I have to be honest, as most of you know already I am no fan of Microsoft. I also have absolutely no interest in the Zune. However, this evening I have opened up my trustworthy Mac mail account to find this:

Dear Sir,

Glad to tell you we have one new model for the moment.

With
capacity 1GB/ 2GB/ 4GB
2.4 inch TFT 262K color screen
whole metal housing
built-in speaker on the back
built-in FM radio
built-in game
support Mini SD Card
support AVI format video
support MP3,WMA,WAV format audio
suppot JPG,GIF,BMP format image
support TXT format E-book
support 16 languages
super thin shape 83×48×10 mm
weight: 48 g

Attached pls find the picture to your reference.

The minimal quantity order is 100 pieces, and the sample order is avaliable
here, but you need to bear the sample fees–1 USD/PC.

We ensure you the orginal Samsung IC and the best Philip Chipset. The
warranty is 1 year.

Should you have any interests with our goods, pls feel free to contact us.
If possible, pls tell us the capacity and quantity, so that we can give you
the best price.

Any questions, pls tell us,tks!

We are waiting for your kind reply.

Best regards.

Jenny

Now, maybe I’m missing something here…. but I get the impression that they were somewhat “inspired” by Microsoft?The only thing that gets me is why?

I mean, why would you rip off a completely useless product?

I can understand why they would rip off the iPhone and the others on the long list of gadgets. I’ll leave you guys with some more pictures of this sleek, sexy audio gadget… rarhhh!

Don’t get greedy now I’m sure there’s one for everyone!

At the moment I am preparing for my MCSA/MCSE on Windows Server 2003. I’ve started with getting ready for the 70-270 exam, its not a bad idea to start with the basics.

It really does just go to show how experienced XP users can sometimes miss some of the features in there! I think quality is more important than quantity and I would advise that you learn what you need to know and then get to know it well. Become comfortable with the different aspects of one subject before rushing onto the next.

I’m currently reading two books for this exam. Of course, the two books do cross over each other at certain points but it does give you the advantage of seeing things from two different sides believe it or not. The books that I am using are:

MCSA/MCSE Windows XP Professional Study Guide: Exam (70-270) - from the popular “Sybex” series.

and

MCSA/MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit(Exam 70-270) Installing - Configuring & Administering MS Windows XP Pro, SE - self-training course - from Microsoft press.

I’ve found that if you are having trouble understanding something from one book, you can find a more in-dept explanation in the other.

I don’t think this exam should take too long to prepare for, it is fairly straight forward for anyone that happens to be “tech minded” in any way.

Here are a list of resources that I found useful:

http://www.certforums.co.uk
A great starting point if you have any questions on any of the latest IT Certifications. It covers everything form Cisco CCNA to Microsoft MCSE.

http://www.mcmcse.com
Includes some free practice exams when you feel like your ready to take them and some video training resources.

http://www.course.com
A pretty useful site if you have any questions or need any help if you encounter problems with anything.

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OK, so you have heard me ranting about vmware already and as you’ve guessed I think it’s great! In my opinion vmware is THE future in virtualization.

For the web developers and even web designers that are looking to setup a testing server at home I have got an ideal solution for you. I’m sure most of you are familiar with LAMP. Well, if not LAMP is a popular stack, a web server setup made up of open-source software. What does it stand for?

L - Linux

A - Apache Web Server

M - MySQL

P - PHP

Great so you know what LAMP is and you want to set up a testing server? Well, I’m about to make a few suggestions about the easiest way to go about this. I don’t know about you guys but I had a few problems setting up the LAMP configuration myself. So, I went over to the vmware marketplace website and downloaded a free pre-configured virtual machine with LAMP installed! What more could you ask for?

And remember because it is a virtual machine it can have its own IP address on the network for testing purposes. For security reasons you have the option to setup the virtual machine so that it can only be connected and recognised within the host system if you want!

The flavour that I tried out was the average LAMP appliance here.

Everything worked like a dream for me. If your not completely confident with this one you can try a variation called “Grandma’s LAMP” - They claim that it’s “A LAMP Appliance that even your Grandma can use!” you can find it here.

Why go to the bother when you can have it up and running quickly in a matter of minutes?

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OK, attending the Irish Microsoft Technologies Conference sparked an interest in Cardspace and how exactly it works. I still don’t quite know it inside out obviously but, I do think that it is definitely worth taking a closer look at.

