Victor Marquez

Postbox

admin — Sat, 16 May 2009 00:47:37 +0000

Although still in Beta, Postbox has got some great potential. This desktop e-mail client, based on Mozilla Technology brings lots of features to help you not only send and receive emails, but it also helps you keep everything organized, from attached files, to pictures.

In addition to being able to browse all of your previous attachments, Postbox also lets you find information both on your computer and the internet in order to help you better compose your e-mails. Giving you the option to search for pictures, files, references, links, and even directions.

To find out more information about Postbox go ahead and visit their website at

[ http://www.postbox-inc.com ]

Palm Pre

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:24:01 +0000

Check out the Palm Pre, an upcoming phone from Sprint.

Specs:

OS: Palm® webOS™
Network Specs: 3G EVDO Rev A
Display: 3.1-inch touch screen with a vibrant 24-bit color 320×480 resolution, HVGA display
Keyboard: Physical QWERTY keyboard
Email: Microsoft Outlook® email with Microsoft® Direct Push Technology, POP3/IMAP 9Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, etc.)
Messaging: Integrated IM, SMS, and MMS
GPS: Built-in GPS
Digital Camera: 3 megapixel camera with LED flash and extended depth of field
Sensors: Ambient light, accelerometer and proximity
Media Formats Supported:
Audio Formats: MP3, AAS, AAC+, AMR, QCELP, WAV
Video Formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264
Image Formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP
Wireless Connectivity:
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g with WPA, WPA2, 802.1X authentication
Bluetooth® 2/1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support
Memory:
8GB of user storage (appr. 7.4GB user available)
USB mass storage support
Connector: MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
Headphone Jack: 3.5mm stereo
Palm® Touchstone™ charging dock: Compatible
Dimensions: Width: 59.5mm (2.3 inches), Height: 100.5mm (3.9 inches), Thickness: 16.95mm (0.67 inches)
Weight: 135 grams (4.76 ounces)

Windows 7, not bad, not bad at all…

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 01:51:04 +0000

I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about Windows 7 over the last couple of months. Most of it was good talk, and that’s what kept me from checking it out. Frankly, after my Vista disaster I simply stopped caring about Windows. I couldn’t hold my grudge against Microsoft forever though. So on May 9th, 2009 I downloaded the Windows 7 Release Candidate and installed it onto my laptop (Dell XPS M1530). So far, it’s been a great experience. Windows 7 has met my every need; from gaming, simply being able to use my freaking computer how I want to!

The installation was short and painless, and for the first time in my life I was able to set up my wireless while the installation was still going on, instead of having to troubleshoot, and look for drivers after the installation. Windows 7 was able to find all of the drivers that my computer needed and install them for me (How kind!). It almost felt like the Ubuntu 9.04 installation, almost…

After making sure that it wasn’t all just a fluke and that Windows 7 had actually installed all my drivers, I proceeded to mess around with some of the new features. Most importantly, the new task bar which compacts everything into icons, allowing for some better space management. Everything else is still pretty much the same as Vista…

Except for one thing; The speed. Windows 7, has improved from Vistas sloth like speed and kicked it up a notch, to perhaps more of an agile feline speed. The way I was able to copy all 86GB of music, movies, and documents from my external, to my laptop, really impressed me. Not only that, but downloading, and installing software was also surprisingly fast.

Playing games on my laptop has never been better, for the first time I actually feel like my laptop does have 256mb video card, 4GB of ram, and a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo! I’ve played online games, from Team Fortress 2 to FIFA 08 and I’ve not had a single problem.

Overall, I am very grateful that Microsoft was able to get it together and actually produce a stable, and reliable operating system. Over the past couple of days I’ve really grown attached to Windows 7, and slowly started parting away from Ubuntu… Nothing against Ubuntu, but the amount of software, and games of high quality available for Windows is much greater.

On the hunt for a summer job!

