Double Stamp

Ubuntu 9.10 Coming Soon

2009-04-02T12:41:00.001-06:00

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;img src="http://www.ubuntu.com/files/countdown/904/countdown-9.04-1/00.png" alt="Ubuntu 9.04 - on desktops, netbooks, servers and in the cloud" width="180" height="150" border="0" /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Gmail Contact Manager Making Big Improvements

2009-02-12T00:12:00.005-07:00

Gmail's contact manager has traditionally been terrible. Since the release of Android, Google's mobile phone system, they have made some significant improvements. Today, they officially rid themselves of the Double Stamp seal of suckiness. I'm proud to say I can now use gmail contacts without getting mad.

It's not perfect yet, but way better. Read here for the new features.

New Gmail Features: Remote Logout and Account Activity

2008-07-09T11:49:00.009-06:00

Email has become an essential form of communication, and there is no doubt that keeping our email accounts secure is of high importance. Web-based email accounts like Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail, are excellent tools because they allow you to check your email from anywhere at any time. This also creates a security issue, because anyone who somehow gets your password will be able to log into your account from another computer. For you Gmail users, however, this just became MUCH less of a problem.

Gmail just released a new feature that allows you to see how many computers are logged into your account, when they logged in, and what the IP addresses of those computers are. At the bottom of your email inbox, there is now a line that looks like this:

Why is this helpful? Well, if someone is logging into your account from somewhere else, you will see that more than one computer is logged in, and you will know that something is wrong. This morning I opened my gmail to find that someone from another computer had accessed my account. I looked up the IP address and noticed that it was coming from the online contact management website called Plaxo. It's possible that Plaxo is accessing my account to import my contacts, but I was completely unaware of the situation. I am now investigating why this is happening, and have sent Plaxo a request for an explanation.

Another extremely useful feature is that you can now "remotely logout" of your gmail account. Have you ever left your gmail account open on another computer? Now, you can click into the "details" link on the account activity line, and then click "Sign Out All Other Sessions." This will log you out from the other computers so that no one can mess with your account. Superb!

Use BCC When Sending to Email Lists

2008-06-13T15:11:00.006-06:00

When sending emails to lists, it is important that you use what is called "Blind Carbon Copying (BCC)." Instead of using the box in your email program that says "To," use the one that says "BCC." Why? This hides the recipients email addresses from eachother.

Using Blind Carbon Copying is important for the following reasons:

Using BCC respects the privacy of your contacts. Today I received an email that was sent to hundreds of people, and the sender did not use BCC. Now, every individual who received it has my email address, even though I do not know most of the people on the list. This has occured 4 times in the last 3 days, which is why I am writing this article.
Email lists (especially chain emails) that do not use BCC are contributing to spam. Imagine you send 1 email to 1 friend. That friend forwards your email to 10 different people, and those 10 forward to another 10. None of them use BCC, and now 100 people have your email address. The minute a spammer gets ahold of this, you're on their list, even though you only sent an email to one person! You definitely don't want that. BCC prevents this kind of disease-like spreading of your email to people you don't want to have it.
BCC prevents unintentionally "Replying to All." Have you ever accidentally hit the "Reply to All" and sent your reply out to all recipients, even though you only wanted to reply to the sender? This can be embarrassing, and sometimes even damaging. If the author of the email uses BCC, this is not an issue.
BCC prevents disclosure of who you are sending to. Not only does BCC protect your recipients, it also protects you. In many cases, you don't want everyone to know who you sent the email to.
There are other reasons to use BCC, and if you can think of them, post them in the comments.

When is using the TO: box OK?

You obviously should use the TO: box if you are sending to one person.

At times, it is completely appropriate to use the TO: box when sending to multiple addresses.

If you intend for a discussion to occur, then each participant must know who else is part of the dialog. However, this should be done only if you are sure that each recipient does not have a problem with their email being shared with the others on the list.
Use TO: if you must explicitly show to whom the email was sent. This is often the case in organizations and businesses.

Choose Good Passwords

2008-06-04T20:32:00.002-06:00

I recently came across an article discussing the importance of creating and maintaining good passwords to keep your website accounts secure. Password security is very important, and protecting your accounts will save you a catastrophe. Don't ever use your real name or site username for your password!

Read this article about password security.

Collaborate with Google Docs

2008-05-24T15:40:00.005-06:00

Do you ever have the need to collaborate with multiple people on a document, spreadsheet or presentation? Maybe you are a student who is writing a group paper, a captain of a team that needs to keep roster information up-to-date, or a business that needs to keep documents in sync with input from every employee. If you haven't heard of Google Docs, you need to read this.

Google docs is an online office suite with tools for creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. All the tools run right inside your browser, so you don't need to actually download and install anything to use it. With Google Docs, multiple people can edit a document with no need to email revisions or keep track of what has changed. It stores the files on the web so that all users can see the latest revision, and no one gets out of sync.

The benefits of this kind of service are huge. No matter where you are, you can get on the web and edit your documents. Forget to make a change at work? No prob, just log on from home and make the changes. Maybe your computer crashed and you didn't make any backups of your files. Under a traditional office setup, this would be a catastrophe. With Google Docs, no problem.

Here's some ways in which I use Docs:

A friend of mine and I are researching a certain market for a possible business startup. We keep track of existing products that are similar to ours.
A friend of mine and I play pinball all the time. Just for fun we started recording our scores. We now use an online Google spreadsheet to keep all kinds of stats on our games.
When I do web design, I keep track of the hours spent and what I did. I can easily share this information with a client so that they can keep tabs on what is going on. It makes them feel comfortable, and prevents me from having to respond to status requests.
I am creating an online presentation of some research that I am performing as a PhD student. I can easily embed my presentation on my academic website, and my advisor can join in on the editing.

The features of Google Docs are not as rich as Open Office or MS Office, but that doesn't mean it is not useful. In fact, the fact that your information is always available more than makes up for the deep features that you may never use anyway. If your internet connection is really slow, Google docs may not be your best option.

