On Point @ Guardpost Online

Favorite Tools For Anyone

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:39:00 +0000

Every once in a while, I run into a really great program that I find no one should do without. I have quite a few that I load on either a PC or Mac any time I feel I need to do a fresh install (never with a Mac really). So I thought I would share this with the rest of the world. Below are my top picks and why.

PEAZIP

This is a must-have tool for any Windows or Linux user. It compresses and opens just about any type of compressed file with relative ease. It can break a compressed file into separate various-sized files (think CD or DVD). It has shell commands so that you can right click on a file and do various things with a file dealing with compression. If all this sounds too technical, it's actually about the simplest program I've found, aside from Winzip, and it's completely free and very small.

CUTEFTP

If you're a web designer/developer like me, you'll definitely want a good FTP (file transfer protocol) program. I've used many. This windows-based program is not free, but super easy to use and extremely powerful. Schedule your file transfers to and from your website(s). Conduct secure transfers. Drag and drop files between local and remote directories. Preview thumbnails. Edit remote documents within CuteFTP. Create scripts and macros for hands-free work. Use live-syncing between mirrored directories. Schedule site backups. Resume transfers, utilize turbo transfer, and even ensure transfer integrity. Use the step-by-step wizards. Last, but not least, (and this is a BIG one), you can even log into multiple sites simultaneously!

CYBERDUCK

Yet another great FTP tool, but only for the Mac. It's also free :) This is a very simple, drag and drop FTP tool that does what it's supposed to do very well.

QUICKSILVER

This Mac-only application is extremely small, very fast, and provides a powerful way to get to any file or application on your Mac with a simple keystroke. It appears to index (un-noticably) each file and app as they are placed onto the drive. A short-cut key brings it up, type what you're looking for, and hit enter on this very accurate search tool. If it's first result isn't what you're looking for, it lists everything else it found, and you can simply scroll down and hit enter to execute it. It's much easier than Spotlight, which is already super powerful and simple. With the ability to use plug-ins, this tool does even more. And...it's free :)

ONENOTE

It's not often I applaud Microsoft for their applications. However, aside from Excel, OneNote has to be one of the best programs I've ever used. This application acts as a notebook. In fact, it's organized into Notebooks, Dividers, Pages, etc. Take a note on anything. Take a screen-clipping or draw a picture from within the program. Embed or link to audio, video, or other files. Print to a page in OneNote. Search not only text, but also video and audio (although I haven't tested the latter 2). You can even search text that is part of an image, as it appears that OneNote has a built-in OCR (optical character recognition) ability. For random notes or quick note-taking, notes are added to un-filed pages, which you can file later. Password protect notes. Perform calculations and implement tables or grids from within OneNote. Share notes or sync them with other Windows computers or people.

These are just a few of the major tools I wouldn't want to do without. I hope you benefit from these as much as I have.

League of Legends - An Example of Today's Game Industry Practices

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:58:00 +0000

Otherwise known as LoL, League of Legends is a game made by a startup company called Riot. The business is made of many individuals who are apparently quite experienced in various aspects of the industry, from programmers, to financial experts, to web designers, graphic designers, and more. League of Legends is a game that pits up to 5 players against another 5, each of which can choose one of around forty champions called Summoners. The game is free to download and play, but there is a pay model available for those who wish to have slightly different looking Summoners, or to gain experience to level up faster, etc. What is interesting is how this game is an example of how the game industry in general has (please excuse the term), bastardized their offerings.

Please allow me to offer my experience with this game. I have a level thirty account, the max level you can achieve. I did it solely through effort, no pay involved. That was a nice feature of this offering, in that I didn't have to pay to play. I've leveled faster than most (as I have a ton of gaming experience), even those who have payed to gain levels faster. I play about 10 or so Summoners well, and a few others decently. I have about fifty players on my buddy list, and I can easily find a game with many of them. Now, I'm not trying to talk myself up, but to say I know what I'm talking about with this game. I've been playing computer games, since I was a young lad, so I consider myself an expert.

Credibility having been established, I will now explain what I mean by the game industry "bastardizing" their offerings. Long ago, game companies would develop entertaining products that offered little in graphics and sound, but more than made up for what they lacked, in quality and entertainment value. Over the years, quality and entertainment value seem much less important than graphics and sound. Don't get me wrong, graphics and sound are crucial to the experience, but if the program crashes often, the controls are too hard to learn or too complex, or the game simply isn't fun, then what's the point?

This is where League of Legends comes in as a prime example. They offer the game free, likely due to the $8 million in funding they managed to procure. They make up for it being free by offering new costumes for your Summoners, experience boosts and more for actual money. This isn't a bad model, as they will gain popularity fast by offering it free. The problem is that just about every time they have to patch the software, it takes quite a long time for the servers to be brought back up, and most of the time Riot is giving its users estimated times when their servers will be up that they don't meet by a long-shot. Most of the patches appear ("on paper") to concentrate on fixing critical balancing issues between Summoners and features, game performance, etc. However, in my opinion, most of the patching seems to change the User Interface (UI) around, unnecessarily and concentrate on the graphics and sound more than actually fixing any real errors.

For example, they changed the game announcer's voice several times and they offer only two real maps to play on, despite promising more. When the Store was supposed to become active for people to pay for additional things for the game, they had to bump it's opening date twice to get it working and it didn't work well, even then. Some people who paid for things had trouble getting what they paid for to show up or work. Patching appears to cause more crashes every time I play, and the much-toted matchmaking system (which is supposed to balance out the teams' player makeups) doesn't work well either. I find myself on teams with very inexperienced players, which would be fine if the other team had a level thirty and other inexperienced players, but then we end up competing against a team of mostly very experienced players.

I can't complain much, as I play for free, and I'm glad I don't pay anything for the game. If I did, I would be livid by not being able to use the products I've paid for or by not being able to use them as intended. I see people constantly complaining on the forums about what's happening, while others simply insult them for their concerns. I look at it like having bought a car and it not working or not coming with tires. I would treat my customers better. Do I understand how hard it is to program a game like that? Yes. Do I understand that patching software for thousands of people can provide unexpected results? Yes. Was the product ready for launch at the end of it's beta phase? No, and I was a beta tester, since closed beta.

