Tech Roadshow

BEST carry-on bag for travel!!

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I've been using a bag as my main carry-on bag for many years (40?) and I'm still using the original bag and am convinced that it's the best option out there. Here's why:

This bag is light. That's a huge factor not just for your carrying comfort, but also for travel if you're on Asian carriers. We regularly have our carry-on bag weighed when we check our luggage, and with a few carriers even had follow-up spot checks while sitting and waiting to board (or was that weighting to board? - sorry, couldn't resist). The max on most flights is 7kg, or 14.4 lbs. A regular roll-aboard weighs 6+ lbs empty. Even our very expensive Samsonite Cosmolite (thank you to the friend who bought it for me on a trip to a theology conference!) is 1.7kg, or 3.7 lbs. That's 1/4 of the allowed weight! I don't know of a commercially available carry-on of this size that is lighter. Mine weighs 2 lbs.
This bag is CHEAP! I paid under $100 US, and you can buy it now for about $80. (Actually, it's on sale for $64 as I'm writing this.) My Cosmolite was about $400 when my friend paid for it, 30 years ago. Bags with a similar form-factor to mine that I regularly see on Kickstarter etc. are expensive. For instance, the Black Mile Mile Two bag looks cool, but when I looked at its price of over $380 and saw that it weighs 2.38 lbs I said "No thanks!"
This bag is durable. I'm still using the same bag I bought about 40 years ago. It has easily traveled over 1,000,000 miles. I know that for sure because I broke the million mile mark with Delta after purchasing it, and have traveled on many other carriers as well. I'm guessing it's into two million mile territory. Yes, I had it repaired. I've checked it more than once - brutal of me, I know. One of the auxiliary zippers on the front (not vital to the bag, but nice to have) was brutalized on one of those checked luggage excursions. I had it repaired here in Indonesia at a cost of just over $10.
This bag is flexible. No, it doesn't have wheels. But it can be carried and has handles on the side and end (great for pulling it out of the overhead compartment). It has backpack straps which are comfortable and can be hidden for when you check it. And it has sturdy D-rings which will take a shoulder strap. I usually have one backpack strap out and sling it over my right shoulder.
This bag is soft-sided. Yes, that does mean you need to be careful not to overpack both in terms of weight and volume. But it has never failed the gate-check test: you know, the one where you show your boarding pass and the agent eyes your bag to see if it needs to be gate-checked because they've run out of space for roll-aboards. And on domestic flights, where it isn't subjected to being weighed, I load it up. It's never had to be gate checked. Yes, there are times I wish I were rolling it instead of schlepping it on my shoulder. But as I'm running through the airport to my gate, I'm thankful for the agility I have compared to dragging a rolling bag.

What is this bag? It's the Rick Steves Classic Back Door Bag - https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/classic-backpack. Available in four colors, 41 liters or 2500 cubic inches, 2 lbs, and on sale right now for $64. I'm almost tempted to buy a spare, but mine just won't wear out! And it's become a beloved travel companion: nowhere near as beloved as Rosemarie of course, but it's accompanied me even when she's not been on the trip.

Hacking Coffee

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Fri, 05 Dec 2014 15:23:00 +0000

Hmm, where do I start? A number of years ago I was at Coffee Fest, the international coffee and tea show in Seattle. I wholesale tea, among other things, so I was checking out what was available. Among the cool tech on display was the newly invented Clover, an $11,000 single-cup-of-coffee machine. It made great coffee! But no matter how much tech it included, I wasn't even going to try to sell my wife on the idea that it was a necessity.

Fortunately, an aisle or two over, Alan Adler, inventor of the Aerobie (flying ring for sports) was demonstrating his new Aeropress for making coffee. It was about $25-30, and it too made great coffee - in my opinion, maybe even better than the Clover. I bought a case of his devices (and more afterwards) and shared a great deal on this rig for making excellent coffee with friends, family, and co-workers. Both devices were invented in 2005, so this was probably 2005, but no later than 2006.

Single-serve coffee machines have come to dominate many home counters - the Senseo, the Keurig, the Tassimo, the Nespresso, and others. All offer convenience, but at a price of relatively high cost per cup and not the best coffee.

Fast forward to 2014, and the Kowalskis in Indonesia. I still have my original Aeropress, along with a hand grinder, the Hario Slim. It still makes great coffee, but it's not practical for serving a large group, or so I thought. I wanted (reluctantly - I hate serving coffee that's not incredible) a Nespresso, but they're not yet available in Indonesia in the retail market, they're expensive to buy and to feed - about $0.70/cup for the capsules, and arguably a good regular cup takes a couple of capsules. But if we're having people over, what other game was there? The other similar options offered no improvement in price and were lower in quality.

So I began to ponder doing something with the Aeropress, using it to produce coffee concentrate. I found a number of articles, and settled on this procedure by Marco Arment to make super-concentrated iced coffee or hot, as needed. We're on the island of Java, and Kopi Aroma here in Bandung makes terrific coffee, arabica as well as robusta. It costs under $2 for 250 grams, a bit more than half a pound. That'll produce enough concentrate for 20-25 excellent cups of coffee. I can make the concentrate in advance (it'll keep for a couple weeks in the fridge). I buy ground coffee at the factory, ground just before I walk out the door, and prepare the concentrate right away. When it's time to serve company, the jug comes out, along with our super-fast Kamjove induction kettle, sweetened condensed milk, milk, sugar, and cups. For the purists who demand their coffee straight, that option is of course there. But I find that a lot of Indonesians enjoy a bit of coffee with their sweetener, and the condensed milk is pretty popular.

