etc. Once that's done, you can set ticket prices, add pictures, and even invite people.

I don't have an actual event to plan right now, so I haven't gone through the whole event set-up process, but it looks really easy, and I can see so many uses for it. You can customize it in so many ways - setting ticket prices and ticket types, offering discount codes, even deciding who pays the convenience fees. Set the convenience fees to be paid by the buyer, and TicketLeap doesn't cost anything!

What if you're planning a free event? TicketLeap can handle that, too, and if the tickets are free, there is NO fee. Why use TicketLeap if your event is free? Because you get a list of everyone who registers - for planning purposes that is invaluable!

Once you've set everything up, you can send out invites so people can register for your event and/or buy tickets. TicketLeap also gives you the code so you can put 'Buy Tickets' or 'Register' buttons on your website. There's even a Facebook app so you can promote your event on Facebook. I'm sure there's more, but I've just begun to check it out.

Oh, I bet you're wondering how you collect the money for all those tickets. TicketLeap sends you a check the next business day after your event.

If you've used TicketLeap to organize an event and/or sell tickets online, please leave a comment and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear it!

A Picture a Day

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 02:32:00 +0000

Drew has been doing his Photo a Day for years now. My parents each decided to take a photo a day this year, and they've been doing a pretty good job. I take pictures quite regularly, but I wasn't ready to commit to taking one every day. In truth I probably do take at least one a day because I'm always grabbing the camera for something. My hold up was actually getting the pictures off the camera and onto the computer, but I'm doing better at that, too since I started using the camera cable and the software that came with my camera.

Anyway, I signed up for Shuttercal a while back because I thought it might get me more organized in the whole picture a day thing. The whole point of the site is to upload a picture a day, or at least take a picture every day and then upload them to the proper day. It all displays as a calendar, with your picture on the date you took it. Sounds cool, huh? The only problem is that I signed up for it and then never used it! Luckily today I got an email telling me that someone had friended me on Shuttercal. That reminded me that I want to try this, so I uploaded my first picture. Now we'll just have to see if I can keep up with it.

And the whole friend thing? It looks like you can add other users to your friends if you like their photos, and you can build a network of fellow photo a day people. I'm not sure why anyone would have added me to her friends, considering I hadn't uploaded any photos - not even a user pic - but I'm glad she did because it reminded me of My Shuttercal. And now you have the link so you can check up on me and see if I'm uploading any photos.

I should probably put this in my sidebar or something, but for now I'm putting it here - my latest photo: (it's supposed to change when I upload new ones - if it doesn't change you know I'm not uploading anything)

Free Help for All Things Web Related

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:47:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

I keep coming back to this site when searching for web design information. The tutorials and explanations are simple and easy to understand, at least the ones I've used so far. They have tutorials on basic html, javascript, CSS, and beyond. You can also find tutorials for using popular graphics programs to create some great effects, free online tools and resources, and a whole lot more.

No wonder I keep coming back - there is so much here! As they say:

EchoEcho.Com is your one stop free help site for all things web related.

I think it's definitely going to be my first stop.

Font Squirrel

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:02:00 +0000

Image by Stewf via Flickr

A question on twitter today led me to this site - Font Squirrel. It's an entire site full of free high quality fonts, all of them licensed for commercial use. That means you can use them for anything you need them for. I've already downloaded a couple I really like. I'm not sure what I'm going to use them for, but you can never have too many fonts, right?

Font Squirrel also provided a link to this cool What the Font tool. If you've seen a font somewhere but you don't know what it is, you can upload an image and they'll find the closest matches in their database. If that doesn't work, you can submit your image to the forum and have font geeks all over the world help you identify your font. This ought to come in very handy, because I'm really bad at recognizing fonts. They'll never confuse me with a font geek!

Circle the Cat

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:58:00 +0000

One of my friends just shared this little game on Facebook. It looks pretty simple at first glance. Just click the light green dots to turn them dark green and keep the cat from getting out. But, like the game says, he's a pretty smart cat. I had to keep trying it until I finally got him contained. I'm not sure exactly why it worked that time, so I'm sure I'll be wasting more time on this.

And if I'm wasting time, you might as well be too. See how long it takes you to Circle the Cat.

ebay!

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:39:00 +0000

The battery on my laptop has been quite dead for a while now. It's so dead that the computer shuts down immediately when it's unplugged. I figured I'd have to live with that because a new battery from Dell costs at least $150, and I just couldn't justify that. Then yesterday one of my friends on Facebook mentioned that she had just ordered a new battery for her laptop. We got to talking about it, and she said she had found one on ebay for $35 with free shipping. Ebay! Why hadn't I thought of that?

I've bought things from ebay before, but it's still not my first thought when I need something. I don't know why. You're probably way ahead of me on this and always check ebay first when you need something, but just in case you don't I thought I'd mention it. Check ebay first!

