Welcome to the Thumbs Up Edition of my review of the week in tech – each week.

I’m picking out the things that I liked the most that I submitted via Twitter for you all to read. If you haven’t already seen my Twitter feed of tech tips add me @aholesgrove or have a look at http://twitter.com/aholesgrove and subscribe to the RSS feed of my tweets.

This week in Thumbs Up I found a couple of fantastic little handy apps and some surprising news about the uptake of Windows 7.  Check it out below:

• Why couldn’t someone release this years ago – XP Quick Fix Plus Repairs Common Windows XP Errors http://bit.ly/38Hhtd

Well… I don’t think I need to remind anyone that XP has had its fair share of problems.  This program launches into an interface which details 40 of the biggest problems in XP whilst providing an interface to click a button to plug that problem.  Unbelievably amazing app.  I would recommend you grab this app and run it on your XP installation and I would also recommend that Microsoft hunt down the developer of this software, write them a blank check to buy the whole company and submit this software over Windows Update.

• This is pretty handy – Cache My Work Restores Your Workspace After a Restart [Downloads] http://bit.ly/2Ffdyv

I have this happen to me all the time – I get into work in the morning and Windows rebooted through the night to install automatic updates, therefore everything that was open on my desktop had been automatically closed.  Trust me, this freaks me out everytime it happens as I usually have about 10 – 15 scripts open on my desktop at any one time that I am working on and it’s annoying to have to retrace my steps and figure out what I was working on at the end of the day yesterday instead of just having it all there still open like it is supposed to be.  This application attempts to address this issue by keeping a log of everything that is open on the desktop – if you have to suddenly reboot, this program will reopen all of your applications for you when Windows starts up and in some cases can even reopen the files you were working with inside your applications.  It’s not perfect, but it’s heaps better than nothing.  I installed this and I love it.

• This is a great tip – Adding Flip 3D to Windows 7′s Taskbar http://tinyurl.com/ybb85pn #Channel10

So, if you follow the instuctions here you can essentially make a little tool that replicates the Windows Key + TAB functionality, but I tell you what – despite the Windows Key being on 104 keyboards ever since the release of Windows 95, there are an alarmingly frustrating amount of people out there that have absolutely no idea what the Windows Key is.  So, when a core piece of functionality for cycling through windows open on your desktop involves telling people to “use the Windows key”, it is extremely easier to just set this icon up on their task bar.  Trust me, it is.  And you know what?  I actually like it – once launched, you can just hit the TAB key to cycle between windows, instead of having to keep holding the Windows key whilst tabbing to keep the Flip 3D feature open.  Check out the article this is worth doing for your Windows 7 machine.

• Interesting statistics – Windows 7 Market Share Climbing Fast http://tinyurl.com/ydlm8mt #Channel10

So much for Apple‘s new ads saying that everyone was excited around the Windows 7 launch because it was time to upgrade to a Mac.  All it took was for Windows 7 to be on the market for two weeks, and already the global marketshare for Windows 7 machines across the world is bigger than Mac OSX Snow Leopard, which has been on the market for three months.  As of the time of writing, 3.27% of all computers in the WORLD have Windows 7 on it.  Pretty amazing statistic.  Another under the radar piece of info in this article is the fact that the global marketshare for Windows overall was almost 93%, which is a lot better than it used to be earlier in the year when I heard that it had dropped just under 90%.  It seems that there aren’t as many Macs in the world as everyone thought there was – Apple still have their work cut out for them, no wonder they are spending half a billion dollars are year on advertising.

• Geek alert! – Coke Zero Has Zero Calories And Sugar, But Is High In Spy Cameras http://bit.ly/2uIK8h

You’ve gotta love spy cams built into everyday objects – they are mega handy.  This artcle demonstrates a Coke can with a camera inside and a USC cable attached so you can use it as an instant web cam for spying on your house / office whilst you are not there.  Interested?  Me too.  Check out the link.

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

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• Prepare for the desktop update onslaught with Snow Leopard and Windows 7 (ztrek.blogspot.com)

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Welcome to the Thumbs Down Edition of my review of the week in tech.

