Free Domain Name

Yes, you read right. Microsoft is actually giving something away for FREE. For the past few weeks, and until I don’t know when, when you sign up for Microsoft’s Office Live (kinda like Google Docs) Small Business, you can register a domain for a year for free. Note: Original post here [Lifehacker].

The down side? Microsoft’s hosting is not exactly… well, great.

If you log into your account, you’re given the option to manage your website, and Office Live will have already built you a generic one, with your “Company name” (the one you signed up under) on the title and everything. But you have very little customization options. You can, however, just upload your own site which you have created elsewhere by “Activating Advanced Design Features” under “Site Actions”. It took me a while to figure that one out.

So now you have a domain name. Why not move it over to a great Hosting company? Enter Blinkster.com. I just signed up today, but I love the simplicity of it all. It’s very intuitive compared to Office Live, and, yes, they pay for referrals. So I’m shamelessly promoting them here:

There it is. A free solution and a not-so-free solution for website hosting. And what about  actually creating a website? Well, that’s a topic for another day.

Orson, again

Orson and a stray kitten we found

Here is my awesome Orson again. It’s weird, but it looks like he likes to pose for picures.

Windows Tip #4: Keyboard Shortcuts Part 2

The are more obvious shortcuts for Windows users, but surprisingly, a lot of people do not use them at all. When I told my grandma about, say how to copy and paste using the keyboard, she was completely in shock. So don’t be insulted if you’re a computer whiz who knows all this already…

And let me mention something real quick There’s something called the “clipboard” in Windows, which is where your copied or cut stuff goes. So when you right-click and select “copy” or “cut”, your selection goes to the clipboard, and when you “paste”, it’s pasting whatever the last thing was you sent to the clipboard. So here are some related shortcuts:

• Ctrl + c : Copies the selected text or image(s)
• Ctrl + x : Cuts selection. This means that it is deleted from the current program and copied to the clipboard
• Ctrl + v : Pastes whatever you’ve copied or cut.
• Shift + arrow keys: Allows you to select using the arrows, with the position of the cursor as the starting point. If you hit up or down, it will select everything between your current position and the same cursor position a line above or below. Make sense?
• Shift + Ctrl + arrows (left and right) : Selects the word immediately to the left or to the right of the cursor.
• Tab : Moves the cursor to the next text box or clickable link/button. Works in all Windows dialogues and in all programs such as the Office suite, internet browsers, etc.
• Shift + Tab: Just like above, but it moves to the previous text box or clickable link/button.

I hope you find these useful!

EEEEeeeewww! Twitter!

I’ve never been much for social networking, and blogging is pushing it a little bit for me with it comes to sharing with the world. But Twitter, I think, goes too far. Who cares about the boring-ass details of your day-to-day life? I tried to follow a couple of my co-workers’ Twits, but I lost interest really fast. It’s not that I don’t care about what they have to say, but 140 characters is just not enough to make any kind of meaningful contribution. Unless maybe it’s a link.

But let’s be honest here, 98% or Twitter users have nothing good to say. Here’s a really good article about Twitter which I fully agree with.

Have a great weekend!

Totally Awesome Free Software

What’s better than free software? How about free software that doesn’t suck? There is much out there, from eye candy to actual useful and productive programs out there. I’ll be focusing on the former. Just kidding.

One of my faves is Rocketdock, which is an app launcher that emulates the mac launcher. I don’t use macs, so I don’t even know what it’s called, but it’s the one, you know, where you have all the icons there side by side and the thing zooms in when you mouse over an icon. Well Rocketdock does that for Windows, and I love it. It’s really easy to use, you just install it, and then you can pick the theme, position, size, etc. Adding stuff to the dock is also really easy, you can just drag icons onto it.

Free download at www.rocketdock.com, and there are even add-ons and plug-ins. Check out the Stacks docklet.

Windows Tips: the “Run” Dialogue

The Run DialogueHey there. I love keyboard shortcuts, and Windows XP has a great built-in way to quickly launch stuff. Granted, most of the apps you can easily launch from the Run dialogue are Windows apps, but I, for one, use many of them with regularity. So. Press [Windows + r], and try these out:

• iexplore – Launches Internet Explorer.
• firefox – Mozilla Firefox (if installed)
• mspaint – Paint.
• write – WordPad
• notepad – Take a wild guess
• calc – Calculator
• cmd – Command Prompt
• control – Control Panel
• appwiz.cpl – Add/Remove Programs
• msconfig – System Configuration Utility (for advanced users only, please!)
• regedit – Registry Editor (for very advanced users only, please!)
• control userpasswords2 – Windows 2000-style User Accounts
• control userpasswords – Windows XP-style User Accounts

Are there others? You bet, there are tons. But these are the ones I use on a semi-regular basis. Back when I actually worked on computers, I used them almost daily.

If you have MS Office installed, there are additional commands to run the common applications:

• excel – Excel
• winword – Word
• powerpnt – PowerPoint
• msimn – Outlook Express

For a way more complete list, you can visit this site.

Cheers!

A Small Step: A different view

So I was reading the blog Bad Astronomy and apparently there is high quality footage of the Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. How does this go unnoticed for so long? Why are all these science guys keeping all the cool videos to themselves? And most importantly: What do Lunar Landing skeptics think about it?

Watch the video! (Opens a new window)

This video is from TV is Cool, posted by Bad Physics.

Update: I tried and failed to embed the video in here. You can, however click on the above link or here.

A quick word about Email Marketing

I work for one of the leading email marketing providers, and in these past four months I have learned tons about lots of stuff I never knew even existed.  Apparently email marketing has the highest Return on Investment (ROI) of all marketing techniques (cold calling, direct mail, etc), and it’s so cheap and easy! You can create nice HTML newsletters and send six of them a month to 500 people  for only $14. I think that’s not bad.

Anyway, if anyone has any questions about email marketing, I’m your guy. Maybe one day I’ll even reveal who I work for…

Windows Tip #2: Keyboard Shortcuts Part 1

I was thinking today that something I can’t live without are shortcuts. Granted my driving shortcuts are usually disastrous, but Windows shortcuts can come in handy if you: 1. open lots of windows at once, and 2. like to use the mouse as little as possible. Laziness? Of course not! It’s all about productivity!

Here we go:

• alt + Tab : An oldie but goodie. Shows your open windows and lets you switch between them
• Windows + e : When I say ‘Windows’ I mean the little button between alt and control with the Windows logo… this shortcut opens Windows Explorer to My Computer.
• Windows + r : Opens the ‘Run’ dialogue. More to come about ‘Run’!
• Windows + d : Minimizes all your open windows and shows you the desktop.
• Windows + l : Locks your computer. Depending on your settings it will either show the Welcome Screen or the logon window.
• Windows + m : This does the same as Windows + d… I’m not sure if there’s a difference.
• Windows + Pause|Break: If you work on computers, you’ll appreciate this one: It opens the System Properties window. Invaluable in my old job.
• Ctrl + alt + del : Hahaha! Is there a Windows user out there who doesn’t know this one? (brings up Task manager)

There you have it. Part one. There are other ways to navigate through Windows without a mouse, which I will cover later on; some are built-in Windows features, others are third party programs.

Oh. A word about Vista. I have used it just long enough to know I don’t like it. I have found that many of the shortcuts I use every day don’t work in vista. And stuff is hidden in different places. Sorry, but I probably won’t be talking much about Vista here.

Meet Orson

What better way to start the day than with a gratuitous pic of a messed-up looking dog? I’d like you to meet Orson, the older of my two dogs:

Peace!