Software Archive

  • Google is really working the candle at both ends with trying to build a better mouse trap [per se] to compete with Apple‘s Siri. Google knows that it can’t do the things Siri does with out giving relevant answers to the questions at hand… or presented. Google’s voice recognition has made some vast improvements in the last 2 years. They improved the voice recognition of the service, and then added personalized voice recognition, sync’d with the persons Gmail/Google account. The personalization starts keeping track of what you say, how you say it and to make your device more accurate to you; building a database of your speech patterns. But with Siri, she answers your questions… You’re able to ask it questions in normal speech and she just does it. But Google is really playing catch up; now they need a brain for Majel [Google Assistant]. Majel is supposed to be the ‘answer’ to Siri…

    Google is building an answer brain with ‘Knowledge Graph’

    Posted on May 16, 2012 | No Comments
    Google is really working the candle at both ends with trying to build a better mouse trap [per se] to compete with Apple‘s Siri. Google knows that it can’t do the things Siri does with out giving relevant answers to the questions at hand… or presented. Google’s voice recognition has made some vast improvements in the last 2 years. They improved the voice recognition of the service, and then added personalized voice recognition, sync’d with the persons Gmail/Google account. The personalization starts keeping track of what you say, how you say it and to make your device more accurate to you; building a database of your speech patterns. But with Siri, she answers your questions… You’re able to ask it questions in normal speech and she just does it. But Google is really playing catch up; now they need a brain for Majel [Google Assistant]. Majel is supposed to be the ‘answer’ to Siri…

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  • If you’ve been around long enough to remember Apple vs. IBM. Or when Commodore C64‘s were better than TSR-80 [coco's]; from there, you can reference everything I’m going to say here. I’d presume this comes around with being in tech long enough to see it circle back around and repeat itself. It started with the PC’s. There was a whole work up on operating system’s, hardware specifications and then how small can you make them, and then how cheap can you make them… Having to watch the history of tech just wrap around again is kind of boring… The only difference is this time, it has to do with small portable devices. Small devices, running small operating system’s; operating system’s that can do just about everything.

    Smartphone development is just a repeat of the PC evolution…

    Posted on May 14, 2012 | No Comments
    If you’ve been around long enough to remember Apple vs. IBM. Or when Commodore C64‘s were better than TSR-80 [coco's]; from there, you can reference everything I’m going to say here. I’d presume this comes around with being in tech long enough to see it circle back around and repeat itself. It started with the PC’s. There was a whole work up on operating system’s, hardware specifications and then how small can you make them, and then how cheap can you make them… Having to watch the history of tech just wrap around again is kind of boring… The only difference is this time, it has to do with small portable devices. Small devices, running small operating system’s; operating system’s that can do just about everything.

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  • A couple of weeks ago, I was in the process of scanning a bunch of documents and I realized how much work I was doing in scanning in lots and lots of documents. Doc imaging needs to be easier. In another post I talked about scanning documents in to the system; the importing of these documents has to have a good process and it has to be intuitive and easy for the users to do… The harder you make this process the less the users will want to use it. With the release of v14 for PaperPort it seems clear to me that PaperPort is just focused on the business users because no options offered at all for social sharing. PaperPort does have the ‘cloud’, but I’m not counting that; I’m referring to services like Twitter and Facebook. Anyway, so, I found this issue with PaperPort and I reported it to Nuance and I hope they do something with it…

    PaperPort 14 batch scanning and my suggestion for it…

    Posted on May 12, 2012 | No Comments
    A couple of weeks ago, I was in the process of scanning a bunch of documents and I realized how much work I was doing in scanning in lots and lots of documents. Doc imaging needs to be easier. In another post I talked about scanning documents in to the system; the importing of these documents has to have a good process and it has to be intuitive and easy for the users to do… The harder you make this process the less the users will want to use it. With the release of v14 for PaperPort it seems clear to me that PaperPort is just focused on the business users because no options offered at all for social sharing. PaperPort does have the ‘cloud’, but I’m not counting that; I’m referring to services like Twitter and Facebook. Anyway, so, I found this issue with PaperPort and I reported it to Nuance and I hope they do something with it…

    Continue Reading...