Oh yes, see that photo up top? I just made myself a cup of iced concentrated coffee, except it needed no ice. There's a story behind that cute little cup, which is an espresso cup and saucer set from Indo Porcelain (we were able to get our dishes at wholesale from the maker, in Jakarta). I offer folks the option of the cold concentrate, straight or with additives, or I'll put a jigger (an ounce to ounce and a half) of concentrate in a regular cup, add really hot water, and you have instant coffee that does not inhale sharply (suck). In fact, it's smooth, delicious, and not even the slightest bit bitter. This coffee has produced nothing but raves. I'm afraid I may have induced some folks to be rather more addicted.

That square on the saucer? Just the best cookie/squares ever - something my darling wife concocted. Maybe I can talk her into sharing the recipe. And for those who believe that this has not enough tech to fit this blog, let me point out that without coffee (or Mountain Dew or the like), precious little programming would get done. It's fuel, baby!

Keeping your iDevice safe, and other observations on life abroad

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Sat, 19 Jul 2014 00:51:00 +0000

Greetings from warm and sunny Bandung, Indonesia! In days to come I'll follow up with some more info on staying safe and connected while traveling, as I am now having to actually implement stuff I've studied and taught in sessions like the LEAD seminars. This first overseas post has to do with securing your iPhone, iPad, etc.

The urgency of having a secured iDevice was impressed on us when Rosemarie's purse, including ID and iPhone, were left in a cab and initial attempts to retrieve it didn't work. We now have contact with someone who apparently bought the iPhone 5 from the cab driver, but can't make it work because of the protections I've enabled. We have high hopes of getting it back, but only because of this process.

When you get an iPhone or iPad, first enable a passcode. This will be under Settings, and on my 5s it's a tab called Touch Id & Passcode - it may be different on your device. You will basically set a 4-digit PIN here, which you'll have to enter every time you fire up your device unless you have an iPhone 5s with Touch ID (fingerprint authentication). Other settings: Require Passcode Immediately, and Erase Data. You're setting things up to have the passcode mandatory for use of the phone, and also setting things up so that 10 faulty attempts to guess your passcode will erase the phone so that no one can access your data. You can also choose a non-Simple Passcode (longer, not just 4 digits), and this is not a bad idea with a 5s where you'll typically just enter with a touch of your finger anyway. On other devices this may be too much hassle. RESULT: if someone finds your iOS device, they can't just start using it as their own.
Next, enable the Find My iPhone service. On my phone this is located under iCloud. Yes, you want an iCloud account. This is linked to your iTunes account (Apple ID) and will enable backups and other goodies that you really do want. Once devices are registered with Find My iPhone, you can locate them on a map. You can also, if they're in the house but not where you thought they should be, play a sound on the device (a kind of sonar ping) that'll help you locate it.
Last, make sure your version of iOS (the operating system that runs your device) is up to date. Apple is continually beefing up security and generally improving things, and one of the features of iOS 7 (the current version as of mid-July 2014, with 8 on the horizon) is an activation lock which renders your device useless to thieves and opportunistic "finders" unless they're able to validate your device with your Apple ID.

What happens when your device goes missing? First, you pray: request for retrieval and gratitude for having followed this process. Next, fire up Find My iPhone and see if its location can be determined. Rosemarie's phone was offline (battery was dead) but I set it to relay a message to anyone who found it (Please call xxx-xxx-xxxxx) and notify me when it was back online. I could also set it to erase itself, keeping corporate and personal data secure. In this case I chose not to do that immediately, in hope that the phone would show up. By the way, this erasing of the phone doesn't seriously inconvenience you, the owner, as long as you've backed the phone up with iTunes or to iCloud. Here's another reason to want iCloud: you can have the phone back itself up every time it's connected to power and on wifi - very handy! This makes restoring your data a pleasurable chore (pleasurable compared to the alternatives).

What happened? Rosemarie's phone was offline, so I couldn't track it. In some cases, people have actually been able to track their lost/stolen phones to where they were being held. (Strong hint: let the police apprehend the bad guys - don't do it on your own.) I had a message to call an Indonesian friend on the phone, and when the new "owner" tried and failed to be able to use the phone, that message prompted a call to her and initiated what we hope will be the return of the phone.

In future posts I'll talk about options for data access while traveling (T-Mobile is an excellent partner for this) and about other elements of doing your work and staying safe while in a foreign country. Some of this will be useful also for working outside your home, by the way...

In the meantime, practice safe computing and keep an eye or hand on those valuables!

Getting Connected (Updated for 2025)

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 21:39:00 +0000

A friend recently asked for some advice on how to stay connected on the road, specifically for her Nook. I thought I'd post what I wrote up in response in case anyone else had similar questions.

There are basically two methods for us (consumers) to get internet access without wires: wifi and cellular connections. Wifi is great in the house, at Starbucks, the library, McDonalds, etc., but consumer wifi doesn't go long-distance. For that you need a cellular connection.

You can either buy a device which itself connects to a cellular network (cell phones, of course, but quite a few tablets and laptops can be purchased with this capability as well) or you can create a wifi connection from some cellular devices. Most smartphones can do this (it's called a hotspot), but some cellular providers make this very expensive or severely restrict you, at least in North America.

