170 Spoons

Download Firefox 3 June 17, Break World Record

WHY? Looks like the best browser is about to get better.

Set a Guinness World Record, Enjoy a Better Web

Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours - it’s that easy. We’re not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.

The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 is June 17, 2008.

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Skype Best Practices

WHY? When you install Skype, there are some settings you should be aware of.

So you took my advice and installed Skype, did ya? Good! Let’s make sure it’s set up well for you so it won’t feel like it’s intrusive or a pain because it really doesn’t have to be!

General Settings

The very first thing I do after downloading Skype is to go into the settings and get a few things working the way I think it should. To get to these, open Skype then on the menu go to Tools then Options. A box should open with tabs on the left. You should be in the General Settings right now.

First thing I suggest you do is chose to “start a chat” when you double-click a contact. It is a pain if you accidentally double-click a name and it starts to dial. This way a chat box will open and the other person won’t be bothered.

Next you should decide if you want Skype to always be on or not. I usually keep it on so that others can connect with me. Therefore I have the box checked that tells it to start Skype when I turn on my computer.

Privacy Settings

The next tab allows you to make sure you are not bothered by people you don’t know.

I have mine set so that anyone can chat with me, but only my contacts can call me. I do this because I know that if they start a chat, I can always block them later. Now I feel more secure with these settings.

Advanced Settings

To me there really aren’t a lot of settings to be worried about in this section.

However, you may consider not allowing Skype to associate itself with callto: links on the web. If this is checked and you run across a link like that online, Skype will be used as your default phone. It’s up to you.

View Tabs and Panels

Skype comes with all sorts of nifty features they call “tabs and panels”. Most of them I don’t care about. To change what shows up in your main Skype window go to View, Tabs and Panels, and uncheck what you don’t want to show. I just have three tabs: Contacts, Call Phones, and History. And that’s all I ever really use.

Change Status

One last item you will find useful is at the top of your Skype window is to adjust your status from time to time. You can enter a statement that will let your contacts know what you are up to. You can also let people know if you need to not be bothered or not by clicking on the green checkmarked icon. You’ll see many choices of how to show your contacts if this is a bad time or not to contact you.

Bonus tip: Do you twitter (I’m not explaining that yet — later) on a PC? You can have twitter updates automatically update your Skype status with Twype.

Text Chat First

One last best practice I’d like to share is if you want to use voice or video talking with someone, send them a chat message first like “can you voice chat”? Sometimes I don’t have my microphone plugged in and it can feel like a stress with Skype ringing while you rustle for your equipment. Just send a text first. Everyone appreciates it! It’s also nice to have that text window open while voice chatting to send the other person (or people in a conference call) notes or web addresses.

What are some of your best practices and/or settings that you have found useful? Happy Skyping!

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Use Your Computer To Talk With Others

WHY? It’s cheap, often free, and can save you a lot of money.

Several years ago we stopped paying our phone company for local and long distance. It was just too expensive. But we kept our phone number so there was no hassle for anyone. We did it by switching to an internet-based phone service. Soon, we may even drop that.

Switching to Internet-based Telephone

There is a technology called Voice-Over IP (VoIP). All that really means for us is that we can use an always-on internet connection to talk with people. The cool thing is that you can, if you want, still use your telephone.

The first step we took was to switch to using Vonage in 2005. They offer two plans: $25/mth for unlimited calls or $15/mth for 500 minutes (we are using the $15/mth plan now). They offer everything (and maybe more) than our local phone company and their International rates are MUCH cheaper. For us it was all about getting the same service and more for much less — and yes, we use our normal phones with this service. We can track all of our calling history online and even have voice mail emailed to us (which comes in handy when traveling). There are other VoIP offers out there so just look around. If you want a referral to Vonage, let me know and we’ll both get a month or two of free service. But do it soon because we may be…

Dropping Land Lines All Together

Recently both my wife and I got new mobile phones and plans. We got a phone plan that allows us to share 800 minutes (rollover) National minutes. It was the cheapest/best deal for us. I know many people now have these kinds of plans and we are now realizing we have less need for a land line at all if we just use our mobile phones. We can be mobile and always in touch. But there is another tool we are using on occasion for talking to people that is very cost effective…

Text Chat, Voice Talk, or Video Talk for Free

Skype is a small program you download on your computer to communicate with others. It’s really amazing. We’ve been using it for several years and I am sold on it and it’s free for most of our usage.

It works like an Instant Messenger program. You add your family and friends to your contact list and then type text chats to each other. You can also create a chat room with a few contacts at the same time. We use the text chatting all the time with people around the world — and often with each other when we’re across the house (instead of shouting)!

Skype is also a VoIP program which means you can also voice chat (or video chat) with your contacts for free. And yes, you can have a voice conference call. I used this feature this week for a meeting with 3 others in Canada. Last year we used it to plan an International conference. Since they have Skype it was all free. When we were visiting our friends in Alaska, I set them up on Skype, they got a web camera, then called their family and got them on Skype and a web cam. It was awesome seeing the Grandparents in North Carolina seeing and talking to their Grandchildren in Alaska (and did I mention this service cost them nothing?)!

