So today I set out to run exclusively on LinuxMint for the day. Fridays are normally slower so it is the best option for testing this on a work day.  Couple of issues popped up right off the bat, but for the most part its been very easy.

Problems so far:

-Using Exchange 2010 (Solved with using OWA and OWA Companion for Chrome)
-Remote Desktop into server and workstations (Solved with grdesktop)
-Control Fan Speeds for MacBook Pro (Solved with Forum info)
-Figure out shortcut keys “Lock Screen” (Solved with Forum info “ctrl+alt+l”)

More updates to come, seems to be going well so far.

*Update:
-Blogging (Solved with Chrome + ScribeFire = Best Option for Linux)
-Office (Solved with Google Docs, could also do openoffice but, eh) 

*Update2:
-So I made it, I cant do everything I would need on a normal day but for the most part it works nicely. 

Where the Android phones really shine is the ability for customization.  Place a widget here, put some apps over there, turn off Wi-Fi on the front page.  You can even download ADW and change almost everything all over again.  File sharing with PC’s or Mac is easy, the Market place is coming along, Great App selection.   Also with Android you get choice!  What vender you want to use (HTC, Motorola, Samsung, etc.)  and what carrier you want to use.

This week we should hear that the iPhone is finally going to Verizon in the US, but I wonder how many nonapple fanboys will stick with the iPhone?  Personally I like Apple but I don’t love them.  I can honestly see myself going with an Android based phone over a new iPhone when my contract with At&t comes up.

My Sites

As you can see there is very little difference in the two when first looking at the sites. Configuring and designing is totally different.  About.me seems to be nice when designing it, but Flavors.me I think might have a better end product.  Flavors.me has a better content display, about.me uses lightbox feel, but flavors.me uses in page content.

Only real difference I see is Flavors.me offers some paid features like your own domain, more fonts, layouts, directory listing. About.me does not have any paid options but before it was invite only so it did have exclusivity but now it’s open for everyone.  I will probably keep both up for the time being and review them both a bit later.

Apple TV Gen2

For all the people that do not know what Apple TV is you can find out all about here.  It’s basically a way to stream content via the internet from iTunes, Netflix, YouTube etc. for about $100.  Streaming content from the internet is one of the main features but there is another, streaming from your PC!  Now Apple being Apple, you do have to have iTunes running all the time on you PC to play the content, which also means your computer needs to be turned on all the time (this is the way mine is anyway.)

Content Flow

So we go WMC, Itunes and Apple TV g2 now how do we get them all working together? DVRMSToolbox! DTB takes .dvr-ms (the recorded TV Show from WMC) and converts it to which ever format you want.  For me, I chose “Covert for iPad (no Commercials)” because it makes your dvr-ms files into mp4 (h.264) files.

Open DVRMStoMPEGSettings > Select Convert for iPad and edit.
Select Convert a Video File and click Configure (as seen below)

Uncheck Resize (this will make sure that it keeps the original format)

Scroll down to Video Bitrate (kbps) default is 600 which is very low. I put mine to 2800, many people like 2400, its your call on this.

Also on the x264 level select Level_3_1 the reason for 3.1 is because Apple TV can not display anything over 720p so there is no need in going any higher than 3.1 (also Apple has it on their site saying 3.1 )
There are no other settings that need to be changed, unless you want to keep the commercials.  If so scroll to the bottom and uncheck skip commercials.

Note: Some HD content can get the audio out of sync, when commercials are cut out.  SD content seems fine only HD.

Automating

Since most geeks are lazy, as I am, we like to have things done automatically.  DTB also can do this! go to DVRMStoMPEGSettings then click File Watcher tab.

The only thing you need to change on this is the Watch Directory (location of your TV Shows) and Output Directory (location where you want to store all TV shows that are in iTunes)

DTB also runs a script that grabs the Metadata of the show and tells itunes to add it to the correct directory.

An example of all this:

Monday night football: 6-9:30pm ESPN
File gets saved in c:\recorded tv\football_10_10_10.dvr-ms
Filewatcher and DTB make it d:\TV Shows\football_10_10_10.mp4
DTB tells iTunes where it is and tells it that it is a TV Show and iTunes will put it under TV Shows with all the metadata. Colts vs Vikings etc. etc.
On your AppleTV you will go to Computers then TV Shows and there you have Colts vs Vikings monday night football.

Cobian Backup

In doing some searching for programs that are free and easy to use, I found Cobian Backup.  Cobian, which can run on many different versions windows including server 2003 and 2008, also has some great features.