Give it a try and explore the features. As usual, you have nothing to lose!

Google Street View

2008-03-29T15:28:00.003-06:00

Google Maps has an amazingly fun/useful feature that allows you to actually see pictures of the streets and address you are interested in. They hired people to drive specials cars all around the cities of the United States, each of which has a special camera that takes pictures at numerous angles. Here's an example: a tiny little canyon in Salt Lake City called "City Creek." Try clicking the arrow buttons to move around and zoom.

View Larger Map

Unfortunately, not all cities in the United States are included. Google is adding new data at a rapid pace, however, and it should only be a matter of time before your favorite places are scanned.

To use street view, just go to http://www.google.com/maps and type in an address or place. Then click the button on the top right corner of the map that says "Street View." If street view is available for your location of interest, you should see a little yellow man and the streets will be colored blue. Place the yellow man on any location to see pictures of the address.

OpenDNS

2008-02-26T00:01:00.001-07:00

Are you a parent that is concerned about your kids accessing certain content on the Internet? Maybe you would like to have more control over your family's connection to the web? If you're interested in setting up an excellent filtering/monitoring system, this is for you.

OpenDNS is a free Internet service that allows you to do the following:

Automatically filter pornographic sites from your internet connection.
Manually block certain sites that you specify.
Monitor your web traffic statistics. See what sites are being accessed most and what time of day.
Prevent "phishing" sites that try to steal your information.
See a complete list of features here.

OpenDNS is great because it doesn't require that you run any software on your own computer. This prevents you having to keep a program running in the background, which frees up your resources and prevents you from screwing something up. Here's how to get started:

Sign up for a free account here.
Choose which method you want to use here. You can either use OpenDNS with your router so that all computers in your house are monitored, or you can just do it to one computer.
Follow the instructions provided for the method you choose.
Read up on all the great features.

You're all set. OpenDNS is really a great service and one that can be extremely helpful in a variety of situations. If you're a parent, keep in mind that you still need address the issue of web content directly with your kids. It's not OpenDNS's job to make sure your kids learn what they need to stay out of trouble on their own. That said, it can be a great way to keep tabs on things. Yes, that's right, Double Stamp is now providing parenting advice for free.

The rest of this article is optional for those of you who want to know how OpenDNS works.

OpenDNS works by taking advantage of the way a URL is retrieved from the web. When you type in a website like "http://doublestamp.blogspot.com" your computer first connects to what is called a "DNS Server." Basically, it's a big phone directory. You tell it the name of the website you want to go to, and it returns an IP address behind the scenes. Your computer then connects to the IP address to get to the website of interest.

Now, if you tell your computer to use OpenDNS as the directory, you give them control to filter what your computer is requesting. For example, if someone attempts to visit a pornographic site, OpenDNS recognizes it as such, and does not return the IP address. It's kind of like having a phone book that won't give out the phone numbers to certain people.

Gmail 101: Labels and Archiving

2008-02-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

No! Gmail does not need "folders!"

Recently, and on more than one occasion, people have complained to me that Gmail does not have a "folders" feature for organizing email. They said that their inbox was really cluttered in Gmail because they couldn't move their emails into folders. I am here to tell you that it DOES in fact have this capability. In fact, it can do more than regular folder organization can.

First of all, a "label" is the same thing as a "folder," only a single email can be given multiple labels for convenience. For example, let's say that you get an email with the subject "Job Fair at the University." You could apply the labels "Job" and "School" to this email.

Secondly, if you would like to move an email out of your inbox without deleting it, simply click the button that says "Archive." This will take it out of your inbox, but you will still be able to find it under the labels that you have applied. Archived email can also be found under the "All mail" link.

If you're interested in automatically applying labels and archiving, check out this help file on Gmail filters.

Managing Email Lists the Right Way

2008-01-13T19:30:00.000-07:00

Do you belong to a group that sends mass emails to each other? Do you rely on the "Reply to All" function so that everyone in the group can converse? If so, I think you'll find this post useful.

A "List Server" or "Group" is a smarter way to have conversations with groups via email. Instead of sending an email to every person on the list, you simply send it to the group's email address. The software that runs the group takes the email that you just sent it, and passes it on to everyone who is "subscribed" to the group. Then, when someone replies, it is sent back to the group software, and it again passes the reply on to everyone.

Here's why you should use a list server or group service:

When a user decides they don't want to be on a list anymore, or if they need to change their email address, they can modify their subscription on their own. This saves the maintainer of the list a big hassle.
Each recipient's email can be kept private. Don't you hate it when your email is on a big list?
Sending email to ONE address delivers the information to everyone in the group.
Email is archived automatically so that it can be viewed later, even if individual users delete their emails.
You can set different permissions for the list. It can be set up for the general public, or kept completely private.

The good news is that you don't need to be a computer nerd to set up a list like this. Google and Yahoo both provide group services.

I set up a group for my family about a year ago and it has been a great success. People send out emails to the family with ease, and the service keeps an archive of all emails. Even if all the members of the group delete their emails, there is still an online archive of all posts to the list.

Try it out. Once you do, you'll never want to use a mass carbon-copy list again.

Task Lists (To-Do) in Gmail

2007-12-21T14:27:00.000-07:00

Don't you wish Gmail had a nice task list feature? Maybe something like this:

Looks really cool, right? This article will show you how to set it up in about 3 minutes using the Firefox web browser.

First of all, you need a free account with the Internet's best task list service Remember the Milk. You can learn more about it by reading my previous post, or by visiting their tour. After you set up your free account, all you have to do is download and install the Remember the Milk for Gmail Firefox extension.

After installing the extension, just restart Firefox, log in to Gmail, and BOOM, you've got yourself a feature-rich task list right along side of your inbox. Excellent! Be sure to read up on all the great features that this extension has. The people over at Remember the Milk really are doing some exceptional work.

Are Your Gmail Contacts a Huge Mess?

