NowITWorks.net

Who hasn’t run into a problem or two with wireless connections – whether it be a wireless network, wireless keyboard, wireless mouse, Bluetooth, the list goes on.

While wireless access gives you the option of freedom – let’s be honest, nothing beats a wire.  If you are thinking about installing a wireless network into your office, please consider limiting the wireless to your conference room, or the break room, or some small area where you have control over it.

If you are going to outfit your entire office with wireless connectivity, please take this precautions:
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When your browser windows opens, the first page displayed is called the “Home Page”. Most folks will set this to their email provider’s web portal, their favorite news site, or often leave it as the particular browser’s default page, i.e. MSN.

Arguably, one of the best features of modern browsers is the use of tabbed browsing, or opening multiple pages in the same browser window, which can be switched using a series of tabs at the top of the window. I’m sure most of you are aware of this feature, which can save a lot of time and desktop real estate. (more…)

The list of the Top 10 Gadgets for Christmas 2008 have been released – click here to see the full listing.

However, on a sad note – CNN has released their predictions for the biggest technology flops for this holiday season. That’s the spirit, CNN!

Have a great weekend!

$$ Check out this article from PC World about how to save money, save electricity and be more environmentally sound, just by being conscious of the technology around your home or office.

When Office 2007 came out in late 2006, Word users were often surprised to see that their files created in the software were by default saved in the new .DOCX file format, which was unreadable by previous versions of Office. This caused many headaches in the corporate and end-user world, even though the default setting itself can be changed easily.

Google has now made it easy to view these files, even if you don’t have Office 2007. Simply email the offending .DOCX file to your Gmail account, open the message, and select View As HTML next to the attachment. You’ll be able to see the contents of the file, and do what you will with the text and whatnot.

Link: View Office Open XML files as HTML

While it seems to early to be talking about the holidays, let’s be honest – as soon as the back to school stuff has been rummaged through, it’s replaced by a snowman so don’t fight it. Instead, we’re going to pass along some tips for surviving the holidays and Amazon is the first to unveil a new stress-reducing service for the holidays.

The new term has been coined – “Wrap Rage” – just ask Mark Cuban how he feels about packaging if you aren’t sure. Essentially, the idea is to stop using the stiff, sealed, difficult to open packaging for products, requiring the customer to use scissors, screwdrivers or chainsaws to get to their item.

Not only is this a good idea for the environment, but it should reduce injuries related to packaging. “In 2004, as many as 6,400 emergency room visits were reported” for that very reason. (source: www.informationweek.com)

Some of the first companies to get involved include Mattel and Fisher Price. Visit Amazon for more details.

It could be a first date, a blind date or dinner at your grandparents – sometimes you just need a way out. Well, with a little bit of foresight and 99 cents, you can save yourself.

Magic Tap is available with your iPhone and is sold for 99 cents at the Apple App Store. You can program the time of the call, who it is coming from, a new background, ring tone – whatever you feel is necessary to customize your “out”.

Making this deal even sweeter, no air time charges will apply to these faux calls and 10 cents from each call will be donated to an unspecified charity.

When it comes to protecting yourself, you might not realize just how useful your cell phone could be to you. There is a new free service available called My Mobile Witness, which allows you to store time-stamped pictures and texts for free. If you are in a situation or around people who make you uneasy, snap a quick picture or text a brief message. This is stored in a vault that police would have access to, if something should happen to you.

You will be able to let the threatening individual know that you have a record of their face (or car, etc) and the police will be able to track them down.  Messages cannot be retrieved or erased, if that person should get a hold of your phone.

The creators of this service, Scott Bullens and Marcus Anthony, developed it to keep the agents from their real estate firm safe. Each agent had to take a picture of the client they were meeting and send it back to the office.

It has been cautioned that this service is not a replacement for 911.

For more information on how this service works – click here.

• Hold down the Shift key while inserting a CD, to prevent the CD from auto-running

•   Hold down the ALT key and the F4 key to quit a program

• Use the F2 key to rename a file

• Hold down the CTRL and P key to open a Print screen

• Hold down the Shift key and the Tab key to go back one space on a form

During the spring, I received a call from a new prospect that was interested in seeing how I could help them. After they explained the problem, my heart sank. This customer had been running their entire business on a Dell computer that was purchased in 1996.

This computer, in 1996, was top notch – it had plenty of memory and hard drive space. In 2007, however, Windows NT 3.51 and a Pentium 2 processor make this an old computer. A very old computer. For that matter, we don’t even support Windows 95 anymore – Windows NT 3.51 came out in 1993!

They did not want to upgrade because they had spent $4000 on this computer in 1996 – their reason for calling me was the hard drive crashed and needed to restore data from it.

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