Today, I’ve been working away… on a new content management system for my blog. I’m running a tandem version of WickedBlog on a secure (can’t be spidered) production site. I must say, I’m enjoying the process. It’s also frustrating the be-jeepers out of me, but most new systems do.

I’m actually going to end up learning a little about CSS. Right now, my sheets don’t “cascade” yet — they kinda fumble around and fall alot. But, it’s still enjoyable.

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This weekend, I got a wild hair. No big surprise for most of you, but it happens from time to time. I decided I needed to start arranging my office in the Airstream to take up less space. Right now, the Airstream is only for my office, but in a couple years, it will be “shared space” when we hit the road. Between now and then, I need to determine how to get everything I need into a much smaller footprint. MUCH smaller. So, I’m starting now. After all, if there’s something that’s horrible that I simply cannot abide, I’d rather know now. I’d like the opportunity to discover and fix the problem before three of us are living full time in the space I’m currently calling “My office” (emphasis on the ‘MY”).

I thought I’d be able to live with just the tablet, for example. So I tried going back to working on a single screen. It ain’t a’gonna happen. Period. I despise the conformity of not being able to keep a window I’m using open on a second monitor and cutting and pasting, dragging or referring to that material in the other screen.

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As a power-user (or at least a constant user) of OneNote, I miss two things.

1. A word count tool - to help me as I compose and edit and work inside the OneNote program
2. A formatting “paintbrush” tool offered by the rest of the office apps - to make my notes look prettier and become more organized.

Good news: There is now a powertoy plugin that offers the word count functionality.
Bad news: Apparently I’m still the only one that wants/needs a formatting paintbrush.

To get your own word count option…Visit descapa’s blog and download his OneNote Word Count Powertoy. (Thanks descapa!)

While Google is competing with Microsoft’s products online, Zoho is competing with Google’s offerings and is raising the ante. Zoho already has Zoho Writer (word processing online) and Zoho Sheets (spreadsheet online).

But Zoho also offers a PowerPoint competitor: Zoho Show and a OneNote competitor: Zoho Notes (coming in March).

Zoho is also increasing the buy in with products such as…a customer relationship management product, a project management program, a “virtual office” solution, a calendar and email program, a wiki and an online database application.

For small business owners, this may be just the ticket to lowering the cost of software. And for those considering the launch of an online business, this may lower the cost for startup. For anyone collaborating across geographic boundaries, this is another way online work can lighten the load.

And isn’t it nice to have options?

It makes me crazy to have to wait. I’m not a patient woman. I’m just not.

I’m also a multi-tasker. There is seldom a time when I have less than a dozen processes going at once. So, when my FireFox is all locked up because I hit a link that, unknown to me, is a PDF, because I failed to check the URL at the bottom of my screen when hovering over a link… I get a wee bit antsy.

I’ve found a few ways to help curtail that frustration for fellow FireFox users: Courtesy of enblogopedia (read after reading about the FireFox plugins that prevent PDF launching at Blog Herald) I offer the following:

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WARNING: It’s a rant…

Ok, my freak flag is about to fly high again. I have been reading the hubbub about a recent bill to “protect our children from pornography” and psychotic poaching in the schools. And once again, I have to wonder about our school system and our political system.

I mean, seriously (to capture one of my favorite Grey’s Anatomy phrases)…If we, as a society, have first given our right to parent our children to the state and the school system, I must (apparently) learn to quit asking “where are the parents in this scenario?” But, after reading the bill that’s being promoted, I have to ask a similar question, “Where are the teachers during school hours?” if this is the type of thing they worry will happen in schools?

Of course, concern for the children’s privacy is a serious one. After all, I recently learned that my own son’s high school class called the daily roll by projecting the children’s names up on the wall, along with sensitive personal information, such as social security numbers and home phone numbers and addresses. I nearly had a fit.

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I found an interesting blog-style website with the tagline “Tutorials, Tips and Advice for Google Users” which I found to be entertaining and worthy of investigation. It is a user’s-eye-view of all things Google all in one place! Visit the Google Resource for yourself, and let me know if you find it to be useful. I’ve bookmarked it to return to later and investigate a bit more… and a bit deeper.

So, you want to have your computer run smoothly, keep your information safe and you don’t want to make keeping your stuff safe a second full-time job?

I found just the thing for you! Go and read the article “The 20 Minute Guide to PC Security” over on ITSecurity.com. It’s a great little article that covers most of the basics and give you an excellent collection of links and resources. If you are worried about security (and you should be!) go here. Go now. (heads up provided by Tracy at StudentTabletPC.com)

So you have listened to me blabber on and on about OneNote and you want to learn more — you want to determine if this is something that may be a benefit for you? I’ve found a resource that may help. Descapa from One Note Extensibility has released links to a couple of “in house” PowerPoint OneNote tutorials from Microsoft’s training department for your use.

Want to buy a year of college on eBay? Someone just did! eBay recently hosted an auction for one year of tuition, room and board at Oklahoma Wesleyan University. The value for the item? $23K. The final sales price? $18,669.99. (The auction ended on Feb. 13, 2007, so I don’t know how long the link will stay live)

I wonder if this is something else that will catch on? Interesting time, eh?

While searching for cool skins for my Sims Life Stories game, I tripped across two of the prettiest, most life-like Sims2 skins that I’ve every seen… And I’ve seen ALOT of Sims skins!