2007-12-05T16:25:00.000-07:00

Gmail is one of my favorite internet products of all time, but it's contact manager sucks. Many of you who have tried to manage your contacts in Gmail have probably given up and used some other site or software. This article is how to keep track of your contacts in Gmail, without pulling your hair out.

The biggest problem with Gmail contacts is that anyone who you send an email automatically gets added to your contact list. This can obviously drive you crazy when you go to look up a friends phone number, and have to sift through all the people that you emailed one time, and can't even remember who they are. It also creates a problem when you accidentally type someone's email incorrectly. Then, when you go back to send another email, you can't remember which one is correct. If your like most people, your Gmail contacts are probably a huge mess, so here's how you fix it.

Does your Gmail contact list look like this?

Go into the contact manager by clicking the "Contacts" link on the right side of the page. Next, click the button that has a plus sign and a picture of two cartoon people. A box will pop up that says "What would you like to name this group?" Enter something like "My Contacts" and click OK.

Now you have a new group for contacts that will only be added to if you intentionally tell Gmail to put a contact in this group. You'll need to spend some time adding your existing contacts into your system. To do this, select the contacts from the "All Contacts" group and then click the button that says "Groups->Add to...->My Contacts." If you are using another program for contacts, you'll need to import them into Gmail first.

Now that you have a new contact group, you can manage your contacts without Gmail screwing them up. Keep in mind that you can create any number of groups to solve the problem. For example, you could create a separate group for family, friends, and business contacts. When you need to find a number or address, just jump to your new group for a list without the clutter and incorrect contacts. It's a simple solution, but it's already saved me a headache.

There are still a lot of things that Google needs to do to improve it's contact management system, but this will at least get you by. If you'd like to join me in requesting Google to improve this system, use this page.

Track Your Websites with Analytics

2007-11-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

Almost everyone has a blog or personal website. Wouldn't it be cool if you could tell how many people are visiting your site, where they came from, and how long they stayed? For those of you who aren't web designers, it probably sounds like a lot of work, but I'm going to show you how to do it on your blog in under 10 minutes. Like most things discussed on Double Stamp, it's entirely free.

A web visitor tracking system is often called an "analytics" system. It allows you to find out the following:

How many visits your site/blog is getting.
Where your visitors are geographically located.
Where your traffic is coming from (other sites, search engines, etc).
How long visitors are staying on your site.
Much more.

"Google Analytics" is a free system that is simple to use/install, and has tons of features. I use it here on Double Stamp, and it's powerful enough to track corporate websites that rely on web statistics to drive their sales. While there are other analytics systems that you can use, Google's is very powerful, clean, and free of charge.

Here's how you would set up Google Analytics to track your Blogger blog.

Sign up for the service at http://www.google.com/analytics
Click on "Add Website Profile"
Check the box that says "Add a Profile for a new domain" and then enter the URL of your blog.
Copy the code that is given on the next page. It looks like this:
Open your blogger page and go to your settings.
Click on the "template" tab. Click on "Add a page element" at the bottom of your blog. Don't add it to the sidebar.
Choose the "HTML/Javascript" element to add it to the page.
Don't enter a title. Paste the code that you copied from google analytics into content. Click "Save Changes. It should look like this:

That's it! You can now track who is visiting your site by logging into www.google.com/analytics and navigating through the data. Here's an example screenshot of the number of visits during the month.

Here's a location map for visitors coming from the state of Utah.
Don't be afraid to poke around the system and find out about numerous other features. As always, read through the help files to get up-to-speed. To install Google Analytics on a site other than blogger, just read the how-to on the Analytics page. Enjoy!

Ubuntu! clap clap clap

2007-11-01T17:05:00.000-06:00

I have been avoiding this post for a long time, but it is finally time that I tell you about what I believe to be the most promising future of computers. If you know me personally, I have probably already talked your ear off about this subject, but I avoided posting about it here in Double Stamp because I wanted some more time to get my facts straight.

Before we go any further, ask yourself these questions:

Would you rather pay hundreds of dollars for your computer system (software), or get it for free?
Are you tired of buying a Windows computer, only to find that your new system already has a bunch of crap installed that you never wanted?
Do you get really annoyed when it takes 5 minutes for your computer to completely load, even though it seemed to work fine 3 months ago. Are you tired of all those automatic start-up programs taking over?
Are you tired of having to buy, install and run anti-virus and spyware software?
Are you tired of being manipulated into using only Apple products, just because you bought an iPod?
If someone offered you a solution to all of these problems for FREE, would you be interested??? Read on.

Most of you have probably heard of Linux before, but haven't had much experience. In the past, Linux was an operating system used mainly on servers (computers that run in the background), or on computer geek machines. Over the past 5 years, however, Linux has become very user friendly and powerful for both the geeks and typical users.

Linux comes in all shapes and sizes, and each variant of the system is called a distribution. It's like a hand in a glove. Linux is the hand, the part that is the core of the motion, and the distribution is the glove. You choose a distribution based on what you need to do. If your objective is to stay warm, you choose a warm glove, and if you want to hit a hole in one, you use a golf glove.

Ubuntu (pronounced "ooo-boon-too") is the name of my favorite Linux distribution. It's purpose is to be very user-friendly and powerful for people like you and me. With Ubuntu, you can basically do everything that you can do with another operating system like Windows or Mac. For example,

Browse the internet
Create/edit office documents for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.
Use email, calendar, task lists...
Edit your photos: crop, resize, fix colors, contrast, etc.
Play games, chat online via IM, and much, much more.

Now, why would you even want to try Ubuntu?

It's is legally 100% free and always will be. So are all the programs you need. No more paying hundreds for Windows or Mac software! There are thousands of great programs to choose from in Ubuntu; it's like a free shopping spree for software.
You can do basically everything that you can do with Windows or Mac, and there are many things that it can do exclusively.
It runs very clean; no problems with programs automatically loading on start-up and hijacking your memory.
No need for anti-virus or spyware software that slow your computer down and cost money.
It is extremely easy to use, and is very secure.
It is easy enough for a beginner to use, yet powerful enough for computer geeks to love it. My mom, who just started using computers, can use Ubuntu with no problem.