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 01:41:59 +0000

It’s that time of the year again, where I take a break from school, and find a job for the summer in order to help me stay in touch with new web development / design trends, as well as upcoming technologies. Not to mention that college doesn’t exactly pay for itself. Last summer, straight out of high school, I worked for a web design company called Designzillas, located in Winter Park, FL. I consider it to be my first real job, and it was a great experience. I was able to learn many things during that time, while at the same time make some good friends. I’ve been applying for jobs on Craigslist, as well as Careerbuilder, and I hope to hear back from them soon but if
anyone needs a website developed or a website re-design, or knows of any other place at which I can apply for a job, it would be greatly appreciated if you could just leave a comment, or contact me through my contact form. =D

Dropbox

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 01:27:21 +0000

I had never used a back up program for any of my files until I started attending college. There’s something about loosing all of the papers that I’ve worked on that just doesn’t seem that appealing. That’s why I started using Dropbox, a simple backup program which uploads your files to an online server, with no need for an external hard drive. Dropbox gives users the ability to Backup their files effortlessly. Once Dropbox is installed on your machine, all of the files, and folders that are added, deleted or modified in your “Dropbox” folder will be automatically synced with your online dropbox. The beauty of this is that it lets you access your files from any computer as long as there is an established internet connection.

Furthermore, Dropbox allows users to sync their files among several different computers. As long as a computer has Dropbox installed, all of the online files in the account will be synced throughout all of the computers. Dropbox also gives users the option to share folders, documents, and pictures with family, friends, and peers; getting rid of the need to send files through email or file uploading websites.
Dropbox’s simple, yet robust features makes it one of the best, if not the best, free backup program out there.

[ http://www.getdropbox.com/ ]

Making the Switch from Windows to Linux, why you shouldn’t be afraid!

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 01:07:47 +0000

Microsoft has controlled the PC market for quite some time now. Controlling about 90% of the market share, its operating system, Windows, is the most used operating system on the planet. How long will its control of the market continue though? Experts estimate that in two years Microsoft will lose about 15% of its market share to Operating Systems such as Apple’s, Mac OS X, and open source operating systems such as Linux. You might ask yourself, why would windows be losing so much ground? The fact of the matter is that people are growing tired of Windows. All of Microsoft’s operating systems are very much the same; they do not have as many innovative features as other systems have. The number one reason Apple’s computers are selling so well is because of the creativity that is put into producing them. When you look at Apple’s operating system you are immediately attracted to how crisp and clean the Graphical User Interface is, but not just that. It’s different! Just take a look at their main navigation menus. Microsoft Windows has a taskbar at the bottom of the screen which is not too visually appealing. In contrast, Mac’s have a menu bar at the top which dynamically changes according to the program which is opened. Furthermore, instead of having icons which clutter the desktop, Mac’s have a Dock which provides users with easy access to their favorite programs. Apple is always coming up with new ideas in order to keep their customers interested. That is something that Microsoft has lost touch of; Microsoft has lost track of what the average user wants, and concentrates mostly on their business clients. And now that Mac’s are able to use Microsoft Office they are also losing their business clients. It’s no wonder why Linux is taking more after Mac’s. Apple’s ability to provide users with a fun, yet useful environment is what sets it aside from Microsoft.

The Unknown World of Linux

Linux was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991, and ever since it has only continued to grow and flourish. In its early days, Linux was mostly run through command line and did not present itself as a valid operating system for the average user. But Linux has come a long way from those days and is now more user friendly than ever. Linux has many distributions, in other words, it has many different versions, which are worked on by different companies and/or developers. The most popular ones being: Debian, Fedora, Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Mandriva, and Gentoo.

In this article I am going to talk about the Ubuntu distribution. Ubuntu, meaning “Humanity” in the Zulu language, uses GNOME as its Graphical User Interface and allows users to modify the look of their system to meet their needs, and thanks to online communities, graphical themes for Ubuntu are very easy to obtain, and install, so that all a user really has to do is browse the website for a theme that he or she finds appealing, download it, and install it.

Ubunu’s Installation

Installing Ubuntu on your computer is just as simple as installing Windows. You pop in the Ubuntu installation CD and follow the instructions. The process only takes about 30 minutes and is very easy to follow.

The User Interface

The default setting for the Ubuntu GUI is pretty simple. It includes a top bar and a bottom bar. The top bar has three menus:

Applications - Contains all of your applications, and also the Add/Remove button which we will talk more about later.
Places - Contains your basic folders such as Home, Documents, Pictures, etc. I also contains Computer, and the storage devices that are attached to your computer.
System - Contains all of Ubuntu’s system preferences and system settings.