These are, unfortunately, too large for me to download on my Sims Life Stories game, but if I were running standard Sims 2, they would be a staple! They put the standard Maxis skins (and most of the other skins available) to shame!

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If you read my articles, you know I think you should be blogging. You should. Period.

But if you read my stuff, you also know that I don’t advocate ghost bloggers, nor do I ghost blog for others. But, I have run into a writer who has a firm handle on the ethical side of helping business people blog — and her name is JJ Murphy.

She offers blogging assistance to the shy would-be blogger to help you get your ideas — your OWN ideas — down in print and published on your blog. So if you know the articles you should be writing, but never have the time to finish up the ideas, she may be your first-class ticket into the blogosphere. (more…)

Google has just announced that it will offer an online-based office suite to large businesses. The suite, in direct competition with Microsoft Office (during the current Vista push) will offer email, calendar management, spreadsheets and word processing tools for a competitive $50 per year per user — far below the current cost of maintaining the latest version of office.The current free version of Google Apps will be upgraded for the business users and will include full technical support, the promise of 99.9% uptime and larger email boxes (10 gigs!).

The timing of this roll out has been called “brutal” toward Microsoft, while the big boy MS is in the midst of convincing current clients to upgrade to Office 2007 (which carries a pricetag that begins at 239 for an upgrade/$399 for a full version of the standard and soars to $539 upgrade/$679 for office, according to the Microsoft site).

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Kevin Tofel, over on JKontheRun featured the news that the latest Motion Computer for the medical industry had been unveiled. (How did I MISS that one? — thanks for the heads up, Kevin!)

What’s so cool about this new offering?The new Motion C5 Tablet PC has a built in RFID - radio frequency technology (for wrist ID bands), and something I’ve been wanting on my own Tablet PC — a built in camera! It also has a “disinfectable” semi-sealed interface (something I could PROBABLY use on mine, considering how grimy it gets), and a metal internal frame and a grab-handle at the top.

The white chassis is iPodesque, but cool. What doesn’t it have? A touch screen. I’d imagine that having a touch screen like the one they offer for other service industry use would be welcome (if not almost essential) in this environment.

The new C5 still awaits FCC approval before being sold, but it’s a nice new offering from my favorite Tablet PC manufacturer.

As I prepare to become truly mobile (something I’m seeking as I look for ways to save bucks), I’ve decided that I’ll keep my client records archived back on the farm, with a digital copy on my computer for reference. I’ll be using a minimum amount of paper. First because piles of paper are unseemly and they take up valuable space and second because I want to be digitally organized.

In this quest, I found a pretty interesting little piece of equipment for organizing myself.For just over $7 (after tax was added), I purchased a Pembrook Superfile. I got mine at a local discount grocery chain, Aldi Foods. (You can visit them on the web at www.Aldi.com - but you can’t purchase on the web, unfortunately.

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Do you have an uncontrollable desire to trick out your Simmies in Sims Life Stories? Yes it can be done. I’m sharing some of my best, tested finds with you here…Things I MUST have customized for my Sims (and the versions I’ve found that work with Sims Life Stories):

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Before you decide to switch to Vista, you may want to read a few reviews of the largest media rollout of a new operating system in history.

It’s been enough to bring those hold outs (like me) who have been considering Linux and other options, out of the closet. I’m now planning to work with open source software that is XP compatible in 2007 and do a switch to Linux in 2008.

By doing this in stages, I’m not learning all new software AND a new operating system all at once. I’ve not made a firm decision yet, but it’s looking more like Linux is looming in my future all the time. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, you may want to consider carefully before “upgrading” to Vista. You should know what you are giving up and what the risks really are.

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My hubby picked me up a copy of Sims Life Stories for Valentines day, and I must admit I’ve really enjoying my new little Sims. As a long-time player of Sims and Sims 2 (I have had ALL the expansion packs), I’m still happy with this “toned down” version of the game. Why? Because it does something the other versions have never done…Unlike the predecessors, this Sims can play in a window! Now, this means that doing online “poking about” — I was also “Simming” in a window on my second monitor. As a natural multi-tasker, I must say I love that ability. I love it enough to put up with less.

I also like that the “fears” have been removed, that I no longer have to pay those blasted bills (or deal with the collectors, when my simmies forgot). I do miss being able to send my simmies to college. Ironically, I don’t really miss the ability to open a business (I guess I have enough of that in my real life — go figure!).

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What if the current problems I’m always ranting about in the public education system in Kentucky were suddenly gone? What if there was a way to provide an excellent online alternative and what if that alternative was free?

Consider the current new wave of “open source education” options online…A group of universities, worldwide have joined together to form the Open Courseware Consortium a group of higher education organizations willing to share their coursework, syllabuses and class notes online — for public view — for free. Pretty amazing new turn in the formerly un-shared information from universities and institutions including Harvard Law School, MIT, Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins, etc.

In addition, I’ve found the following online, opensource educational resources:

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Wired magazine recently reported that several of the electronic voting machines, which contain the “closely held” software secrets were recently auctioned off at government auction. How’s that for “homeland security” gone awry? The cost? $82.

The man that purchased these five machines was none other than a Princeton computer science professor who promptly reverse-engineered the systems, along with his students seeking security holes. Want to know what he found?The read the entire Wired article about the Auction of Top Secret US Voting Machines. *tsk-tsk*

Technorati: electronic voting machines, vote security, reverse engineering