You are hopefully starting to get the idea. Now that I have talked it up, how about a little tour of the computer I am using to write this article. Let's begin by looking at the desktop.

Check this out, I will now "flip" my desktop and work on a fresh space. When I want to come back, I'll just flip back. It's like working on the sides of a 3D cube. This allows me to manage my windows without getting too cluttered.

Where did that one window go? Oh, let me just flip through them visually.

Now I want to download a new program. I'll just open the automatic software installer that allows me to simply place a check mark next to the programs that I want. It then downloads and installs for me! If I want to get rid of the program, I just un-check the box.

Are you "sold" yet? If so, you don't have to pay a dime for this system. You can download or order CD's to install Ubuntu for free. Just go to www.ubuntu.com and look for the download links. If you want to try it out, you can do so without even actually installing it on your computer by running it from the CD. You can also install it in a way to keep your old operating system intact, enabling you to choose which system to run when you boot up. If you want to try it out, but need some help getting started, post up in the comments and I will help you personally.

Ubun-tu *clap clap clap* Ubun-tu *clap clap clap* Ubun-tu *clap clap clap*

Blog Readers, Read Up!

2007-10-26T18:21:00.000-06:00

The latest craze on the internet is blogs. Blogs are simply websites that make it easy for you to post articles or journal type entries for the public to see. Most of you probably have your own blogs, and read others on a regular basis. Hey! You're reading one right now!

No offense, but most of you probably read blogs the old fashioned, clunky way. You probably check the blogs multiple times, only to find out that the author hasn't created a new entry. You check back over and over, waiting for a new post. If you visit multiple blogs a day, you probably spend a lot of time "checking" the sites, only to find out that one or two of them actually have a new article to read. Don't you wish that there was an easier way to find out where new material has been posted?

Well, there is. I posted a Double Stamp article a long time ago called "Introduction to Web Feeds." Web feeds allow to to "subscribe" to a website's content. Instead of re-explaining how it works, I encourage you to check out my previous article and try it out with the blogs that you are reading. It will make your reading MUCH easier. Now your friends and family who "don't have time to read your blog" have no excuse!

Look, blogs are here to stay. You might as well learn how to read em' right.

"Handy" Keyboard Shortcuts

2007-09-29T11:00:00.000-06:00

This looks like a boring post; no new amazing Intarweb technology or service. If you give it a fair shot, however, you'll probably find it as useful as anything you have ever read on Double Stamp.

A keyboard shortcut is simply a way to do something on the keyboard that could be done using the graphical interface of a program. For example, instead of trying to save a document by going to the menu: FILE->SAVE, most programs allow to to just hold down the control button and push the key "s" (Ctrl+s). What's the point? Once you get up and running with the shortcuts, you'll realize how "handy" they are.

When learning how to use the keyboard, it is often difficult to avoid doing things the way you always have with the graphical interface. If you practice and discipline yourself, you will be amazed at how efficient and elegant the keyboard can be. To get you started, here are some examples of a few really useful keyboard shortcuts that will have you convinced if you practice them. Don't give up on these without a fair try!

Firefox:
(Most of these will work in other browsers as well)

Ctrl+L: Highlights the URL at the top of your window so that you can instantly type the next website to visit.
/: Just by hitting the slash key "/" you can instantly search a website for the text you are interested in. If you want to jump to the next instance of the search, hit CTL+G.
Ctrl+K: Jump the cursor to the search box in the upper right.
Ctrl+Enter: Complete a ".com" address. If you want to go to ebay.com, just type "ebay" and then hit "Ctrl+Enter." Combine this with the CTL+L shortcut! (You can also do a Shift+Enter for .net, and Ctrl+Shift+Enter for .org addresses.)

Gmail:
(You must go into your account settings and turn on keyboard shortcuts to use them in Gmail)

g then i: Jumps you to your inbox.
/: Just like firefox, the "/" key in Gmail jumps you to the search box.
c: Compose a new email.
Read more about Gmail keyboard shortcuts here.

Almost every program has some keyboard shortcuts, and many actually allow you to create your own. To learn them, open the program's help file and read up!

The Open Source Revolution

2007-09-16T17:00:00.000-06:00

If you use the internet and new software frequently, you have probably come across the term “open-source.” If you haven't heard of it, you need to know so keep reading. Some people think that “open-source” means that you can download and install software for free, without ever having to pay money to use it, while others think it means that anyone can change a piece of software at their will. While there is some truth to both of these concepts, this article will teach you the essence of open-source software and why it's good news for you as an end-user.

Most companies keep the computer code used to create their programs (called source code) secret. By keeping their source code proprietary and secret, they prevent other companies or individuals from stealing their work. By locking the public and other companies out, however, these companies also lock themselves in from community collaboration.

"Open-source," means that the code for a program is freely available to anyone who would like to have it. Anyone is allowed to download the code, change it, and use it however they like, with little or no licensing issues to deal with. The trade-off is that any changes that you make to your copy of the software, must remain open to anyone as well. Some companies sell their open-source software, and others give it away for free, making money from support services. Let's look at an example:

Let's say your in the business of flying to the moon. My company, Intergalactic Programming, has been working on an open-source program to control space-ship computers. One of the features of your space ship is automatic moon landing, but my program does not currently provide that. Instead of starting from scratch, you download the code to my program, and add the automatic moon landing feature. The open-source model now requires you to make public your changes, so my company can now integrate the automatic landing feature upon my next software release (if we decide we want to)! With the open-source model, innovation is nurtured, not squashed inside the walls of one company.

Wow, that means that we both came out with benefits. You saved time by using my program, and my program became better because of you! Imagine what happens when companies and programmers from across the entire world collaborate on an open-source project, we all win. Is there a single company that would be able to keep up with this kind of growth? I think not. If you ask me, Apple and Microsoft will be in a lot of trouble in about 5-10 years, as soon as the general public starts to understand and support open-source projects.