Because when I checked, I found batteries for my laptop starting at $30 with the free shipping. That's a huge savings over the cost at Dell. I wish I had thought of looking on ebay back when the battery started dying. I would have ordered one sooner. I ended up spending a little more than the $30 to get a better quality battery, but still saved significantly. I could never justify the $150 price tag, when I could just plug the computer in to use it, but $40? That I can justify.

Just had to share!

Now it's your turn - what kinds of things do you look for/buy on ebay? Is it the first place you look? What kinds of great deals have you gotten?

Looking for Online Storage

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:11:00 +0000

My favorite online storage and backup service, MyBloop, has disappeared recently. I did a little bit of searching to see if I could figure out what happened to it, but no one seems to know. If you do know something, please let me know.

Luckily, I saved this link to the Ultimate Review of Free Online Storage and Backup - so if I need to choose another site, this will be a great place to start. I think the best course of action is to choose at least two different sites and upload everything to both. It seems sort of redundant, but that way if one or the other server goes down, for any reason, there's always a backup. A backup of a backup, if you will.

Free eBooks

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:19:00 +0000

Image by brungrrl via Flickr

So many books, so little time! I say that all the time, because there are so many books I would like to read, but I just have a hard time getting to them. I have books of my own, and I'm always bringing books home from the library. I don't really need any more books, but that doesn't stop me from getting excited about another book source. This one is Manybooks.net, and it's a site full of free eBooks. They're for PDA, iPhone, ebook reader, or you can just read them on your computer. There are plenty of formats to choose from.

There are 23,963 eBooks available, and they're all free. You can browse by title or author, or look at most popular titles and reccommendations from readers.

Like I said - so many books, so little time!

beethov9.wma Is All Kinds of Problem

bcmomtoo@gmail.com (Anna) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:53:00 +0000

Earlier this week I was helping a friend of mine upgrade Windows XP to SP3. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but for some reason these Service Pack upgrades always seem to have their issues. I put off installing it on my own computer for a long time, and then when I finally did it - BSOD! - which led to having to reformat my hard drive and reinstall Windows completely.

This time things seemed to be going well. We backed up all the documents on the computer and began the install, which of course takes forever because Windows has to back everything up, just in case you need to go back to SP2. So, all the files are backed up, the install of SP3 begins, and partway through there's an error copying beethov9.wma - do we want to continue the install without copying it? Click yes and the install continues, until we get another error message telling us the same exact file cannot be copied. After multiple retries we hit cancel, which does not just cancel copying that file - it cancels the entire upgrade. That means everything that had been installed is uninstalled and all the backups are restored. And we went through this multiple times - first deleting the file because we thought it was a random file that was already on the computer. That didn't work so I tried downloading SP3 from Microsoft again, thinking maybe there was a problem with the file I had previously downloaded - except that one had worked just fine when I installed it on my computer - the 2nd time, after I had reformatted and re-installed.

Midway through the 3rd attempt, this storm rolled through, and I held my breath hoping the power wouldn't go out. It did flicker a few times, but thankfully we had the computer plugged into a battery backup. I still got the beethov9.wma error, but at least the install wasn't interrupted, and I didn't lose everything. That's when Mary Googled "beethov9.wma" to see if there was any info. Sure enough, we weren't the only ones having this problem. Basically, Windows was trying to copy this file into the Shared Documents folder - except that on this particular computer that folder had never been shared. It was just called Documents, and every time we tried to open it, we got an error message saying we didn't have permission to access that folder.

To fix this I right-clicked on the folder and chose 'Sharing and Security' (you can also choose Properties and go to the Sharing tab) - then I checked the boxes to share the folder on a network and allow users to change my files.

Reading the box, it looks like the Shared Documents folder was already supposed to be there and be shared with all users on the computer, but for some reason it wasn't. I ended up having to run the Network Setup Wizard first so that I could check those boxes, but the end result was that, after sharing the folder, the file did indeed copy, and the installation of SP3 was successful. Finally!

My question for Microsoft is - why does an update to my operating system that contains 'security updates, hotfixes, and select out-of-band releases' also need a music file? I'm pretty sure the computer would have operated just fine without it - and saved me a lot of frustration. A job that should have taken a couple hours ended up taking ALL DAY.

Just Gotta Share This

Multicolr Search Lab

Fun with Photos

Related articles by Zemanta

Changes in my Feed

Read Books Online

Screen Capture Tools

Keep Your Widgets

Free Web Conferencing

Zemanta for Better Blogging

bing cashback

Free Video Downloaders

The Yak for Java

TV on Your Computer

Free Fonts

Dress Up Your Browser

Free Blog Designs from Shabby Blogs

Good Deal on Sony Vegas

Organize Events and Sell Tickets Online

A Picture a Day

Free Help for All Things Web Related

Font Squirrel

Circle the Cat

ebay!

Looking for Online Storage

Free eBooks

beethov9.wma Is All Kinds of Problem