October 2005

Martin @ Home Office Voice has a post up that details the release of OpenOffice 2.0.

This free suite of tools may just be all that you need and the price is right. I personally haven’t tried it, yet, but am going to give it a try in the near future.

Go by and visit Martin and let him know we sent you. You’ll notice he’s a Friend of The Freaks.

I’ve spent parts of the last several days updating our computers and their subscriptions to products that protect us from the bad guys.

We use Norton’s SystemWorks on all our computers. It makes it easy from me to clean out the worthless data, make sure we have current anti-virus protection, defrag the hard disks, fix problems with Windows ( we use XP Pro ) and it keeps my registry fairly clean.

I had to update to a newer version a couple of nights ago and didn’t get started until about 12:30 AM. Daughter #3 just would not get up and I was determined to get it done before I went to sleep. I ended up calling their telephone tech support at around 1:00 AM just for kicks. The error message on the screen that said ” Dude, this installation just ain’t gonna happen ! “, didn’t have a thing to do with it.

It’s 1:00 AM here and there is no way of knowing what time it is wherever their support is located, I thought.

Call anyway, a little voice said to me. It’s free call and you might get to wake somebody up ! Cool, I like waking people up in the middle of the night, so let’s get to ringing.

After going thru the voice menu for about 1 minute I end up on the line with a gentle soul from India. He’s sorry I’m having trouble getting the old version to uninstall, but if I will just go to this website he’s trying to get me to type, we can uninstall EVERY instance of Norton’s products and then the new version will install.

Sure it will…heard that before. So we try to understand each other’s accents. Imagine if you will, a country boy from the hills and hollers of Kentucky and a gentleman from India who speaks the Queen’s English. I tell him, go slow and enunciate, I don’t speak English, I speak Kentuckian !

I finally get to the site he wants me to visit, click on a special top-secret link to a world beater of an uninstall program and download that puppy. Run it once, re-start…run it again, re-start and then the new version will install, he says.

I let him go after he gives me a case # and get to the running of this super-secret program. After running it twice, the new version installed like it was supposed to.

Thanks my Indian friend ! Imagine, installation help at 1:00 AM. Free. FREE ! Symantec rocks !

We also use Zone Alarm as our firewall and I had to recently update to a newer version. It seems to be doing it’s usual good job of keeping out the bad guys. If you are operating sans firewall, you’re doomed to have problems. Not maybe, not if, you will get got !

We also use Spybot Search & Destroy. It’s free and gets some of the uncoolies out when paid products won’t.

SpySweeper from Webroot is also in our arsenal. It keep out some of the evil ones and roots out a lot of tracking cookies and such.

Make sure you fight the evil empire with all the up-to-date tools you can find.

For more and regular info, check out Spywaredude. It’s a Bloglogic creation and they have an RSS feed for your viewing pleasure.

If you’ve got any killer apps that do the hard work for you, leave us a comment and let’s make everybody else aware of them.

Lets face it, someone tricked you. At some point in time the world worked from 9-5. They even made a song about it. But then computers came along and the slipped an extra hour in the day and now the “official” work day runs from 8-5. But most people end up working well beyond that. Either you run your own business or are trying to, or perhaps you’re a busy parent who has to make up time because you have to take kids to the doctor or run other important errands during “work” hours. Our lives are more hectic than ever so finding ways to get our work done is always high up on the agenda.

I personally do a great deal of work from my laptop. It means I can do my work from just about anywhere, but for long periods of time it’s just not comfortable to prop it on my lap. I end up doing a lot of my work in the living room and I’m not about to spend a few hours hunched over the coffee table. So I found a sweet little laptop cart (aff link) that’s perfect.

This hot little number lets you tilt the angle of the table to whatever works for you and has a separate adjustable piece for your mouse, or in my case notebook and pens. The stand itself also has adjustable height, which I take advantage of when I’m cooking sometimes. Usually I’m not working though, just following a recipe. You don’t want to get marinara sauce on your laptop, trust me. Right now amazon is selling this elegant cart for 15% off ($109, normally $129) so it’s a great deal. And if you don’t like your wood deep cherry you can opt for the oak flavor instead. I highly recommend this for anyone who spends a lot of time on your laptop, so check it out. (aff link)

The beauty in a clock on your desk, as opposed to on the wall, is the kiss off it gives to rubber necking. I’d much rather shift my eyes than twist my neck to check the time.