The story is different in much of the rest of the world. My main experience is in Asia. First of all, if you have T-Mobile as your ISP, you're essentially set for travel. You receive a certain amount of second tier internet in almost all countries for free as part of your plan. After you use up that quota you drop in speeds to third tier, but are not cut off. Calls while roaming are 25¢/minute. I just tested this inadvertently - made a call on my US T-Mobile number to a number in Indonesia. It was indeed 25¢. This is not really a hot-spottable option, because of the speed and quota, but it does work, and if you're only visiting somewhere for a week or two it's totally satisfactory.

What if you're not on T-Mo or need higher speeds? If you have a newer phone it probably accepts eSIMs. If so, there are a number of providers for travel eSIMs. I've used several and had the best success with https://maya.net/ . An eSIM with 5gb of data for Indonesia is $10 for 30 days. Cost per gb goes down with more data or shorter duration. Very easy to set up, and dirt cheap compared to US and Canadian providers (for shame!). They have eSIMs which cover individual countries, groups of countries, all of Asia, and I used one that covered much of Asia, big pieces of Europe, and the US once. It was a lot cheaper than anything I could get from the US providers and worked well in Indonesia, Dubai, Turkey, and the US.

If you're going to be in an Asian country for a while, you should be able to get local cell service without using a travel provider like Maya. For instance, I use Telkomsel here in Indonesia, and receive 25 gb of data which can be shared on up to 6 registered numbers (regular SIM or eSIM from Telkomsel) for under $10/month. If you're just visiting for 6 months or less you don't need to register your phone at customs. If you're here for longer you have to declare your phone with Bea/Cukai (Indonesian Customs) but if the phone isn't new you're likely not to have to pay any duty. Just be prepared with some sort of proof of the value (listings on Craigslist, etc.). And with that you'll have very good cellular internet and be able to hotspot your iPad or whatever.

When I first wrote this I recommended a stand-alone portable hotspot. The one I recommended is no longer available, but there are much better options today. You can buy one here in Indonesia for very little compared to the US ($40 gets you a very decent one) and then can use a Telkomsel SIM card. Most of these don't accept eSIMs, though a few do. I expect that will change in the near future, and I may need to update this post at that time. The first version of this post was written in 2014. A few things have changed since then!

Hope this helps some of you!

Need to remove a background on a photo? Check out Clipping Magic

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Tue, 28 May 2013 14:24:00 +0000

I just discovered a site that offers quick and easy removal of busy backgrounds. Check it out at http://clippingmagic.com/.

You drag and drop a photo file in the box, as instructed, and then start painting - red for remove, green for stay. Zoom in and use the eraser and smaller brush sizes to fine-tune things. The fourth icon on the left, the four-way arrow, lets you move around if you're zoomed in.

It just took me a few minutes to go from the picture on the left to the result on the right.

Original

After clipping

You can choose different colors for the background. Yes, a professional piece of software will handle the delicate tracing of Kinsey's hair somewhat better, and I could have invested a few more seconds in getting the right bottom area of her dress correct, but free and quick are both rather powerful concepts!

This service is currently in alpha testing, and is free during this time. There's no indication what the pricing might be after that, but you can sign up now and get freebies once the testing is over. In the meantime, go and play!

Free Software Bundle for Mac Users

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:27:00 +0000

One of the great ways to get some good deals on software is to watch for software bundles. I've often gotten something I was planning on getting anyway for a lower bundle price (along with other programs) than I would have to pay for that single piece on its own.

Well, there's a very good deal going on right now: Mac users can get 8 pieces of software with a regular retail value of $117 for the great price of $0 - completely free. You could even win an iPad mini!

Check it out at https://stacksocial.com/sales/the-mac-freebie-bundle - no drawstrings or hidden surprises that I've seen, and the price is rather good. The deal is good until Jan 30th, 2013, so don't miss it.

CES 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 05:19:00 +0000

I had the privilege of walking miles and miles of show floor at CES 2013 in Las Vegas this past week, looking for solutions for Northwest University as well as ideas to share in my Tech Roadshow sessions and classes. Some impressions follow:

This was a pretty decent show: better than the previous year or two. TVs have been big for a while (in multiple senses of the word). 3D is still on display, but not as much as previous years. The stress now seems to be on quality: OLED, and UltraHD (4K etc.). Impressive, but probably not of great importance to me/us, at least until it trickles down into affordable territory.

Something else that was pretty prevalent was the whole 3D printing scene: many vendors and options here. Makerbot, one of the pioneers in terms of "affordable" printing, was well represented (http://www.makerbot.com/) and the Replicator 2x looked great. I was impressed with the 3D Systems CubeX printer (http://cubify.com/cube/) which starts at about $1300. I expect these to change many aspects of our lives, especially as prices decrease and materials improve. I think we're going to see a major revolution in years to come, as we print many items ourselves instead of running to the store to buy them.

A lot of stuff was happening in the wireless and home automation world. Besides the Belkin WeMo (http://www.belkin.com/us/wemo), which I spotted at Costco recently, the Iris system available from Lowe's (http://www.lowes.com/cd_Iris_239939199_) was impressive. Some real potential for affordable energy efficiency and remote monitoring and control of home systems.

