Supergeekblog

Over at ProBlogger, they have a well written article discussing 16 different applications that bloggers should use. Some I have used, some I have not, and some I prefer and alternative.  I wouldn’t say this needs to be limited to bloggers, but anyone who likes to customize their web experience.

The first one on the list being Firefox - I couldn’t agree more.  I have tested Chrome, use IE (as required) for work, but live in Firefox.  I would recommend following through and checking out the list of “25 must have Firefox Addons.”

My personal recommendations: Twitterfox, ColorfulTabs, StumbleToolbar, Greasemonkey, Locationbar2, Scribefire, Search Status, SpeedDial, and TinyURL Creater.

Skipping down to SnagIT - I actually would recommend ScreenHunter 5.0 Free.  Smaller, lightweight, free version that does basic cross-hairs screenshots that I prefer.  A lot less options, but that is what I need/use.

The next item on his list that catches my eye is Digsby.  I have tested it and it works, but I am a big trillian fan.  I have used the software since it’s really buggy early days and it has come along nicely.  I do agree with the importance of having an “all in one” IM application though.  With Friends, Family, Clients, Coworkers, etc all on different networks, logins, groups, etc it is very helpful to only have to run a single app.

RSS Bandit is another one that I am not sure about.  It apparently downloads directly from Google Reader for offline reading.  Perhaps it is a better experience than mixing Google Reader/Gears for offline.  I vote no on that because I use Reader both at work and home.  So I prefer the pure web based version.  That being said, if I was still traveling full time as a software consultant, my opinion might be different.

Of course there are more recommendations.  I encourage you to go to ProBlogger and check out the full list.  Comment there or here if there is an app of choice that you like/prefer.  The key thing to remember is that it *is* possible to custimize your web experience.  Once you do, you will wonder why you didn’t before!

Technorati Tags: ProBlogger, Essential Apps, Blogging, SuperGeek

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From TechCrunch:

Switzerland-based deskNET is debuting the public beta version of Sobees today, an application that aims to bring the web to a personalized desktop environment. We first came across Sobees when they presented their project in the DemoPit at the TechCrunch50 conference.

I like the concept of this really… though would have to dig more into its functionality to judge. (As well as actually test it.) My main concern would be for the requirement of .NET 3.5 SP1. a)forced upgrade for most people b)example being it will be a long time before work pushes that update. That being said, a silverlight version or installing it at home should be possible.  However, that being said, for most of us on Windows machines that won’t be much of an issue.

First impressions… the install is fairly painless.  It takes a *while* to install .Net 3.5 SP1, but that is typical of all the .Net framework installations.  The Sobees install is 1.2mb, so the download doesn’t take long.  However the built in downloader for .Net 3.5 SP1 takes a while as it is 52mb.  Make sure you give it time to finish.  I recommend downloading and installing .Net 3.5 SP1  beforehand - you can monitor the install a little better that way.

***Huge Warning here***

If you use VMWare proceed with caution!!! After installing .NET 3.5 SP1 it crashed my install of XP.  I could no longer boot to the gui with an error on “vmgina.dll.”  After spending 2 hours working on it and doing an XP install over my existing one I was able to get back online.  I am still in the process of recovering.  I did however find a MS KB article on the issue.  Read this before going forward.  The gist of it is though that the 3rd party video driver that VMWare installs, somehow gets messed up by that install.

I will have to review the actual software in a follow up.

Technorati Tags: vmgina.dll, gina.dll, sobees, supergeekblog, olorinpc, sgbtech, vmware, troubleshooting, xp crash

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I love blogging… I am sometimes random and lazy at it, but I really do love it. (If I spent less time reading other blogs and more working on the various blogs I run I might get more done.)

Anywho - this particular post I am trying from the Firefox plugin: ScribeFire. First impression, where is the catch? Is there a hidden charge or donation button somewhere? This addon so far is working exactly, even better than, promised. Linking all of my blogs and being able to select between them inside of the addon, writing this post, etc… all simple.

It took me less than a minute to install, configure it for 5 blogs, and start working on this post. I will have a followup post on this later after I work with it some more - however if you are a blogger and are currently logging in to post your work (ie wordpress create new post screen) I would encourage you to try this - it rocks.

ScribeFire
Technorati Tags: scribefire, olorinpc, supergeekblog, supergeek, blogging, blog editing

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So, you want a widescreen LCD?  You want an affordable monitor that boasts high resolution, flat panel profile and enough screen real estate to spread out all your icons?  Well, look no further than the Dell 2005FPW 20.1″ LCD.

Boasting a 1680 X 1050 resolution, it should display just about anything you want to a reasonable clarity.  This is a mid-range LCD, so we can’t expect too awful much on the resolution end. It’s got 24 bit color and a 4 port USB hub built in.  A 16:9 aspect ratio give it full widescreen capabilities.