Behavior like this from game companies is fairly commonplace these days and very inexcusable. If I were asked to provide an example of a good game company that actually does provide quality products (with few hiccups), that have great graphics, sound, gameplay value, and controls, I would instantly say, "Blizzard." Considering some of the top people over at Riot come from Blizzard, makes me all the more unsympathetic to the problems they have.

Windows 7 Is Better, According to What Exactly?

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:04:00 +0000

I just read an article by Walter Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal, that frankly made me question the viability of his words. You can read the article here:

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/107925/a-windows-to-help-you-forget?mod=career-worklife_balance

I found this review of Windows 7 rather awkward. While Mossberg starts out saying that Win 7 is a worthwhile upgrade, he eventually makes the case that Win 7 is better than Vista (not hard to do) and probably not worthwhile enough for XP users to want to install. Perhaps he should have been more clear from the start, but most Vista users will likely want to upgrade to anything from what they have. When Vista was less than a year out, I saw what was coming...a landslide of people trying to upgrade to something that merely provided a better-looking user experience and promises of better security. If you're a Vista user, XP user, or any kind of Windows user, you already know that security patches galore are coming or available. Vista promised to be more secure and hackers proved it wrong. Is Win 7 likely to be any different, after all these years of Microsoft re-branding the same lemon?

In his article, Walt Mossberg states, "Windows 7 introduces real advances in organizing your programs and files, arranging your taskbar and desktop, and quickly viewing and launching the page or document you want, when you want it. It also has cool built-in touch-screen features." Is Microsoft still trying to fix things few are really asking for, when security and stability ought to be their #1 task? I can't tell you how many times in my career I've been approached by users, frustrated by the fact that the interface to their favorite Microsoft App (which tends to either be Excel or Word) has been changed by a new version and they can't find the thing they use most. Why not fix pagination in Word, which has never worked entirely well, since it's inception? Why not concentrate on TRULY making sure the program runs in it's on dedicated space, and stop blaming third party programs for the crashes?

Yet, as Mossberg writes, Microsoft made sure to spend time on Windows 7 to provide touch screen capabilities (what?...who has one of those?), something called Aero-Peek (which sounds strangely like the lesser-known capability of XP, known as the Quickbar), and jumplists (right-click an taskbar icon for recent documents, etc. OK that one sounds pretty useful). He mentions how you can, say, shake an application window and make the others hide. He talks about Windows 7 provided easier sharing tools.

I can already do all of these things with my XP machine and even make it look much like Vista, Windows 7, or just about anything I want. There are third party programs, like StrokeIt, or WindowBlinds, Fences, ObjectDock, etc. Stardock is a company that provides a ton of programs that make Windows much easier on the eye and to use. I remember when Win 98 and Win 2000 came out, already having better sharing capabilities. You can get programs that can assist with this far cheaper than doling out $120 for a Windows upgrade. Many are free.

Back to Mossberg's article, he continues, "It (Windows 7) removes a lot of clutter. And it mostly banishes Vista's main flaws -- sluggishness; incompatibility with third-party software and hardware; heavy hardware requirements; and constant, annoying security warnings." However, he also mentions, "If you have a standard PC, called a 32-bit PC, you'll need at least one gigabyte of memory, 16 gigabytes of free hard-disk space and a graphics system that can support Microsoft technologies called "DirectX 9 with WDDM 1.0." You'll also need a processor with a speed of at least one gigahertz. If you have a newer-style 64-bit PC, which can use more memory, you'll need at least two gigabytes of memory and 20 gigabytes of free hard disk space. In either case, you should double the minimum memory specification." How are those requirements not heavy? Most people only have 1-2Gb of memory, even on newer machines, so this means they would only have the minimum to run certain versions of Windows 7. In addition, I think it's too premature to say that third party software and hardware will work well with it. He's one guy, having run tests on 11 machines, all of which are major computer manufacturers that try to ensure their products run most things. Time will tell if his statement is true.

Another thing I found interesting is how he compares Windows 7 to Apple' Snow Leopard. He does say that Snow Leopard is slightly better in most aspects, but I don't think you can say that for what you get in Snow Leopard for $29 vs a $120 upgrade to something not much better is a worthwhile upgrade. Many people have told me that the only reason they wouldn't purchase an Apple computer is that it costs so much more. In fact, I have a colleague who recently purchased a pretty decent Dell laptop for $500. $500 vs $1400 or so is definitely cheaper. I asked him what came with it and, my having worked with PCs for 30 years or so, I knew what costs were coming. Maintenance, updates, crashes, hardware problems, time, software for security, productivity, leisure, maintenance, updates, crashes, more hardware problems, time. In the end, you'll spend more on that laptop than you likely will on the Mac.

I have both, and I have never had to fix my MacBook Pro or reinstall the OS in the last year and a half. It has actually frozen on me a couple of times, but a simple reboot and a little frustration later, I was back in business. In contrast, my Windows machine has had to be reinstalled twice, and crashes on almost a monthly basis. When I heard that Macs run Windows better than other PC's, I balked. I figured it was simply because the Windows was hardly being used and a newer installation. I've had it on my MacBook Pro for most of the time I've had the laptop. I don't use Windows on it as often as my main PC, sure...but it still runs much faster than my statistically more powerful desktop.

I hope Mossberg is listening, as I think the more qualified experts can tell you...don't upgrade to anything Microsoft, unless you have to. I've seen it's history over a long period of time. A lemon with chocolate chips in it is still a lemon.

Excuse Me, I Just Need to Make a Call

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:46:00 +0000

Is it just me, or is anyone else out there sick of being pushed cell phones that want to do everything? Last time I purchased a cell phone, all I wanted was something that could make calls easily and that I could hear, especially via speakerphone. Unfortunately, I had to pay a huge amount of money for the phone, because it has all those other features I never use.

We could reduce the amount of money spent on cell phones and contracts if providers would simply listen to what I hear others say, also. We just want to make a phone call. If I wanted to take a picture, I would get a camera...the cell phones just don't cut it either in quality or adjustment. Real cameras give you the ability to adjust shutter speed, light settings, delay, format, etc. I have to admit that there is software from onOne that is also offered via Apple's App Store and will allow you to adjust just those settings on your iPhone. Yet, I don't even care. I'm not trying to sound negative at all, but to say, can I just have the basic, good quality phone option, please?

