Getting Broadband in Shanghai (China Telecom) Part 1

Category: TechToday   Shanghai is considered one of the more friendlier cities for foreigners. Getting broadband Internet, one of the more essential tasks after procuring an apartment in Shanghai, thankfully can be part of this pleasant experience for visitors. The process is surprisingly not as painful as I expected, though I still asked for assistance from a Chinese co-worker when I applied for service. There are plenty of...

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Being Technical - the New Macho

Category: TechToday   It's hard to tell nowadays who really has the technical chops considering there are literally thousands of technologies out there from the popular, like Microsoft and Adobe products, Java, and Javascript, to the fairly non-mainstream, such as LaTeX, XLIFF, Solaris, and FreeBSD.  I visit forums and the usual news sources to get up to date on the latest trends and topics.  I also visit technical...

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LibreOffice 3 on a PowerPC iMac with 512MB of RAM

Categories: Techtoday   There are many ways to improve an old, underpowered iMac running Mac OSX 10.4.11 and 512 MB RAM (such as installing Linux or FreeBSD) but if the machine is maintained by an IT department,  you have to make do with what you can - like installing LibreOffice.   Installation   Although the iMac had a severely buggy Microsoft Office for Mac 2004, I checked for a PowerPC-compatible release...

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Quickfix: Mozilla Firefox not rendering pages properly? Switch off Hardware Acceleration

Categories: Techtoday   If you've recently updated your drivers for your graphics card like I have, Mozilla Firefox might have problems rendering pages even with a fast, working Internet connection.  Obviously, if Internet Explorer 8 or 9 or Google Chrome can pull up a page, then it must have been that driver update.        Switch off Hardware Acceleration by clicking the Firefox control button...

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Updating the Nvidia Driver for the Lenovo Ideapad Z360

For gamers, graphics drivers and graphics cards are the most exciting part of setting up a desktop or selecting a laptop.  For users who focus on productivity, however, a working graphics card with adequate memory (even Intel's integrated chip), is often more than enough.  So, if you're not a gamer, should you update your driver graphics card even when your Adobe and Office applications work fine and your OS hardly hiccups? ...

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Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Online Upgrade Review: Don't Expect the "Avengers" Part 3

Categories: Linux IMPORTANT NOTES 1.  Bootup and Shutdown - Ubuntu Unity 12.04 LTS continues to shutdown and startup faster than openSUSE or Mandriva, but doesn't really have a leg up over a well-maintained Windows 7 machine or an iMac with the same hardware specifictaions.  In what is perhaps an anomaly on the Lenovo Ideapad Z360 or Nvidia Optimus-powered laptops (see #4), Ubuntu has an unusually long wait after Grub that almost feel like the OS failed to load.  As a plus,...

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Low expectations: 2012 Browsers, Internet Explorer, and Usage

Categories: Techtoday   Being predominantly a Linux user, I run the pre-installed Mozilla Firefox (currently at version 12) for Linux, Google Chrome or its brethren Chromium.  In an enterprise environment, Internet Explorer 8 and 9 have both been unavoidable for obvious reasons, but Chrome is becoming easily accessible even on IT-maintained workstations (use portableapps or install it manually).  Strangely enough,...

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Asian Language Settings Office 2007: Remove the Carriage Return Marks and Revert to a U.S. interface in Microsoft Word

Categories: Techwriter   So you snagged work at an international company in China or Taiwan and assigned an English workstation at the office.  Suddenly, you start noticing that something isn't quite right in Office 2007 but your Language settings are in United States (English).    Although the Language settings of Windows XP/7/8 determine the global interface of your desktop, an Office and Windows installation...

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Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Online Upgrade Review: Don't Expect the "Avengers" Part 2

Category: Linux Part two of this quick overview of an online upgrade to 12.04 explores the standard features of the latest Ubuntu release, including new and improved features and some old ones as well. Maintenance, Applications, and Utilities 1. Software center - Ubuntu Software Center has largely replaced dependable but somewhat aged Synaptic Package Manager since the inception of the Unity...

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Quickfix: Switch USB ports to get a clicking Toshiba Mobile Drive working

Categories: Techtoday As convenient as external mobile hard drives are, they are  still subject to plenty of abuse in a laptop bag and at the office.  In general, even cheap mobile hard drives have become sturdier and resilient over the years with Western Digital and Seagate incorporating new approaches to securing mechanical hard drives.  As expected, however, drive failures are still common and...

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Should you Update your Skype Install?

Categories: Techtoday   Microsoft's purchase of Skype hit the headlines quite some time ago and with the acquisition triggered minimal changes to the somewhat popular utility.  The Microsoft site now sports its own Skype Home Page but users haven't seen much changes in the application itself.  With news that Microsoft switched to headless Linux servers to support the Skype network, will any improvements or innovations...

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Convert Flac to MP3 in Linux - Sound Converter and LAME

Categories: Linux Codecs and formats aren't an issue anymore in Linux, especially in user-friendly distributions like Ubuntu and Linux Mint.  Although Flac is a superior format to MP3, it isn't supported by devices (or players) as widely as MP3.  Converting .flac files to .ogg or .mp3 is a simple affair with the correct applications installed.  Depending on your Linux distribution...

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Free up Bandwidth and get some exercise! Watch "The Avengers" (2012) in Theatres Now!

Category: Techtoday   "Hi everyone!  This is the Amazing Spider-Man (circa 1970s) inviting you guys to get off your computer screens and run (not walk) over to your local theatre to watch Marvel Comics' The Avengers.  And while you're at it, support open source software and watch The Amazing Spider-Man this July, 2012.  Yup, that's three plugs in one.  See you in 3D!"       ***Disclaimer:...

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Loving Bing Translate and Google Translate

Category: Techwriter   There are dozens of apps for Android and iOS that provide foreign language translations available in Google Play and iTunes.  Also, there are plenty of free and commercial web sites/services online for translating or defining foreign words, statements, and text.  However, even without a mobile device or any knowledge of any particular service, just visiting Bing and Google can go a long way...

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Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Online Upgrade Review: Don't Expect the "Avengers" Part 1

Category: Linux Historically, I haven't had much luck with online distribution upgrades.  I've attempted upgrades for openSUSE, Mandriva, Ubuntu and a handful of other distributions which resulted in leftover packages, nonfunctional software, and on occasion, a nonfunctional operating system.  Ubuntu Oneiric Ocelot was a stable release though I regret selecting the Unity release...

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