The top bar also contains a set of icons that appear depending on open applications along with a clock and a shut down button. The bottom bar in Ubuntu provides the user with a trash bin icon, a view desktop icon, and a workspace switcher applet which allows the user to switch between Ubuntu’s multiple desktops. Although Ubuntu’s default setup contains two task bars, users are not limited to those taskbars. Users may add or remove task bars from their desktop in order to help them organize or simply customize their desktop.

Adding and Removing Programs

Ubuntu’s add and remove programs feature is simply one of the most well developed parts of Ubuntu. The Add/Remove Programs application presents the user with all of the applications that the user has installed on his/her system and all of the applications which they can install as well. This makes things extremely easy for users who want to find an application but don’t want to spend hours searching for one on the internet.

All that the user has to do is click on one of the categories and Ubuntu automatically looks up any applications that are listed for the criteria. Ubuntu’s Add/Remove application also contains a rating system which allows the user to see the success of the application. Best of all, all of the applications are free!

No Need for Microsoft Office

Ubuntu comes pre-loaded with OpenOffice, a program suite developed by Sun Microsystems which gives users programs that are almost identical to word, excel, power point, and access. The OpenOffice Suite allows users to open a wide variety of file types, including .docx, .pptx, and .xlsx, all of the new Microsoft Office file types. The only disadvantage to opening these files with OpenOffice is that some of the attributes, mainly design, will not be interpreted correctly by OpenOffice.

Multimedia Experience

Just like Windows has Windows Media Player, and Mac OS X has iTunes, Ubuntu has Rhythmbox as its default media player, but users are not limited to Rhythmbox. There are other popular audio programs such as Songbird, an iTunes look alike, and Amarok. Rhythmbox, Ubuntu’s default music player, is not that much different from iTunes. Although its main purpose is to manage music, both on your computer and your iPod. Therefore it does not contain a music store like iTunes. For videos, Ubuntu users can install VLC Media Player which plays all types of video formats, without having to worry about codec’s that are not present.

Additional Programs

One of the many beauties of Ubuntu is the amount of free programs that are available for it. Here are a couple of programs that are popular amongst the Linux community.

Picasa - Google’s picture viewer, allows users to import pictures from their cameras and save them to their computer. It also gives you the option of e-mailing pictures, and uploading pictures to Web Albums. [ http://picasa.google.com ]
Gnome-Do - A quicksilver like application which allows you to launch applications by simply typing in a command. [ http://do.davebsd.com ]
Thunderbird - Mozilla’s E-Mail client is one of the best ways to keep your contacts, and e-mails organized. Themes and extensions may also be applied. [ http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird ]
Skype - Skype is a chat client, which allows users to send files, make calls, and use video, in order to communicate. [ http://www.skype.com ]
AWN - Avant Windows Navigator, is a Mac Like dock, which allows Ubuntu users to keep their application launchers organized. [ http://launchpad.net ]

Customizing Ubuntu

If you enjoy customizing things to fit your needs Ubuntu is the way to go. Ubuntu provides users with an astonishing experience that will leave you amazed. Ubuntu gives their users the ability to completely customize their desktop, including window borders, icons, mouse cursor, wallpaper, top bar, and bottom bar. If the user really wanted to they could make their Ubuntu PC look exactly like a Mac.

Keeping Your System Up To Date

Unlike Windows which provides updates in packs, Ubuntu checks for updates on all of your programs everyday and notifies you. This allows users to stay up to date with the latest software upgrades or fixes, and it also eliminates the long wait for your system to get updated.

The Final Verdict

With the popularity of Windows declining and the rise of other operating systems, Linux definitely has a chance to become popular among the everyday user. But in order to do so word of the advancement of Linux must spread. Otherwise the mindset that Linux is still an Operating System ruled by Command Line will never change. That’s not to say that Linux is perfect, but it is definitely starting to shape up and could become a big contestant. With more companies like Dell, IBM, Adobe, and Google looking to Linux for further development, the days of Microsoft’s dominant stronghold over the computer market are numbered.