Screen Shots

I would not suggest this for a standard user unless they had some help from a more technical person.  One thing it lacks is a good wizard that walks people along.

So after a very long run with Firefox, I am moving to Chrome

These past few weeks many people have seen all the new info about Chrome browser and Chrome OS.  Google has been announcing new things almost every day it seems, one of these things was the release of Chrome WebStore and Chrome OS.  Though I have never really been a big fan of Chrome I decided about 2 months ago to give it a decent shot, boy was I mistaken before.  Speed, Simplicity, extensions, and now web apps.  This past week I decided its time to make the move and use Chrome as my primary and use firefox for just testing.

I am looking forward to seeing Chrome OS and how the market place feels about a thin netbook, that is really only for the net.

In the IT / Technology world most everyone is striving to make thing faster and better; as you will see in this article by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes of ZDNet explains Windows 7 looks very promising.

Link to the full Article

Couple of High points in the test:

• Faster boot times 
• Better performance in 3 out of the 4 benchmarks he did.  

He does state that this is a prebeta and performance could change, but he also says that compared to the vista beta, this is much better.

I’m excited

I have been playing with 2.7 for a little bit now, I have not read the release notes yet but so far so good.  First thing most everyone will notice is the admin panel.  The design of the back/admin panel is great, very refreshing.  Drop down menus that are js, give a very smooth feel to using the navigation.  Plugins seems a bit different is shows you recently activated that have been deactivated. 

For the couple of ours I have used it, I have no complaints, and I would suggest this upgrade to everyone.  

Image adding is nice, you can click on the image when your posting and resize it with % 

WordPress.org really did a great job!

Intro

After thinking of what to blog about today, I decided to do a theme for Tuesday’s and make it Open Source Tuesdays. If you do not know what Open Source is and would like to know more about it go to Opensource.org. Basically Open Source are free programs developed by a group of people that think all software should be open to the public. One of (if not) the largest community that makes and develops Open Source software is the Linux community. So I figured I would first talk about Linux, and what is it? how do you use it? and is it right for me?

Linux – What is it?

Honestly I could write all about it and what it does and how its made but other people have done that a ton of times so here are a couple of links.

Wikipedia
Linux.org
Linux.com

That should be all you really would want to know about linux. But in a nut shell Linux is mainly used as a replacement OS (Operating System) for windows or mac. So instead of using Windows XP or Mac, you could use a Distro of Linux. What is a Distro? A distro is like a Brand or Flavor. Some people like chocolate ice cream some people like vanilla. Personally I like Kubuntu, its very easy and user friendly. Kubuntu is part of the Ubuntu family. The K and Kubuntu stands for KDE which is a desktop environment. I know your probably thinking what is that!?!? Its basically how your windows look, and how your menus are setup.

There are 2 big desktop environments, KDE and Gnome, I think KDE is more user friendly but some people think Gnome is, you will have to try and see what you think for yourself.

KDE 4.1

Gnome 2.22

So you will have to decide.

How do you use it?

Like windows xp you install Linux using a CD or DVD, with Linux you can download them online and burn the image to a CD. Before you download Linux you need to find the distro you want I suggest you go to Distrowatch.com you will find out about the different distros and where to download the CD images. After you have picked the distro you like (I still strongly recommend ubuntu) and have burned the CD you will need to restart your computer and boot to the CD and start the install of the distro. Sound complicated its really not that bad, but if you want a really easy way to try ubuntu or kubuntu, try wubi

Wubi runs in windows, downloads the CD, makes the partitions and basically sets up everything for you, and you can even uninstall it in windows!!! yeah… its that good! Seriously though this is an awesome tool for people that would like to give linux/ubuntu a try.

Other ways to try Linux are downloading a “Live CD” or DVD. Basically its a CD that does not use your hard drive everything runs on your CD drive and RAM. So you will not have to worry about data lose or messing anything up, only problems is that nothing is saved, after you reboot its back to the way it was before. But its a great way to try it out and get used to the interface without a large amount of time setting everything up.

Great site for finding Linux live CDs:
frozentech.com

Is it right for me?

Don’t know you will have to answer that yourself, all I can do is point you in the right direction. If you like trying new things, if you like free stuff, and don’t mind challenges, then you will probably like Linux.

First thing I would say to do is download wubi install ubuntu and try it out, and try to have fun!

thanks to jase for helping me come up with the idea for this post. visit his site here