I’m sure most of you have more than about 10 accounts with various websites on the Internet, correct?

I would also bet money on it that the majority of you use the same password for all of these accounts?

Have you ever asked yourself where your details (e.g. Username, Password, Name, Address, Phone Number, E-mail address etc.) go when you create an account or login to one of these websites?

Well, alot of websites (but not all of course) store this information in a database on a server, say for example an Oracle or SQL database (just imagine for the use of this example). Now, what happens if the owner of the site, or an outside source (a hacker) decides to use these details?

“Not Much” I hear you say

WRONG!

Firstly, there are the issues of SPAM and Identity Fraud. Picture a database from “www.imaginary-website.com” which holds your information in a database. They now have your password, email address and username (presumably one which you commonly use), whats to stop them using it to login to various sites that you use like ebay, amazon, gmail, yahoo, wordpress?

Not much, I mean you submitted you information to this site because you trust the site right?

Then there is the issue of phishing. Is a site really the site that it says it is?

One of the examples that was given at IMTC was the user/website model where the website/service was in the centre surrounded by you and your login details. One of the main goals of cardspace is to eventually change this model so that you have all these websites around the user. Imagine the user in the center surrounded by various sites like Amazon, Ebay and Worpress etc.

At this stage the only way that these sites are linked together is by you, the user. This would of course make your experience on the web safer, more secure and more private.

Now, how about you stand back and apply all of the above to CREDIT CARD DETAILS and other even more sensitive personal information?

For those of you that need an in-dept detail of cardspace, here are a few useful links for you to check out:

http://cardspace.netfx3.com/content/introduction.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_CardSpace

http://searchvb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,290660,sid8_gci1189854,00.html

Personally Cardspace or something similar is something that I would like to see have a strong presence on the web in the future. However, the roll-out and success of cardspace would be something huge for the web. There are many issues that would need to be agreed on and regulated and to be honest as much as I hate to say it I do not think that it will be a success.

As the saying goes “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, we have average home users that are stuck to their old ways. Ultimately I guess, it would be down to them whether they wanted to take advantage of it or not.

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After a few weeks of pondering I really am starting to wonder should I take the Database route in my learning?

I’m definatley very interested in it, but I don’t want to take a route that is not going to pay off in the long run. Working with Databases for desktop and web applications is something that interests me.

Is the IT industry over saturated with Oracle specialists?

Is it profitable?

At the moment I am preparing for my MCSE on Windows Server 2003 so as soon as I can get that out of the way I can start to focus on some sort of Database. Although, I am considering taking the SQL server path for the MCSE.

Oracle does however seem to be more stable and offer solutions for more complex situations.

Anyone out there able to advise?

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This week, the internet wonder Google moved in on new teritory. Google will be providing E-mail solutions for Universities, a clever marketing move if you ask me!

The idea is that Google will be providing the e-mail solutions while the E-mail addresses and domain names remain the same. Obviously Google will be hoping that after college students will keep the e-mail address and continue to use it.

This week saw the implementation of such a system at Trinity College Dublin (just next door to me).

So, any of you guys currently using it, do drop me a line and let me know what its like!

Screenshots appreciated!

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There was a time when developers had to go to the expense of buying many different boxes for Linux, Solaris, Mac OS, Windows etc. Oh how things have changed! Thanks to vmware I have been able to set-up a my own home testing lab in my fairly small apartment in temple bar using only one box!

VMWARE is just unbelievable, giving you the ability to run several virtual machines from one box. My personal setup includes RedHat, Ubuntu Server, Windows Server 2000 & 2003 , Vista and XP.

At first I thought …. OK, maybe it can do this but with a substantial loss in performance and reliability. How wrong was I!

Aswel as all of the above, it is just so easy to use. The GUI is great, stepping you through the process of setting up new virtual machine it’ll have you up and running in no time. You really do have to see it to believe it!

Best of all, it’s free!

www.vmware.com

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So, how many of you went to the IMTC?

A quick run over it for you guys that weren’t there.

I was pretty impressed with the first talk of the day by Tim Sneath on

• “Rich Web Experiences with Silverlight and JavaScript for Developers”

Wow, I mean…. I heard of it and sure, its not cutting edge technology. But think of how easy this can make rich web applications! Its something that I never really would have considered but I have to admit that his “semi-marketing-you-don’t-need-a-mac like tone won me over.