The items of greatest potential impact I spotted were the new Fujitsu ix500 ScanSnap (http://scanners.fcpa.fujitsu.com/scansnap11/iX500.html) and the Improv Electronics Boogie Board Sync (press release info at http://www.improvelectronics.com/us/en/CES2013/media.html, otherwise not yet on their website, but google search for boogie board sync). The Fujitsu scanner has internal processing to output pdf files, and can do this wirelessly to your iOS or Android device. It is superb in being a quick (25 pages/minute, double-sided) scanner which handles a lot of different sizes and formats without complex setup. I'm excited to see how this could assist us in moving to a paperless system - maybe I can get my office cleared! (For some ideas on how to do this, using EverNote as an engine and repository, check out http://lifehacker.com/5973033/how-i-turned-three-years-of-paper-into-a-highly-organized-searchable-document-database-in-two-days. This article uses the Doxie scanners, but the Fujitsu would do even better.)

I think that the Boogie Board Sync has phenomenal potential for our classrooms, and probably for a number of other contexts. This is a very light and easy to use LCD pad, which can function in the classroom like a wireless affordable Smart Board/ whiteboard alternative, at a cost of about $100. This is one of those things that I could probably describe at length to no great avail, but when you try it for yourself you'll see its potential. Very excited about this. I love my iPad, but for handling note taking and projection of such, this is incredible.

There was all sorts of other stuff, and as I process the sensory overload I may add more info. In the meantime, though, I'm excited about getting this stuff working for us.

Best Ink/Drawing Program for iOS

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 17:09:00 +0000

I am often asked for advice on "best-of-breed" apps to do various things on the iPhone/iPad, and one of the most-requested apps is a drawing or note-taking app. I've just found what meets my needs best: Ink, available free at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ink-for-ios/id584654242?ls=1&mt=8.

Besides the fact that it's free, what makes it fabulous? Almost nothing, and I mean that with the highest of praise. Although I like other apps for more complex notes (info below), when you open Ink what you see is essentially nothing - a blank screen, ready to written on, with a little menu indicator at bottom right. That's it. No need to choose notebook, change mode/font/color/ink width, etc. Just scribble away. When you're done, pull up on the screen and that screen has been saved in your photo roll. Double tap on the menu indicator, and you can email it, clear it, and do some other sharing things. But basically, this is a note card that needs no preparation to use: just scribble and save. Absolutely fabulous! I'm putting this on my home page, perhaps even in the dock area. The only drawback: the current version does not have "palm rejection" - if you touch the screen with your palm or another part of your hand, that messes up the inking capability. I would imagine it'll be added soon, though.

Need something more full-featured? If I need to be able to make drawings as well as type, I personally like PaperDesk (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paperdesk/id367552067?mt=8, $3.99 for the full-featured version; https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paperdesk-lite/id367563434?mt=8, free for the lite/trial version). It lets you do pretty much whatever you want, including recording audio and incorporating that as well as photos in your notes. The power of PaperDesk, however, means that it takes a bit of time to get going, while Ink is ready right away.

Hope this helps some of you with your decision.

Taming the Wild EMail!

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 02:29:00 +0000

Anyone who knows me knows that I love information. Doing research and figuring things out is FUN! The problem is, how does one cope with an overabundance of information? Specifically, way too much email? I receive several hundred email messages a day (no, I won't admit in public how many), besides the multiples of hundreds of messages from the RSS feeds I follow. Every few weeks I archive my email as my mailbox is getting too large for our system, and in six months the email I've kept ends up as a file of about 3 gigabytes. There's a lot of great information in there, but how is one to get at it?

Here's what I'm now doing, and I must say it's working phenomenally well. You need to know that I am doing this on a Mac. I would imagine there may be similar solutions for the PC (and the first part of my process works on PC, Mac, or Linux), but I'm not aware of them - if you are, please share these in a comment.

I have 14 years worth of stored .PST files. My first task was getting these into some format that was open and not proprietary. The most standard format is probably the .mbox or .mbx (mailbox) format, which is used by quite a few mail programs. What I found is a treasure called Emailchemy from Weird Kid Software. It takes many different proprietary email formats and converts them into many other more open formats. (It runs best, from what I see, on Mac, but Windows and Linux versions are available - they simply require Sun Java 1.5 or higher to be installed.) That was a pretty painless process - I pointed the software at a folder of .PST files, and it created another folder with .MBOX files. At $30 for a single user (and if you ask nicely, you might qualify for an education discount, as I did) it was a steal! Yes, there's a demo version available.

Then comes the heavy lifting: creating easily searched, fully accessible databases of all those emails. The tool for this is something called MailSteward. There's a demo version of this as well (limited to 15k emails), along with $20, $50, and $100 versions, the last of which requires you to set up a MySQL database. I went for the $50 version (alas, no discounts...) and it's serving me superbly. I fed it my individual converted PST chunks, created searches that let me extract all the info on bikes, scanners, photo gear, bass guitars, etc. that I had been collecting, and created much more easily manageable files from which I can now retrieve the specific info I need. It keeps the message format pretty well intact, and can either keep or discard attachments, depending on your preference. MailSteward also can be set to archive current email from Mac Mail, so that your mailbox doesn't bulge too much and choke your system. It can do this automatically, delete the original after it's been archived, and a bunch of other stuff.

Yep, I'm an info geek, and maybe this doesn't thrill you at all. That's okay: this has made me so very happy, to quote Blood Sweat and Tears, one of my favorite bands in my teens. Maybe it'll be of use to you as well...

Great Information!