I would rather spend as much as I do on these phones, whose biggest features I never use, and have that extra money go to better networks or better customer service. The basic, good quality phone that I managed to get some time ago, has pictures, video, music, and even TV? I can even text if I want. Do I use any of it? Not really. I want to hear the person on the other end more clearly and have them hear me. I want to be able to hear the device, in the car, without having to purchase and use yet another device (E.g. Bluetooth speaker). If any of these company's are watching, please please please give us a basic, good quality phone. No fluff. Either offer same price, where the money is put to good use, or price it lower to match the usefulness of the product and service.

Your Bandwidth Gone In a Flash

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:25:00 +0000

I've been looking at Adobe's efforts to put Flash on mobile devices for a while now (E.g. http://www.adobe.com/products/flashlite/ and http://www.adobe.com/mobile/). It's been slow going and adoption by mobile device makers and cell providers has also been long and drawn out. Yet, Adobe is making headlines recently, concerning their efforts to bring this dominant web media player to that beloved handheld of yours. I like Flash for certain things (playing music, videos, etc.), but I don't prefer it for most. What you'll find is that having it on your cell is not going to make you as happy as you think.

There's a reason this effort has taken so long. It's because Flash can be a huge bandwidth hog. Adobe has had to make something that has proven to be quite heavy on networks, lighter. Cell providers don't want to, and shouldn't have to, accommodate this, just so you can have animated icons and ads. Videos and music already play on their networks just fine. Even if you could get this thing to work adequately, it still isn't the same as having a movie saved on your handheld media player and playing from there, instead of over a network. That said, of course you can use Flash as a player for media that is local to the device. Eye-candy has a place in sales, after all.

Yet, I still don't see the need. I've been in IT for a long time. I generally know what I'm up against, even if I've never seen it before. I've learned to look past the sales pitches and client-facing corporate PR to get to the meat of things. I've seen way too many sites that use Flash and not only offer little significant features by this, but also take forever to load.

Here's a test. Look up web design awards on the net. Most are given to Flash-laden sites that anyone with an average machine would have to wait ages to bring up on screen. Do these sites deserve awards? Certainly from an artistic standpoint, etc., they do.

But I'm not here to debate about merits of web design...simply to say that Flash really ought to be used on music and video sites. Personal sites are fine too. But why bother with it just to say something that could be said much faster and easier and not create bandwidth bloat?

I like Flash for the aesthetics and some functionality, but I most certainly DO NOT want it on my handheld. Perhaps this is why Apple doesn't want it on the iPhone, either.

Snow Leopard - Benefits and Drawbacks

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:50:00 +0000

I bought the Snow Leopard upgrade today (first day of official release). In short, it's a really quick install and just as much of an improvement in the speed up of application and OS start times and shut downs. Yet, it's not without problems.

PRICE:
$29

INSTALLATION:
The installation was extremely easy. Simply insert the disk, ensure there is only one person logged in (main account or one with administrative rights) and run the install. It said it would take about 40 minutes, but it took slightly less. After a quick reboot (which was faster than normal), it greeted me with a slightly different background than that which came with Leopard.

PERFORMANCE:
Applications loaded much faster and behaved faster, as expected. After all, it's supposed to be a migration of the OS from 32-bit to 64-bit.

PROBLEMS:
I noticed the lighter colors looked even brighter than the already impressive display used to provide. However, green color saturation was off the chart. For example, I ran Cheetah3D, only to find that the previous renders I created that normally can be seen in the render manager had all disappeared (extremely unfortunate). After re-rendering a scene I had done before, I found it was overly saturated with green.

You can see the samples below. The first image is what the render should look like, and the second is the one done after Snow Leopard was installed.

As far as any other problems, I can't say, yet. If I find other things wrong, I'll update this article.

5 October 2009 - UPDATE
{
Relatively soon after I notified Dr. Wengenmayer about the problems I was having with Cheetah3D and Snow Leopard, he released an update that solved the colorization issue, along with some other problems. However, PLEASE SAVE YOUR CHEETAH3D CACHE FOLDER. That folder holds all of your renders. You don't want to lose those, now do you?

Another problem I found with Snow Leopard was the fact that my wireless Lexmark Inkjet X6570 drivers weren't working anymore. I had to find the wireless automation wizard install files on Lexmark's site and run those again to get it working.

Cyberduck FTP program also would not work. I used a beta version, until recently.

Inkscape has also ceased to load. I think I might know why, but I'll have to look into a bit more to be sure.
}

CONCLUSION:
Other than being 64-bit, none of the other enhancements of Snow Leopard are really useful or of interest to me. You can read up on Snow Leopard here. You can also read about the color issues from earlier postings from beta testers here.

Windows 7 - Initial Comments

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 13:15:00 +0000

I've been holding off on bothering to download this massive 2.4Gb pre-release. I will be testing both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions. I'm not holding my breath though. I've been using PCs with various OSs, on them for over 30 years. I just read a few reviews on Windows 7 pre-release, and it appears that Microsoft is still trying to dupe the world.

Now, in all fairness, this is a test version, but I found this text on the pre-release download site:

"# If you've installed Windows 7 Beta on your PC, you'll need to back up your data, and do a clean installation of the RC. Then you'll need to reinstall your programs and restore the files, settings, and other information you want to use for testing.

# While we consider this a stable and high-quality pre-release version of Windows, the RC is not the finished product. It could crash your computer or cause you to lose important files or information."

What I found rather hilarious is the fact that that last statement sounds a huge amount like their finished products over the years. They crash and lose your valuable information. Why else do you have so many backup software vendors and hardware solutions? Now, of course I'm not saying that you shouldn't back up your data for any OS, but hey...it rings so true in the case of Windows.

