Traveling with electronics

Most of us like to travel. But when travel time comes so does the electronics packing. I have made a set of top five tips for traveling with electronics.

1. If you have a good laptop, get a good laptop case. You don't want a crappy case where you have the posibility of the case breaking and then breaking your laptop. Thank would be a trip killer. When buying your case make sure that your laptop will fit in the chase too :).
2. Make sure that you bring all power chords for any electronic device that you bring. Even if you fully charged the device before you left, bring the cord anyway. You never know when a device could die.
3. If your traveling with a family, get a good backpack for all your electronic devices. This keeps it simple and easy to know where everything is. Have your travel partner give any cords or electronic devices to you the day before the trip so that you can pack them the night before. It's easier to keep all the electronics in one place because its harder to loose them.
4. Label any and all cords with what they are and who they belong to. Just get a roll of masking tape, or a label maker, and just write a simple identification like jerry/cellphone and attach to the proper cord. It makes finding the proper cord easier. (For my full tips on cable management, refer to this post.)
5. Make a list of everything that you are bringing with you so that when it comes time to leave you can just look over the list and make sure that you have everything. It will re-packing much easier.

Bonus: These two tips go for anyone traveling.

• Just obey the law. They are there to protect you. If the speed limit it 35 then going 40 is ok, but going 45 is just plain stupid, and very dangerous.
• If your going to be driving, and like to talk on your cellphone, get a headset. Most states now have laws saying that you can't hold your phone and drive at the same time. And it makes the road safer for the people traveling.

Here is the Chris Pirillo video of this list.

The Final PC vs Mac battle

This is what any human geek will find when he gets bored and wanders to youtube. Please note there is a few adult words in this video so do not let your children watch if you are trying to keep their minds clean. Sorry but i had to post this it's funny.

-- Jerry Smith

Texter

We all have those certain sayings that we type in over and over again, such as your email, or the link to your blog. All this typing takes up productivity time. Even if you are a fast typist it will still take longer to enter 20 characters then it will take to do 5 key strokes. Well, thanks to texter that is now a possibility to only type those five key strokes. Once you download the software just use the command string Ctrl+Shift+H and you get a nice popup with two textboxes, one for the hotstring (or the text to be replaced) and the text to be inserted. It's simple and it also provides a approximate time saved statistic in the preferences menu. It's cool but say that you have multiple signatures that you have programmed and always forget what they are? Don't fret there is a "print cheetsheet" button in the preference too. As I said this program is cool. Once you start working in this software you won't have problems and it will become a real time saver. Below is a video from the texter website:

 

-- Jerry Smith

BitStrips Comic Creator

Bit Strips is a completely online comic strip creator where you make your own avatar and the put him through what ever you want. You can do as many strips as you want, with as many frames as you want. Its pretty easy, but I would recommend using a mouse to create the strip because it was kind of hard for me to move and resize items in the editor with the touch pad that I have on my laptop. Overall I would say that this was pretty good, but it was nice that I didn't need to download any software to run this. The future of software is heading to be completely online and this is a step in the right direction. On a ten scale this would get a 7.

Here is a .png image of the strip.

 

--Jerry Smith

Helping old people with technology

Hey all....here are my top five tips for helping seniors or the technological illiterate people with technology. Don't forget seniors can get very antsy and mad when it comes to stuff they don't know how to do so with that said here are my top five tips.

1. Be calm and talk slow. Seniors and the technological illiterate will NOT know all the shortcuts that we geeks know and live by. Most likely it will take them 3 or more times as long to do the simple tasks that we can do in five seconds. Talking slow and loudly (for seniors) will make this process much easer for them and less stressful for you.


2. Be prepared to explain the same thing multiple times. This will mostly apply to seniors because they often have problems hearing. So always tale VERY slow. Also be prepared to
   


3. Having a preprepared list of steps to read from, will make the process of teaching easier. Just type them or even write them up. It will make the speed of the session go so much faster because you won't have to sit there and stare at the screen with that blank stare that we get when we forget stuff.


4. When you are done showing the "student" what they asked you to teach them, ask them to use their computer to make a step-by-step instruction manual. Use the print screen button to take a screen capture of each page as you show them again how to do whatever they asked. Keep a word document (hopefully Microsoft Word) running in the background and then just copy down each screen capture into the document. After you have finished the task, use the simple drawing tools to circle the icons, drop down lists, or whatever they have to click on for that step. Put each picture on its own page and include text (use at least 20 size font).
   
