On July 1st, 2013 Google Reader will die. In the wake of its announced execution a petition to preserve Google Reader attracted over 150,000 signatures and articles decried the impending loss with poetic flourish. Then hope shined forth as other RSS aggregators stepped up, Feedly leading the way. Newsroom employees and tech geeks rejoiced and the conversation turned from mourning to [...]

Disclaimer: I do not work for any cloud-based company. I do not stand to benefit (at least not at the moment) by pushing people to store their data in the cloud. I’m also no expert on cloud computing, I’m just a somewhat techie guy thinking out loud. My wife uses Microsoft Money for our finances. [...]

Last week my 2011 Macbook Pro crashed. Well, it started crashing a month or two ago. 1-2 times per day it would suddenly freeze up, often while I was watching video on YouTube or Vimeo, and I would get a gray screen, or a white screen, or a black screen, or sometimes a gray screen [...]

I’ve been a Comcast Business Internet customer for something going on 5-6 years, but now I’m canceling the service, or rather, I’m trying to. Unfortunately they require 30-day notice, and a 75% fee on what’s left on the term, which doesn’t end until June in 5 months, meaning it will cost me a few hundred [...]

I buy USB hubs so you don’t have to! Not on purpose, that’s just how things have worked out. Allow me to explain… A few years ago I needed more USB ports. So I bought a USB hub for $50. It didn’t work. Ok, it did at first. Then it did sometimes. Then it didn’t. [...]

So…you just got your brand new Macbook Pro, 17 inch, and a brand new Magic Mouse, and you think “Gee, this the best of the best, brand new stuff, of course it will work great, right?” But then you take it home, turn everything on, and although the mouse works, the cursor is skipping all [...]

Although I’d like to switch to a iPhone, I’m currently using an Android phone, and one of the issues I’ve had to deal with that has been a real pain is managing podcasts. DoubleTwist is no replacement for iTunes, nor is Google Listen, nor mSpot, nor WinAmp. What I want is simply this–an easy way [...]

I’ve had it with PCs, and I’m switching to Mac. It might come as a surprise to those who know me that I’m not already on a Mac. After all, I’m a designer, I’m thin, and I’m neat. My history with Macs is fairly one-sided, or rather, nonexistent. I used one when I was in [...]

I’ve been using Appriver’s hosted Exchange email services for a few years now. I have virtually no complaints. I don’t recall ever having a major problem with uptime. I think they may have had some minor issues but the only reason I knew about them was because they sent me an email telling me so. [...]

My firm recently launched a redesigned ecommerce site for a triathlon store using the NSCommerce system from Network Solutions. We didn’t choose that solution, it was already being used by the client. Our work was to apply the new design we had created, and we are now providing ongoing PPC management and SEO services. As [...]

Ah, sometimes it’s the little things that get in the way. I use the Twitter Tools plugin on this blog and others so that whenever I create a new post, it automatically posts it to my Twitter account. Twitter Tools also allows you to enter a Bit.ly username and API key so that when your [...]

You bought a Canon A620 digital camera a few years ago, installed the software that came with it, and never thought about it again. Until you had to switch to a new computer, or you reformatted, and you realized “Oh yeah, I guess I need to reinstall the software for my camera.” Only you can’t [...]

Maybe radio advertising has a future? I keep hearing these ads for “The UPS Store” that have been intriguing to me because the UPS Store appears to be able to solve a few problems I have: 1. Driving to the post office to check my post office box only find out I didn’t get any [...]

Between my own websites and those of my clients I manage about 12 blogs, all of which are running WordPress. Today I’ve been upgrading all of them to WordPress 2.8.  I use the automatic upgrade process that WordPress provides because it makes upgrading quick and easy…at least for my clients who aren’t on Mediatemple’s servers. [...]

I used to use Mozy a year or two ago, but the service was too spotty. I got errors all the time and it took forever to create the first backup. That is, I left it on 24/7 and I think it took well over a month. Maybe it’s better today. I then didn’t use [...]

iStockPhoto.com is a great website. It allows photographers, graphic designers, and other creative types to upload photos and artwork which can then be purchased as “stock” photography or artwork. This is great for aspiring photographers, who learn how to take photos that people want to buy. This is great for print and web designers who [...]

