Where have I been?

For all (one or two) that actually read this blog may have noticed a drop off of posts here. Have I forgotten about computers? I think you could say I've caught a bit of spring fever. My attention goes to my other passion which is cars. My other blog has been quite busy over at Bob's Dream Car Garage. I haven't stopped being on the PC though. I've just been busy actually using it for everyday stuff like updating my Facebook, uploading car pictures to Flickr. Research for repairing an alternator repair stuff. I'll get back to the PC stuff I'm sure. Enjoy your weekend. I'm off to another car show in the morning...

Crossloop Marketplace

The remote access service from Crossloop.com just added a new feature which allows you market yourself and your skills. It's called (aptly enough) Crossloop Marketplace. It allows you to set up a profile in which you can describe yourself, your expertise and set your rates. If you need help you can search for people in what you need help in. For a limited time Crossloop will even give leads to follow up on. A nice way to share your knowledge and maybe make extra few bucks for doing so.

Click on screenshot to see my profile(and horrible photo).

I'm in touch by 01 Communique

This is another remote access program that I thought I'd give a try. It is called I'm in Touch by 01 Communique. It basically gives you access to your PC from any remote location from a PC,laptop, PDA, pocket PC, Blackberry, Treo or cellphone. You can even check your email remotely (Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express recommended). Also you can transfer files and invite other users online for presentations. If only it made my coffee remotely. Just kidding.

Setup up was simple enough where you input your user name and password for your host PC. Installing it doesn't take to long and I was ready to go. To access your PC you login at the I'm in Touch website. It downloads a remote viewer program(small application quickly loads) and your connected. You'll only see a small "Im in touch" link at the top of your screen. Hover over it and it gives you a drop down bar which will give you options such as file transfer etc. One thing that was nice that I didn't notice much slowdown on the remote PC as far as performance. That was significant because it was an older PC using Windows 2000. To be honest I didn't a tremendous amount of time on it but I liked it enough that I'll use it again in the future.

If your looking for a simple remote access program you may give this a try. Setup seemed intuitive and so is using it. I do recommend it.

Review: LINKSKEY LKW-G553 IEEE 802.11b/g 32bit PCI Wireless Card

I purchased two wireless adapters recently to get two PC's I had lying around online. I finally got around to installing them and had mixed results. I got them from NewEgg at a decent price. No complaint so far. One of the reasons I bought was that it advertised as compatible with both Windows 2000 and ME which was what I needed it for.

Windows 2000 Professional: My first installation was pretty much simple as installations go. First you install software and drivers. Shut the machine down. Install wireless card. Reboot PC. Once machine is booted up configure your wireless connection. I was online in about fifteen minutes. I was a happy camper.

Windows ME: This one didn't go as well. Well when I went to install software it said it couldn't find the software drivers for my OS. On top of that the error message had obvious misspellings which I thought was odd and sloppy proofreading on the vendors part. I even tried downloading software from the LinksKey website when I reinstalled it did install a driver but it failed to work properly. When checking the properties I got a pretty much a useless code 10 error which didn't go into much detail. I'd click on the configuration software and the tabs needed to connect to my router were not working. After a short while I just took out the machine. I may or may not try at a later date. I just may put it in a different machine altogether.

Comments: Though I was happy it worked in one machine I wasn't happy with the other. Although with some searching and configuring I may be able to get this to work with my Windows ME machine. I don't think it should be this hard to install when it was advertised to work in this OS(Windows ME). I don't think the average consumer has time to fool with tech support for something that was advertised to work out of the box. Also the misspelled words on the error message I thought was a bit amateurish. To be honest I'll be avoiding this one in the future even if I have to spend a little more. Sometimes you just get what you pay for. Just my two cents.

Dude! I got wood!

Sorry I couldn't resist the title. Dell is actually going to be selling a PC made of bamboo wood and other recycled materials on the inside. Now I'm all for being "green" or other Al Gore type catch words. To tell you the truth I'm a little tired of all the advertising and marketing gimmicks from companies telling us how green or environmentally conscious they are. Though it's an interesting concept building a PC of wood(been done before by modders). It just strikes me as a marketing gimmick by Dell.

Source: Earth2tech

Get Back

Getback.com is a new social networking sight geared for those over 35. I saw this news item and it sounded interesting since I fit into the demographic(I guess I'm an old fart). Since technically the site just started today they've got a deluge of traffic because the site loaded as if I was on a dial-up modem. In other words slow and cumbersome. So be prepared to wait for pages to load. Maybe they figure us older folk have more patience. It seems interesting enough to get back (pun intended) to. It has the popular "beta" sticker so maybe they'll work on speeding up the site.

I did sign up for it which like I said took awhile to load pages. The design is friendly and has retro feel to them. I did find some interesting movie clips and music clips. It has a lot of "then and now" stuff and trivia items from pop culture from late 60's to the 80's. If your tired of Myspace, Facebook or just want try some thing different give it a try.