Small Business Tech

I like the Firefox browser from Mozilla. It is fairly fast but still feature rich, but my favorite trick is the extensions. I thought that I would make a list of my must-have extensions.

Must-Have: They must be installed on a computer that I use more than once.

• IE Tab - Once in a while you have to use Internet Explorer for a web site. This plug in simply gives you the right-click option of viewing the page in Internet Explorer. You can save a list of frequent sites as well.
• Google Toolbar - My workflow revolves around Google Apps, so this is a must for me. It does much more than search including indicating if you have new email and listings your universal bookmarks.

Cool-To-Have: These just make using your computer more pleasant.

• Forecastfox - This small utility resides in the right-hand status bar showing you weather data for your chosen location. You get a small indicator if the National Weather Service has issues a warning for your chosen area.
• Cooliris - This is a fullscreen experience to looking at videos and images. Web sites have to be Cooliris capable, but the good news is that many popular sites are already on board.

Trying Out: Still in my personal testing phase.

• Tree Style Tab - This is an alternative to the tabs appearing across the top of your browser window. They appear in a bar on the left in a smaller format and broken in to hierarchical trees. Very handy if you are doing a lot of research.
  

Netbook only - Really useful on a netbook computer.

• Autohide - This extension allows you to choose the when and what disappearance of toolbars in Firefox when you use fullscreen mode on a netbook. Using fullscreen mode is a must for Firefox on a netbook, but it allows you to keep the status bar or even the taskbar available. The top bar slide down without resizing the page which is also nice.

There are lots of other extensions for Firefox. Some are mundane to making Firefox a completely different browser. Tell me about a few of your favorites.

Labels: extensions, Firefox, Google Apps

Microsoft has released their list of security patches for July 2009. Fortunately the list is far smaller than June's record-setting list.

Windows 2000 and Windows XP are the most affected with three critical problems. Two of those are subject to exploits that are in the wild on the Internet. These would need to be patched quickly. Windows Vista is affected by one critical update and there is an exploit in the wild for that one.

The only Office component affected this month is Publisher. The remaining patches are for Microsoft Server and Virtualization Software.

Labels: Microsoft, security

We have all read or heard company announcements about how a particular merger is going to create synergy between the companies. A fancy way of saying that we can let a lot of people go, and maybe continue to offer some modicum of customer service. All right enough from the soapbox - onto our story...

I was alerted to a well-written small utility that makes using more than one computer absolutely enjoyable. The small blurb on the product web site says it very well...

Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own display.

The only caveat is that each computer must be connected to the same network. If they are sitting besides one another on a desk it is likely that they do reside on the same network. The computers can run different operating systems including MAC OSX, Windows, or even Linux.

Using Synergy is easy. Setup can be just a bit confusing. We will walk through a simple two-workstation setup. Download the application choosing i386 for a Windows computer and other platforms for Linux or MAC. Install the program as you would any other. Once installed you will find the application in your Start Menu; All Programs on a Windows computer.

We will start with the host workstation. You can choose either workstation to be your host or client. If you have three then your host should be the common computer that you use most of the time. Click the radio button beside "Share this computer's keyboard and mouse (server)." Click the "Configure..." button.  Under the screens box click on the + sign. Enter the name of this computer in Screen Name. I stick to the computer name because mine are very descriptive, but you can choose whatever you like. Do not worry about the other settings. Those are only used if you run into strange issues with Nums Lock, etc. Add the name of your second computer in this box as well.

You will now need to setup links. In the bottom choose the direction of one screen to another using the drop-down boxes. Click OK.


Install the software on your second computer, and open the program as you did on the first. Click on "Use another computer's shared keyboard and mouse(client)". Enter the name of your first computer in the Host Name box. Click Start.

Go back to the first computer and press test. If everything has been setup correctly then you should now be able to navigate your cursor from one screen to another. If you are satisfied with this setup then you can end the test and go back to the main dialog box and click start. One more important option is AutoStart... This button will open a dialog box with two options. You can choose to start when the computer starts or when you log into the computer. If you decide to autostart then be sure to also set the same on your second computer.

Using Synergy once it is setup is very easy. You can drag the cursor from one screen to another using your mouse. Whichever screen is holding the cursor will capture any typing on your keyboard. You can also copy and paste from a shared clipboard between the screens. This copy and paste is limited to text. You will not be able to transfer files using the clipboard.

Labels: Synergy

I noticed this evening that Google has added drag and drop to Gmail. You can grab a small handle at the far left portion of message listing and drag it onto a label. You can also accomplish the same by dragging the label onto a message. You can also select multiple messages and drop them onto a label.

This addition as well as the recent ability to "move" messages into labels makes Gmail more and more useful. The Gmail web interface is becoming more comfortable for former Outlook addicts.

By the way unlike tasks in Google Calendar, this feature is available in Google Apps.

Labels: email, Gmail, Google Apps, Outlook