Each week I’m picking out the things that I thought were a stupid idea, a bad thing to happen or just payed out on a tech company deservedly that I submitted via Twitter for you all to read. If you haven’t already seen my Twitter feed of tech tips add me @aholesgrove or have a look at http://twitter.com/aholesgrove and subscribe to the RSS feed of my tweets.

I missed out on doing this weekly review on time as it was all hands on deck in Making Life Ezy putting the final touches on HireEzy 2.1 before release that week.  We’re all done now and everything is back to normal.

This week in Thumbs Down I found myself highlighting Google‘s lamo attempt to control the internet and picking out a HUGE problem with Apple‘s new operating system which deletes all user data.  Yeah, you read that right – and people whinge about Windows.  Gosh.

• Haha – Google Wave – Early Impressions: Too Much Effort & Unintuitive http://tinyurl.com/yzhn4st

I’ve blogged before about how I think Google Wave is/will be stupid, worthless and pointless.  But don’t just take my word for it, other people are saying it too – as evidenced by this article.  Don’t know what Google Wave is?  Well, who cares.  If you do, it’s supposed to be an email/twitter/instant messaging alternative – replacement, whatever.  C’mon Google, you employ 20,000 of the smartest people on earth and not one of you can figure out that most people won’t want to ditch email because they can barely breathe without having access to it. #FAIL

• Interesting read, if you’re a geek – YouTube‘s Bandwidth Bill Is Zero. Welcome to the New Net http://tinyurl.com/yfhcuuv

Well, I know most of you aren’t geeks and won’t read the article, so I’ll paraphrase here to outline why I thought this article was interesting – basically, Google has a direct optical fibre connection to the core movers and shakers that make the internet connect to everybody (in fact, I read recently that Google accounts for 6% of all internet traffic in the word at the moment, an astounding statistic for a company that didn’t exist 10 years ago), which means that Google don’t need to pay for internet traffic.  So, all of those YouTube videos are just beaming out of the place with the computer infrastructure built into the rest of Google’s fortress of computer power, essentially making what most people would think to be an extremely expensive operation in pushing out online video actually cost them basically nothing to run – all those ad impressions are pure profit.  This is an amazing contrast to an organisation like Facebook, which spends $1 million a month of infrastructure to make their service super snappy and fast for users.  What the article goes on to detail is how Google hold so much power already, that instead of internet providers charging places like Google to have direct access to each other so that company’s internet users their their site quicker, Google are so powerful that they can charge internet companies to have better direct access to them to provide their services faster to their users.  In the next 3 years this will be a huge debate in the US as their government is trying to regulate this stuff and don’t really know how to approach it properly.  Public outcry ensures.  It’ll be an interesting development.

• LAME – Google enters the e-book arena http://bit.ly/wFDAM

I’m sure if I stood in a newsagent taking pictures of each page of a magazine so I could read it later without having to buy the magazine in the first place I’d be chased down the street by the shop owner and probably have the cops called on me.  Google send people to libraries to scan books digially, build a whole online book store full of inventory and they call it a “business“.  This is criminal.  That’s all I have to say.

• WOW Mac Users should read this – Major bug in Snow Leopard deletes all user data http://bit.ly/10PdGD

So, being the good samaritan that I am, I’ll give you Mac users this tip – don’t allow anonymous logins on your computer.  You’ll have your login that you use and just keep using that – don’t switch to another user and use the anonymous feature, as what happens is that you’ll go to log back into your computer as you and everything will be gone.  Yeah, it’s pretty awful and embarassing problem.  I tweeted this last week and I’m not sure if Apple have patched this problem yet but keep your eyes peeled on the Apple Software Update feature – last I read Apple were looking to put out a 10.6.1 update that addresses this and other problems.

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• VIDEO: Google Wave Gets Explained (mashable.com)

HireEzy includes the following features:

• Marketing ( includes option to integrated your catalogue directly with your web site)
• Sales
• Bookings
• Inventory
• Delivery and Collections
• Accounts

It even includes the most powerful range of inbuilt marketing tools, SMS, POS, Google Maps the list goes on.

To make it even more attractive to the dedicated Apple Mac Business community, HireEzy will sit accross mixed networks of Macs and the Windows.