  • So one of the interesting things about the pending release of the Windows 8 tablets; Microsoft has decided to not allow other browsers the same luxury as theirs. And a bigger question is, does Microsoft think that their release of a tablet [PC] with Windows 8 is going to be enough to sway people to not care? Talk about a white knight’s, with a sling shot, chances in Hell… this is going to be good. Microsoft has been desperately pushing Internet Explorer 9 as a stable and reputable web browser, but the fact is, it’s still a marsh pit of security loop holes and threats; one of the worst web browsers, if not the worst, out on the web. I say this because it bares repeating… Windows 7 is one of Microsoft‘s better releases of an operating system; everyone seems to love it— it’s being received like the XP of olden days. But also noting that as more companies adopt Windows 7, they are also adopting Internet Explorer 9 as the base browser… Is this really so hard to understand? The fact is that a lot of companies are locked in to Microsoft products and IT shops have to use...

    Is it wrong for Microsoft to restrict their tablets to just Internet Explorer?

    Posted on May 11, 2012 | No Comments
    So one of the interesting things about the pending release of the Windows 8 tablets; Microsoft has decided to not allow other browsers the same luxury as theirs. And a bigger question is, does Microsoft think that their release of a tablet [PC] with Windows 8 is going to be enough to sway people to not care? Talk about a white knight’s, with a sling shot, chances in Hell… this is going to be good. Microsoft has been desperately pushing Internet Explorer 9 as a stable and reputable web browser, but the fact is, it’s still a marsh pit of security loop holes and threats; one of the worst web browsers, if not the worst, out on the web. I say this because it bares repeating… Windows 7 is one of Microsoft‘s better releases of an operating system; everyone seems to love it— it’s being received like the XP of olden days. But also noting that as more companies adopt Windows 7, they are also adopting Internet Explorer 9 as the base browser… Is this really so hard to understand? The fact is that a lot of companies are locked in to Microsoft products and IT shops have to use...

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  • A couple of months ago, my dad picked up a multifunction machine; meaning it has the ability to fax, copy and print— and it does it all wirelessly. The wireless ability of the multifunction machines are hugely beneficial, especially for people with laptops. After just a few minutes of using wireless scanner he had an epiphany, he realized very quickly that all of his important documents could be scanned in and stored on his computer and then retrieved whenever he needed them. For me, the process was instructional because I’ve been scanning in documents and storing them on my system since 1996. Back then, scanner didn’t have auto document feeder’s. Correction, yes they did, but they were highly expensive; companies and corporations were the only ones who are actually using this technology and it was mostly used with multifunction machines and fax machines. As my dad started pondering all the things that he could start scanning in, like his birth certificate and his taxes, and I started to realize that I really hadn’t taken the time to summarize some of the benefits of using electronic document management… so here they are…

    The Benefits to Electronic Document Management

    Posted on April 26, 2012 | 1 Comment
    A couple of months ago, my dad picked up a multifunction machine; meaning it has the ability to fax, copy and print— and it does it all wirelessly. The wireless ability of the multifunction machines are hugely beneficial, especially for people with laptops. After just a few minutes of using wireless scanner he had an epiphany, he realized very quickly that all of his important documents could be scanned in and stored on his computer and then retrieved whenever he needed them. For me, the process was instructional because I’ve been scanning in documents and storing them on my system since 1996. Back then, scanner didn’t have auto document feeder’s. Correction, yes they did, but they were highly expensive; companies and corporations were the only ones who are actually using this technology and it was mostly used with multifunction machines and fax machines. As my dad started pondering all the things that he could start scanning in, like his birth certificate and his taxes, and I started to realize that I really hadn’t taken the time to summarize some of the benefits of using electronic document management… so here they are…

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  • Google has finally released a formal version of gDrive, it’s called Google Drive and for the longest time I’ve been trying to remind people about making a backup of some of their most important documents to at least a jumpdrive. With Google Drive you can accomplish this with 5Gb of free space online. 5Gb may not sound like much to most people, but for other people who don’t back up, who don’t have that much to back up and have may never thought about doing a quick backup now there’s really no reason not to, especially with it being free. I presume the only caveat to that’d be requiring a high-speed connection to the Internet…