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 04:06:00 +0000

I've mentioned RSS feeds a number of times on this blog - I thought it might be useful to explain a bit more and provide some more resources. RSS stands for "really simple syndication", and is basically a system for subscribing to blogs, much as you might use iTunes to subscribe to podcasts. Rather than having to use a browser (IE, FireFox, Safari, Chrome, etc.) to go to individual blogs and see if something is new, you can use feed reader software (also called a feed or news aggregator) to subscribe to any number of blogs, and have these served up for you to view and do more - much more.

So, first things first: which reader software to use? You can use Google Reader (www.google.com/reader) directly in a web browser window, as it's become one of the major ways of organizing, saving, and sharing your subscriptions. You'll probably find, however, that using a stand-alone program will offer benefits, even though I'll sometimes go into Google Reader itself. Opinions will of course vary, but I really like Feeddler Pro on my iPhone and Reeder on my iPad (these are my main devices for following all the blogs I track), and before that I used NetNewsWire on my Mac. Here are some suggested readers for the Mac and some suggested readers for PC.

Next, the question is what to subscribe to? I've provided for you my lists of tech blogs I follow at the right side of this blog (they're called "bundles"). You can click on the names of the individual blogs to visit these, click on preview to see the collection, or subscribe on a bundle, which is the easiest way to get a quick start. I've organized my tech blog bundles in terms of iPhone/iPad related blogs, and then more generally tech-related blogs. (If you're interested in my church-related bundles, check them out at my church-related blog: communiocate.blogspot.com.)

How did I create these bundles? That's a function within Google Reader - if you'd like to know more about how to do that, let me know in a comment.

I have also marked a number of blog entries as starred (items I think will be of future use to me) and as shared (items I think will be of interest to my tech friends). My shared list is pretty large, but there are some incredible bits of information in there, more quickly accessible than reading through the thousands of blog entries I've read through (I read, on average, about 500-700 blog entries a day). To see my shared items, see http://www.google.com/reader/shared/06701517268185061680. To subscribe to my shared items as a feed, click on http://www.google.com/reader/public/atom/user/06701517268185061680/state/com.google/broadcast. This would in essence let you subscribe to a special feed of only those blog entries I've found of interest.

If you have further questions, or if I'm not being clear in what I'm saying, please let me know! This is an incredible source of information, and I'd love more people to have access to it.

Keeping Data Available and Synced

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:28:00 +0000

Remember (if you’re old enough) how exciting it was to be able to put big chunks of data on a USB memory stick, or more accurately, flash drive (the “Jump Drive” was an early model from Lexar). So much better than floppies, and who uses floppy drives any more?! The problem is, though, that these are easily misplaced (especially a problem if you have any sort of sensitive data on the drive), they can cost a fair bit, and they can fail – a colleague recently discovered the danger of relying on a USB flash drive when it failed just when she needed it for preaching a sermon in chapel!

There are a number of excellent methods now available for making data broadly and safely available, and even keeping things in sync. I’m going to highlight two quite similar services that may well be entirely free to use, depending on how much space you need, and fill related but distinct roles in my use. A disclaimer here: I will give you a link for the services. If you use this link both you and I will get extra free space, so I do benefit by your use of the link. If you have a friend that you know is also on one of these, by all means use their referral link to benefit them. You definitely will want to take the referral path, though, as it gives you extra space as well as me or your other friend. Now to the services!

The first one I became aware of and put to use was Dropbox (referral link at http://db.tt/D2QRwTf). Offering 2 gigabytes of space free (and more via referrals or on a paid plan) this was a fabulous, free, accessible replacement for my USB drive. If I could get to the internet, I could simply log in to the Dropbox site and access my files. I could also put files in a folder (photos, music, documents, whatever) and send a link to that folder to someone via email, and they could then retrieve those files. Besides that, I could also install the free Dropbox software on my PCs (of whatever sort: PC, Mac, Linux, and mobile devices) and have the files automatically replicated on all the PCs. (Dropbox also now allows you to select which portions you replicate, so that you don’t overwhelm a computer with low capacity.) The only glitch, and it was by no means a deal-breaker, was that Dropbox set up a folder on each PC which was the place everything was stored, so I had to put a copy of my class notes in there to get them from one machine to the other. (Yes, there are ways of setting up linkages and doing all sorts of exotic maneuvers, but that goes well beyond the basic stuff.) Dropbox was, and continues to be for me, an incredible and excellent alternative to USB drives for transferring and sharing files.

Another issue, which I had also originally solved with a USB drive, was keeping my files in sync. I generally did most of the work on my academic class notes on my home laptop (currently a Macbook), and taught from a tablet PC in the classroom (currently a Lenovo). Keeping my files in sync was a pain: I tried multiple software programs and used a 16gig USB drive to transfer the synced files from one to the other. It took time and had dangers of over-writing files where I’d made changes in both locations between syncs. It was a pain! Then I discovered Sugarsync (referral link at https://www.sugarsync.com/referral?rf=dw9857q0vd78j). This excellent service offers 5 gigabytes free to start with, is very reasonable for larger sizes, and also gives extra space for referrals. It runs on the same types of gear as Dropbox, but differs in that Sugarsync makes it very easy to sync files between various computers. After you install the free Sugarsync manager program, you can designate any folder(s) on your computer(s) to be synced to each other. I chose, for instance, to sync my class notes from my home laptop to my class tablet, as well as being available to me on my iPhone and iPad. Now, when I change a file (as I did in our Bible study class this morning on Hebrews – link at http://communiocate.blogspot.com/) on one computer, even on my iPhone or iPad, that change is propagated to all the linked computers without me doing anything else! Very cool! I’ve since created sync linkages between a number of different computers, linking different data between them all, and Sugarsync has never let me down.