You can already be a beneficiary of open-source programs. Here are some of my favorites that you can download for FREE:

Firefox: The best web browser out. If you've tried Firefox, you know how great open-source can be.
The GIMP: A great photo editing application. Instead of forking over hundreds of dollars for Photoshop, try this for free.
Open Office: An office suite comparable (better, in my opinion) to Microsoft Office. Contains: word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, database, drawing, and more.
Songbird: Great for you online music junkies. It's a mix of a music player and web browser.
Ubuntu: An entire operating system based on Linux. With Ubuntu, you do not need Microsoft Windows or Apple's Mac OS.

Open Office REALLY is Better

2007-08-13T14:23:00.000-06:00

A few months ago, I wrote an article on OpenOffice, a free office suite comparable to Microsoft's Office software. It contains programs such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation maker, etc...

This week I found myself implementing a spreadsheet for a somewhat complicated electrical engineering problem. It involved writing some computer program code in a language called BASIC, which essentially allows a user to create their own functions. Since the company where I work uses MS Office, I wrote my initial draft of the spreadsheet in Excel.

After a few hours of work, I came across something strange. My new functions were appearing to work correctly, but my final numbers were way off. After hours of debugging with another co-worker, we finally found out that MS Office was not allowing me to use the number pi, even though using pi works just fine when you type it straight into the Excel sheet. Ugh...

Later that week, I decided to re-create the spreadsheet in OpenOffice's Calc (the equivalent of Excel). To my surprise, many of the functions that I had to create myself were already included in OpenOffice! I tried using Pi, and it worked perfectly.

Now, anyone who tells you that OpenOffice is inferior to Microsoft's Office is badly mistaken. I know this from experience in dealing with both of them at a very deep level. If you are still paying hundreds of dollars for MS Office, you're wasting your money. Get OpenOffice for free, tell your friends to get OpenOffice for free, save hundreds of dollars, and support the open standards that OpenOffice provides.

Gmail Features Everyone Should Know

2007-08-02T10:00:00.000-06:00

Google's Gmail is by far the best web-based email system to date. In fact, I prefer it to any other email client that is on the market, including programs such as Microsoft's Outlook or Mozilla's Thunderbird. It's quiet design is refreshing, and the threaded conversations keep your inbox nice and tidy. On top of the great design, there are some powerful tools that allow Gmail users to organize and track their email very efficiently. Let's face it, most of you use your email multiple times every day. Isn't it worth a little time learning how to get your Gmail running like a well oiled machine? If you don't have Gmail, you can sign up for a free account if you'd like to try it.

Trick #1: Tracking Your Email with a "+"

When you add a "+sometexthere" to your email address in Gmail, it will still arrive in your inbox. For example, let's say that your email address is bob@gmail.com. Sending an email to bob+doublestamp@gmail.com, or bob+anything@gmail.com will still send the email to bob@gmail.com. Why is this useful? Because you can track where people are getting your email address from.

Next time you go to sign up for something on the internet, add a "+website" to your email address. For example, if you are signing up for ebay, you could sign up using the email bob+ebay@gmail.com. Now, if you start receiving tons of spam, all of which are addressed to "bob+ebay@gmail.com," you will know that ebay shared your information with other companies!

Note: Sometimes websites won't allow you to place a "+" character in your email. If this is the case, use trick #2.

Trick #2: Dots don't matter

Dots in Gmail addresses are ignored. That means that if you send an email to double.stamp@gmail.com, it's the same as sending it to doublestamp@gmail.com or d.oubl.e.st.am.p@gmail.com. This can be handy if the "+" is not allowed by a website to which you are signing up. Instead, you can add dots in certain places, then write down where you put them for a given website. For example, if you sign up for ebay, you could use b.o.b@gmail.com instead of bob@gmail.com. If you start getting spam addressed to b.o.b, then you know that ebay spilled the beans on you.

This trick can be useful to sign up for multiple accounts on the same website, since most will not allow you to use an email address that is already registered in their system.

Trick #3 (not really a trick): Using filters and labels

One of the best things about gmail is the ability to easily create custom filters to organize your incoming email. You can filter your email in almost any way that you can think of. For example, let's say that you would like to redirect any email that has the word "AOL" directly to your trash folder (I hate AOL). You would just go to Settings->Filters->Create New Filter and fill out the form appropriately. On the next page, you just check the box that says "delete it," and your done.

A "label" is exactly that, a label or tag on your emails. You can set up a "label" based on your filter criteria. For example, you could apply the label "family" to any email that arrives from someone in your family. Labels can help you quickly find past emails, and they keep your inbox tidy.

An example: Slammin' that Spam

Time for a real world example of how to use all these gmail features. These instructions will help you set up a spam bustin' system.

Set up a "junk email" gmail account. Something like yourname.junk@gmail.com.
Set the new junk account to forward all your email to your real account. To do this, go to Settings -> Forwarding and Pop and fill out the box.
Set up a FILTER in your real gmail account. In the filter criteria, place your junk email address in the "FROM:" box so that the filter will be applied to any emails forwarded from your junk mail account.
Next, choose to "Apply a label" and select "New label..."
Name the label something like "Junk account" or "Bulk mail"
Click "Create filter."

Da-duh! You're done. Now, when you sign up for that next website, put in your JUNK email address, and use the "+" or "." trick (as discussed above) to tag the site. If that website sends you an email, you will still receive it in your real email because it will automatically forward. You will see who is responsible for the email by looking at the "+tag" part of the email. If you start getting too much spam in your real email address, all you have to do is either stop the forwarding, or create a filter in the junk mail account! Spaminora!

Clean n' Easy Movie Schedules

2007-06-25T14:30:00.000-06:00

If you're still using a newspaper to look up movie schedules, you're probably from somewhere like Naf, Idaho. Oh wait, they don't have movie theaters or newspapers there.

For a more time saving and modern approach, try using the Google "movie" keyword. It's as easy as this:

Go to google.com.
Type: "movie: zipcode" replacing the word "zipcode" with your actual code.
Hit enter.
You will see all the movies and times that are available near your location.