Having seen a review at http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/08/first-look-windows7, I found it quite laughable. Before reviewers compare Windows 7 to Mac OSX, they should actually use both. This reviewer stated how similar the taskbars between the two look, and they're no where close. Take a look:

WINDOWS 7 TASKBAR:

MAC OSX TASKBAR:

The reviewer continued, stating that memory management is better in Windows7. I've been hearing this since the inception of Windows. He states that Windows7 only puts applications you can see in the memory space, not the ones that are minimized. If this is indeed true, how does this work for applications that are supposed to be running in the background (E.g. virus scanners that provide always-on real-time.). Perhaps those programs will be left in their own memory space and only the ones that appear in the taskbar will be managed. Regardless, if this is true, it's at least a long-overdue move in the right direction. What I found, again, laughable is that OSX has no problem with this at all regardless of having multiple applications open and maximized or not.

The reviewer also talks highly of the backgrounds that come with Windows7 pre-release. It's a sad attempt at artistic vision. I bunch of cats, worms, toon doodles, and 3D faces that make it difficult to see your icons. They look much like I would expect from an artist in the 1980s. I guess it's not for me.

The other comments were about how you can have one Windows7 machine gets files and folders from another Windows7 machine on the same network. You can do that already. What did they add? Apparently, it can also get drivers for a device from another machine, such as a printer. Again, you can already do that (as in WindowsXP). It comes with a slew of updated drivers (more bloat in your OS than you'll ever need, which again, is already in earlier Windows releases dating back to 3.1

Also mentioned was the ability to stream media to your WiFi TV. How many people actually have these or can afford them? I bought an HP TV that does WiFi and I was HIGHLY unimpressed with its performance and how hard it was to get connected to the network (which is a function of my network, also). Let's not ignore the fact that Windows Media Center has been a half-baked solution for media fanatics in the past. Trust me, do yourself a favor and buy a non-OS specific media streaming solution, or at least, get an AppleTV. Most of these solutions cost between $150 and $300, and you won't need to fork out another $2k-$3k for a WiFi TV.

More to come...

Google OS

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:14:00 +0000

The internet is a-buzz about the just-announced Google OS, expected to be released in 2010. This is a major contender to Microsoft's dominant Windows OS, found on PCs world-wide. One article I read mentioned that this is the first effort to de-throne Microsoft's OS, but that certainly isn't true. Is it the first viable effort? Perhaps.

I have been saying for many years that Microsoft is and has been in a position to make your lives easier, but is a company committed to its profits. Any company not committed to its profits in some manner is probably hurting itself. However, Microsoft has held the dominant position in this space for over a decade. Why not make an OS that doesn't need constant, bloated updates that (in some cases) cause more problems than they solve? Why not make it load considerably faster than it does after a 5-year redevelopment cycle? Why not make it easier to simply get on with what a user wants to do on the computer, rather than have them wait for simple instruction executions and have to fix weekly (sometimes daily) computer glitches?

This is what appears Google is trying to address for the common user with their new Chrome OS. It should simply work. Not everyone is a gamer, a hardcore computer user, or has time to fiddle with computer issues. In fact, one might even say that Microsoft should be sued for causing world-wide waste of time and money. That may be a bit extreme and, certainly, one could say that Microsoft's products, for all their faults, have also opened up markets for IT professionals who fix such issues. Google is taking a very different approach.

Some say that Google shouldn't have any more dominance than Microsoft. I don't disagree, on many levels. Yet, I can't help but feel that we're better off. I don't pay for Gmail, Google Docs, or pretty much anything Google has managed to push out to the web community. That's a very benevolent push for what I've been able to do with those services on a daily basis. Even this very blog is evidence of a Google service that I don't pay for, but allows me to do what I need to.

The Chrome internet browser may be a good contender for the browser market, to some degree. However, Firefox and Opera have a much better design for rendering pages, keeping web standards in place. For me, they have provided better web security than any other browsers. I don't need another one. As far as I can tell, Chrome acts more like Internet Explorer in how it renders web pages. That's a bad thing, as web designers struggle to keep web pages looking the same for every user. Sorry...I'm digressing.

I would say don't bother focusing so much on the Big Bad Google as a monopoly, but on pressuring Google to finish what it starts. Google has a history of starting many services and applications that never seem to finish in development. Let's hope Google makes it to the finish line with their upcoming OS.

Home Sweet Home 3D

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:41:00 +0000

It seems that open source has become more mainstream these days, and while the open source operating systems are still struggling, the applications are thriving. One of my recent favorites is Sweet Home 3D. It's a great interior design application that allows you to model the inside and, to some degree, the outside of a home or building. It favors the home user or interior designer, but for a free app, it's very powerful.

Few 3D modeling applications are easy to use, are free, and can perform architectural renderings to scale. Sweet Home 3D can do all of those things and more. You can use the existing library of 3D furniture, windows, doors, and more. You can even export your creations in a few popular formats, for use in other 3D apps. You can export your floorplan and/or your 3D rendering of it as an image. I rely on this app to help me create rooms to scale for use in Cheetah3D, my 3D app of choice.

Another huge benefit to this wonderful gem, is the fact that it can run on Windows, the Mac OS, and/or Linux. I have successfully added 3D models of furnishings from Cheetah3D to Sweet Home 3D and back again. You can add textures to the floors, walls, and other items in Sweet Home 3D to give them a more realistic feel. The rendering isn't quite as sophisticated as most 3D applications, but it doesn't need to be. I have included a picture of a quick 10 second mockup of a bedroom, to show you what this thing looks like. Draw the walls in the floorplan view using an intuitive snap-to-and-measure user interface, drop in furniture, which automatically turns appropriately towards the inside of the room, and simply save the file either in native format, as an obj, or as an image.

There's much more to this application, but I suggest you try it out for yourself. This one goes down as one of my highly recommended apps of all time. Find it at http://www.sweethome3d.eu

Flash CS3 Quick Tip #1 - Changing the Pasteboard (Area Around the Stage)

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:06:00 +0000

I ran into a slight problem, while working on a Flash file the other day. I couldn't easily distinguish between the stage and the area around it, also known as the pasteboard.

In order to get around this problem, I was changing the fill color of the stage. Yet, I knew this was a pretty asinine way to fix the issue. Having just stumbled upon the fix, here it is...simple and sweet:

1) Choose a desired fill color for the pasteboard

2) Hold Ctrl+Alt+Shift and double click the pasteboard

That's it! I assume that a Mac user would hold Command+Alt+Shift in Step 2, but if anyone finds this not to be the case, please let me know.