HireEzy is ideal for a wide range of rental and hire companies in Canada, USA, UK, Australia and NZ for the following sub segements:

• Party Rental and Hire
• Event Rental and Hire
• Audio Visual (AV) Rental and Hire
• Tool Rental and Hire

Get your information on the go.. View, edit and search your HireEzy records on your iPad or iPhone! Top Uses for HireEzy Mobile - Warehouse Inventory checks - Onsite sales orders - Tracking job statuses - Update job while traveling - Drivers getting real time data

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Copyright EzySoft Corporation 2011

Welcome to the Tumbs Down Edition of my review of the week in tech – each week I’m picking out the things that I thought were a stupid idea, a bad thing to happen or just payed out on a tech company deservedly that I submitted via Twitter for you all to read. If you haven’t already seen my Twitter feed of tech tips add me @aholesgrove or have a look at http://twitter.com/aholesgrove and subscribe to the RSS feed of my tweets.

I missed out on doing this weekly review on time as it was all hands on deck in Making Life Ezy putting the final touches on HireEzy 2.1 before release that week. We’re all done now and everything is back to normal.

This week in Thumbs Down I actually didn’t find much that surpised me – I mean, there was Apply trying to bag out Windows on the week of the Win7 launch, but that was hardly surprising at all.  There was some news of more Australian Government sensorship ideas, as detailed below, and a great article about how Microsoft actually one upped Google with an announcement they made for their Bing search engine.  Check it out.

• Hahahaha! – Why Apple Is Gushing Hate On Windows 7 http://bit.ly/41UKmr

This article does a good job of picking out the hypocrisy in Apple’s never-ending bashing of Windows – the fact that Windows 7 is a solid product and works really well.  It’s disappointing that Apple can’t market their products on it’s own merits – they have a fantastic operating system, sexy looking computers that are rock solid and a very VERY devoted fanbase that grows leaps and bounds by the day.  What this article picks up on is the fact that if Apple really did have good products, they wouldn’t have to resort to bashing the competition if their own stuff truly were worthy of customer attention and I totally agree – especially when their product manager is saying stuff in the press like “At the end of the day, it’s still Windows.” So what? A product with problems has been fixed up and that’s a good thing.  It’s the same deal as Mac OS – I’ve mentioned in this space before that the older versions of Mac OS were horribly backward and couldn’t even multi task of all things (which the iPhone still can’t do either).  So should we not use Mac OSX because the older versions were terrible?  Of course not.  OSX is a brilliant operating system and so is Windows 7.  Apple got a free ride of Windows defectors over the past three years with frustrated PC users and they deserved to have their market share increase from about 3% to about 9-10% – now all bets are off and it’s an even fight, the two companies need to bring their A-game now and compete on features.  It’ll be exciting for the end users.

• Wow…. just wow – Aussie censor wants power to ban iPhone apps http://bit.ly/2OiaPN

This is a really bold move by the Aussie Government but I have to say I actaully like the idea.  It’s something that needs to happen considering that the iPhone/iPod Touch is a gaming platform and the Australian Government has their own classifications for console and computer games.  There is an uproar in Australia that there is no 18+ classification for gaming which causes excessively violent games to be refused classification (and therefore sale) in Australia and I happen to like this idea because it keeps all the brutal American stuff out of our country (and the subsequent axe-murderers and school gunman they produce).  Apple have built an over-arching approval process for applications which lacks transparency and there are a lot of developers that have been writing about how they think it’s unfair – at the end of the day, it’s up to Governments to police content, not companies, so handing off this process to the government in Australia is a lot fairer – Apple won’t like losing their total control over their eco-system for iTunes, but.. well.. tough.

• True, makes good points – Well, What Do You Know: Google Is Actually Nervous About Microsoft Bing http://bit.ly/b8KMp

Competition benefits consumers and finally Google has a legit competitor – so much so that they actually got showed up by Microsoft when they announced their content partnership with Twitter and the first beta of Bing’s Twitter search app which you can find here.  As a knee-jerk response from Google a few hours later produced news that they were going to do the same thing (sort of) and that their toold would be available in a few months.  Not to be outdone, Microsoft announce later that day that they are also integrating Facebook into their search engine.  Google had nothing to say to that – Microsoft owns a small chunk of Facebook and would never allow Google to get access to it (and neither would Facebook themselves).  This article makes good points in how Google’s “me too” response to Microsoft’s news of innovation was real proof that there is definately chinks in their armour and a reminder that you have to always compete to stay the best.  just ask MySpace all about that.