The results are clean and easy to read, without any annoying advertisements to distract your eye. Here's an example. You can order the results based on the movie title, theater, movie popularity, and rating. You can also get instant maps to the theaters, or view movie trailers by clicking "trailer" on selected movies.

This is by far the easiest, cleanest, quickest, and betterest way to find the movies you want to see. Wow, computers really are fun and useful.

Remember the Milk

2007-06-13T15:04:00.000-06:00

I use a computer for many hours every day, so when an internet tool comes along that helps me organize, I'm psyched. Recently, I have been very impressed with what I find to be the internet's most powerful TO-DO list system: Remember the Milk. As usual, it's completely FREE!

A TO-DO list!? Powerful?!

Yeah. A powerful TO-DO list I tell you.

If your like most people, you have many areas that demands different sized pieces of your time pie. Work, family, exercise, hobbies, and school might make up a typical day for you. Even though these different areas are for the most part disjoint, they still make up YOUR time and YOUR life.

Remember the Milk (RTM) is a system that is capable of organizing all the things that you need to get done. At first glance, it's a TO-DO list. You sign up for an account, create some tasks, and then check them off as you finish. If you stop there, however, you might as well use a piece of paper and a pen. RTM has a very deep feature list that allows you to do almost anything you can imaging with your tasks. Like what?

First off, you can create multiple task lists for the different areas of your life. One for work, one for school, etc. You can assign due dates to each task, and when the day arrives for you to complete your task, it will show up on your "Today" page.

You can also attach locations to all of your tasks. Say, for instance, that you need to drive around town running errands. By attaching addresses to your tasks, you can visually plan out the routes by using the RTM maps feature. Check it out.

One of my favorite features, and what I believe makes RTM so powerful, is the ability to make "smart lists." Smart lists make it possible to dynamically manage your tasks using a search term. For example, let's say that you have many lists and tasks, but only want to view the tasks that are relevant to your car. By creating a smart list, you can have a dynamic list that only displays tasks that have the word "car" in them. The possibilities are endless with this kind of functionality.

If you work with others, you'd probably be interested to know that you can also share/assign tasks with/to other people. A friend of mine runs a fly fishing website called RiverBum, and needs to be able to assign tasks to his staff efficiently. RTM is perfect for this kind of situation.

What if you need to receive a TXT, email, or instant message when a task is approaching? It can do that too! Forgetting that something is due is no longer an issue for you flakes out there. There are many other features which I don't have room to explain here, but RTM has some great documentation and support forums. I would suggest reading their Frequently Asked Questions page to get started.

Since I have been using RTM to manage my tasks, my efficiency in getting things done has definitely improved. Give it a try by clicking here.

Avoid a Meltdown: Back up Your Data!

2007-05-19T21:14:00.000-06:00

Here's a true story.

On April 26, 1999, I went to turn on my computer as I had done hundreds of times before. Instead of getting the boot-up screen, all I heard was a short beep. The computer was on, but nothing was appearing on the screen. I turned it off and tried again, but the same thing happened. This wasn't the first time that something wrong had happened on my computer, so I went to work trying to fix the problem. Many hours later, I was completely stumped, but I was sure something really bad had happened.

The next day I heard about a breaking news story from one of my computer geek friends: A computer virus called "Chernobyl" had erupted in a huge number of computers across the world. It remained dormant on a user's system until a special date (April 26, 1999, an anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in Russia), upon which the virus severely damaged the data of the system's hard disk. After reading the news reports, there was no doubt in my mind that I had been a victim of this vandalism. My data was long gone. All my school work, all my personal files, all my programming projects... it was all wiped clean, and I didn't have a backup.

You probably have thousands of irreplaceable photos and documents that could be lost in an instant. How would you feel if tomorrow they were erased completely from your computer? You can lose your data in countless ways, even if you're on a Mac and don't worry so much about viruses. Do you have an adequate backup? Don't be as stupid as I was. If you do not have a backup system, you need to get one immediately.

Ok, so now your scared (as you should be), and want to get your act together by setting up a backup system. How do you do it? I suggest that you invest $65 to $100 on what is called an "external hard drive." This is a hard drive that remains outside of your computer case, and connects to your computer via a USB cable. Once you set it up following the manufacturer's instructions, you can easily copy your sensitive files to the drive. Most drives will come with a backup utility that may allow you to schedule backups of certain files or directories at a particular time.

Another option is to pay for an online storage service such as Mozy, which allows you to upload your data to their company computers. This is nice because your data is safer when stored in two different locations ( If you're house burns down, your computer AND external drive would most likely be burned.) The downside is that it takes a long time to transfer a lot of data across the internet.

It doesn't really matter how you do it, just do it! And do it often.

It's not important for you to backup your entire system. Things like programs can be easily replaced by reinstalling them from a CD or download. The data that is essential to backup are the things that are irreplaceable: photos, personal documents, and anything else that can't be recovered for a price. Data storage nowadays is very cheap, so if you're in doubt about what to backup, play it safe.

Now, don't think that a data disaster won't happen to you. Make sure that you are ready for a catastrophe by creating a backup plan right now. For less than $100 bucks and just a little bit of setup time, you'll be much safer. Is your data worth $100 bucks?

OpenOffice: Save That Ca$h!

2007-05-06T23:30:00.000-06:00

Recently, a good friend of mine told me how disappointed he was when budgeting for a new computer. He could afford paying for the computer itself, but was completely overwhelmed when he realized how much he would have to spend on software. A brand new copy of Microsoft's Office 2007 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc...) would have cost him over $300 for the professional version, a program that is NOT included in Windows by default.

So, are you stuck paying a boatload of money for software? Absolutely not.