Remember the website I raved about yesterday, cb2.com? The one I had to pull myself away from, except I really didn’t? It owns me.

It just so happens that the sleek office clock you see before you is from cb2 as well. (Big shock, right?) It’s just $24.95. At first I thought that was a little high, but I checked around and for a clock with the features it has (see below), it’s actually really reasonable.

• Transparent LCD digital design
• Displays time, date, day, week, and time zone (in case you forget where you are?)
• Select from 25 world cities for time zone display
• Alarm and hourly chime function
• Angled brushed metal frame
• Requires a 3V button battery (included)

Sweet clock.

Mechanic shop meets Wall Street. It’s working for me.

I’ve noticed that a lot of offices are changing over to a more casual look and more comfortable feel. This file cabinet and table actually look like something you’d see in an office at Google’s headquarters. They’re available in black, also, but the orange is really speaking to me.

There’s a crackling level of excitement in corporate America today, you can practically smell the energy. A new group of men and women are changing the face of business and the makeover is long overdue. Stuffy has been replaced with snazzy and uptight has become tight.

The great looking office furniture you see in this post are from a white hot collection from an even hotter website, cb2.com. Go give them a look. Be sure to check out the “Works with…” feature at the bottom of each individual product. Great, great stuff.

I could’ve, would’ve, should’ve had this post written sooner but I’ve been on their website amusing myself. I literally had to tear myself away.

Okay, I lied. I didn’t tear myself away at all. They’re minimized and I’m hypnotized.

Sub $100 PDA For Your Mobile Office

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: the reason that blogging for a living seems so attractive to me is that for the last decade I’ve been harboring a secret desire deep down inside. I never really talk about it, because until recently it seemed like just a pipe-dream, but these days, as more and more folks are turning ProBlogger, my dirty little secret seems a whole lot more feasible.

It’s pretty simple, really: I dream of one day being able to work anytime I want, from anywhere I want. I dream of spending a rainy afternoon at my local Cafe (the CoffeeWorks, where I met my beautiful wife,) sipping a hot green tea — gen maicha — and tapping merrily away on my dream machine, the incredible new high-definition G4 PowerBook (a boy can wish, can’t he?!) I dream of being able to work from my sofa, the beach, or propped up in bed. More than anything, I dream of spending more time with my wife Lori…even if I’m working while we spend time together.

Anyways, I guess I’m telling you all of this as sort of an introduction to what I’ll be writing about here at Office Freaks — The Mobile Office. I’ll be delving into how to make your mobile-workday as productive as possible, so let’s get down to business:

Palm recently announced what they hope will be their paper-planner killer, the Palm Z22 handheld organizer. At just $99 it looks to be a bargain, and is being billed as both exceedingly easy to use, and yet still packing a punch; with a 160 x 160 pixel color screen, a 200 MHZ Samsung ARM processor, and 32 MB of flash memory, 20MB of which can be accessed by the user. The Palm Z22 also sports a built in rechargeable lithium ion battery.

And let’s face it, Palm has obviously taken a few pointers from the design of Apple’s iPod, and created a sort of retro-modern, smooth edged beauty, that’ll look great sitting next to your iPod, iPod Shuffle, or iPod nano.

According to Palm Infocenter, the Palm Z22 comes with all the basic productivity apps you would expect from a modern PDA, including: Calendar, Calculator, Contacts, Expenses, Memos, Note Pad, Photos, Tasks and World Clock (perfect for occasional world travelers like me.) The bundled CD comes with an organizer, an eBook reader, a dictionary and the powerOne Calculator for advanced mathematics.

At this price I’ll probably be picking one of these babies up at some point, so I’ll let you know what I think when I get one in my hot little hands…

Paper-Planner Killer? I guess only time will tell.

Get The Latest Price on the Palm Z22 Handheld Organizer (Affiliate Link)

Technorati Tags: Office Supplies, Palm Z22

Mmmm, mmm…this is my silicon dream machine

Apple has just announced it’s new druel-inducing 17-inch G4 PowerBook, and boy does it look delicious. Let’s see, I’m not even sure where to begin? The G4 PowerBook sports the largest display ever placed into a notebook, and according to Apple it’s 46% brighter, with 36% more pixels than it’s predecessor. Nice! And if all that screen real estate isn’t enough for you, she also comes with 128MB on the graphics chip, which means there’s enough power to light-up one of Apple’s insanely huge 30-inch Cinema HD Displays.