1. Don't forget to save the file in a folder in their desktop and print out a hard copy for them to have.
   
2. Also, if you have a usb key (which most of us have) save a copy there to in case their computer crashes and they loose the file.
5. Show them how to open and print the file in case they loose it. Most likely they will and it will save a second trip to the house if you showed them how to print out another copy.

Bonus Tip!! Now with new technology there is the ability to screen record. Simply install a simple screen recording software
(such as CamStuido) and record the steps to a video file and embed you voice over it. To view an example of that watch this youtube video.

I hope these tips help you with your technological endeavors and make the process of teaching those new to the technological world how easy it is to use these quite simple machines.

Here Chris Pirillo's video of these tips.


--Jerry Smith

My Computer

I though I'd post my computer specs so you could know what I run and what runs it.

• Brand: HP
• Model: Pavilion a1250n
• Screen: 17in HP vs17
  
• RAM: 2GB
• Processor: AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core Processor 3800+ 2.00 GHz
• Video Card: Radeon Express 200 Series
  
• Audio: Realtek AC'97 Speakers (Built in to monitor)
  
• Standard HP Keyboard and Mouse
• DVD/CD Drive: (2) HP VD Writer 740r ATA w/ LightScribe and IDE-DVD DROM9216 ATA
  
• Printer: HP Photosmart 8250
• External Hard Drive: Elements 500GB (via usb)
• Web Camera: Creative Live! Cam IM Pro (VF0410)
• Network Adapters: (2) Netgear WG311v3 54mbps Wireless PCI Adapter and Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC
• 16 in 1 Card Reader
• 7 USB 2.0 Ports, 2 Firewire 400 Ports
  
• Thumb Drive: PNY Optima Pro Attache 4GB
• Primary OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit (had for almost 10 months now and no BSOD yet, knock on wood)
• Primary browser: Firefox 2.0.0.12
  
• Antivirus: Grisoft AVG Free Edition
  
• Anti Spyware: Spybot Search and Destroy
• Instant Messing: AIM
• Blog Post Editor: Scribe Fire (FireFox Add-in)

If you have any other questions about my computer feel free to contact me at nj.jerrysmith@gmail.com.

--Jerry Smith

Specification

Screens, laptops, "usba", RAM, Hard drives, ect.

Thank god my birthday isn't next week or even next month because the list of things that I have compiled that I need is starting to overflow my brain and the little post-it note that I have it all scribbled down on. All the stuff I need computer related or not is just staring to get overwhelming and actually getting it all will be a very confusing path. Birthday, random incomes, Christmas, or even a job (which i so desperately need); are just many of the numerous ways for me to obtain things. Thank god for money....here is the list of "stuff" that I think I need :)

1. Solid State Hard Drive to supplement my two existing internal hard drives (225GB and 8GB) and my external hard drive (500GB)
1. Don't even get me stared on what size I should ask for/ buy
2. Wireless headphones for my computer. I have a Creative Live! Cam Video IM Pro attached to my computer (via usb) and the supplied headphone and ear buds are too long because they were designed to be attached to the back of the computer but, let it be, I have ports on the front. So when I'm rolling around my room I am constantly rolling over the cord and getting it stuck in the wheels of my chair.
3. An "usba" or usb hub. I am now running out of USB 2.0 ports on my computer. I have a external hard drive, a printer, a web cam, and a thumb drive that are all usb and my computer has 7 ports (4 in the back, 3 in the front). I'm starting to run out of room! Maybe I might even have to get a 3.0 hub (gotta stay with the latest technology).
   
4. Another GB of ram for my computer. My computer is ok but when I start video IMing my friends my computer goes down the toilet. The addition of the video im makes it so much harder to do simple tasks such as open Microsoft Word or watch a YouTube video.
   
5. Another monitor for my computer. I currently have a HP vs17 on my computer with built in speakers but when I start doing multiple things on the little 17in screen, real estate starts to go way up. I'm looking at a Dell 19in 1908WFP Wide Flat Panel which has multiple usb ports on the side (Yay!)
1. Along with the screen comes the task of buying another video card (Boo)
6. And finally an EEE Pc from Asus. This would make life easier because I could bring this tiny little laptop on vacation with me when I need to do homework or other little tasks. It also comes with a built in web cam and has a solid state hard drive so it can survive those little falls.
   

That caps off my list for now. Check back later to see if the list grows or maybe even shrinks....

--Jerry Smith