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The Vista Conundrum

As we continue to add HireEzy customers at a rapid pace, our sales team continues to be amazed at how many people are still terrified by all of the bad press that surrounds Windows Vista and continues to this day. The most common questions asked revolve around whether their business is at a disadvantage by using Windows Vista and whether it will in turn hurt the performance of our software in comparison to using Windows XP instead. These are valid questions and below is my unbiased opinion of Windows Vista as a whole and details regarding how HireEzy deals with Vista “problems” and keeps your business running smoothly no matter what your computer network is made up of.

We understand your concern, but you’ll be alright

First of all, it goes without saying that Windows Vista will go down in history as one of the biggest disasters in Microsoft‘s product catalogue due to negative response from the public and if anything is the classic case study of the power of social media due to the amount of Twitter and blog posts put out thereslamming the product, greatly contributing to the reputation handed to the product as a slow, untrustworthy, annoying and ignorable operating system. I personally believe that Windows Vista was the final nail in the coffin to the development career of Bill Gates and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the backlash towards Vista played a big part in him deciding to leave his post as Chief Software Architect. Microsoft have learned the hard way that people abhor change and are tired of fighting with their computers.

So the question asks, is it a bad operating system? Well, the short answer is that the initial release was but the two consequent service packs released for it have actually made it a really good product. Like Apple‘s transition from Mac OS9 to OSX, a total rewrite of the underlying code of Windows was necessary to take the evolution of the computer to the next level with the introduction of new processor and hard drive technologies and the evolution of the “business computer network”, and like Mac OS this has just been something that couldn’t be done painlessly despite the efforts of all involved. It is often forgotten after six years of being in the market that the first release of Mac OSX was an absolute joke. There was no support for it, old Mac apps often didn’t work on it and you couldn’t even burn DVD’s with it at first – it was so bad that Macs were initially sold with both OS9 and OSX installed and users could switch inbetween operating systems depending on which one they wanted to have to bother with. With the time to refine the product, OSX is now a very tight, polished and respected product that has gotten better with time and you would in no way be a fool to place your trust in it.

The same is true with Vista and this is the best possible way to give you an idea of how Vista can be a dependable operating system if kept up to date. Next month, Microsoft will release Windows 7 which is the next iteration of the same concept and our feedback of it, similar to that found everywhere on the Internet, is extremely positive. We are so confident in Windows 7 that we will officially support usage of HireEzy on Windows 7 from the moment it launches.

With HireEzy, we’ve got your covered

To those of you using Vista and are looking at HireEzy, we have great features in place which will keep you confident in smooth function of your business irrespective of the amount of faith you have in Vista. Firstly, our core technology allows us to “broadcast” your database across your local network which means that you can install HireEzy on a computer elsewhere in your network and operate the software from your Vista machine without ever storing any data on it, helping you prevent data loss due to Vista’s millitant and sometimes inconsistant security policies for local data storage. Secondly, we build platform independantly which means that you can have a mix of Macs and PCs in your network all using the exact same copy of HireEzy in any way you see fit. So, if you have lost faith in Windows so much that you’re unsure of putting your data on it, you may want to try investing in Mac computer as that central database holder in the configuration I mentioned previously whilst using cheaper Vista machines as the dumb terminals that view and work with your data. Thirdly, if you are going to store HireEzy on your Vista machine, we have extensive experience in making sure HireEzy will be unaffected by the radical changes introduced with the way it works and as a complementary service we install your software for you after purchase to give you the peace of mind that you’ll be just fine. Further to that point, with HireEzy 2.1 we have introduced new backup utilities that allow you to auto backup your HireEzy database wherever you like, including devices like thumb drives, DVD RAM and external hard drives, plus for a monthly fee you can optionally use our new online backup service which will sync your HireEzy data with our secure servers over the Internet.