Is it safe and secure? About as much as anything is on the internet – make sure you choose a good password (and I plan to do a blog posting on that soon). In some other important ways, though, it is VERY safe.

· Think about it – both services back your data up to multiple locations. It’s available to you on the internet, as well as locally on whatever machines you’ve enabled for replication. If the internet is down, the information is still on those local machines. If you’re working away from the office and can connect at an internet café or library, even from the other side of the world, your data is backed up. If a machine is stolen or lost, that data is still on the other machines as well as the internet.

· What happens if you accidentally make an unintended change? Won’t the syncing/replicating mess you up? Yes, it can, but fortunately both services offer versioning. I used this just last week. I was editing a file and changing some information, but absentmindedly hit “save” rather than selecting “save as”. I needed both the original file and the new one (it was an exam for my students, and they would have been heartbroken at being deprived of this evaluative learning exercise!). Fortunately, all I had to do was log in to the Sugarsync website, find the file (which had already synced to my other machines), and select “more” on the dropdown menu to find the “versions” tab, and a few seconds later I had both versions of the file, just as originally intended. What a relief!

Well, these services provide a terrific deal! You may well decide, as several friends have, that it’s worth paying for a paid plan and extra space. Even if you don’t, they offer useful tools and a safety net, and I recommend them highly.

Planned future information here on the blog: safe and easy password creation, management, and deployment tools, as well as backup and high availability strategies to make sure that when things go really wrong, you can keep on working. Stay tuned! And do spread the word: I intend to become more regular and frequent in updating this site!

Excellent and Free Drive Cloning Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:56:00 +0000

I'm a long-time user of Drive Snapshot, a tool which allows you to make a backup copy of your computer's hard drive onto an external hard drive. It's a useful backup tool, distinguishing in that it makes a cloned copy of your hard drive without shutting your machine down - you can keep working while it's doing its stuff. That makes it practical to do frequent backups. Another distinguishing aspect is that the backed-up clone of your drive can be mounted as a virtual drive, so that you can recover specific files without having to go through some arduous restore routine. This program is a huge component of any system migration for me, and has more than once saved my bacon. Well worth the 39Euros (well under $60 currently) they're asking for it.

I've just become aware of a tool called Clonezilla, which is free on a GPL license. I haven't used it yet, but while it doesn't offer some of the features of Drive Snapshot (the "keep working" and "mount as virtual drive" aspects), it does offer free cloning of your hard drive for backup or transfer purposes. Another thing it offers, which Drive Snapshot does not, is the ability to "multicast". If you are putting a bunch of essentially identical machines into use, rather than install all that software on every one, you would build one machine, test it thoroughly, clone it, and then multicast that out to all the rest. In the example cited on the Clonezilla website, it took only about 10 minutes to clone a 5.6 GBytes system image to 41 computers simultaneously. There is also software available to correctly differentiate all those machines so that they can properly be added to the network.

I'll probably continue to use Drive Snapshot for my tasks, but there are situations where Clonezilla would be superior, especially when deploying a bunch of machines. It can also be used to remotely "push" a clone out, which could be useful if you're in a school or church environment. If you have a lab where you'd like to refresh all the computers nightly or once a week (undoing any changes made by users, either mischievous or unwitting), or kiosks in the foyer where you'd like to either refresh these to undo damage or put up new content, Clonezilla could make your life significantly easier. And of course, free is a really good price!

Compact Printable Calendar and other Productivity Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:11:00 +0000

Just found this site from designer David Seah. What attracted my attention was his compact printable calendar - a template you load into Excel or the spreadsheet of your choice to create your ideal customized calendar. On the site you'll find templates pre-loaded with holidays for various countries, now updated with the 2009 calendars. I could see this being used for calendar inserts to church bulletins, bookmarks, etc.

From the look of it, though, there's a lot more available on his site, including his "printable CEO" series of materials. Well worth checking out!

Converting files from Acrobat (.pdf) to Word; Back-country Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 04:19:00 +0000

Sometimes you have a .pdf file and need access to the contents. While in many cases you can copy and paste bits, if you want an easier way to access the whole thing, check out http://pdfundo.net/convert/ for a free online pdf to Word converter.

Also, if you don't have easy access to high-speed internet because of where you live, you may want to check out http://lifehacker.com/5066868/how-do-you-get-broadband-in-the-boonies - lots of ideas presented in the comments section on how to get access in challenging areas.

Reference and Bibliography Manager

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:24:00 +0000

You may want to check out http://www.zotero.org/ for an open source reference and bibliography manager. It runs within FireFox and is attracting a LOT of attention, with quite a few people switching to it from Endnote and the like. It can easily be carried around on a jumpdrive, etc., and in fact, you can use a portable version of FireFox on your USB drive, install Zotero to that, and then use it anywhere. They're also beta-testing a sync solution which would allow you to backup and share your database between all your machines.

In my preliminary tests I'm quite impressed. I like its ability to grab online data (whether you're browsing Amazon or your library database) and inserting that info rather painlessly in your local "library" file. It does a number of things better than Endnote, and needs a bit of improvement on a few others. Since it's open source and has a strong and enthusiastic following, I'm confident those improvements will be coming. I haven't switched over entirely yet (I've only been using it since about 1am this morning...) but most likely will do so. Compared to $300 for Endnote ($200 academic, $100 each upgrade) or $100/year for an individual subscription to RefWorks, free is a great deal!

