Don's Roost

eBooks are Catching On

Sep

18

2009

Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, reports that sales of electronic copies of Dan Brown’s latest best seller “The Lost Symbol” are exceeding print copies. This announcement is obviously a promotion for both the book and Amazon’s book reading Kindle device. I don’t have a dedicated book reader, but I do have both a computer ...

Credit Cards and Money Manager Ex 12

Sep

17

2009

In an earlier article I demonstrated how to get started with Money Manager Ex, a versatile budgeting and checkbook managing software from Codelathe. I showed how to handle transactions involving “cash back”, that are a little less than obvious. This article will demonstrate a similar technique for handling credit card transactions. While I am using ...

Getting Started with Money Manager Ex 3

Sep

14

2009

While I have some knowledge of double entry accounting, GnuCash is simply too complex for managing a checkbook and performing simple budgeting. In June, I published a post on HomeBank criticizing its inability to support split categories. At that time I installed Money Manager Ex. For a few weeks I ran it side by side ...

Opera 10 is NOT Friendly to Bloggers 1

Sep

12

2009

Although Firefox is my preferred browser, it is wise to have another available. Sometimes items stop displaying correctly and switching to a different browser clarifies whether a problem is due to the browser or to the coding of the web page. Also, as a blogger, I want to see how my page appears in different ...

Help In Finding A Lost/Stolen Laptop

Sep

8

2009

No-IP provides a dynamic DNS service. When you connect to the Internet your ISP assigns an IP address to your computer (or router if use one). The technical term for the process is Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol usually abbreviated as DHCP. The easy way to determine your IP address is to visit a web page ...

Microsoft Launches Anti-Linux Campaign

Sep

7

2009

In October we will see the official releases of both Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) within days of each other. Microsoft’s Vista was a disaster. Analysts and critics seem to agree that Microsoft “just has to get it right” this time. As usual we should expect advertising from Microsoft claiming that the new ...

The WordPress Learning Curve

Sep

4

2009

I have several criteria in choosing the software I work with. Really good software should work “out of the box” and not require an instruction manual. It should be customizable (which may require some instruction) to meet the end user’s expectations and requirements. Finally, it should be free (gratis), and if it’s open source (libre), ...

Finding The Right Tool

Aug

29

2009

When I started this blog last December I had two goals in mind. First, I wanted to write about the topics that I am most interested (and knowledgeable) in. I wanted to review software, promote Linux, and help readers make good choices in their digital lives. I posted my first few articles to free blogging ...

Free Web Hosting (Sort Of) 1

Aug

27

2009

A few months ago (April) I published an article about the game of Dominoes. It was really really “off topic” for the computer related theme of this blog, but it reflects one of my many other interests and it needed to be posted somewhere. I could have posted it on wordpress.com but I doubt it ...

A Desktop In The Cloud 2

Aug

24

2009

In a previous post I discussed the forthcoming Google Chrome OS and mentioned that some of it was already here via various web applications such as Google Docs. In fact, Google has already provided a customizable browser start page called iGoogle. The start page can be populated numerous widgets so you can have clocks, calendars, ...

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