To summorise, we understand that Vista is a concerning product to work with, a lot of the flack that the product has copped is unjustified or simply no longer relevant but nonetheless we have taken the steps necessary to ensure that with HireEzy your information is secure and instantly accessible to you no matter how Vista is used or deployed in your computer network.

I encourage you to contact us if you have any further questions or queries regarding HireEzy on Windows Vista or for any technical deployment questions that you may have, we’re only too happy to discuss it with you!

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• Microsoft: Windows 7 can offer better battery life (news.cnet.com)

Many of our clients ask our advice on a range of technology matters, from operating systems to even iPhone applications.

Therefore as part of the growth and popularity of this blog (due to the fantastic work of our marketing team) and our software, HireEzy, I’ve decided to contribute to this blog from a technology perspective.   Specifically focusing my thoughts and experience on using technology as the driving force behind the success of your hire or rental business.

Technology Brand Agnostic

In this first post, I thought I would give you all a chance to first learn more about myself, my general thoughts about the IT landscape and to give you a bit of perspective on the kind of things we’re working in on as a team as we continue to innovate in cutting edge software development as well as versatile and powerful online services and solutions.

The first thing I’m often asked when introducing myself as a member of the IT community is of course “so are you a Mac guy or a PC guy?” to which I reply that I’m neither. I believe that to have a true appreciation of the field of IT is to have an objective view of it, otherwise stubbornness will simply lead to you to miss out on things that would otherwise be really fun to be involved with and be a part of. This is particularly true for Making Life Ezy, as we are a platform neutral company working with both Microsoft and Apple database technologies to deliver our technical solutions, whilst using predominantly Adobe development tools and online service tools from Google, Yahoo and Amazon, amongst others.

Unbiased Technology Opinions

With that I mind, I hope that in reading my tips and general advice here that you find them to be similarly unbiased and impartial to any technical platform and simply concentrated on providing the best answer and/or solution to a problem or task. More than ever, diversity in the marketplace is leading to a lot of uncertainty in trying to decide what solution best suits each business and I get asked a lot by our customers about general things such as “is Windows Vista really as bad as everyone says it is?” and “so what do you think about Macs? Is it worth ditching my PC?”. These are fair questions and in my first couple of posts I will be looking to delve into these sorts of topics and many more in great depth to guide you in the right direction and spare you any emotional despair and personal resentment toward the IT companies that have provided us with a lot of our cheers and tears over the past decade or more in the process.

Latest Technology Updates

I am an RSS feed addict and I often spend my nights at home scouring all my favourite IT publications on the web for information about anything and everything. I can argue the merits of any technical platform with the best of them and I enjoy being asked questions that are as broad as “so what do you think will be popular in the next 5 years”, or “who do you think will ultimately have the best mobile phone platform?”. There are so many different things that are truly becoming exciting in IT right now, such as the rise of social media as a marketing platform, the true portability of content with the rapid innovation of the mobile phone as a computer alternative and emerging platforms such as cloud computing and even the continued evolution of development platforms and the sorts of opportunities they provide to both us and our customers.

A lot of these different things are not only technologies that I’m interested in and read about all the time but are areas that we as a company have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies and part of my role in our company is to be the one who can educate the rest of our team on these emerging opportunities and what they mean for us and could mean for our customers, so I look forward to using my blog posts to also help you learn about the sorts of things we’re building that can truly help you in your day to day business activities with case studies of customers who are working with us in our Beta Gold program to develop new systems and services as they evolve.

Feedback or Questions

If you have any questions or queries about areas of IT that you’ve perhaps never understood or would like greater clarity on then by all means I encourage you to write to me with your thoughts and I’ll blog about them here as they arise. I look forward to engaging in greater discussion with you all.

My Background

11 years technical experience in web development technologies and platforms.

Experience includes projects for The Seven Network (formerly i7), Optus Direct, The Movie Network, UKTV, TV1 and The Main Event Wizard Home Loans, I-Max Theatres.

Specialises in the emerging market in Web 2.0 and their application to business problems.

Aaron Holesgrove
Email: aaron@ezysoft.com.au
Twitter: @aholesgrove

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