The great thing about silverlight is the lightweight implementation. Consider similar things in Flash and Shockwave! It’s definitely somethng I’ll be using in the future.

• The second talk I attended was by Carrie Longson on ” Designing Ultimate Experiences with Expression Studio”

Expression studio definitely made an impact. I think that more and more people are starting to break away from the stereotypical “Adobe” designer model. It was a simple demonstration, but it did illustrate exactly how you can do so much with it with so little time. - This was not one for developers!

• I was very impressed by what Dominick Baier had to say about implementing Cardspace in his talk: “Forget Passwords! Implementing CardSpace in Web Apps & Services”

I can’t help but wonder more and more about this. Will Kerberos rendered completely useless sometime in the future? Whats next for Authentication?

One things for sure, its time for change and Cardspace is only the beginning.

• Last but certainly not least I found Barry Dorrans’ example of “Hacking Websites for Fun and Profit” Hilarious!

He is one funny f*cker!

I think he could of touched on a broader range of hacking methods though.
Basic SQL injection, Cookie Editing and Session Hijacking were among the topics.

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Yes!

If you haven’t heard already, I’m going to it. I can’t wait, looking forward to the dancing robots…. or eh, I mean the Ajax stuff.

So anyway… for those of you that don’t know about it:

The IMTC is organised by MTUG.ie (Microsoft Technology User Groups in Ireland) - an event by the community for the Irish tech community. With 18 expert tech sessions to choose from, covering a breadth of Microsoft technologies, this is one tech conference you can’t afford to miss!

I think it should be interesting. There was one last year but it was called the Irish Microsoft dot.NET developers conference, they changed the name because of the broad range of technologies that will be demonstrated.

If you decide to attend you will get asked to choose six lectures to attend, so that you can make the best of your time.

You can check out the website at http://imtc.firstport.ie/

See ya there!

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This is just unbelievable. An impressive display of what a little bit of commitment, alot of time and a copy of Adobe Photoshop can teach you! Unfortunately we don’t all catch the bug so fast. Enjoy!

There are so many blogs out there that are recommending and listing the coolest, hottest, most expensive gadgets of all time. Telling you - the reader what they are.

Well I think that it’s time to turn it around. I’m looking for you guys to tell me what, in your eyes is the ultimate gadget of all time. So c’mon guys, get posting and check back soon for the results!

Maybe we’ll uncover something new!

So, you’ve got that shiny new iMac or maybe its a Macbook… either way, I am going to show you how you can improve it. From being more productive to optimizing performance, you’ll find it here!

• Run a Maintenance Utility - So things are starting to slow down in your part of town, hey? If you are starting to find that your Mac is loosing performance, getting slow, sluggish and just doesn’t bite as much as it use to the best Idea is to run a tool like Cocktail for Mac. Cocktail will help you optimize you mac for maximum efficiency when you need it the most. From repairing disk permissions to deleting locked items. You can even schedule Cocktail to run at a time that suits you best.

• Use Quicksilver to its full advantage! - If you don’t have it already chances are you have heard of it. Quicksilver is an unbelievably fast application launcher for you mac. It macs me wonder why it doesn’t come integrated with MAC OS X. Download it here.

• Protect your mac with a cool bag - The new range of ACME Laptop Bags really caught my eye. Very unusual and tastefully original. You can surf on over that way by clicking here.

• Max out your ram….. Yourself! - Rather than spending a fortune buying RAM from Apple. It’s cheaper to buy your MAC with the default RAM configuration from Apple and check out sites like Crucial and Newegg for RAM at cheap prices. Full details for RAM installation can be found on the Apple website and believe me it is surprisingly easy, even if you’ve never tried something like this before. You can save more than you’d expect by doing this.

• Run Multiple Operating Systems - I would recommend using software such as vmware to run multiple operating systems side by side on your mac. From XP to Vista to Server 2003 to Linux… this little aby can do them all. It really is a great piece of software and an unbelievable advance in technology. It can also prove to be very useful in a testing environment.

Feel free to post a comment and recommend some Apps that some of us may not have discovered yet.

Till next time… Think Different! …. Wait a minute…. I never use sad punchlines. Do I?

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Over the past few months I have seen this site grow and develop an ever increasing fanbase, a long list of regular readers and a growth in new readers everyday. This article is based the most important factor to the success of a website on the internet and is intended to guide my readers in search engine optimization. I’d love to hear some feedback from you guys on this one. Enjoy the article!