OpenOffice (OO) is a FREE alternative to Microsoft's office package, and it works very well. It has all the programs that office does, only under different names. For example, the OpenOffice equivalent to Word is called Writer. The Excel equivalent is called Calc. OpenOffice also contains programs for presentations, databases, and charts/drawings. It is even capable of opening/editing/saving documents in Microsoft's proprietary formats. All of the major features of MS Office are available in OpenOffice, and it's completely free (even for commercial use). If a company of 1,000 employees used OO, that would save them over a quarter of a million dollars. Send some of that cash over here!

Ok, Ok. Maybe you are skeptical. How well does OpenOffice really work compared to MS Office? My answer: I, personally, would rather write a document in OO than I would in MS. There are many ways to customize the tools for an individual, and the interface is clean/professional. The annoying glitches that often plague MS documents are gone. Need a PDF of your document? Just click "Export PDF" and you got one. Best of all, OO is free from any proprietary formats, so no one can ever control you or your work. Did I mention it's free? Click here for a list of reviews on OpenOffice.

What you should know about OO

Users should have no problem learning how to use OO if they already know MS Office, because most of the interface is very similar. Some features are placed in other locations, so be patient as you get familiar with OO.

One thing that is still under development in OO is a grammar checker. While this feature is not yet completed, future versions of OO will undoubtedly have it. The spell checker in OO works perfectly.

OpenOffice will do a good job of allowing you to open/edit/save your MS office files, but there may be issues when dealing with documents containing a lot of formatting. For example, if you are using MS Word to create a brochure (why you would use Word for this, I don't know), it may mess up some of the alignment. This is due to the fact that MS Office files are stored in a proprietary format. It's not OpenOffice's fault.

Get OpenOffice

Give it a try. If you don't like it, it was free anyway. I'm sure you will appreciate this product if you give it a fair try. Just click this button:

1-800-GOOG-411

2007-04-09T12:26:00.000-06:00

Double Stamp recently published an article about Google’s rising power and domination of the information retrieval industry. This domination is due to providing excellent and free services to the public. Check this one out…

Scenario: You just left your house to attend a friend’s wedding reception at “La Pueblina.” You’ve never been there, so when you discover half way there that you forgot to write down the address, you’re understandably frustrated. You could pull over to a gas station and try to look it up in the phone book, but that takes to much time. You could call someone near a computer and have him/her look it up for you, but that’s even worse. Suddenly, you remember the article that you just read on Double Stamp about Google’s new (free) 411 service. That’s it!

You pull over and dial 1-800-GOOG-411 from your cell phone.

Google: “What city and state?”
You: “Your city, your state.”
Google: “What Business name or category?”
You: “La Pueblina”
Google: “Top 2 results: 1) La Pueblina Reception Hall. 2) La Pueblina Bowling Alley”
You: “One”

Google continues to provide you with the address, telephone number, and other details. You quickly note down the address of La Pueblina, and arrive perfectly in time to your friend’s wedding reception. Excellent.

Next time you find yourself driving in circles, trying to find a particular business or restaurant, give GOOG-411 a try.

Keep Private Data Safe From Web Snoops

2007-03-31T21:10:00.000-06:00

The internet is vast web of connections which link personal computers, corporate networks, government servers and foreign organizations. When you connect to a particular website, the data that you enter and receive passes through a number of computers outside of your control. So, what prevents a user on one of those computers from intercepting your data and reading it? Nothing usually, but private data CAN be protected if you use something called "Secure Socket Layers" (SSL). This article isn't intended to explain the details of SSL. It is intended to make sure that you, a user of the internet, know how to determine if your data is safe. You don't have to know how a watch works to read the time.

First, you should never consider your information secure when using a computer that isn't your own. When you load your email, visit a banking site, or load any information that is considered sensitive, that information gets stored into the memory of the computer that you are using. If you're not the owner of that computer, you can't be sure that no one will obtain your sensitive info. It doesn't matter how secure your connection to the web is, your data is still stored locally. If you do not trust the owners of the computer you are using, don't load or enter any sensitive material. Buying something online with your credit card while using a foreign internet cafe computer is a bad idea, as the owners may be recording every keystroke you make.

Now, on to SSL. The concept is really simple: SSL protects your data from potential snoopers by encrypting it before sending. Your browser encodes your sensitive information using encryption, the coded data is sent, and the computer that you are connecting to decodes it. If someone in the middle intercepts your data, they will just see a bunch of gibberish codes. When you connect to a website using the "https://" instead of "http://" prefix, you are telling the browser to protect your data using SSL. The pictures here show a secure connection being made to gmail, so no one can read my email even if they intercept it! If you have a gmail account, just go to https://www.gmail.com instead of http://www.gmail.com if you want to try it yourself. Many other online mail systems carry this feature as well.

If a proper secure connection has been made, you should see a little picture of a lock in the lower right hand corner of your page. Hovering your mouse over the lock will show you the third party organization that has verified the website in question. Companies like IdenTrust and Verisign are common examples of companies that make this verification.

Bottom line... if you don't see https:// in your address bar, and there is no lock in the bottom right hand corner of your screen, don't enter or try to retrieve any sensitive information! Don't pay your bills online, don't do any bank transactions, and don't read sensitive material. However, if you do see the https://, the lock, and you're using a computer you trust, your data is secure.

Now, go practice. Check your bank's account and the sites you use to pay your bills online to make sure they are doing things right. If there's no https and lock, send a complaint. There is no reason that any website dealing with sensitive information should not be using this technology.

I'll trade you 4 IEs for 1 Firefox

2007-03-19T18:56:00.000-06:00

If you run Windows it is very possible that you are viewing this page in Internet Explorer, Microsoft's pre-packaged web browser that comes with Windows (often called IE). To be sure, look in the upper left corner of the page. If you see a blue "e" icon, then you're using IE, and this article is intended to help you understand why you should try a different browser: Firefox. Maybe you're just fine with IE, or maybe it seems like too big of a hassle to change. Read on before you blow this off..