Pricing starts at about $370 and can range up to about $500 so be careful where you buy from.  Being especially frugal, one could find a discount somewhere and potentially pick up this CRT replacement for around $300.

Technorati Tags: Dell 2005FPW, 2005FPW, UltraSharp LCD

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Aside from the fact that this looks like something out of a milk bar in “A Clockwork Orange”, why is it that everyone insists on imitating the iMac and iPod designs? Is it because they are so popular? And why white? Seems like I’d spend most of my days cleaning the damn thing instead of using it.

Seriously folks, here’s a review of the Compaq B2800, which is only available in Asia and Australia. Any Aussies wanna send us one to toy with? Didn’t think so.

With a super slim profile, a 14″ screen, and weighing in at only 4.8 lbs, the B2800 sounds like a pretty serious traveling laptop.

That doesn’t seem to mean that it is a cheapo machine either. Sturdy case design, a 1.7 or 2 ghz Pentium M 740, up to 1.5 gigs of DDR2/533 Ram, and a dedicated graphics card mean this could become a favorite for all around usage. Fan Specs and screen size may limit it from ever being a gamers machine, but for a multi purpose, portable, this one may take a few cakes. Here’s a few snippets from the review to whet your appetite:

The screen is one of the week points of this notebook. For some reason it isn’t a widescreen, but it is true that widescreen have taken a bit longer to be adopted in Asian notebook models, except by Sony. But still, at this day in age they should offer this notebook with a widescreen.

The results are what you would expect from a Pentium M 740 machine. It is much faster than my old Pentium 4 HP notebook and is also a bit more responsive than my AMD Athlon XP 2000+ desktop. It is more than fast enough for nearly anything you would ask of it. If you want further speed you could also buy a faster CPU model like the Pentium M 760.

Technorati Tags: compaq b2800, compaq, b2800, ipod, imac, notebook, pentium

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So Trillian logs in this morning, just like every other morning to Yahoo, MSN, and AIM IM networks. Only one difference this morning: An info box pops up saying I have an email in my inbox for AIM.

What the heck – I don’t have AIM/AOL email! I have had the same AIM login for the last 7-8 years. (I really don’t even know how long I have had it.) It is a AIM address not an email address. It never has been.)

However, AIM seems to have silently upgraded all users to a free @AIM.com email address. This is complete with 2GB of storage, a pretty nice looking webclient, and an interesting sounding “unsend” option to other AOL or AIM addresses. (I am guessing too many AOL users drunkenly sent emails and then called tech support looking for the Unsend option.

I have no confirmation yet if this really did happen to all uses, but I know I never signed up for it. I already have enough 2GB free email accounts. Between Live Mail and Gmail – AIM mail is just over-kill for me. Yet, I know that there are a bunch of people out there who will enjoy this new feature.

So… if you still have an AIM address out there – try logging in and seeing if your account has had this addition.

Technorati Tags: AIM, AIM Mail, IM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Webmail, 2gb webmail

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We at SuperGeek have been quietly testing Hamachi VPN over the last several weeks and so far, we are amazed at its usefulness. There will be a couple of different versions, a Premium and Basic versions. The main difference between them will be scalability. The basic will remain free as well. The premium looks to have a fairly small monthly fee, though the store isn’t open yet so they could differ. (We have linked to the Hamachi developer posts for your convenience.)

Hamachi allows for a quick setup in most cases and allows for nearly instantaneous file sharing between computers on the Private Network. The added ability to play network games, remote management, and several other tools makes Hamachi a wonderful tool. The ability for Hamachi to allow a secure remote desktop connection from inside of a corporate firewall, through my home network firewall, was impressive and very useful. Having a secure but seamless network has been very handy when working from different locations.

We did run into a small issue with Hamachi not working with Windows XP firewall. The solution at the moment seems to be to turn off the Firewall. We would like to see some better integration of that. However some machines didn’t seem to have this issue. It has been tested under WinXP, Win2k3 Server (Standard and Enterprise), and Mandrivia Linux. The Linux client was a bit of a pain to work with, but should be possible.

Oh, and yes Michael. It is “incredibly useful“.

Technorati Tags: Hamachi, Firewall, VPN

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By now most people have heard, there is a Windows Live Mail currently in beta. It is known as Kahuna. It is what Hotmail will eventually be converted to. I found a pretty good bit on the project - and thought I would share my thoughts on it. Seeing as I am in the beta for it as well. Being not exactly sure what restrictions there might be on it (I don’t think there are any, but no need to push it,) I will be more talking about the ideas and implications than actual fuctionality. Anything discussed here would have been made public by Microsoft.

It is beta, there are some bugs, but over all I like it. My hotmail account ported staight over to the beta, so I had a full account with data to test with and use, not a new email address that I had to force traffic to. Really the question I hear most often is: Why would I use it over GMail, or Yahoo!, etc… the answer is simple: As a person who has an account just about anywhere useful–use what you like.