More Free Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:10:00 +0000

Hard on the heels of last week's article, here's another article from ComputerWorld with more free software and some services.
One that intrigued me right on the first page is a service to which you can forward emails you get when you buy stuff on the web. They'll find the tracking number and give you a unified page where you can see all the different things you're waiting for. This will save me a lot of time (though, sadly, no money whatsoever).
On page three there's a free program that lets you set up an encrypted "virtual drive" - great for keeping sensitive stuff safe, especially on vulnerable machines like laptops, as well as software for blocking spam and viruses.
There are pages full of some really neat stuff. Just one warning: you can "invest" a lot of time here, because there is so much excellent material to explore.

Free and Excellent Software

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:24:00 +0000

Here's an article from ComputerWorld which lists a bunch of software (from email to Office suites to graphics to money to antivirus to....) which is mostly free (a few items offer enhancements for a bit of money, like generally $10 or so). What is very exciting about the items on the list, though, is not only the low price, but also that in many cases the free stuff outdoes the expensive stuff - now THAT'S something I can really appreciate!

Ease Office 2007 Frustrations

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:15:00 +0000

If you're frustrated by the changes in Office 2007, here's some help:

a cheat-sheat for Word 2007 – http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9010482

a cheat-sheat for Excel 2007 – http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9028228

a cheat-sheat for Powerpoint 2007 – http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9063119

If this isn’t enough and you find yourself frustrated on an ongoing basis, you might want to invest in a copy of Classic Menu – free to try for 30 days at http://www.addintools.com/english/menuoffice/, about $30 if you like it and want to add technical support (doesn’t seem to actually time-out). It adds the old menus and commands to the new office, so you get the best of both worlds. (Thanks to Mel Ming for making me aware of this one.)

The Easiest YouTube Conversion Yet!!

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:52:00 +0000

Thanks to Glen Davis, via Mel Ming, for this tip:

Check out the service and more importantly, the downloadable program, at http://vixy.net/. This is a one-step capture and/or convert process for YouTube and other web videos - basically converts from .flv to a number of formats (.mp4 for iPod etc., .avi for general PC use, .mov for general Mac use) or simply capture the .flv file.

Now for the caveats: the online service to do it didn't work when I tried it - simply never was able to contact the server. Could be all sorts of things, and you may have a different result. However, the great news is that there's a downloadable program (still in beta format) which is currently free, is available for Mac as well as PC, and it worked brilliantly, couldn't be simpler, and gave terrific results. This is a must have - check it out!

"Fix" Vista

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:00:00 +0000

Many of my friends have expressed frustration over some of Vista's "features" which make it so power-hungry and slow. Here's an article from Information Week which talks about a program named vLite, which can strip Vista down to a lean and mean operating system. It is used in the installation mode, so unfortunately it is not designed for those who already have Vista running. (You use it during the installation phase: as the makers of the tool say, "vLite is a tool for customizing the Windows Vista installation before actually installing it.") It is excellent in this mode, and besides, it's free!
UPDATE: another journal article from Computerworld praises this tool and indicates that it can reduce the installed size of Vista from 15 gigs down to 1.4 gigs - a very significant reduction in footprint! And, by the way, there's a similar tool for Windows XP from the same programmer, called nLite. It's not nearly as necessary, as XP is not nearly as bloated as Vista, but for those who insist on the most finely tuned system it is worth using.

What about those who already have Vista installed? Here are a few sites and tools. The instructions from the folks at ExtremeTech are not as technically involved and dangerous as some I've seen. Also, check out Mobile Pedia, the instructions at the TweakVista site, and those at cucirca.com. The latter makes references to a tool called Tweak VI, which is available as a free download and will automate a number of the processes described on these other sites, which you would otherwise do manually. This (Tweak VI) is probably your best choice.

Totally Free Photos

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 07:13:00 +0000

A challenge in doing affordable but legal design work is finding a source for good free photographs. With a stock photo you pay based on how you are using the photo (and each time you want to use that photo). With a royalty-free photo you pay a set fee for the right to use that photo in just about any way and as often as you desire (google "royalty-free photos"). What I like is the totally free photo, which can costs you the time to download it and which you can use as you like (within reasonable limitations imposed by the site). Here are some of my favorite sources.
A disclaimer: I cannot guarantee that there are no offensive images to be found in these sites.

Sources of Totally Free Photos
http://www.sxc.hu
http://www.morguefile.com/
http://pdphoto.org/
http://www.freephotosbank.com/
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/
http://yotophoto.com/
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/default.aspx (suggested by an anonymous commenter - thanks!)

There is no good way to know which of the images at http://images.google.com/ and http://flickr.com/ are in violation of copyright law and you're better off avoiding them. As you find other good sites, please let me know and I'll add them here.

Video "Capture" on the Web

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 02:58:00 +0000

Since we've had high interest in the process of capturing video from websites like YouTube and Google Videos, I thought that the next blog entry might usefully outline this process. I'm labeling this "capture" rather than download, since the websites in question aren't really offering you a simple button to click on for downloading, so we're capturing the video to our local computers by using some nifty technology. Yes, I know that Google has a download button, but there are other limitations in place which we're bypassing.
One small warning: although YouTube generally exercises care in eliminating offensive material, Google is generally more open, and even on YouTube stuff gets by. Also, exercise caution regarding violation of copyright law - availability is not the same as permission to use.

