Have you ever came across the person who does about 35,263,774 different little things around the office? They are usually the people of whom the upper management usually asks “What exactly does John Smith do here?”. They also tend, in my experience, to be the first people filing for unemployment when hard times come up. The reason for that is that they get a lot of little things done, but the big things usually sit, and sit, and sit. Most of what they do manage to accomplish are less critical things that can wait or should be done by someone else. Does that describe anyone you know? Hell, does that describe you? It has described me in the past more than once.
For those stuck with XP, either because you have a netbook that runs XP just fine, or you dread the Vista horrors, xpize comes to the rescue if you are thinking your OS looks a little, well . . . dated. I don’t have any XP machines around anymore to test the performance of this tools though unlike other skinning apps it just replaces the resources and doesn’t keep anything running in memory. This tool . . . well easier to say it in their own words . . .
xpize is a utility program for Windows XP (both 32-bit and 64-bit) and Windows Server 2003 (32-bit and 64-bit) that replaces most of the bits in Windows that didn’t match XP’s style with bits that do.
The software contains no spyware or adware, it is a purely volunteer-driven community effort; it is also easily uninstallable.
xpize does not replace any files, system or otherwise. Instead it "patches" the files by replacing the old resources inside the files.
If you are ready to give it a try, you can get Xpize from their website, please let us know in the comments if you try Xpize and if it lives up to it’s promise, or not.
And now, mobile integration with your google apps is complete. Google announced today that their ActivSync Exchange setup for the iphone, ipod touch and Windows Mobile devices will now handle gmail synchronization.
Blackberry users still have great BES integration if your domain uses Google Apps, if not you are stuck with the BIS integration with gmail which has problems off and on.
Lastly, Android users have always had good gmail integration.
Really, if you are a heavy google apps user (read Gcalendar and Gmail) your choices as to which mobile platform to use has just expanded dramatically if you need push email.
Earlier today, I mentioned the FCC statements about an open internet. While interesting, there isn’t much there to go on. What I missed though was the launching of OpenInternet.gov. OpenInternet.gov is a beta site who’s primary purpose is to bring the public into the discussion about how to go about this.
I’m going to follow this closely as it will have a large impact on what the Internet will be in the future. Feel free to launch into the discussion as we need all the voices we can get involved in order to see this go well.
Also, it’s nice to see the Obama administration, at least through other government agencies, bringing the public into discussions in what appears to be a positive way. Lets hope the FCC listens to those who this will affect, both consumers and businesses.
I like Mint.com, so today while I was setting up my budget (and noticing how broke I am as usual), I came across the link to mintlife, the blog for the application. Interesting stuff there, of particular notice to me as I live in Portland Oregon was Mint.com’s blog post mentioning discretionary spending cutbacks this year by their users.
Organized by the most hit cities, I was kind of shocked to see Portland on that list, not only on the list but quite close to the top. The only cities worse were in Southern California and New York State.
We all know that Americans have cut back on their spending during the recession but where are they cutting back the most? Comparing 20 cities across 25 “discretionary” categories we found that five cities spend less than the national average and cut more of their spending (yr over yr) than the national average. Our latest map is based on the aggregate data from over one million Mint.com users, a representative sampling of US consumers.
DJ Mangus is man of many interests. From science and history, to politics and current events. His real joy is in creating things, either with his hands or his mind.
A new father and husband, he has less time than in the past to indulge in his hobbies. He still manages to keep intellectually challenged by [...]more →
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