    5Gb of free online storage from Google Drive

    Posted on April 24, 2012 | No Comments
    Google has finally released a formal version of gDrive, it’s called Google Drive and for the longest time I’ve been trying to remind people about making a backup of some of their most important documents to at least a jumpdrive. With Google Drive you can accomplish this with 5Gb of free space online. 5Gb may not sound like much to most people, but for other people who don’t back up, who don’t have that much to back up and have may never thought about doing a quick backup now there’s really no reason not to, especially with it being free. I presume the only caveat to that’d be requiring a high-speed connection to the Internet…

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  • Over the past couple days there’s been a lot of traffic and a lot of articles written about the Apple Mac being attacked by a backdoor Trojan. At last count, it was indicated that roughly 600 to 700,000 Mac users were infected with the virus. since early April, the reports of the viruses have been coming in and for Mac users I’m sure the idea is very troubling, because Apple has always had a loyal group of users who account the operating system as the most secure, and most Mac users don’t even use antivirus or malware software because of this… Those same users are now scrambling to find software that can protect their system. They’re now finding that their systems are not impenetrable; there’s flaws in the operating system that can be exploited. What’s funny is the response from Apple in regards to the Mac’s being infected by malware and viruses; there’s not one.

    Apple MAC users learn that they’re not untouchable…

    Posted on April 20, 2012 | 2 Comments
    Over the past couple days there’s been a lot of traffic and a lot of articles written about the Apple Mac being attacked by a backdoor Trojan. At last count, it was indicated that roughly 600 to 700,000 Mac users were infected with the virus. since early April, the reports of the viruses have been coming in and for Mac users I’m sure the idea is very troubling, because Apple has always had a loyal group of users who account the operating system as the most secure, and most Mac users don’t even use antivirus or malware software because of this… Those same users are now scrambling to find software that can protect their system. They’re now finding that their systems are not impenetrable; there’s flaws in the operating system that can be exploited. What’s funny is the response from Apple in regards to the Mac’s being infected by malware and viruses; there’s not one.

    Continue Reading...

  • I was working with VirtualBox the other day and while VirtualBox has been updating their stuff here lately, and I really don’t mind the updates, but what I haven’t figured out yet is why they don’t have a process in place yet to fix stuff like just downloading the Extension Pack. The extension pack is required to take advantage of certain advances and features of VirtualBox. What I’m not understanding is when software developers do this kind of backwards stuff, it makes them look lazy. I mean who does this anymore? If you need an extension pack for the application; you need to provide a link to it, or provide a button to just say ‘install it’…

    VirtualBox 4 Extension Pack: Why do you continue to do this?

    Posted on April 18, 2012 | No Comments
    I was working with VirtualBox the other day and while VirtualBox has been updating their stuff here lately, and I really don’t mind the updates, but what I haven’t figured out yet is why they don’t have a process in place yet to fix stuff like just downloading the Extension Pack. The extension pack is required to take advantage of certain advances and features of VirtualBox. What I’m not understanding is when software developers do this kind of backwards stuff, it makes them look lazy. I mean who does this anymore? If you need an extension pack for the application; you need to provide a link to it, or provide a button to just say ‘install it’…

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  • When Windows 7 was release it has voice recognition in it. My initial thoughts on the voice recognition was that it was good, but the user interface was for crap. Now, when I did that review, it was on a beta version of Windows 7; it was a release candidate— I recall thinking, this is so bad, they’re going to have to update this to make it usable… but when Windows 7 was released officially, Microsoft had done absolutely nothing to it to improve the GUI. I have always said that the voice recognition of Microsoft was good, but the GUI is the biggest problem with it. It’s like trying climb a range of boulders with a skateboard; it’s clumsy at best. So, when I downloaded the RC version of Windows 8, one of the first things I wanted to see was the GUI of the voice recognition. And what a disappointment it is. Microsoft has done NOTHING to it to make it more user friendly. But I need to explain…

    Review: Windows 8 Voice Recognition Interface Continues To Disappoint

    Posted on April 4, 2012 | 3 Comments
    When Windows 7 was release it has voice recognition in it. My initial thoughts on the voice recognition was that it was good, but the user interface was for crap. Now, when I did that review, it was on a beta version of Windows 7; it was a release candidate— I recall thinking, this is so bad, they’re going to have to update this to make it usable… but when Windows 7 was released officially, Microsoft had done absolutely nothing to it to improve the GUI. I have always said that the voice recognition of Microsoft was good, but the GUI is the biggest problem with it. It’s like trying climb a range of boulders with a skateboard; it’s clumsy at best. So, when I downloaded the RC version of Windows 8, one of the first things I wanted to see was the GUI of the voice recognition. And what a disappointment it is. Microsoft has done NOTHING to it to make it more user friendly. But I need to explain…

    Continue Reading...

