Get a jump on the official Download

Microsoft has released a wiki outlining the setup of several popular routers for Small Business Server 2008

Microsoft has released a new wiki outlining setups for several different routers.
Windows Home Server

I just ran across one of the coolest tools to help with graphic or web design. Color Cop can help you figure out the color values of any color visible on your screen. Here’s what it does right from the author’s about page:

Color Cop is a multi-purpose color picker for web designers and programmers. It features an eyedropper, magnifier, variable magnification levels, 3 by 3 and 5 by 5 average sampling, snap to websafe, color history, and a 42 color complementary palette. Color Cop will convert RGB decimal values to Hexadecimal color codes. It has color code support for HTML Hex, Delphi Hex, PowerBuilder, Visual Basic Hex, and Visual C++ Hex. Color Cop is a multi-purpose color picker for windows.

Get Color Cop now.

When it comes to finding low hanging fruit in becoming a greener home or office, I say turn off the computers. Just turn them off.

The updates will run just fine in the morning – or at lunch. If the old story about the power up/power down cycle extending the computer’s life isn’t an urban legend, it ought to be. Long boot up times? Give me a break.

Since my day to day computer activity at my day job is done with a login without admin privileges, I have a second computer that I will occasionally use to do any lengthy administrative work. It is three or four years old, but respectable enough to get the job done. It is a typical system typically in use by my client base. I recently hooked the Kill-A-Watt meter up to it and found that my modest system uses 1.7kW in an eight hour work day. This was at an idle – I did no work on it at all on it.

Assuming 10 cents per kWh we burned 17 cents worth of electricity. (Roanoke area residential cost in January 2010)

If I leave it on all night (5pm-8am) we burn an extra 32 cents outside of “working hours.”

For 20 work days we have $6.40 of excess cost.

For 8 weekend days we have $3.92 of excess cost.

That gives us $10.32 every 28 day period, of which we have 13 in a year, for a total of $134.16 per year in excess costs.

So on this computer’s fourth birthday, it will have used $536.64 if I had a habit of leaving it on all night. As a small business owner, will that $134/yr for each computer help your budget?

Let’s turn them off!

Are you following several websites and discussions?

Is it getting a little tedious to remember where all your sites are?

What about the mix of frequently and infrequently updated sites? RSS might be a simple solution.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is nothing more than a different, standardized format for the web content that you already enjoy. Most sites that feature frequently updated content will have and RSS feed and its usually indicated by an icon similar to this: ) You might also see them refer to RSS as their “feed” or “channel”.

To see this site’s RSS feed, click here or the Orange RSS icon above.

You probably have access to several feed readers or “aggregators” as they are sometimes called. When you clicked on this site’s link above, depending on the web browser that you use, you saw the quickest to use and setup. Internet Explorer, FireFox and others do a great job with RSS feed aggregation, but there are better ways still to manage them. In some future articles, I’ll mention a few of these.

Previously I covered managing the toolbars that you might have accumulated over time. The same programs that load you up with toolbars will also put Add-Ons into IE.  Usually they do it without even asking you. If you can’t figure out why you have strange pop-ups and other uninvited activity, the Add-On manager is one place to look. Here’s how:

Click on the Tools menu in the upper right corner of IE: 

The IE8 Tools Menu

Select Add-Ons Manager

Add-Ons Selection under Tools Menu

You can now select Add-Ons that might cause the activity that you want to stop. Typically (but not always) Add-Ons with cryptic names are your target. Select them and click the disable button and see if the offending action disappears.

Add-Ons Manager

There is a great deal of competition for your attention for search engines, software, and websites and one way to get that attention is to get you to install a toolbar in your browser. If you didn’t read every prompt in every program that you have installed, you probably have several that you don’t remember how they got there.

Here’s where you manage them in IE8:

1. Just click on the tools menu in the upper right of IE.

    

   

   The IE8 Tools Menu

2. Find Toolbars and select/deselect as desired.

    

   

   Toolbars Management

You will often be told to “Open a Command Prompt”, “Command Line” or a “DOS Box” when you are working with someone trying to help you. This is often the quickest way for someone on the phone to get you to complete a task for him.

Here’s how to get it done:
1. First you’ll need to go to your run box and type CMD

Here is the “Run Box” in Windows 7. Since Microsoft Windows Vista, The Run Box has been combined with a search functionality.

2. Type “CMD” into the Run Box” Notice that the whole start menu changes once you start typing something in there. These are search results. It just so happens that once you have typed CMD in there, the result is a program named CMD that can be executed right from the start menu. There may be other results as well. If you need to, you can right click on the “CMD” Icon that appeared and select “Run as administrator” to get a command prompt with administrative rights.

3. If you chose to “Run as administrator,” then you now have a “Command Prompt” open that will allow you to run commands with administrative priviledges. Be Careful!

The decade doesn’t really start till next year since there was no year 0. I’ll get a jump start on it anyway and rededicate this site to the hope of making it the reference site for SOHO’s around Roanoke and beyond by the end of the 20-teens. I’d like to help you use the bits of technology as tools for fun and profit. You see, I’m like you, I don’t want to serve my gadgets, I want them to serve me.

The last decade improved so many pieces of technology that we will do more with less like never before. Our computers, Audio/Video (A/V), cameras, phones, toasters and coffee pots are merging into smaller and fewer devices. The next decade will not just give us more cool stuff – The way we use the stuff run small businesses and entertain ourselves will change forever.

You need a network. I mean you need one at home as much as your office. In ten years all your stuff will attach to it – including the toaster.

Don’t believe me? Ten years ago, some of you were still asking why you need an email address.

Have a great new year (decade)