First, IE does a terrible job of interpreting web pages. An organization known as the World Wide Web Consortium creates standards on how browsers should display the files that are loaded when you visit a website. When the browsers are made to be compliant with the specifications of this organization, web designers can be assured that their pages will display correctly, no matter which browser is being used. Microsoft has ignored huge portions of these standards in developing IE, thus limiting many of the tools that would be available to web designers. It's kind of like trying to use a Phillips screwdriver on a proprietary screw that doesn't fit. As a web designer myself, I have pulled out my hair (which is why I am somewhat bald) trying to get my web pages to look the way that I intended them in IE. Web designers waste time figuring out how to "hack" their websites into working with IE. As a user, you get a less functional, less efficient browser using IE. Lame...

Secondly, IE is a lot less secure than Firefox. IE is closely built around the foundations Windows, making it much easier for a hacker or malicious user to use web pages to mess with your computer. Firefox, on the other hand, was built as a separate block, making security exploits much more difficult. I can guarantee you that your "spyware" scanner will find much fewer problems if you switch to Firefox.

Now, forget about the problems with IE, what's so great about Firefox itself? Firefox is very efficient; It uses less memory and displays pages very quickly. It has many user options which will allow you to navigate the way that YOU want to navigate. For example, don't you hate it when you click on a link and it opens a whole new window? You can set Firefox to disallow that, or have it open in another "tab" instead of a whole new window. There are all kinds of simple yet powerful options that you can set up in Firefox.

Firefox also has a great architecture for add-ons. Add-ons are little modules that you can install into your browser to make it do new things. For example, you can install an add-on called WeatherFox which will show you your local weather forcast in the corner of your broswer. Want to listen to music right inside your browser? Try FoxyTunes. Maybe you want a tool that will allow you to load photos and web content quickly to your family blog... Firefox has extentions for that too. Here's a page with tons of firefox add-ons that you can explore.

Firefox has a whole slew of security features that you can learn about if you search the web. It's built to last, very slick, and well designed. There is no doubt in my mind that it is the best web browser available today, and I know you'll love it if you try it out. On top of that, it is entirely FREE and always will be. Get it now for free here.

Google: Service or Timebomb?

2007-02-25T19:01:00.000-07:00

Whether you realize it or not, a revolution is happening right now. 50 years from now, entire sections of history books will be dedicated to the information revolution which began with the birth of the web. Google has played a key role in triggering this revolution by striving to provide searches for not only web pages, but anything else containing information. Here is Google's official mission statement:

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

I am a big fan of Google. Gmail is by far my favorite email system, and I am signed up for just about every other google service they provide. As far as search and web applications go, it's hard to find anyone who does a better job than Google, which is why so many people use their services. They have earned their massive user base by providing innovative products for free, and have forced other companies like Yahoo! and Microsoft to reconsider how they do business. They have done so, for the most part, in a respectful and non-manipulative fashion.

With so much information being fed to Google's computer systems, (as well as Microsoft's and Yahoo's) how will these companies manage their increasing power? 15 years from now, every major book, movie, song, magazine, newspaper, and public record will be indexed by a few major search companies. Even the article you are reading right now is hosted on a Google computer. Placing this much informational power behind the trigger of one company is alarming to say the least, and could lead to an atomic political timebomb. With great power comes great responsiblitiy, but will the CEOs and future decision makers have the integrity to resist taking advantage of their overwhelming power? What if a CEO dies, and the company is usurped by the evil board member who has been waiting for his breakthrough into unrighteous dominion? Uh oh...

In the meantime, I'll continue to use my gmail account and check my schedule on my google calendar. I'll keep using blogger to write Double Stamp, and even manage some of my important financial information with their online spreadsheets. I just hope that we can figure out a way to prevent these companies from snagging us like a crocodile snags an unexpecting wildabeast drinking from a desert pool.

Introduction to Web Feeds

2007-02-24T15:05:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the terms “RSS“, “XML“, “Atom” and “Web Feeds” on your favorite internet sites, but have no clue what they mean? Maybe you wonder what these little icons mean?

This is a brief, non-technical tutorial on what these terms mean and how they can save you a ton of time.

In a nutshell, “web feeds” provide users of the internet a way to check newly posted content to a website without having to visit each of the sites individually. “XML” is the format in which web feeds are written, but the details are for the programmers. “RSS” and “Atom” are simply different specifications as to how the feed is written. Sound too geeky? Don’t worry about the details, read on…

Let’s say, for example, that you tend to visit three websites daily: doublestamp, usatoday.com, and reuters.com. Each of these sites are constantly updating their content, so to find out about new articles, you need to check each of them individually, right? Wrong!

If the websites you visit provide a web feed, you can simply subscribe to the feed by copying the URL of the feed into a “feed reader.” That’s what those little icons are for; they are the link to the site’s feed. A feed reader takes the feeds from all of the different websites that you have subscribed to, and displays them conveniently together. The new items that you have not read yet are usually highlighted in bold, or are marked somehow as new so that you don’t need to browse through old content. To see what I mean, look at the following picture of a popular online feed reader by Google. Notice the feeds to the left, and the content to the right.

So, after subscribing to a feed, one can quickly browse through new content on dozens of websites in a fraction of the time that it would take to visit them individually. If you are interested in a certain topic, you can click the feed item and it will take you to the website to read the full article. You’ll never miss an article that your interested in, and you’ll save tons of time.

It is important to make sure that your feed reader will read both “Atom” and “RSS” formats. Some websites provide RSS, others Atom, and some provide both. To help you out, here is a list of some FREE feed readers that you can start using immediately.

Google Reader - An online reader that is easy to use. Works with most browsers and operating systems. This one is my favorite.

Sage - A great extension to the Firefox browser for reading feeds.

FeedReader - A good feed reader for windows.

NewsGator - NewsGator is available in both an online version and an installable program. The installable version isn’t free.

There are many other readers that you can find by searching the web, and most new browsers have feed reading capabilities themselves.

Give it a try. It’s a simple concept, but it will enable you to browse a lot of content in no time at all. You can start by subscribing to the Double Stamp feed right here:

Double Stamp feed

Things

2007-02-23T23:43:00.000-07:00