Folks, I just wanted to pass along a tip for a free PDF Printer Driver in case anyone was ever looking for one, or in case you don’t know what this even is!

A PDF Printer Driver is a little piece of software that installs just like a printer would, but instead of converting your printed output it saves the exact printed format as a PDF file. You might want to do this for any of the following reasons:

• To e-mail a document in a universal format which preserves the exact page layout. For example, if you create a form using MS Word, you can convert it to PDF.
• To preview exactly what a document is going to look like when printed before wasting paper and ink.
• To post a printable version of a document on a Web site that people can access using any computing platform.
• If you want to print something, but you aren’t near a printer you can print it to a PDF and then later print a hard copy. VERY useful for offline work on a laptop while traveling.

The only problem is that up until relatively recently the only way to accomplish this was to own a very expensive piece of Adobe software. But now there are a few free alternatives on the market, and I wanted to recommend Bullzip PDF Printer.
Read the rest of this entry »

I keep wondering two things, why does the RIAA continue to persecute people, and more importantly why do people do stupid enough things to keep getting prosecuted?

That organization exists for the sole purpose of suing the pants off of people, but they can only do so when people leave plenty of evidence about their activity - namely hosting content on their computers and allowing others to download it. Most of the time it seems these foolish people aren’t even aware that what they are doing by running Kazaa, eMule, Gnutella, or some other file sharing application puts them at risk.

But why in the world would anyone share their music, movie or software collections via open, anonymous connections? Especially when there are other virtually risk-free alternatives? (By the way, know your rights if RIAA comes calling.)
Read the rest of this entry »

Some people remember, and some seem to have forgotten, but Microsoft has driven many companies out of business. There are those who have argued that Microsoft did this simply because they were the better competitor, but that is not the only reason.

Microsoft gained an early monopoly in the PC operating system arena, then abused that monopoly to damage competitors ability to compete. The Netscape browser was a perfect example.

Anyway, here is a leaked document from a court case in which Bill Gates is suggesting that Microsoft manipulate an open industry standard in such a way as to hurt Linux. This kind of predatory practice is unbelievable - especially when aimed at a free software movement where all of the development has been voluntary!

Being the resident tech geek, I have been asked by at least 10 people now if they should upgrade to the newest Microsoft Windows variant, Vista. Now, everyone is different so I can’t provide a blanket ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, but I will say that I don’t personally recommend it, I’m not using it, and I don’t plan on ever doing so in the future.

There is a great Web site called Bad Vista which can give you tons of reasons not to adopt this operating system, but I’m just going to stick to three primary ones for now:
Read the rest of this entry »

My buddy Hrafn over at Inkblot Earth found this incredibly cool screen saver called Twingly. In a nutshell it does the following things:

• A visual representation shows blog postings from around the world in real time.
• You can zoom in and out with your mouse’s scroll wheel, and you can rotate and spin the globe by clicking and dragging.
• It’s possible to tell where the most articles are coming from because bars get taller as more posts come in from certain places.

Read on to see a video of it in action!
Read the rest of this entry »

Have you noticed that Outlook’s native Spam protection is severely lacking? Well, there is a great little freeware application called SpamAware which will increase your Spam fighting abilities.

The software installs quickly and easily and works as advertised. It adds a number of new options and works with both Outlook and Outlook Express. The software is also written by a very nice guy, Joachim Marder, whom I remember helping beta test another program for many years ago called Treesize.
Read the rest of this entry »

Zoho.com is one of the most innovative Microsoft Office competitors I’ve seen. The only difference is, the entire suite of tools is FREE, and completely Web based.
Read the rest of this entry »

Anyone that has ever clicked on a PDF document in a web page and then waited, in excruciating agony, for the unbelievably bloated Adobe Reader to open it knows exactly what I’m talking about. So, why not do something about it?
Read the rest of this entry »

Frisco Style magazine recently published an article that I authored, which has my top tips for digital photography.

The article is geared towards those who are getting started and need some good tips to point them in the right direction. Among those tips, I advise people to use Google’s free Picasa for image management and FastStone’s free Photo Resizer for adjusting image sizes and watermarking.

You can download Google’s Picasa separately by selecting the link above or you can download the Google Pack which includes it as well as several other Google apps that I highly recommend.

You see all those little links at the side of the page that say “Subscribe”? Well, those are made possible by a technology called RSS (Really Simple Syndication). They allow an automated program to quickly check a web site and present only what’s been updated since the last time you visited.
Read the rest of this entry »

It seems I’m constantly adjusting the volume on my computer, and its just not a pleasant thing to have to do. Finally someone has come up with a very simple and convenient way to do it with the mouse.
Read the rest of this entry »

Google offers a great little download which I highly recommend. It includes several of Google’s best freeware offerings and, most importantly, an automated service to keep them all up to date.

Select the following link to download the package:

Read the rest of this entry »