If you want to call someone using Skype and they don’t have Skype, you can still do that by calling their phone number. This is when you pay, but still it is dirt cheap (right now it’s $3/mth for unlimited US/Canada calls, $10/mth International).

Though the service is free, you’ll need to make sure you have a couple things first:

• For text chatting and best results have Broadband Internet
• For voice talking have a microphone & speakers or get a headset
• For video calls get a web camera that includes a microphone (and of course speakers)

I know I just gave you a lot to ponder so if you have any questions leave a comment or contact me! I’ve taught many people how to use Skype and love it. Later I’ll create a “Skype best practices” post. Leave a comment if you have some and I’ll compile them.

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Shop Online, Pickup in 24 Minutes at Circuit City

WHY? Sometimes you need an electronic now, but want to research online first.

I’m back from vacation and getting back into the swing of things. I still have a lot of tips, tools, and tutorials to share with you in the coming weeks so lets hop back into it!

Today I’m actually going to share with you a simple little tip that was the inspiration for this blog.

One day my wife and I were driving past our local Circuit City store. As we went by I just happened to mention to her, “Did you know you can buy something at circuitcity.com and pick it up within half an hour?”

“Really? See, you should blog about stuff like that! That’s pretty cool. I didn’t know that and I bet others would like to know too,” she replied.

That began the process of starting this site. And yes, it’s true you can make a purchase online and it will be ready for pickup in 24 minutes guaranteed (or you get a gift card worth $24).

I took them up on this deal once. I needed a web camera for a Monday video chat. It was Sunday afternoon and I didn’t own a web-cam. Normally I go to Amazon.com and look around, but there was no time for shipping. Instead I went to Circuit City’s site, found an inexpensive but decent web-cam, and it was ready for me when I got there about 30 minutes later.

To be clear, I’m not endorsing Circuit City over any other retailer. I’m just sayin…that’s a pretty sweet deal if you have one near you.

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Organized Bookmarks for Vacation

WHY? I’m leaving for vacation today but have found some websites I want to access while traveling.

I am going on vacation with my wife today to Alaska! We cashed in frequent flier miles and are staying with friends who live in Anchorage. We’ve tried to do this trip before but it didn’t work out. We leave Tuesday for just over a week.

I really haven’t scheduled any tips for while I’m gone so I wanted to set that expectation. However, it is possible I’ll post one or two while traveling anyway! This is another great reason to subscribe to this site so that you’ll be notified if and when something new goes up!

Now the personal stuff is out of the way, I wanted to share this little tool that I’ve been using for years. It’s a website with a strange web address: http://del.icio.us (pronounced like the word “delicious”).

Delicious is a social bookmarking website. It’s very similar to saving websites in your browser favorites/bookmarks, but instead all the sites you save are online in your account. Now I realize there are sites that you may want to bookmark and not share. I have them also and I use my browser to save them.

However, there are a couple of advantages to having your bookmarks online:

• Access them from any computer with Internet access
• Organize them quickly by tagging them with relevant keywords
• Place descriptions for bookmarked sites when appropriate
• Quickly search your bookmarks
• Make your bookmarks available to others
• See what others find interesting
• View only your bookmarks from a particular tag

Let me show you what I mean by this. You can see my bookmarks at del.icio.us/orangejack. Since we’re going on vacation to Alaska, there are a few sites I wanted to save for my trip. They are all tagged “alaska“. Now if I need to access my bookmarks from any computer with Internet it will be a snap.

I use del.icio.us tags for all sorts of ongoing lists such as my wishlist, good free software, and travel in general. Think of it as a link-blog using tags (even multiple tags per bookmark) to organize them as the most recent bookmark is always at the top.

Have fun organizing your bookmarks online. There are other social bookmarking sites but I’ve been so happy with del.icio.us that I’ve not changed in about 4 years.

How have you used social or online bookmarking to help you?

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eNewsletter seven - PDF Printers and Camera Phones

Welcome back for week seven of our weekly eNewsletter summary. This week has been fun at 170spoons as we’ve had some good conversations on the two main posts. We also had a little “spoon humor” and a tip about reading the email version.

Now on to the meat of the week!

Make Your Default Printer a PDF Writer

This is a tip I learned several years ago and have used it ever since. Ever accidentally press the print button and a paper page starts to print? Ever want to create PDF files for free? That’s where this tip comes in. There are free PDF writers available and if you set it to be your default printer, then if you press the print button, a file is created instead of paper being wasted. I guess in honor of Earth Day this week, this is a green tip!

Use The Camera on Your Phone Creatively

Most cell phones that have come out in the last 3 years have a camera on it. So chances are you have one. Obviously you can use it to take photos of people, but there are some other nifty tips you can use it for. For instance, I never remember my license plate number. So I snapped a photo of it and it’s stored away on my phone. I can look it up any time. There’s plenty more tips — and be sure to check out the comments as a few people have added to the list!

As always, I really appreciate you visiting and subscribing to 170spoons.com. If you feel this site could be of use to others, please share it! If you’d like to subscribe to the weekly eNewsletter summary itself, please sign up here.

