Archive for the ‘software’ Category
- Vote for the Crunchies - 30 December 2008
Image by magerleagues via Flickr
No, we’re not talking about breakfast cereal. The Crunchies 2008 is a set of awards given to the top technology companies, products and ideas in a given year. The awards are sponsored by GigaOm, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider, and TechCrunch. Last years winners included Facebook, Digg, Tesla Motors, Hulu and the [...]
- BOINC lets your idle computer help science - 26 December 2008
Image via Wikipedia
In this time of giving and over the course of the next few weeks that begins the new year, many of us may be looking for was to give to good causes. As many of us may have difficulties giving financially during these times, we look to alternative ways to help others. If [...]
- Purple Wave unveils grouped extension system for equipment auction - 24 December 2008
We discussed back in September how Internet bidding has been referred to as eBay style or static bidding, and we’ve explained why those are bad descriptions for this type of bidding. Features like automatic extension and staggered ending make most modern Internet only auctions nothing like eBay and they certainly are exciting and dynamic enough [...]
- Auction Podcast Episode 11 - Open source auctioneer - 15 November 2008
One of the reasons AuctioneerTech exists is to make life easier for everyone, including auctioneers. One of the ways this goal is accomplished is by reviewing software that performs a novel or important function. Most of the software covered is open source, and in this episode, we’re going to discuss open source software, explain why [...]
- 7-zip hands down winner in compressed file management - 11 November 2008
The concept of file compression is fairly simple. You take a file or group of files and you make it or them smaller and save them as a single, compressed file. The actual mechanisms can be complicated, but the simple way I always think of it is like an index. If you had a 1000 [...]
- Hosted Exchange allows users to share Outlook without headache - 5 November 2008
Microsoft Outlook is the best corporate email and scheduling tool. That’s a tough statement to make as an open source advocate, but until the open source equivalent called Evolution matures, Outlook will remain the corporate standard for email, calendar and scheduling.
For personal and small-business email, Outlook sucks. It’s bloated, expensive and has a problem with [...] - Critical Windows update released today - 23 October 2008
Microsoft a few hours ago released an unscheduled update for pretty much all versions of Windows. They normally release updates once a month, but today they released an out-of-band updated because of the severity of the attack vector. It’s pretty bad in that it allows someone to gain access to your computer if you have [...]
- TrueCrypt provides free, fast and secure encryption - 21 October 2008
An interesting fact about notebook computers is that they’re called notebooks instead of laptops because the term laptop implies that you can use it on your lap, blocking the ventilation ports and causing the unit to overheat. The industry initiated the switch to the term notebook several years ago not because of a change in [...]
- New resources list aggregates auction products and services - 16 October 2008
It’s time for a little housekeeping. In case you didn’t notice, the new resources page was published a few days ago. Its goal is to list various offerings from various companies and vendors serving the auction industry. If you don’t see a product listed, it’s due to an oversight and not an agenda. If you [...]
- openoffice.org releases OpenOffice 3 today, servers are down - 13 October 2008
The previously-reviewed OpenOffice version 3 was officially released today. As of 9:05am CST, their servers are down. At least I’m unable to access them from Manhattan, Kansas.
Get the latest version from FileHippo if you’re like me and don’t want to wait for their servers to come back up.
UPDATE
Want a quick way to tell if a [...] - MozBackup and Belarc Advisor - 30 September 2008
My HP Pavilion tablet PC is slowly dying. Sent to and returned from the shop twice already since I bought it 14 months ago, both times for a motherboard replacement, its hard drive started flaking on me last month. I was able to repair the hard drive with a disk utility and it’s been working [...]
- Skyfire browser for Windows Mobile and Symbian - 25 September 2008
As I was browsing my daily news feeds this morning, I came across an article about Skyfire.
I got my Treo 700wx based on Windows Mobile 5 in November of 2006. Its coolness lasted for several months, but I started wanting for more when the iPhone and Windows Mobile 6 came out. The biggest missing pieces [...] - Adobe alternatives make PDF easier, cheaper - 22 September 2008
I admitted on Saturday that there were indeed some good uses for the PDF. If, after analyzing the situation, PDF seems like the right tool for the job, here are some ways to make its use less painless and less expensive.
Adobe has two products related to PDF use and creation. Adobe Acrobat Reader is the [...] - phpList provides free and easy bulk email list management - 18 September 2008
One of the best marketing techniques for auctioneers and everyone else who is running a business is proper management of an email list. Keeping a list of emails in Excel and copying that list into the BCC field of Outlook does NOT count.
There are rules put in place due to the proliferation of spam. The [...] - State bid-call contests should use electronic tabulation, foreign judges - 15 September 2008
I recently took part in the Kansas Auctioneers Association bid-call contest at the Kansas State Fair. This was my third time competing, having also done so in 2002 and 2006. I’ve also seen other contests, such as the National Auctioneers Association International Auctioneer Championship and the Oklahoma State Auctioneers Association competition.
The NAA IAC this year [...] - Proxibid on Chrome - 11 September 2008
My friend and fellow auctioneer Don Hamit pointed out to me at the KAA auctioneer contest yesterday that the recently-released Chrome doesn’t work with the recently-funded real-time Internet bidding platform Proxibid. I was able to get the Proxibid Bidder App to run in Chrome on XP and Vista. Here’s how to get it, and other [...]
- Secunia checks your PC for vulnerabilities - 9 September 2008
The tubes are full of baddies. It’s not enough anyomore to simply install an antivirus package and pay your yearly virus tax. Antivirus is becoming outdated. Granted, it’s still a requirement for all but the most elite computer users, but in the time of the always-on Internet connection we need to protect ourselves against all [...]
- Apple releases new iPods, iTunes 8 - 9 September 2008
Apple today released new versions of their iTunes software as well as updated versions of iPods. This release was hardly surprising and, as predicted, there wasn’t anything unexpected or widely diverging from the rumors that had been floating around the Internet.
The take-aways are really fewer than I had expected.
iTunes 8 is out and it’s cool. [...] - Netbooks - 8 September 2008
I’m typing away on my Apple slim aluminum keyboard. It’s the one I poured nearly a full cup of coffee into a couple weeks ago. I dried it, wet it, dried it again and when it wouldn’t work I’d left it for dead. A week passed and I tried it one more time and it’s [...]
- A primer on advertising for Internet only auctions - 8 September 2008
Using the Internet to take bids doesn’t mean that the item will sell to Guam or Kansas
- OpenOffice 3 RC1 released - 8 September 2008
Friday saw the release of the first release candidate of OpenOffice version 3, the free and open source alternative to Microsoft Office.
The last thing an auctioneer needs when starting out or outfitting employees or workstations with new computers is to have to pay upwards of $200 for a copy of a piece of software when [...] - Google releases Chrome browser, slow for some - 2 September 2008
Google released its entry into the browser wars Today. I’ve been playing with it all day. I like how it puts the tabs in line with the minimize / maximize / close buttons. I’ve wanted this in a browser for years. They have a long way to go to enable other features, but it’s blazing [...] - Flash is bad, m’kay - 6 August 2008
Flash is a very bad way to build websites. It’s not only about SEO. It’s about usability. For the same reasons that mature developers don’t use “fly-out” or “drop-down” menus, you shouldn’t use Flash because it requires you to do one of two things. You can either alienate the growing minority of users using alternative [...]
- Auction technology Q&A - 21 July 2008
I was playing around on the NAA forum, a great member benefit for auctioneers, and I realized that what I was writing was applicable to just about anyone, not just auctioneers. Here you are, for whatever it may be worth to you.
I’ve been using Linux on the desktop for the last two years. It’s fantastic [...]