  • In a previous post I talked about things with Facebook that are lacking and one of those things is the ability to upload images to Facebook. Now, apparently Facebook finds it more important to provide an Instant Messenger for Facebook, but not an easier way to send photos. In relation to that, I had a relative asking me how to upload photos to Facebook. Contemplating that process of how photos are actually uploaded to Facebook, and then contemplating how to upload them with the method they have now; it doesn’t sound fun. But there applications out there that can help you, and they can make it really easy… I have a really easy option for you…

    Uploading images to Facebook [easy]

    Posted on March 21, 2012 | No Comments
    In a previous post I talked about things with Facebook that are lacking and one of those things is the ability to upload images to Facebook. Now, apparently Facebook finds it more important to provide an Instant Messenger for Facebook, but not an easier way to send photos. In relation to that, I had a relative asking me how to upload photos to Facebook. Contemplating that process of how photos are actually uploaded to Facebook, and then contemplating how to upload them with the method they have now; it doesn’t sound fun. But there applications out there that can help you, and they can make it really easy… I have a really easy option for you…

    Continue Reading...

  • Media companies are the worst when it comes to being progressive with technology. Using a few short examples, DVD shrink and RealDVD are just two packages of software that were shut down by the media industry as forms of pirating; this is back in 2008. The problem the media companies had with software packages like this was that private individuals to take their DVDs and make copies of them, and do whatever they wanted to with the digital copies. But even though the studios went after companies that made software like this, the practice kept going; just about everyone has the ability now to insert a DVD into their computer, ‘rip a copy’, and then play that disc/DVD anywhere. Now Wal-mart and their VUDU video service wants to get some cash for you going digital…

    ‘Disc-to-Digital’ — you’re kidding right?

    Posted on March 15, 2012 | No Comments
    Media companies are the worst when it comes to being progressive with technology. Using a few short examples, DVD shrink and RealDVD are just two packages of software that were shut down by the media industry as forms of pirating; this is back in 2008. The problem the media companies had with software packages like this was that private individuals to take their DVDs and make copies of them, and do whatever they wanted to with the digital copies. But even though the studios went after companies that made software like this, the practice kept going; just about everyone has the ability now to insert a DVD into their computer, ‘rip a copy’, and then play that disc/DVD anywhere. Now Wal-mart and their VUDU video service wants to get some cash for you going digital…

    Continue Reading...

  • The Windows 8 Consumer Preview has given all of us a much clearer picture of what Microsoft has in store for its next-generation operating system. This time around, it truly is “next-generation;” in fact, it’s the biggest change since DOS grew a GUI. Already, the spectrum of responses have ranged from gushing love to seething hatred — with plenty of room for gray-area confusion in the middle. Let’s take a quick look at five of the biggest reasons why Windows 8 is (or will be) a success, followed by another five indications that Redmond has made a terrible mistake. And keep in mind we’ve still got at least half a year before the finished product.

    The Best and Worst of Windows 8 Consumer Preview

    Posted on March 12, 2012 | No Comments
    The Windows 8 Consumer Preview has given all of us a much clearer picture of what Microsoft has in store for its next-generation operating system. This time around, it truly is “next-generation;” in fact, it’s the biggest change since DOS grew a GUI. Already, the spectrum of responses have ranged from gushing love to seething hatred — with plenty of room for gray-area confusion in the middle. Let’s take a quick look at five of the biggest reasons why Windows 8 is (or will be) a success, followed by another five indications that Redmond has made a terrible mistake. And keep in mind we’ve still got at least half a year before the finished product.

    Continue Reading...