~ Rob Williams
170spoons.com

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Receiving 170spoons.com Emails

If you are one of many who receive updates from 170spoons.com in an email, you will get something that looks a bit like this at the top:

I wanted to point out that if, for any reason, the email comes in a bit garbled, funky, or dorked up, you are still able to read the email in a clean format.  At the top of the email is the title of that particular article. That title is a link to the article online.

For example, in the screenshot above, clicking on the title “Make Your Default Printer a PDF Writer” will take you directly to the article online.

If you are not receiving the latest “spoons” via email and would like to, you have two options:

1. Receive an update the day after one is posted
2. Receive a weekend eNewsletter recap

Thanks.

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Use The Camera on Your Phone Creatively

WHY? There are more uses for your camera phone than just taking photos for fun.

You may have a camera on your cell phone. Do you use it? Here are some creative ideas for using the camera on your cell phone:

• Take a photo of friends and contacts (or logos) and associate them with the appropriate contact in your address book
• Take a photo of a product in a store you want to research online later
• Take a photo of a product in your home you want to buy at the store
• Take a photo of your parking lot name (like at a mall or theme park)
• Take photos of card numbers when you don’t need the card itself (like frequent flier miles cards)
• Take a photo of your license plate (I can never remember my plate number)
• Take a photo and publish it to a photo-sharing website like Flickr.com

Can you think of other creative uses for your camera phone?

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Make Your Default Printer a PDF Writer

WHY? You can make free PDF documents faster by making it your default printer.

PDF files are the files that you usually use Adobe Acrobat Reader to view. A PDF document is nice because it’s almost like a screen shot but better.

Unfortunately the ability to create a PDF file probably isn’t already installed for you. But don’t worry, it’s very easy to do. There are several options available. Some are expensive and some are free. So let’s talk about one of the free ones I use.

Install Free PDF Writer
The program I’ve used for a while is PDFCreator. However, lately it hasn’t been as reliable and I’m not sure why. I’ve recently switched to CutePDF Writer. Simply go to the CutePDF Writer download page and, well, download it! Double-click the .exe file and let it go. Note: You may need to download the converter file but when I installed CutePDF, I didn’t need to.

Set PDF Writer as Default Printer
If you make your PDF writer your default printer, when you are in just about any program and click the Print icon, a PDF file will be created instead of printing on paper.

In order to create a PDF file, you actually “print”. In other words, once installed, CutePDF Writer is one of your printer options when you try to print. With PDF files, you don’t “save” the file, you “print” just like a normal printer.

To set it as your default printer first go to your list of printers (click Start, then Printers in the menu). When you see your printers, right-click CutePDF Writer and chose “Set as default printer”.

I like this better because if I accidently click Print I don’t waste paper — I can just delete the file. Also, there are some programs that check to make sure the default printer is installed any time you just hover over the Print icon. When this happens, I have had experience when on a network my computer slows down to check the network for the printer.

View PDF Files Quickly
As mentioned earlier, you need a PDF reader to read a PDF. Adobe Acrobat Reader is the most popular. But let me tell you, that program is slow! There are other programs that run much faster and are just as good.

For instance, I use Foxit Reader and love it. There are plenty others so feel free to try out something faster than Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Other PDF Writer Options
Now, this is a bit different but there are some online ways to create PDF files. One is to upload a file and it will email you the PDF. If you use Google Docs (a topic for another time) you can export as a PDF. If you use Open Office (another later topic) you can print as a PDF without another program.

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Spoon Humor from Real Products

Sometimes it’s just fun to have, well, a little fun around here.  I’ve got a couple options for you:

• A bowl for your spoon
• No spoon needed

What is your pick?

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eNewsletter six - Clocks, Wet Cellphones, and DVRs

If you are thinking, “Hey, I didn’t get the 170spoons.com eNewsletter last week. What happened?”

To you I say, “Oops. Sorry.”

My plan is to be able to send these eNewsletters on the weekends, hopefully every week. But sometimes I won’t be able to do it weekly. This week I’m making up for it highlighting four spoons since the last eNewsletter.

Know Your Time - And Theirs Too
It is important to know what time it is not just where you live but where others live if you are wanting to communicate with them. So I shared with you several options for having clocks on your computer and how to find out what time it is in other time zones.

How to Dry a Wet Cellphone or iPod
I hope you’ll never be in the situation where your iPod, cellphone, or any other electronic gets wet. However, it is always possible that you might get it wet or even soaked! Don’t fret. You have a fighting chance to save it if you follow a few rules for drying it out.

Extract an Image from PDF
Simple solution for a more common situation than expected - you need an image in a PDF document. So how do you get it out? I’ll show you.

Use a DVR to Watch TV on Your Time
Okay, this one was a bit of an indulgence for me but it is a technological spoon to make your entertainment more efficient!

Thanks for hanging out with 170spoons. I really appreciate it. If you are already receiving notifications for new posts or the eNewsletter, thank you — and share it with others! If you are not being automatically notified, please subscribe in order to stay on top of things.

~ Rob Williams
170spoons.com

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