Better put my tongue back in my mouth.

Apple’s claiming 5.5 hours of battery life (an hour more than it’s last incarnation,) but if past experience is anything, we should probably take that with a grain of salt…still, even five hours wouldn’t be bad for the reigning Godzilla of laptop screens.

Let’s see, what else? A 1.67GHz processor with an advanced cache architecture that apparently provides screaming throughput. Comes standard with just 512MB of fast DDR2 SDRAM (512MB? come on Apple, have you been living under a rock?) but it’s expandable to 2GB. The G4 PowerBook also has a 100GB hard drive option. Once again, not bad at all for a laptop.

Let’s take a deeper look:

• 8x SuperDrive that can read DVDs and burn the full gamut of DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW and DVD+RW discs.
• Illuminated keyboard for low-light situations (in case you want to blog the next Cramps concert.)
• ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 Graphics Chip
• Firewire 400, Firewire 800, USB 2.0
• Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T (Gigabit) Ethernet
• Built-in 54-Mbps AirPort Extreme; built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
• Built-in 56K V.92 Modem
• DVI, S-video, VGA
• Optical digital input/audio line in; optical digital output/headphone out
• Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger; iLife ’05

Well there you have it folks, the mobile worker/office worker’s dream machine…and of course it’s from Apple–

Who else?

Get The Latest Prices On Apple PowerBooks (Aff.)

Technorati Tags: Office Supplies, PowerBook G4

Okay…here it is. I absolutely love a big, high-back, leather office chair. There, I said it. It’s out.

Here’s a shot of the sweet thing I’m sprawled out in as we blog.

I was on a mission to buy a new chair mat for my lovely wife, Joi, when I had a Staples Rocks ! moment.

Just think..all you have to part with is $69.94 ( $30 off as I blog ) to start enjoying :

• Luxurious black leather seating surface
• Pneumatic seat height adjustment raises and lowers chair quickly and easily
• Built-in lumbar support reduces lower back fatigue and strain

There it is Staples shoppers, Item #512456, for your sitting pleasure.

There’s not much better than a big, leather chair and a blog about ( one of ) my obsessions, Office Supplies !

Anyone who enjoys office supplies will no doubt have a pen fetish. It just can’t be avoided. And anyone who loves pens will have a favorite, or God Pen, the god of all pens. I’m a huge fan of the Hipster PDA, which is a low tech alternative to the Palm type PDA’s. The basic Hipster PDA is a stack of 3×5 index cards held together with a jim clip. Just throw it in your back pocket and go. I keep my appointments, important notes, to-do lists, groceries, bills… pretty much everything on these cards. But the one thing I need to complete this simple inelegance was a pen worthy of this “throw it in my pocket” way of thinking. I found that the Hipster PDA crowd had already found the right pen for the job, and if it’s good enough for John Glen then it’s good enough for me!

Enter the Fisher Space Pen, a pen designed to write in the most extreme environments like zero gravity, extreme heat and cold, through grease and at any angle. Not only is the Fisher Space Pen a solid writing ball point writing pen, but it’s also sleek and designed to be a perfect fit in your pocket. The Bullet version of the Space Pen closes into a compact design that is smaller than an index card in length. The cap fits on the back of the pen to make it full size when in use and when you are done the cap closes over the ball point pen and goes most of the way down to make give it a bullet shape which gives it it’s name. I’ve never found a ball point that writes so well nor one that was so easy to carry. Most pens are bulky and end up either leaking or tearing holes in my pockets. I finally found a pen that not only do I love, but I can actually carry with me everywhere.

And did I mention how sexy they were? They even come in these cool little cases that look part of the moon with craters and everything. They spared no detail in making these pens functional and stylish and I highly recommend them. For me, I had to have the Matte Black (aff link) version and my wife Aeryn went for the Chrome (aff link) version. Either way you go, this pen will garner you plenty of envy from your friends and other pens will seem average in comparison.