Winner of the Chandelier Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Wed, 13 May 2009 04:08:00 +0000

I've been using a great and valuable, yet inexpensive 3D modeling and animation program called Cheetah3D. Of course, my review can be seen on my last post. Naturally, I find myself on the forums quite a bit for advice and general information, often. Late last month, I posted a challenge to the Cheetah3D community to create a chandelier...something I noticed while watching Shrek and thought to myself that it must have been a rather difficult task.

Apparently, it was quickly dealt with by the experienced. Hiroto, who is a master at scripting for Cheetah so that the rest of us can perform functions it wasn't readily designed to do can get on with our projects in easier ways managed a wonderful result. I say congratulations Hiroto, for winning this competition!

I'm so envious of his talent that I have posted the result here and will be moving it to a new site that I'm creating about general computer graphics (CG). I have permission not only to post his result, but to also post the actual Cheetah file he created. Have fun with it for those who can use it. Here's the master file: chandelier.jas

Is Your Site Cushy?

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:06:00 +0000

I was informed of a new CMS (Content Management System) the other day by a friend. It was called Cushy CMS (http://www.cushycms.com/). Anyone familiar with Wordpress, Drupal, Blackboard, Joomla! and other sites of the like will know what a CMS is. The difference here, is that Cushy allows a web designer to plug in editable areas of their existing and/or future sites with a simple copy and paste of code. As if that wasn't cool enough, there is a free account and a paid accout (which enables custom branding).

I personally feel that this is an excellent way to go. It allows a designer to make certain areas of a site or page editable by anyone, with an easy-to-understand form. Another benefit is that this system works through Cushy CMS, so there's nothing else to implement or install. It gives the designer and the client(s) easy access to areas of the site(s) that need changes, with little to no technical challenges. Another advantage is that moving an existing site to another host can cause some problems in certain cases, especially when moving from one system to another. Cushy CMS avoids this problem by allowing the designer to move the site and have the functionality of the CMS in place. No version control is necessary, as in the case of Joomla!

OK, so that's a short rant about a great idea in practice. It certainly merits a good mention, and I wish them well.

Review of Cheetah3D

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:04:00 +0000

For many years, I've been an avid gamer and extremely interested in 3D graphics. When Unreal Tournament came out, I got my hands dirty with this first-person shooter's level editor. It was a bit of a learning curve, but for those who understand object oriented languages, the editor was simply a watered down interface to plug in variable values. It took me around 2 months, working off and on, to create a level that had two adjoined hallways. Each hallway represented our best and worst worlds, heaven and hell. There was a hand on each level. If your character jumped on the hand, it would raise you up, like an elevator, to a more devastating weapon. That was quite a few years ago, so now I'm back at it, but with a true 3D modeling application called Cheetah3D.

When I was creating my game level, I had to concentrate on weapon placement, polygon counts (for faster rendering of animations), sound, lighting, texture (those pictures placed onto objects in the room to make them look more real), spawn points (where enemies and players would "pop up") and much more. Cheetah3D isn't very different in its capabilities, other than the spawn points and sound. However, it is a great 3D application for modeling architecture, characters, furniture and more. There are many other 3D applications out there that either do as much if not more, but few are within the price range of a novice (think $500 to a few thousand on average). One exception is Blender, which is open source and a great competitor to many high-end 3D apps, such as 3D Studio Max and Maya.

So how does Cheetah stand out? Foremost is its ease of use and small learning curve. Blender can be a real beast for any novice to get a handle on. Sure, it's very powerful, but it also has way too many options that can take months to learn how to use and/or what they mean. Cheetah is also very powerful, but pushes a lot of advanced stuff out of view, such that you get a clean compiled interface. It literally took me a few days to figure out how to create a castle, with landscape, lighting and water. I also created glass effects and animations. I was so impressed with how quickly I pulled everything together (despite being rather amateur to what a trained 3D modeler can do). Putting this into perspective, I can honestly say that I didn't use any training references, at that time.

Of course, I was missing out without any training. As I began to learn some of the basics, I felt it was good idea to record what I was doing, so that I wouldn't forget. I now offer a range of training videos on my computer graphics site www.cgvertx.com and also at www.cgcookie.com. I am much better at modeling, texturing, lighting and animating with purpose than I was then. My portfolio can be found at www.guardpostonline.com/wp. Cheetah excels on value, as well.

At the time of this posting, you could pick up a copy of Cheetah3D for $99, which includes a free upgrade from version 4 to the near future release of version 5. Version 5 will carry with it a much more robust texture creation tool and quite a few other features. Cheetah may not be free, but for that price and what you get, it's a super great value! Please note that it is for the Apple mac only!! For an even more detailed review of Cheetah3D, please visit my review on www.epinions.com.

What is the best shopping cart?

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:06:00 +0000

I've been doing a lot of research on shopping carts. I have reviewed the following:

Shopping Cart Creator (CoffeeCup)
ZenCart (open source)
CubeCart (CubeCart)

These are my assessments:

Shopping Cart Creator (horrid customer service, no refunds, PayPal function did not work, despite my meeting all requirements and having paid for the pro version)

ZenCart (great for open source, more complex than some to configure from a web designer's standpoint)

CubeCart (I really like this one, although it's not free...$179 on the high end. Also it appears to send emails even for orders not completed...there may be a way to turn it off.)

Alternatively, there are many other carts to choose from and even some that host and perform all cart functions elsewhere.

Activa (Active Media Architects)
eMartCart (eMartSolutions)
Volusion (Volusion Inc.)

...of those, I liked how Activa integrates with a site, such that it doesn't appear to be a separate function. I can't speak for the price. Volusion looked like a close contender. eMartCart is also appealing, primarily due to its price point.

Have any of you had good/bad experiences with shopping carts and can relay helpful info to the rest of us? Feel free to drop me a line at contact@guardpostonline.com

Search Network and Networking for Search

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:58:00 +0000

Many people think that by simply having a website will make their site immediately searchable and prominent. This is, unfortunately, not the case. Although the web community is evolving in allowing the layman user to create a website that is at least somewhat search-engine friendly, this is not always the case, nor is it often a very good effort to that end. As I'm learning more and more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), I'm finding that this can be a rather full-time project.

