Thursday 19 June 2014

My Home Office Set-up 2014 (Update)

fresh-home-office-design


My Home Office setup isn't like the video tours that you see on YouTube, it used to similar at one time. It’s now a lot more modest and minimalistic, but it works well for me.   So here’s my text and picture tour of my Home Office as it didn't seem worth while doing a YouTube video. The storage part of my Home Office is an old Computer desk that houses a Box of Printer Paper, a Shredder, a Box of Envelopes and a brown box that has some Computer stuff on the bottom shelf, the Keyboard drawer has an old Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard while the top shelf has a Printer Organizer with mostly odd bits of scrap paper and the charger for my Asus Google Nexus 7, Bluetooth headphones and my Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000 USB Headset & on top of it I've got my Kodak esp 1.2 AIO Printer.

Printing station
Printing station

Sunday 15 June 2014

Blogging For Begginers

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So you've decided to start a Blog, where do you start?

There are three main things that you need to consider carefully before you start your Blog, you can find them listed bellow with some tips.

  1. Decide on which Blogging service to use:    You've got a choice of two free hosted blogging services available in the form of WordPress & Blogger and two self-hosted services in the form of WordPress and Blog engine. If you want a simple life with your blog that doesn't really require any maintenance then I'd go for a WordPress or Blogger hosted blog. WordPress offers a large selection of Add-ons that you can purchase that even includes a custom domain name for your blog that gets rid of the .wordpress.com part of your Blogs address, where as Blogger only offers a custom domain name (a custom domain name changes say blogname.wordpress.com to say blogname.com) a custom domain makes your blog look more professional.  Both services allow you to either buy a custom domain through them or have a domain name that you already own mapped to your blog (I'd personally go for buying direct from your blog provider over mapping an existing domain name as all the configuration is done for you and you don't have to do it yourself.

Wednesday 11 June 2014

Are OS X 10.10 Yosemite & iOS 8 Game Changes In The Mobile & Desktop OSMarket?

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With iOS 8 and OS X 10.10 Yosemite set to bring a new level of convergence between Mobile OS's and Desktop OS's with two new features in both iOS and OS X 10.10 that Apple calls Continuity and Hand-Off.

Continuity basically brings over the flat look that was introduced in iOS 7 and partially implemented in OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the new look of OS X 10.10 also brings a new flat widow controls theme along with a new Notification Centre that has a Today tab like that of the Notification Centre in iOS 8 along with Widgets and a Notifications tab. In the iOS 8 Notification Centre gone is the Missed Notifications tab & the All Notifications tab has been replaced by the Notifications tab.

Sunday 8 June 2014

My Current Chrome OS Desktop App Drawer Layout (June 2014)

Desktop 2A


In this post I'll describe the layout of my Chromebook Desktop with a full description to why I've chosen the layout etc.

The Wallpaper is the stock one from the Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite Developer beta 1 (also that was used in the WWDC OS X Keynote), if you want to use this Wallpaper then just Google OS X Yosemite Wallpaper.

I'm using the OS X Yosemite Wallpaper as I find it more visually appealing than the Stock Wallpapers that come with Chrome OS.

What’s On My Chromebook Shelf Right Now (June 2014)

Desktop 1A



THE MOST USED APPS ON MY CHROMEBOOK, AND

WHY THEY’RE THERE

This is my latest Chrome OS shelf line up that I’ll probably stick with for at least the near future. While my iPhone and Google Nexus 7 Tablet are mainly used for leisure, my Chromebook is used mostly for work, I spend I’ve most of my day, it’s what I use to update this blog and work on various other projects. So I thought I’d do a post in the style of the what’s on my Mac Dock and why, but for Chromebooks, so here’s what’s on my Chromebook Shelf and why. First off we’ll cover some of the stock Chrome apps, and there are a few. The first is Chrome as it’s permanently placed on the Shelf by default, Files as it’s easier than having to go through the App Drawer to find it, finally I’ve got the Wallpaper Picker as it’s convenient for quickly changing my Desktop Wallpaper. Now onto the rest of my Apps.

  • Clock Calendar.  Clock Calendar adds a nice convenient Month view Calendar and Clock that can be used like a widget.
Screenshot 2014-05-04 at 08.51.31

    Friday 6 June 2014

    11 iOS 8 Features That Are Game Changes For Apples Mobile OS

    ios-8-download-beta-links


    With this year being the year off for new hardware announcements at Apples WWDC event all eyes were on OS X 10.10 Yosemite and iOS 8. So here are the 8 new features announced for iOS 11.

    1. A new improved Messages.

    2. Improvements to Mail.

    3. Home Kit.

    4. Health Kit.

    5. Siri improvements.

    6. Photos improvements.

    7. Improvements to the iOS Keyboard.

    8. iCloud Drive.

    9. Widgets in Notification Centre.

    10. Actionable Notifications.

    11. 3rd-Party Keyboards.

    Wednesday 4 June 2014

    Teamlab Office Review

    TeamLab

     

    Teamlab Office allows you to integrate your Google Drive, OneDrive, Box & Dropbox Accounts into one simple interface and you also have the ability to edit and create Documents like you can with Google Drive & Microsoft OneDrive. Unlike Google Drive & Microsoft OneDrive you can create & edit Text Documents (Google Docs & Microsoft Word), Spreadsheets (Google Sheets & Microsoft Excel) & Presentations (Google Slides & Microsoft PowerPoint).

    Teamlab is free for Personal use and via a Subscription for Enterprise use or if you need the extra features available in a Subscription, Teamlab also allows Enterprises the ability to run Teamlab on their own Personal Servers instead of on the Teamlab Servers. Teamlab is a viable alternative for someone who needs more from a Cloud Office, but it's no substitute for A Google Apps subscription.

    [caption id="attachment_2311" align="aligncenter" width="300"]The Teamlab Office Dashboard. The Teamlab Office Dashboard.[/caption]

    The Teamlab Office Dashboard is less cluttered than the one for Google Drive, this shows that it's got Enterprise Cloud Computing at its heart, but maybe this could be a little daunting for someone that's only used to using Google Drive, this comes with one big bonus as you get the ability to add Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, box & Dropbox Accounts to Teamlab Office which isn't available with the likes of Google Drive & Microsoft OneDrive.

     

    [caption id="attachment_2312" align="alignleft" width="300"]Teamlab Office WordProcessor. Teamlab Office Word-processor.[/caption]

    [caption id="attachment_2313" align="alignleft" width="300"]Teamlab Office Spreadsheet. Teamlab Office Spreadsheet.[/caption]

    [caption id="attachment_2314" align="alignleft" width="300"]Teamlab Presentation. Teamlab Presentation.[/caption]

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The Teamlab Office Applications are far more polished than the Office Applications in Google Drive and look like older versions of Microsoft Office Applications so should be easily recognizable to anyone who has used Microsoft Office in the past. The Teamlab Office Applications don't look as polished and modern as the latest Microsoft Office Applications available in OneDrive.

    Conclusion


    If you're looking for an alternative to Google Drive (including Google Apps) or Microsoft OneDrive (including Office 365) or something that allows you to combine all of your Cloud Computing services into on and still have a fully featured set of Office Applications then Teamlab is the only choice at the moment, and at present Teamlab Personal offers Unlimited Storage.

    Roland

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