Windows 7 – Why you should wait

Windows 7 is Microsoft’s newest addition to its stable of operating systems. Along with Windows XP and Vista, it will soon be one of the most installed (and used) operating systems in the world.

But – we at Jaytag are of the strong opinion that it is a good idea to wait for Microsoft to iron out the slew of bugs and problems that inevitably go along with a new operating system. We aren’t the only one’s either – Computerworld have an article discussing why you should wait before upgrading.

Our top three reasons:

The reboot bug. Some users have reported that following an upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7, their computers go into a loop of starting up, then immediately rebooting. There is currently no solution from Microsoft for this issue.

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Popular Open Source Applications for Small Businesses

From FastUpFront.com comes an extremely useful list of Open Source applications. As the recession drags on, more and more businesses are looking at Open Source software as a way to reduce the amount they are spending on software licensing.

From the article:

Open source applications and online services have been generating a lot of buzz over the past few years. Many of the open source alternatives are formidable contenders to the major liscensed software programs and services out on the market. Depending on the nature and circumstances of your business, bringing in open source apps may be a cheaper and more practical option to shelling out hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars in liscensing fees for the commercial versions.

The list is reproduced here:

Accounting Software

TurboCASH. – A powerful fully-featured, multi-user accounting system.
GnuCash. – A personal and small business accounting software

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

SugarCRM.- Probably the most well-known, and powerful, CRM open source options. It is better suited to bigger businesses, however.

Daffodil CRM.- Full-featured CRM application

ConcourseSuite. – Formally CentricCRM, it is a “front office application suite to integrate Customer Relationship Management (CRM), web content management and team collaboration capabilities into a single, easy to user web application.”

vtiger.- Easy to use CRM software. Good option for smaller businesses.

Office Suite/Word Processing

Open Office. – Full-featured office suite, compatible with all other major office suites including MS Office

The Fifth Element.- Full-featured office suite, compatible with all other major office suites including MS Office

AbiWord.- Word processing software, easy-to-use version of MS Word.

Email

Thunderbird. – Open source, cross-platform email and news client developed by Mozilla

Pegasus Mail. – Less well-known email system, but offers plenty of features and easy-to-use format

Graphics

Photofiltre.- A full-featured image and photo editing program; a good Photoshop alternative

Paint.NET. – A solid image and photo editing program; a good Photoshop alternative

The GIMP. – the GNU Project’s excellent image manipulation program.

Blender 3D.- Richly featured 3D content creation and animation program. Check out the features and gallery section.

Point of Sale Software

Openbravo POS. – Popular Point-of-Sale application designed for a wide range of retail businesses.

NolaPro POS. – A Web-based accounting, inventory, POS, and business management suite.

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Fixed Problem – Mozilla Thunderbird with Lightning

If like us, you try to keep the majority of the software you use open source, then Mozilla Thunderbird (with the Lightning add-on) might just be the perfect solution to your PIM (personal information manager) needs.

We use Thunderbird exclusively within our organisation for email, and with the Lightning add-on, for task and calendar management.

Recently, we have come across an issue with Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) whereby the New Event and New Task buttons were greyed out or disabled – making adding calendar entries impossible.

This was fixed by uninstalling the add-on, closing Thunderbird and running the following command in a terminal session:

sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

Reinstalling the add-on after libstdc++5 was installed fixed the issue – the calendar portion worked as it should. It appears that this prerequisite was not installed on the machine we were using.

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Skype Crashes After Upgrade to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

After upgrading your desktop or laptop to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx you may experience the following symptoms:

• Reduction in audio quality (jittery calls)
• Crashing after receiving an Instant Message
• Crashing when trying to send an Instant Message
• Slow program functionality

All of the above issues can be resolved by removing Skype and ensuring that the newest version is installed (2.1.0.81 at time of writing)

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A simple MySQL Backup Tool

If you administer a website (or indeed a number of websites) you may need a tool which will allow you to simply backup a MySQL database on a regular basis.

Although there are a number of tools available online, none quite fit our needs. As a result, we’ve quickly written a simple MySQL backup tool in PHP.

Features

• Tested compatible with PHP version 5.2.14 and MySQL 5.0
• Allows for SQL and ZIP export of a single MySQL database
• Lists previous backups made

This is version 0.1a – it is no doubt buggy. We would appreciate any feedback if you do decide to use the tool.

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Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute

This WordPress error message appears when a plugin update fails half way through.

The fix is extremely simple:

• FTP to your WordPress installation directory
• Delete the .maintenance file at the root wordpress folder (where wp-config.php lives)
• Login and retry the plugin operation

The issue should be resolved.

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Updating Office 2000

If like us, you still encounter Office 2000 out in the field, you may find it needs updating from time to time. Sadly, the necessary updates are not all available from Microsoft.

You can download these updates here:
Office 2000 SR-1 administrator updates (O2KSR1aDL.exe)
Office 2000 Update: Service Pack 2 – SP2 (sp2upd.exe)
Office 2000 Update: Service Pack 3 – SP3 (O2kSp3.exe)

Hope this helps all of you out there still using/supporting Office 2000.

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Free alternatives to Norton Internet Security and McAfee Internet Security

Both Norton Internet Security and the McAfee Internet Security suite are excellent products for ensuring your PC is protected while online. Both offer anti-virus tools, spyware blockers, trojan detection etc. However, the fees associated with keeping them up to date (often £20-30 annually) can be prohibitive.

There is an alternative in the world of anti-virus however, and this comes in the form of AVG.

The AVG free edition is just that – free. It does have a few limitations:

• Less protection – AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.0 provides only base level protection against viruses, spyware and safe searching. It does not provide safe surfing (drive-by download protection) nor protection from crackers, keyloggers, spam, phishing attacks and malicious file downloads that can come through instant messaging and attachments from seemingly friendly sources. This protection is only available in the commercial versions of AVG products.

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Learn the 5 Mistakes Most Everyone Makes…

Watching the net have made an interesting post about making the mistakes that everyone makes with their computer – but shouldn’t!

All of the points made are accurate, and we would recommend making the changes discussed.

http://www.watchingthenet.com/computer-problem-tips-are-you-messing-up-your-computer-learn-the-5-mistakes-most-everyone-makes.html

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Free alternative to Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image

Norton Ghost is an extremely useful utility that allows you to duplicate one hard drive to another. In How to install/replace a PATA (IDE) hard drive we shared a video showing how to physically replace an ATA or IDE hard drive.

But what about your old data? Well, you can copy this from your old hard drive with a number of utilites, Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image being some of the more popular commerical programs.

You can use a nifty utility called Clonezilla to do this for free.

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