andrew dodson

Next time you need a piece of software for a new job, a project, or something else, try open source. What’s open source, you say? It’s free software. Free? Yes.

There’s a whole multitude of computer programmers out there that create software out the goodness of their heart. There’s a sense of rebellion from these programmers, aimed at the big, greedy software companies of the world.

The two programs I use the most are Firefox and NeoOffice. I’ve bragged on Firefox many times before on this blog. It’s an awesome internet browser that is constantly being updated and improved, fully customizable with plugins of your choice, and it’s standards compliant. That’s a fancy phrase that basically means, when I create a website, it renders correctly in Firefox. I usually have to make concessions for other browsers that aren’t standards compliant.

Today, I want to brag on NeoOffice. This program is only available for Mac users, but there are similar options available for Windows people – OpenOffice, for example.. The next time you think about buying Microsoft Office, or upgrading a copy you already have, give NeoOffice or OpenOffice a try. I’ve been very impressed with NeoOffice’s abilities. It can read and save files in Word format, it can read and save all Office files (Excel, etc.). I’m not a Microsoft Office expert, so I can’t speak for NeoOffice’s advanced capabilities. But, for a normal user that just needs the option of opening and saving Word or Excel files, it works great. There’s also a handy feature to save as PDF files.

How can you find open source programs? The easiest way is to type the kind of software you’re looking for, followed by “open source” into a Google search. For example: “audio recording open source.” This search would yield a find of Audacity – a great, free audio recording program. You get the idea, though.

Powered by ScribeFire.

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Now playing: Pat Monahan – Thinkin Bout You
via FoxyTunes

This my last day of work at CLS for the week.  Tomorrow morning, I’ll be heading to Jonathan Creek to record their praise band.  I’ll be back on Friday.  While I’ll be “working” at J-Creek, there’ll be a lot of downtime.  Some of the downtime will be spent getting a jump start on mixing the J-Creek portion of the recording.  Some of the downtime, I’ll actually be doing some work for CLS, remotely.  The rest of the downtime, I hope to be kicked back reading a book or something of the like.

I’m attempting to get everything squared away today, so that my absence from CLS for the next three days won’t be noticed as much.   I’m getting all the art ready, getting orders written up, invoices sent out, etc.  But, it’s difficult when our internet is down!  It seems we had a billing glitch with our service provider, so they shut off our internet.  We’ve been told it will be 72 hours before we’re back up-and-running.  Needless to say, we’re heavily considering making a quick switch of providers.  Not good business on our current provider’s end.

Through all of this, however, I can highly recommend Sprint’s mobile broadband service.  We’re using a laptop with one of their USB cards to get by in the mean time.  It’s very close to broadband speed, and has helped us keep up around here.  My boss’s comment:  “It’s good that it finally came in handy that I also own a cell phone store.”  Yes, that it is.  The only catch to the broadband cards is they only work on Windows PC’s.  Bummer.  Otherwise, I’ve been impressed with its performance.

So, the next time you hear from me, I’ll be blogging from J-Creek.

I’m not feeling particularly “bloggy” today.  The only remotely interesting thing I could blog about would be a new future project.  My boss – Dwayne, DC, D-wizzle, or any of his other names – decided to clean out a storage unit.  One of the items that came within minutes of losing its life was an Apple G3 tower computer & monitor.  I decided, mainly out of my love for Apple, that it didn’t deserve for its life to end today.

My plan is to attempt to upgrade it for recording use at The Point.  First, I have to knock off about an inch of dirt & dust and find out if it even works.  After that, I’ll look into options for processor & RAM upgrades.  I’m not in too big of a hurry (i.e., I have more important things on which to spend money…or NOT spend money on).

Most guys love working on cars – changing the oil, working on the engine.  Not me!  I’ll take a computer over a car any day.

I’ve come across several sources for free bible software, on both Windows and Mac. If you can’t afford the popular options of iLumina and QuickVerse, check out the following options. Some of their installation instructions for modules can be a little tricky, but there are step-by-step instructions available.  Users of the ESV will be pleased to find it available in all of the following options.

Windows

> eSword
> BibleDesktop

Mac

> MacSword
> BibleDesktop

To keep up with these resources, you can visit the home of the Sword project.

