March 07, 2009

Mobile Meh

In summer of 2008 Apple announced that it would integrate various web services with the iPhone under the brand name "Mobile Me." Existing "dot Mac" (.Mac) customers were migrated in what was billed as "Exchange for the rest of us," but it didn't go well. Synchronization that that worked well...

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February 07, 2009

Presentation on Basic Business Planning

With the downturn in the economy since mid-2008, I have found that I am speaking with clients much more about fundamental issues of business planning and logistics at levels they hadn't considered or really expected from "the computer guy." These are important issues, though, and need to be considered. Attending...

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January 07, 2009

Media Management w iPhoto and iTunes

Most people have more things than they use each day, and many more than they use each year. For whatever reason we want to save things such as a high-school jacket or a book read long ago, but not necessarily carry them with us. Computer files are similar, especially in...

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November 07, 2008

Useful and Free Online Tools for Groups and Business

When I first started as a full-time consultant in 1998, it was a pretty neat trick for most people to learn they could connect two or three computers together to share a single printer or plug in to this odd thing called the Internet through a special telephone modem. Today,...

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July 07, 2008

Laptop Basics

A key part of how consumerism works is to create more demand for products, whether through advertising or the creation of new markets. Is there a laundromat? Try and replace it with a washing machine (and then dryer) in every home. Does a family own a radio? Create a market...

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May 07, 2008

Engineered

As a computer consultant I get to walk into and clean up a lot of messes. Sometimes these are messes created by months of misunderstanding or simple neglect: logical misarrangement or the organic detritus of any natural process over time. Sometimes these messes are caused by a single catastrophic mistake...

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March 07, 2008

Hardware Recommendations 2008

One of the things I am often asked to do is to recommend hardware, and there is never a single best answer for everyone. Most folks have programs or ways to work that are best for them, or older equipment that needs to be integrated. There are, however, certain things...

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