The title tag of a HTML or similar web document is very important to how your website will be found using search engines. My advice would be that it is best to keep things simple and more to the point, only use features you need. Do you really need Flash and Javascript? If yes, then use them. If you don’t need them, don’t over complicate the search engine optimization process by using them. They can pull you down in the long run especially if they are not essential to your site.

• The title tag is in fact the most important piece of information for search engine users.
• It is always a good idea to keep your title tag short, generally speaking it would be wise to keep it between 5 to 10 words.

The less HTML code that you have, the better. This will make it easier to search your content. Clean, quality HTML is essential for good results. You don’t want to slow down your pages with non-essential code. Some search engines don’t warm to pages over a certain size, say perhaps 80-100Kb.

I tend not to use Flash pages. As you can imagine, Flash can really have a negative effect your rankings in search engines.

Do you NEED a static website or a dynamic website? Ask yourself which one of these do you need? Is a dynamic site essential? You don’t need a dynamic website unless you are for example a holiday booking site where users can query a database about available holidays. If you don’t need such functions keep it static.

Make sure that you use alternative text for images. Search engines will pick up on this.

Good organization of content-

Take this concept as an example: take a fictional website called “xyz.com” with an integrated search engine. You proceed to search the site using the keyword “Green Shoes” as you are looking for a pair of green trainers that you had seen on the site a few months ago. The results are poor and aren’t much related to your search terms.

Now go to Google.com and use the search keywords “Green Shows XYZ.com”. More than likely you will find that Google will return with te search result that you are in fact looking for.

Lets stand back from the whole thing for a minute. Ask yourself what is the one main difference here?

The main difference here is organization. Most people get carried away with “Search” , after all that is what they are trying to do. They are trying to search for something.

Enter Google! The importance of the organization of content is heavily reflected in the success of Google. I can’t stress it enough: If content is organized well it is easy to find!

This of course is common sense which, unfortunately many people forget to apply to real life situations.

Think about it. Which is easier to search through? A stack of papers on your desk or a well organized filing cabinet? I think we all know the answer to that one!

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After posting the first part of this article I have received many emails in the last week asking when the next part of the series would be up. Well here you go!

Over the past week I have tried to test out a few new free applications that I have not used before. Some of which are for professional user, some for home use and even some that will increase your productivity on the road. I would love to include more, but here are some of my favorites!

NAGIOS

The first application that I must mention is Nagios.

Nagios is a tool for system administrators which will help you to keep your network up and running in a healthy state. The application itself will notify you of even the slightest problem immediately with a host, network or server. One of the great benefits of this is that it will notify you before anyone else (including your boss) notices the problem!

The interface itself is web based, very straight forward and intuitive from an application point of view. The ease of usability I think plays a big part towards its popularity.

If you work in IT or if you are a network administrator I urge you to try Nagios. Once you try it you will never look back!

Have many of you had problems with nasty spyware and adware applications on your computer? Maybe your computer has slowed dramatically over a short period of time for a no apparent reason? Do you applications fail to respond?

Spyware is effecting more and more users on the Internet everyday and it is important to protect your computer from it. Probably the most concerning thing about spyware is the fact that personal information is recorded without your permission using methods that often employ keystroke loggers, recording information from your hard drive and often keeping a record of your Internet browsing history.

The spread of spyware has led to the development of an entire anti-spyware industry. But of course, there is no need to pay for an anti-spyware solution. Many of the best anti-spyware solutions are out there on the web for free.

What you need is Spybot Search and Destroy!

Spybot Search and Destroy

Spybot S&D is an applications which can help protect you from spyware. It detects and removes new threats that are commonly not identified by similar applications. I myself have been using spybot for years now and I rely on it very heavily to keep my systems spyware free.

Spybot-S&D can also clean usage tracks, an interesting function if you share your computer with other users and don’t want them to see what you have been working on. And for professional users, Spybot-S&D allows you to fix some registry inconsistencies and extended reports.

There is no application in this field out there that I could recommend more. If you don’t have Spybot S&D already, get it now! Some of you may be surprised with the results that it will return about your system.

RAM MEDIC

OK, so I guess I am assuming that if you are reading this article then you do know what RAM is. If not, here is a definition from Wiki.

Alright, I wont babble on long about this application.It does pretty much what is says on the tin. RAM Medic is a utility to free up more ram on your system, in turn giving you better performance.