One thing to understand is the hierarchy of search engines. During recent years, Google has led the search engine industry, with Yahoo! and then Microsoft following, respectively. Search engines use many variables in how they rank a webpage or website. I think it is imperative to explain what elements are critical.

Meta tags are part of a webpage's code that don't get shown to a visitor, but are generally a key factor to ensuring that a search engine can find and understand a page and its purpose. For many years, all search engines looked for meta tags to show keywords, descriptions, and other information for a quick way to gather this data. How often those keywords appear in the content of a page give it greater worth or rank on a search engine, as well as other factors, such as internal and external links pointing to that page, visitor traffic, and more.

The number of internal links (pages that link to other pages within the same website) count for something. More importantly, the number of external links also weigh heavily. External links are those that come from other websites to yours. There can be many external links to a page, but the quality of those links also matter. For example, if you have 25 external links from low-ranking sites pointing to yours, it might not matter as much as 5 high-ranking sites pointing to that same page.

Google does not use meta tags and descriptions in search rankings anymore. They are used as text that displays next a site when it comes up in a search engine. Google looks at the title of a page, content, frequency of search words within the content, and other factors. These are things most people and businesses who are new to the online community may not realize. Imagine using a web host who has automated site creation capabilities, where you have easily created a website with a search engine and used titles, like "Home," "About," "News," and so on. How many sites have those titles in their pages, would you say? Quite a few.

Therefore, it is crucial to use descriptive titles for your pages. These should include a site name and an appropriate short description of the page's purpose. This gives immediate attention to both Google and other search engines to what the site is about. Google and others then look for words within the content to see if the title matches up with the page and how well (number of relevant words).

Meta tags and descriptions are still worth putting into a page, due to the fact that most other search engines still use them for ranking purposes. If you are using a host provider with an automated page creation tool, then be sure that it allows you to enter these in. There are many resources on the web that can help you figure out the code to use. Of course, Guardpost Online is always there to assist, should you need it. We often give free advice.

Another thing to consider in getting your site ranked higher by a search engine is to market your site. Consider linking to high-ranking sites and pursuing having them link back to yours. Their traffic may become your traffic. Meanwhile, ad campaigns either online or off are very useful in driving visitors to your site and can often lead to conversions (not just drive by visitors, but actual customers). If you are a business, look to your local business exchanges, conducting regular business meetings with external organizations, and blasting your promotional products to the community. We can also help with those at Guardpost Online, also (pens, hats, T-shirts, business cards, and more).

Time is a big factor in getting a site ranked. You shouldn't expect that if you submit your site to a search engine, directory, or link exchange that you will be found. If you run a business, for example, that offers services in a geographical area that is laden with the same service offerings from other businesses, you've got your work cut out for you. After all, not everyone can fit on the first page results from a search. It can take months to a year or two to get your site to frequently come up within even the first three pages of search results.

Speaking of submissions to search engines, you need to ensure that you make an effort to get your site onto the list of indexed sites for each. Google has a site submission form (http://www.google.com/addurl). Meanwhile, you can cover most other search engine submissions using the Open Directory Project (ODP). The ODP can be found at (www.dmoz.org) Yahoo!, MSN, Ask.com and many other search engines look to that directory for new submissions. You can pay for SEO services from many companies, but this can run you a cool $300-$500 a month on average. At Guardpost Online, we do basic SEO services for a one-time and extremely low-priced $30 fee.

Another factor in getting a site to be search-engine friendly is to make sure that any images are using a descriptive 'alt' tag. The 'alt' tag is code that gives a text representation of an image while it's loading, but also serves to help search engines know what the images are showing the visitor. In addition, they also help to make a site easier to understand by people with disabilities, as they may be reading a browser using a program that analyzes the text and converts it to speach.

As if all of that wasn't enough, you should provide two files with your site. One of these is robots.txt and should conform to the appopriate standard (www.robotstxt.org). This file should be placed in your root directory and tells search engines and other "bot" programs which directories they are NOT allowed to look in. The other file that should be placed in the root directory is your sitemap. This is a file that gives the search engine or "bot" programs a kind of directory of your site. The sitemap should be in txt or xml format, meeting the appropriate standards for sitemaps (http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php). Once the files are loaded, you should tell the search engines that these exist and to look at them. They should do this automatically, but can take a while to get around to it, otherwise. Again, Guardpost Online does this for you along with site submissions to search engines, content keywords, meta tags and descriptions and more for the low $30.

So that was a mouthful and doesn't cover everything SEO. Guardpost Online offers basic SEO services, but gives you such a great value at $30, it provides an awesome set of services and value for your money. I hope you have enjoyed this relatively quick read. Considering how much there is to learn about SEO, save yourself some time and let us help you.

Think your site is good?...Think again.

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I spent many hours challenging the layout and content of Guardpost Online to ensure that it was a good product. Yet, no matter how finalized I think it gets, I find there is more to be done. One of the hardest issues to identify is where the pricing appears on the site, and another is the verbiage on the site, and lastly, I felt the pricing model could be even more simplified.

I posted on several web forums and learned some things about the site, that wouldn't have stood out to me, otherwise. The pricing was "hidden" at the bottom of the first page or past one to two clicks. It needed to be highlighted better. Some users also felt the site was too business-like and professional to be inexpensive, so that I likely lost some possible customers to it. Changing something as small as the opening text can make all the difference. Meanwhile, the pricing model was fairly simple with only two packages, but I narrowed it down to one. The pricing is more than aggressive and the cost for the other services easily beats most, if not all, the competition. The trick is getting people to realize this.

I'm working on a comparison sheet between Guardpost Online and some other vendors that should highlight that although they'll state "$4.95/Mo" web hosting, there are other costs associated with the hosting that are easy to find. In some cases, there are setup or cancellation fees. In fact, one company I contacted about their cancellation fees never actually answered the question of what the cancellation fee was. They simply stated that the cancellation fee was prorated after the first 30 days of service to the point of cancellation. When asked to define the rate of proration, they danced around the answer and never expressly stated it. I spoke with two people at that company and got nothing.