I bounce between my Hotmail and my GMail account. Hotmail, with the planned future integration of contacts between all of it’s services, potentially will be doing exactly what I have been looking for. GMail on the other hand, has the threaded email function which can be very handy to try and keep track of things. Long and short of the story here is: Keep an eye on the Windows Live brand. Kahuna and Messenger 8.0 (Messenger Live) have been accused of being rips… the AJAX and some visual simplicity styling, perhaps though I don’t think anything is as simple as Fanboys make it, but the under-the-hood integration is going to be very very impressive. Don’t knock it before you try it.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Kahuna, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live, Gmail, Yahoo!

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We here at SuperGeekBlog believe in doing due diligence in our reviews. So, in following that belief, we have spent many hours huddled over our keyboards “testing” AOE3. Here’s what we came up with.

Install:

Install of AOE3 went pretty smoothly. The one downside here is that if your PC isn’t at least twice the recommended set-up, you should expect to spend at least 45 minutes on the install.

Single Player Gameplay:

Single player is a bit boring when you have the capabilities of going online and playing multiplayer. Prepare to get your colony wiped if you get good at single player and think that means your good at multiplayer as well. The computer AI plays differently than any human player we have yet to face.
If you have played any of the previous AoE titles, the gameplay isn’t all that much different. Some additions have been made, but we suggest upping the difficulty all the way to begin with and avoiding the “this is so easy, I’m bored” scenario.
The additions of the Card deck and the home city add an extra bit of strategy to the game but doesn’t really play all that well in single player.

Multi-Player Online:

Imagine our disappointment when we went to play multiplayer only to find that there was already a patch that needed to be downloaded! And less than two weeks from the original release date. There are two ways to look at this.

1. At least they are keeping it updated so far
2. Couldn’t they have fixed this before the release?

We are of the Couldn’t they have fixed this before the release camp. In all honesty, it wouldn’t have been all that big of a deal if not for the fact that about 70% of all AOE3 users had extreme difficulty in downloading and installing the patch. The AOE3 forums were extremely unhelpfull as there were about 3 different theories on how to fix the problem and none really worked 100% of the time.
The problem seems to lie in the actual installer software for the patch. It reads several of the original files as older than they are supposed to be and pops up an error and backs the install off. After reading the forums several times and trying a couple of theories, we finally found one that would work. So what was the solution? You have to manually unpack the files that the installer errors on and run it again. Then it gives you another error on another file and you unpack that one too. Continue until the installer actually finishes.

Overall time spent on installation of core AOE3? 25 minutes
Overall time spent on installation of AOE3 patch 1.01? 2 hours 15 minutes

And it’s all worth it. Or will be soon. At the moment we havent seen a huge number of players online. We think that that is a result of the problems with the patch and hopefully they will be able to fix that soon so we don’t have to manually unpack files. At the moment it is fairly difficult to get a game started as everyone has their favorite maps, methods, colors, etc… The addition of Clans into the mix creates a real mish mash of games that are either unfairly stacked against the new user or a long wait to find a game that starts.

So, we got online and start playing games, and what do we find? Another common error.
This one is dubbed the “Sync Error.” You’ll be happily playing your game and all of a sudden the game lags hard and a message pops up that the game is saving “sync error”… This is appearantly tied to other users(or yourself) lagging and dropping from the game. The game sees the drop out and then saves the game as sync error. Problem with this is that it boots all the players in the game out of the online game and back to the main menu.

Of course this will most likely be fixed in the second patch, however we hope that they fix the first problem at the same time or there will be even less people online playing the game.

Our overall thoughts on AOE3:

Overall, the new additions and new setting for AOE3 make it enough different from the previous titles to make it extremely playable. If you have the technological know how to get past the patch install issue, there is a great playing experience waiting you online. If not… Jack up the diffficulty on single player and you’ll at least be challenged a little by the computer AI and you’ll also learn a little about the core gameplay.

AOE3 is SuperGeekBlog Recommended.

Visit the Official Age of Empires 3 homepage.

Technorati Tags: AoE3 review, AoE3, Age of empires

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Tired of the Google, Yahoo “I have more sites indexed” battle? Or simply use both to compare listing ranks? Well do I have a treat for you…

It’s a site called Gahoo!Yoogle.

As you can probably tell by the name ( and you will figure it out by the logo for sure) its a site that combines the searching power of Google and Yahoo. Enter in your search words or phrase and Gahoo!Yoogle shows the results in a vertically split window. One side for Google and the other for Yahoo. Now you only have to go to one site for comparing the placement of your favorite search.

If you’re like me at all, you’ll spend nearly an hour doing searches on random keywords and sites just comparing the results.

While Gahoo!Yoogle doesn’t answer the “who’s better” question, It solves the which engine to use problem just fine.

Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Google, Gahoo!Yoogle, GahooYoogle, GahooYoogle.com

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