You programs tend to slow down if your system is low on memory.

RAM Medic uses a highly intelligent engine to scan your computer and free up unused memory and eliminate memory leaks. Having more free memory will give you better performance and reduce the risk of a system crash.

RAM medic is a great idea for both newer and older machines.

Most importantly, like the other applications in this article its free!

You can download it from here.

I would love to hear from my readers about free applications that they use or would recommend so feel free to post a comment!

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Its been a while now since a hardware upgrade to any of the Apple computers. Sure, there has been the mention of the iPhone. The AppleTV has even got alot of attention.

What I’m really interested in though is the mention of these new-look iMacs that are to debut at WWDC. The last update to the current iMac product line was when the 24″ was added and that has been a while, so it wont be a suprise to see an update coming soon.

Changes I am expecting in the iMac update:

• An option to have black rather than the traditional Apple white.
• More storage options
• Increase in the default RAM configuration
• Perhaps a slimer, smaller look (well if they are going to be “new-look” this is the only thing I can see Apple doing.

I would love to see the addition of more display options to the line, screen size would be great for sure. I wonder will they go any bigger than 24″ ?

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I had seen some of videos on the net about World of Warcraft, and I decided that I would go ahead and download it. I want to the WoW site and signed up for the 10 day free trial and continued to get the “Blizzard Downloader” - an application which downloads WoW onto your computer.

After 2 Hours of downloading I was getting nowhere and after a little research I discovered the problem.

The Blizzard Downloader needed to have the ports forwarded in order to work properly.

How do I do that I asked? I hadn’t a clue, lucky for me I came across some very helpful links and information about exactly how to go about the process.

There are two steps in the process:

1) Obtaining a static IP address.

2) Configuring your router to the specific base port and also forward the relevant ports in order to work.

I know what your thinking! “This sounds like a long, complicated, boring process”. Its not really, here is one of the most useful links that I found:

www.portforward.com

The site list instructions on how to obtain the IP address that you need and forward ports. Better still, the site goes into great detail. Everything on the site is “Product Specific”, all instructions are for your specific hardware and there is also “Software Specific” instructions for forwarding the right ports. This can come in very useful when setting up some games & applications for online abilities.

A useful one for your bookmarks!

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I’m not the type to agree with a salesperson if they point to “Norton Internet Security” when you are buying a new PC and say “you really need this”. How about you?

In fact, there are many reasons why you should consider using a lot of the free and open source applications available on the Internet today. So, I have decided that this will be the first in a series of posts that I will be making every Thursday over the next few weeks about free software alternatives.

“Why?” I hear you ask. Well, for one thing you can keep your money in your pocket but, for me it isn’t about that. I like to support open source communities and software, it encourages education, creativity, competitiveness and you could learn so much in the process.

Hopefully I can manage to sway your opinion just a little, here are a few of my favorite free and open source applications that I run and use everyday.

Firefox - well the majority of you know of it or have heard of it. Maybe some of you are using it right now to read this post? Firefox by Mozilla is a great web browser with so much more to offer than other such as IE, Netscape and Opera. Firefox is of course open source, and as a result it has become so much more expandable over time than other browsers. There are so many plug-ins, themes and addons available for Firefox for just about everything from skinning your Gmail to Saving bookmarks, there is something for everyone for productivity and play.

Firefox is generally more secure and responsive than the traditional MS Internet Explorer for Windows users. Definitely worth a download! You should give it a go and I promise that once you go there you will never change back!

AVG Free - Anti-virus, AVG has been around for quiet a while now and of course there are paid versions of the product. I always use AVG free, it has proven to be very reliable and as far as I know it hasn’t let anything slip by just yet! It’s a great alternative to the likes of Symantec or McAfee and saves you money while being just as effective in the area.

OpenOffice - is a serious competitor as an Office Applications suite. Some PC’s are starting to come with this pre-installed, a sign of its popularity and quality. I actually prefer OpenOffice to MS Office as crazy as some of you may think that sounds!

Filezilla - is an FTP client. I find it great, and I have used it since my days at college studying Web design. It has never given me any problems, very reliable and a great user interface which is easy to understand and use. If you upload/download files regularly using FTP you should give this a go!

It would be great to get some feedback about your thoughts on this and maybe even suggest some software that you use? Feel free to contribute and I’ll be posting more on this topic next week.

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