This is bad business, in my opinion. Guardpost Online will not do that to a customer. You should know what you're getting before you pay. It's that simple. We have no setup or cancellation fees and our site development and design services, etc. are not billed at hourly rates. We charge a flat fee. You don't want this to be difficult or painful, nor do we.

I hope our customers are happy with our services, as it is a reflection on who we are as a company. As stated earlier, even my own impression of our site needed to change in order to improve it.

Have large files to pass?

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 02:41:00 +0000

For many years I have witnessed people struggling over getting their large files to and from others. I have had to be creative in my suggestions for them, depending on their resources. Now, there are many companies working on cloud computing to make this type of interaction, among others, easier.

For those that don't know what cloud computing is, it basically means that you will use your internet browser as your operating system (like Windows, Linux, or the Mac OS). This way, any physical computer problems you have along the way shouldn't affect your files (as they will be stored elsewhere). Those files will be accessible to you and to whomever and however you wish. Your applications will also operate from that environment. In fact, I'm beta testing one such system now, about which I cannot speak (I'm bound by terms of agreement). All I can say is that you can expect great things from the many companies working on projects like this, in the coming years.

Now to my point. The biggest payoff is the sharing of large files and information. Information is becoming easier these days (take this blog, for instance). Files are another story. This is where I introduce two services I just learned about. One is Box.net. The other is Huddle.net. Both allow users to create a low-end free user account to pass files back and forth or to store them for access from any browser. Huddle takes this approach a step further by adding collaboration tools for project management and more. This isn't exactly new (E.g. Microsoft Sharepoint, Joomla, Mambo, Blackboard, and countless others).

Box.net offers accounts that add more space and better features, for a price, but the price is minimal for what you get. The interesting thing to know is that most business products that are geared toward one type of service, and are good at it, are usually considered best of breed. This means the product is focused, specialized, and tends to get much better, more quickly.

Huddle.net is more expansive in it's offerings, and also offers enhanced accounts for a price. The prices are a good bit higher than Box.net, but you get more. That said, it's hard to say, at this point, which is better for file sharing. I learned about both through my LinkedIn profile, because both offer a LinkedIn-specific application module for their services.

I am testing Box.net right now with a client of mine and we'll see how well it works for us. I'll post more on this later, when I have some type of assessment.

Take care for now.

Why Should My Business Have a Website?

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:07:00 +0000

Funny you should ask :)

It is imperative that today's businesses, no matter the size, have an online presence. Think of a having your own website as inexpensive advertising that allows you the highest level of control. Your business can easily dictate what is displayed and how, through a multitude of media, including audio, video, or print. This information is extended into an interactive experience for your customers and gives them control over what they receive.

No one likes a pushy salesman. An online presence makes the customer feel as though they can take what they need, at their pace, while giving your business the opportunity to non-intrusively enter the home and to utilize world-wide marketing of your services and products.

Take a look at some of the uses for a business site:

E-commerce
Newsletters
Product Announcements
Online Business Cards
Calendars & Events
Directories
Training
Photo Galleries
Outreach Services

Small businesses, particularly, benefit from having an online presence. They tend to struggle against established organizations and companies that compete with a greater availability of resources.

By now, you may be thinking, "But wouldn't I just be buried among millions of other websites and businesses like mine?" Possibly, but this is where you have a chance to make a statement that may otherwise be too costly to even try. You can think of it another way. A website also puts you on a level playing field with your competitors. The way you excel past them is in your products and services, marketing, and customer approach.

OK, so now the sales pitch:
If you're ready, simply choose the right hosting package for your needs.

Having More Than One Host Is Worth It

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:52:00 +0000

In my news section at Guardpost Online, I linked to an article about Exodus Communications, Inc., a web hosting company that went bankrupt some time ago. There was a happy ending, in that most, if not all the customers continued to be supported by another company. Yet, it speaks to the dire need of redundancy.

Having been an IT professional for 11 years means that some of the most common words of advice from someone like me is that you should be able to stay online, all the time, by planning ahead. This is where having more than one host for your website is critical. Yes, this sounds like a sales pitch, coming from a host provider, but it is still good advice, nonetheless. Let's think about it a second. On average, you can pay anywhere from $4 (USD) to $500 per month on hosting. If you're paying anywhere over $20, you're likely a business and the funding of another host may not be as much of an issue. Even if you're an individual, the $4 per month, turn $8 per month (for two hosts), may be worth it to keep your site alive.

Don't end up like Exodus and consider what it will cost you, if customers or visitors cannot get to your site. In my experience, no network is 100% secure, or reliable.

Work Hard, Be Patient

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:32:00 +0000

Simply put, I’ve been busy. Due to a rather dry summer and water restrictions, my lawn has become wrought with dead patches. So, I recently aerated my lawn and spread grass seeds all over. After a couple of weeks, I fully expected grass to start popping up. No such luck. I was getting rather disappointed, but I left for a trip for about week and came back to some actual growth. Nature has a way of reminding you that hard work and patience pays off.

This brings me to today’s topic of having a proper work ethic and giving not only those you work with some wiggle room, but also yourself. This is probably less of an IT-focussed area of discussion, but it is certainly applicable. I’ve always had a strong work ethic and I don’t settle for half-done. This can sometimes be a problem for me when I can’t or don’t finish something. I’m a perfectionist, which can make things take a while, but I also don’t like spending a lot of time on any particular project.

The reality is that to priorities change. Along with other factors, it’s virtually impossible to complete everything you want and need to do. My suggestion is to work very hard at what you do...you get paid for that. It also makes a statement about who you are. Without patience, however, things aren’t going to go well for you. Not everything works on your timeline. I plan well, I organize well, but I don’t have control over all the factors that impact my work.

Much like my lawn, the efforts I put into my work today, will pay dividends tomorrow. You will find that taking that notion into your own, especially if you manage people, this will also pay off. Stick to the plan, as best you can. Be patient with yourself and the people you work with. You, and they, will be more productive and find the fruits of your labor will flourish.