As most everyone who knows me knows – I spend a lot of time on a computer.  I spend a lot of time on the internet (either working on websites or browsing).  Over the past several months, I’ve fallen in love with Firefox.  Here’s several reasons why I love it, and why I think everyone should use it:

• Mac and Windows compatible.  I’m a user of both, so it’s cool to have the same browser available on both machines.
• It’s open source and free.  The glory of open source software is that it gets updated often, and it’s always free.
• It’s customizable – thanks to add-ons, plugins and themes, I can customize Firefox to my liking.  The next several bullet points will explain some of my plugins and themes.
• FireFTP – perhaps the coolest plugin I use.  When updating websites, I use FTP to upload and download files.  With FireFTP, I can work on websites on any of my machines and always have the same FTP tool available.
• FoxyTunes – I don’t use this too often, but it’s still cool.  It’s an audio player controller that sits inside Firefox.  I can adjust volume, change songs and more without going into iTunes.
• Performancing – a blog editor.  I don’t have to sign into my blog to publish posts.  Very quick and efficient.
• Download managers – there are several download managers available for downloading multiple files.  I prefer DownloadThemAll.  FlashGot also seems to be popular.
• PDF plugins – there are a couple of PDF plugins that make viewing PDF files from websites a breeze.
• Sage – an RSS feed manager.  I know that Firefox offers it’s own RSS feed managing tool, but I prefer Sage.
• Foxmarks – a bookmark synchronization tool.  I can have the same bookmarks on any computer I use that has Firefox.  This means my iBook, PC and work computers can always have the same bookmarks.
• Themes – I really like the look of Mac’s Safari browser, so I prefer to use themes that are based on Safari.  But, there are tons of themes available (“skins” is another term for “themes”).  You can make Firefox look however you want.
• Website rendering – as a web designer, I find that Firefox accurately renders my designs, so they look as they should.  I find that I have to make adjustments to my designs due to other browsers (mainly Internet Explorer) being quirky in how they render sites.
• Search bar – I find myself using the built-in search bar more and more.  I can search Google, Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, eBible and more all from the search bar.  I don’t have to physically go to these sites to search.

Microsoft just released Internet Explorer 7.  I have to admit that I’m very pleased with  it – a drastic improvement over the previous version.  However, I still don’t find enough good in IE7 to make me stop using Firefox.  I also find Mac’s Safari to be a well-done browser, but it still lacks the features Firefox offers.  Overall, I find that Firefox makes my web browsing experience very quick, clean and efficient.  If you’ve never used Firefox, I strongly suggest you give it a try.  It’s free!  What do you have to lose?

> Mozilla.com 

I’m missing a 6-pin to 6-pin FireWire cable.  Not being able to find this cable is entirely the reason why I didn’t update the JMB website this weekend (I need the cable to hook up the external drive that has the JMB site on it).  Has anyone seen it?

If anyone has an extra or two of these laying around, not getting any use, I’d love to take ‘em off your hands.  I can’t find them in stores anymore (only 4-pin to 6-pin), and a lot of my external FireWire gear needs 6-pin to 6-pin.

For all of you AOL users out there, I have some information.

Several times, I notice (or hear) my Windows computer doing something when I’m not doing anything else on the computer.  I knew it had to be some sort of program running “behind the scenes.”  I decided to check the system processes currently running (ctrl + alt + del, and then click on “processes”).  There, I saw a pesky file called “AOLHostService.exe” seemed to be doing an awful lot, at times peaking at 25% of my computer’s current running processes (the most usually being “System Idle”).

I chose to end the process, and sure enough – that did it.  My processor stopped making the “I’m doing something right now” noise, and all was calm.

The lesson here?

I’m deleting AOL from my Windows computer.  I’ve never liked the controlling nature of the new Security Edition releases with the virus scanning, spyware scanning, etc.  Sure, it’s a nice gesture, but there’s other programs out there that do just as good of a job, and not in an annoying way (see: AdAware, and other good FREE anti-virus programs on the net – I use AntiVir Guard).  I don’t like things going on behind the scenes that I don’t have control over.

I have AOL on my iBook, but AOL doesn’t make a Security Edition for Mac.  It’s just a nice, neat version of AOL that doesn’t do anything annoying.  I’ll stick with that!