I can’t take it any more. The Wall Street Journal, a most highly respected publication offline and on. The homepage. The top of the homepage. The line – “The Illinois House voted overwhelming to impeach Gov. Blagojevich one month after he was arrested on corruption charges, setting up a Senate trial.” Are you kidding me?!!! [...]

I just bought Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0 and I love it! Or at least I assume I would if it worked the way it’s designed to work. But instead of working, I’m having two major problems: 1. While capturing video from my DV camera, I get frequent errors that say “Unknown Recorder Error” at which [...]

Ever since I figured out how to do this I’ve had a mountain of people asking me how, so here it is–how to add your blog feed to your Facebook profile, so that every time you publish a post on your blog, it will show up as a posted item on your Facebook Wall, and [...]

I tried out Mozy as a solution for online backups about a year ago. Perhaps it’s improved since then but at the time it stunk. It would error out all the time, it took me almost 2 months to create the first backup (even though I had it on all the time and my connection [...]

Remember how a few week ago I set up temporary mail forwarding so that I could receive my mail in Ohio while I was out of Utah for a month? Well, it was easy enough to set up, but the experience afterwards has been less than ideal, which is a shame, because the post office [...]

Contrary to past tech-support posts, I’m asking you a question, rather than answering one. I have Comcast high-speed Internet service at my home. We recently moved, and so I called Comcast to transfer the service to the new address, which happens to be about 100 feet away from the old one. Of course Comcast wasn’t [...]

I have Comcast’s business Internet service, and I love it. I can’t remember ever having an issue with it. I have 8-10 mbps down, and 1 mbps up for $160 per month. The problem is I’m not supposed to have that. You see, I called in two months ago and downgraded to their 6-8 mbps [...]

I’ve had our office’s Internet connectivity provided by Comcast’s business services division for about a year now and I love it. It’s less than $200 per month and speeds average between 6-8mbps down and are always 1mbps up. It’s hard to beat. However, I recently tried to change my billing address, and that was a [...]

We recently switched our corporate email to a hosted Exchange solution from AppRiver. It happens to be down right now (which is why I have time to blog), but this is still a positive review. Frankly, getting this Exchange server from AppRiver and having their spam filtering is one of the best things we’ve ever [...]

I started my first blog, this one, with MovableType. To be honest it was kind of a pain to learn all the ins and outs of how to customize MT and get it to work the way I wanted, but once I learned, it was easy to set up other blogs on the same platform. [...]

Believe it or not, I like to use outdated technology. Why? Because it’s good enough for what I do. My cellphone is a free Nokia giveaway that I’ve had for three years. I’ve been using Outlook Express for years rather than converting to Outlook. But enough is no longer enough, and I’m converting. This week [...]

My last post told you how to register a domain name for your website. But a domain name, URL, or website address isn’t a website any more than a street address is a piece of property. If your domain name is a street address in a phone book and your website is a house then [...]

I recently downloaded iTunes 7.0.2 for Windows XP because I got a new iPod and in order to use it you have to have 7.0.2. That was a few days ago. Yesterday iTunes started freezing up within ten seconds of starting, and although whatever was playing on it would continue playing, I couldn’t access the [...]

Do you know what digg and del.icio.us are? If not, you’re like I was a few months ago, and you might be confused by the links/buttons on this site that say “digg it!” or “add to del.icio.us.”

I am not against open-source. I am not a Microsoft evangelist. I am in favor of using logic and rational thought when approaching business challenges that require a technological solution. This post is in response to the quasi-religious fervor I’ve observed for many years related to the open source movement and some of the misinformation [...]

If you aren’t aware that ColdFusion has a problematic future, then here’s another nail in the coffin in the form of an article entitled ColdFusion Job Opportunities Going Inert I have nothing against ColdFusion. It might be the greatest thing ever. However, it just hasn’t caught on, and nothing I’ve seen in the past six [...]