There’s No Place Like Home

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:28:00 +0000

For what it’s worth, it can be difficult to work from home, especially if you have kids. I don’t do it often, and will only do it if I have to. Sometimes, in order for me to leave work early enough and to get that family time in, I do decide to finish up projects from home after work that I didn’t have time for in the day. That said, with today’s cost of gas on the rise and other factors (less manpower, more work, limited budgets, etc.), it is becoming more attractive to work from home.

This brings me to my main concern. How much are we willing to sacrifice to get to work? The minimum wage barely covers the price of gas, let alone rent and food. Another question is how much are we willing to sacrifice at home? You already sacrifice time with the family when you are at work, but then you give up time with the family if you are bringing work home.

Working from home can be extremely advantageous for both the employer and employee. It reduces the cost of doing business on many levels. Some businesses do this already and have even gone so far as to purchase equipment for the employee to use at home for both work and personal use. This is a can of worms that I, as an IT professional, would not want to open.

It’s harder to control who sees the content on the screen, to manage what the asset is used for, to ensure that it stays operational, etc. Thus, there needs to be an agreement setup between employer and employee that clearly delineates responsibilities on both ends.

Yet, for all the bad, there is much more good to be had here. The way the economy is going, and with the IT industry making huge strides in “cloud computing” this year and in the coming years, working from home is starting to make more sense. Let’s tip the scale a bit, shall we?

If I sacrifice time with the family, while I’m at home, I can at least say that I’m there and perhaps get to see them more often, even if only for a few minutes during a normal work day. I can also save money on gas, maintenance cost on my car, time getting to work and back, etc. I’ll be more productive, as long as I can establish rules in the house. I also need to ensure security of information owned by the company, such that prying eyes are kept at bay. For this, establish rules with your company and abide by them religiously.

Yes, there are huge drawbacks involved with working from home. Probably the most important drawback and likely the one most apt to make you stay on your commute, is the need for face-to-face customer interaction and team collaboration. Consider setting up a video conferencing terminal (a simple system with a camera and microphone on either end, with some type of conferencing service or software in place). It’s not the best approach from a personal standpoint, but you may find that as time goes on, you’ll be ahead of what is fast becoming the new trend, both for home and work use. This trend is collaboration through web-based multimedia.

I don’t want to belabor this any further, but what I’m asking everyone to consider is taking a leap of faith. Perhaps the ones with the hardest challenge here are not the users, but the IT professionals like myself. In the great words of Nike (you know, that shoe manufacturer that overcharges for their products, based on brand name), “JUST DO IT!”

An Apple a Day...

noreply@blogger.com (Guardpost Online) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:16:00 +0000

What kind of news shall I talk about first? How about the iPhone and Apple’s hard lean into the ubiquitous communications market? I’m no MacHead, believe me. I’ve been using computers for almost 30 years, but I spent most of them using just about everything Microsoft.

OK, some people are hard-headed. I actually hate Microsoft and have for quite some time. Don’t get me wrong...they are certainly masterful at business. Yet, there has been such an attitude at Microsoft that permeates the market with great arrogance and lack of respect. Just about every time I bought a Windows-based product, I felt as if I just left the car dealer, wondering if I made the right decision.

Now that I have a Mac, I’m less concerned, as I can run most of my old and new apps, with relative ease. I use VMWare Fusion and/or Boot Camp to do what I need to. Granted the wonderful and ever-present activation loop that using a Microsoft operating system with Fusion and Boot Camp lays before each user is still a huge obstacle. I’m not even sure who to blame for such folly, VMWare or Microsoft.

All I know is that I’ve been in a very similar endless loop with Microsoft support, for the past few days. I finally stumbled on qualified help, so I thought I would share it. If you are going through this now or plan to have a Windows install on an Intel-based Mac, then please save yourself a lot of pain:

Use Boot Camp Assistant to partition your drive for the Windows install (I recommend more than the default 20Gb, as this may not leave enough room for your other Windows apps).

Use Boot Camp Assistant to partition your drive for the Windows install (I recommend more than the default 20Gb, as this may not leave enough room for your other Windows apps).
After the computer restarts, install Windows (I used XP Home Edition).

NOTE: You need a full-install version (otherwise you cannot eject the disc for upgrade installs). There is a way to work around the upgrade using an external CD/DVD player attached and both discs on the same system at the same time, but I recommend against this.
Once installed, you won’t have internet access, etc., to activate. Insert the Apple Leopard disc and it should auto-install the proper drivers for pretty much everything you need.
At this point, PLEASE DON’T ACTIVATE! Restart the system, but after the initial boot sound, press and hold the option key, until you see the option to boot either into Mac or Windows OS. Choose Mac using the arrow keys and hit ‘Enter.’
Once the Mac OS has loaded, load Fusion and you’ll see the Boot Camp partition listed in the virtual machines list. Load it and STILL DO NOT ACTIVATE WINDOWS.
Once loaded, install the VMWare Tools by going into ‘Virtual Machine’ option on the menu at the top of your desktop and select ‘Install VMWare Tools.’
Upon completion, reboot the computer again, but this time let it boot into the Boot Camp partition. Activate Windows by phone and be honest, but understand that when it asks you how many computers you have Windows installed on, you state “one.”

NOTE: This is legal, as I called Microsoft myself and found out that running one instance of the OS at a time on the same physical machine is OK (the software is just not smart enough to realized the virtual machine and the Boot Camp partition are the same). Keep in mind that if you do anything to alter the configuration of the virtual machine, Windows sees this as a different machine altogether and, thus, you’ll get the activation loop.
Once activated, reboot back into the Mac OS. Load Fusion and the windows VM and then activate one more time. You may also have to activate MS Office, if you installed it also. At this point, it is my understanding that you’ll be fine.

NOTE: I have tested this and it works. If you run into activation problems for some odd reason, start again and ensure that you paid attention at each step. It worked for me.

OK, so like I said, I’m not a MacHead. I don’t think that Mac’s are the best product out there, but certainly for the few faults I’ve run into, I’m loving having one over my PC by leaps and bounds. Owning and using an Apple is like using your game console after troubleshooting your PC for the last few days. It just works. ‘Nuf said.