Is free really free? Or what is the price of free?

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I came across some great examples of ‘free’ services that I would avoid like the plague. “Create free forms online“, “Schedule your appointments online“, and over 10 more of the same kind of ‘free online services’ are listed at the bottom of these pages. Why should you pass up a free service? Look at the site(s) more closely:

  1. Site Design: Seems slapped together without much professional care
  2. Contact Us: No real contact information, except an generic email address: info@…

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Print out those important contacts! Why paper still has its place...

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Jack L. Warner's Address Book
We’ve had some (over 14) violent wind storms around here, a lot of damage, houses struck with by trees, trees uprooted, an ancient huge eagles’ nest lost when the tree it was resting on snapped. And, of course the power went out, again and again. I was reminded that my emergency contact information was stuck on my computer when I was asked to put a message on the College website that the College would be closed. I had no way to get it out. Oh, I have a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), a Sony Clie,

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It’s wireless, why don’t I see the Internet? Or how does it all hang together?

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Wireless city concept
You got a shiny wireless notebook computer, booted it up and tried to get on the Internet and nothing! It’s wireless, so why doesn’t it work?

Not like the movies, eh? In movies people open a notebook computer absolutely anywhere (in the middle of a desert even) and are online in seconds, lightning fast, you never see a wire of any sort… then they save the world with a few key strokes… As I said, that’s ‘in movies’!

[Edited: Much has changed since this post was published. Wireless services are a lot more wide-spread and sophisticated, and we are using many more devices to connect. But I am still explaining to the older generation of friends how the basic premise of wireless connection works. For that reason I’ll leave this post here.]

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Digital photography online and off Learn with a great, un-boring book...

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It’s not a stretch to talk about Photography on a technical blog, I bet you are sharing your pictures with your friends and family, attaching them to email, or even putting them on a web page online. In an earlier post, I discussed the print resolution versus screen resolution; resolution however has not much to do with the quality of the picture.

I just got a book that was recommended by iStockphoto.com.

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Keyboard Shortcuts – Try Them Or the fast way to copy and paste...

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Keyboard shortcuts
Some things you can do faster by learning a few strategic keyboard shortcuts. Select something (a file, a word, a paragraph) and copy it, using [Ctrl]+[C]. Using these keys on your keyboard copies the object you selected to the clip board (to the computer memory, if you like) and it waits there. Then, when you are ready to paste the object somewhere else into your work

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