  • Leave it to Google to keep changing how they integrate services… the Android Market  is being changed over to Google Play. As everyone knows, the android market had evolved to include electronic books, music, videos, but the android market has really become something much more for Google and the Android platform. Now they’re pushing the boundaries even further, adopting some of the same features and functions that were touted with the Kindle Fire, and the mixing that with some of what Apple is doing with the iCloud. Over the past couple of months, is below changes with Google, with their services, with their privacy settings, and with their new initiative to have cloud storage; this is a result of that effort. Movies that you watch, songs that you purchase and books that you read with the Android operating system will now be synchronized in the cloud.

    Evolving: Google Market is now Google Play…

    Posted on March 8, 2012 | No Comments
    Leave it to Google to keep changing how they integrate services… the Android Market  is being changed over to Google Play. As everyone knows, the android market had evolved to include electronic books, music, videos, but the android market has really become something much more for Google and the Android platform. Now they’re pushing the boundaries even further, adopting some of the same features and functions that were touted with the Kindle Fire, and the mixing that with some of what Apple is doing with the iCloud. Over the past couple of months, is below changes with Google, with their services, with their privacy settings, and with their new initiative to have cloud storage; this is a result of that effort. Movies that you watch, songs that you purchase and books that you read with the Android operating system will now be synchronized in the cloud.

    Continue Reading...

  • I was kind of surprised to see this new application/feature of Facebook being offered to everyone. I mean, did you happen to notice the pop-up window in the bottom right-hand corner? I thought it was interesting that Facebook would offer something like this considering that Facebook has an open protocol, jabber, that will let pretty much any instant messaging application interface with Facebook to be able to communicate with other members of Facebook. One of the things that you notice about the messenger immediately is that it looks almost exactly like the smartphone application that everyone uses. I just wrote an article recently on how to set up Digsby with Facebook, using jabber. For the time being, Digsby is my favorite application for managing my instant messaging needs.

    The new Facebook Messenger – but do you need it?

    Posted on March 7, 2012 | No Comments
    I was kind of surprised to see this new application/feature of Facebook being offered to everyone. I mean, did you happen to notice the pop-up window in the bottom right-hand corner? I thought it was interesting that Facebook would offer something like this considering that Facebook has an open protocol, jabber, that will let pretty much any instant messaging application interface with Facebook to be able to communicate with other members of Facebook. One of the things that you notice about the messenger immediately is that it looks almost exactly like the smartphone application that everyone uses. I just wrote an article recently on how to set up Digsby with Facebook, using jabber. For the time being, Digsby is my favorite application for managing my instant messaging needs.

    Continue Reading...

  • When my realtor contacted me a couple years ago about getting some documents together for our home loan, I was able to collect those documents in just a few minutes, everything she asked for, and was able to get it emailed over to her in about 30 minutes… She told me that in her 15 years of being a realtor that no one had ever gotten that information to her that fast and in that condition. I found this to be a bit odd and a massive complement at the same time. Taking in to account my work has online software for accounting and statements and benefits and such, and I was able to go to my bank and use the online statement pull to get all the previous statements they asked for, I was able to get everything else from my document storage; my document imaging storage… Since around 1998, since before it was cool or the smart thing to do, I’ve been taking my important documents and scanning them and storing them on my computer. Storing them on hard drive’s, CD’s, DVD’s and now External Hard Drive’s… it’s one of the most valuable things in my home, but...

    Document Management: 5 Tips for using PaperPort v14

    Posted on February 29, 2012 | No Comments
    When my realtor contacted me a couple years ago about getting some documents together for our home loan, I was able to collect those documents in just a few minutes, everything she asked for, and was able to get it emailed over to her in about 30 minutes… She told me that in her 15 years of being a realtor that no one had ever gotten that information to her that fast and in that condition. I found this to be a bit odd and a massive complement at the same time. Taking in to account my work has online software for accounting and statements and benefits and such, and I was able to go to my bank and use the online statement pull to get all the previous statements they asked for, I was able to get everything else from my document storage; my document imaging storage… Since around 1998, since before it was cool or the smart thing to do, I’ve been taking my important documents and scanning them and storing them on my computer. Storing them on hard drive’s, CD’s, DVD’s and now External Hard Drive’s… it’s one of the most valuable things in my home, but...

    Continue Reading...

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