UPDATE: I've just acquired a MacBook Pro (may write more about this in an entry later) and have tested and can confirm that Firefox and Downloadhelper work perfectly well in the Mac environment. Also, VLC has a Mac OSX option which works superly. Quite a bit of the NCH software is available in a Mac variant, but sadly, not Prism.

Software for Capturing Videos
The key to my system (not to say that there are not other methods) is to use Firefox as your web browser. This is a free download, and I've gotten to prefer this browser quite a bit over Internet Explorer, not least for the add-ons. The add-on you need to capture video is called Downloadhelper, also free and a very simple tool to install (it'll even update itself as needed, with the help of Firefox). By the way, another tool I really like, mentioned in the sessions, is Flashblock, which gives you control over whether or not you want to play Flash content on web pages.
Once this software is installed, you'll see a little graphic which looks like a molecule between the address bar and the Google search bar at the top of the screen. If there's downloadable content, it'll change from grey to multi-color and start spinning. Click on the downarrow just to its right, and select which file you'd like to save (generally only one is listed, but sometimes there are several). You may need to change the download directory, but on my system the default download directory is My Documents\My Videos - go there to examine your new guests. You'll know the download is done when the (1) is gone from beside the spinning graphic.

Software for Viewing Videos
There are many possible formats for videos - .flv (YouTube and Google), .wmv (Windows Media), .mpg/.mp4 (these ones are generally fairly "portable" and easy to play), and .avi (MANY variations on this one). There are two ways I'll mention here for playing these varied formats: installing a codec pack like KLite Mega Codec Pack (free), which gives your regular software the capabilities of playing almost everything (it should add this capability to PowerPoint also, but I haven't tested this yet - let me know if you've tried it and I'll update the blog with a yes/no on that); and a second option is using a universal player like VideoLan (or VLC), which is also free. I've personally chosen to go the VLC route, as it's an excellent and compact solution, and I like the elegance of this.

Software for Converting Videos
While the viewing solutions mentioned above take care of your computer, what about if you need to insert a video into PowerPoint and play it on another machine? The safest thing to do is to convert the file from, for instance, a captured .flv from YouTube and convert it to an .mpg which will play in PowerPoint without any coaxing. For this I use a free program called Prism which is made by NCH software (I'll be using a number of their offerings - excellent stuff: you might want to upgrade some items to their pro versions just to support them, as we'll use a LOT of their free stuff).
To use this, download Prism and install it (click on the .exe file). Once it's installed, click on the icon (or select the program from your start menu), click on the "+ Add File" at the top to add a file (for instance the downloaded .flv in your My Videos folder), select the output format you want (lower left of the window) - I'd suggest .mpg (Prism's default settings for .mpgs will work well), and then click on "convert" (lower right of window) to let the program run. Could hardly be simpler. (I just noticed that there's an "Add DVD" option - I'll have to play with that and try it.) It'll save the file into your My Videos folder by default - move it wherever you want to use it.

Have fun!

Blogging and Gmail

noreply@blogger.com (Waldemar Kowalski) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 04:17:00 +0000

Blog Hosting and Software
Free software and hosting for your blog is available here. This is a part of the excellent set of tools offered by Google and is very easy to use.
We'll talk about some other options, like the powerful options available at wordpress.com, but that tool is more complex and has been less stable than the Google blogger in the experience of my colleagues. Wordpress does include more capabilities for podcasting, but we'll talk more about that in another blog, and there are ways to add podcasting into blogspot.

GMail and (Some of) Its Wonders
If you don't already have a GMail account (another Google offering), you should do so: there are some real benefits to such an account. Information on getting an account can be found here. One of these benefits is the GMail File System, which allows you to use the generous amount of space on GMail to store files which you can then easily retrieve anywhere you can access GMail.

Shopping and Pricing Gear

noreply@blogger.com (techroadshow) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 02:55:00 +0000

Checking Prices and Vendors
I like to check for prices at pricescan or Google Product Search (which used to be called froogle). You can look at categories of items or enter a model number to search for prices. Nervous about buying online from an unknown company? Check them out first at the reseller rating site.

Places to Find Deals
Not sure what you're looking for, but like good deals? I like to see what the current Woot is (this is a site which offers one item every day, starting at midnight Central time, with a flat $5 shipping). I also like to check techbargains, which tries to put together a list (contributed by internet users) of all the good deals to be found on the 'Net. There are also several sites that offer coupons which could reduce prices at general sites or on brands (rather than specific items). For instance, one such site is the techbargain coupon site, and there are others (which I'll add as you make me aware of these or I remember them).

Places to Buy Stuff
A few places I've found to be reliable and worth my business because of price and service include

Newegg, which sells all sorts of electronics and computer gear
BuyDig, which is a bit more oriented to photo and video gear but also often has the best price on other stuff
B&H Photo and Video, which is a terrific source for all sorts of professional (and amateur) photo, video, and audio gear, as well as other stuff. They generally are not the cheapest (although every now and then they are) but they have a GREAT reputation
CompGeeks, which has some electronics but is more computer oriented, and often has excellent prices on close-out gear. A hint: on most items you can save 10% by entering "techbargain" or "techbargains" in the coupon box (can't remember which: leave me a comment if you find which one works and I'll edit this post).