Well done to Trend Micro for their latest Australian TV adverts. They are excellent (my favorite below):

Translating documents used to be an incredible inconvenience; say for example a document was sent to you in German then, in the past, one would invariably have to find someone who speaks German and English to do the translation.

With the advent of the Internet a few free Online translators became available however their translation was invariably flawed.

A few days ago I received an email in a foreign language which required translation (i.e. it wasn’t spam). I first went to Google Translate which mostly did a good job of translating to English however there were a few sentences which didn’t seem to translate all that well. I then went to Yahoo Babel Fish and was very pleasantly surprised with the translation results.

It is really impressive how much better the free Online translators are than a few years back. I highly recommend both Google translate and Yahoo Babel Fish.

As example of the translation capabilities of both the Online translators here is some French text from the French Embassy in Australia:

UBIFRANCE, l’Agence française pour le développement international des entreprises, est désormais dotée de son propre réseau de collaborateurs multiculturels dans le monde dédiés à l’accompagnement des entreprises et en particulier des PME sur les marchés étrangers. Les Missions économiques-UBIFRANCE sont aujourd’hui présentes dans 28 pays. Fin 2010, les Missions économiques-UBIFRANCE seront présentes dans 44 pays et formeront le réseau mondial d’UBIFRANCE.

La Mission économique – UBIFRANCE en Australie, partie intégrante de la mission diplomatique française, est chargée de l’accompagnement des entreprises françaises sur le marché australien.

Yahoo Babel Fish translates the above French text to the following:

UBIFRANCE, the French Agency for the international expansion of the companies, from now on are equipped with its own network of multicultural collaborators in the world dedicated to the accompaniment of the companies and in particular of SME on the overseas markets. The economic-UBIFRANCE Missions are present today in 28 countries. At the end of 2010, the economic-UBIFRANCE Missions will be present in 44 countries and will form the world network of UBIFRANCE. The Economic mission – UBIFRANCE in Australia, integral part of the French diplomatic mission, is in charge of the accompaniment of the French companies on the Australian market.

Google Translate returns the following English text as a translation of the French:

UBIFRANCE, the French Agency for international business development, now has its own network of collaborators in the multicultural world dedicated to supporting businesses and especially SMEs in foreign markets. The Missions-UBIFRANCE are now present in 28 countries. Late 2010, the Missions-UBIFRANCE will be present in 44 countries and form the global network of UBIFRANCE.
Economic Mission – UBIFRANCE Australia, part of the French diplomatic mission is responsible for the support of French companies on the Australian market.

As can be seen, the translation isn’t perfect however it is certainly far better than a few years ago!

For my regular Website visitors you may have noticed a few changes over the past two weeks; my URL has changed to http://eckstein.id.au, the ‘look and feel’ of the Site has changed and the content has had a refresh (the blog posts remain the same however).

The reasons for this are;

1. The work I perform has changed since I originally set up my Website; I now perform far more custom training as well as deliver training for certificate and diploma courses (specifically in Management/Business and I.T.) in Sydney.
2. For Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes, aligning my URL Top Level Domain (TLD) with the location of my target audience is the best thing to do (my target customers/clients are those in Australia therefore a .au TLD rather than a .com is most appropriate).
3. I love training and want to keep increasing my exposure as a freelance/contract trainer and deliverer of custom courses. The new Website affords the opportunity to focus on my training and assessment interests.

I was very fortunate with my old URL (and the content) to have some significant highlights such as being listed on a Wikipedia Quality Management (specifically the Theory of Constraints) Wiki as recommended further reading. Reddit and Digg also helped to refer over 10,000 visitors a day for some time J. Having built up an Online reputation it takes serious consideration to change a successful URL however I firmly believe that, even although the number of visitors to http://eckstein.id.au will likely decrease, the quality of visitors will increase in proportion of the total number of visitors (SEO is about quality and quantity).

I am very excited about this new Website where I will be continuing to post technical and management articles to the Blog however will increasingly add further training, education and assessment related articles. I will be communicating more effectively on this site as to the services I offer which include working for Registered Training Organizations (RTOs) as a trainer and assessor as well as expanding the offering of custom courses where demand has far exceeded my expectations (e.g. ‘How to Create Simple and Effective Electronic Newsletters’ and ‘Create and Manage Your Own Professional Website’).

As an aside, for those wondering, yes I am still an avid WordPress fan. Just as the Site before, this Site is powered by WordPress.

Using Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Live Mail or a similar email application? Do you have problems seeing or opening attachments in emails sent from Outlook? Join the club!

Unfortunately some of the non Microsoft Exchange dependant email clients such as Microsoft Live Mail and Thunderbird are unable to process (open) attachments sent from Outlook via Exchange in Rich Text format (RTF). What Outlook/Exchange does is create a dat file which includes instructions with the outgoing email regarding the formatting of RTF emails and attachments. Unfortunately some of the widely used and awesome non-Outlook email clients are unable to ‘understand’ the dat file and therefore don’t show the attachments or formatting on these unprocessed emails (in Thunderbird you’ll see the attached dat file however in Windows Live Mail the application will tell you that there is an attachment however you won’t see or be able to open it).

Unfortunately your only solution is to either use an email client which accepts the dat file from Outlook/Exchange or ask the Outlook sender to send emails in plain text or html formats (both Thunderbird and Microsoft Live Mail work very well with plain text and HTML emails).

P.S. I have tested this on Google Gmail (Online), IBM Lotus Notes, Hotmail.com (Online), Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Live Mail. Gmail, IBM Lotus Notes, Hotmail.com and Microsoft Outlook are able to process and display the RTF messages and attachments with no problem whereas Microsoft Live Mail and Thunderbird are unable to process the messages or attachments correctly.

Here are five suggestions for helping the environment whilst making your life easier:

1. Have a “no junk mail’ sign on your letterbox

In Australia 8.2 billion articles of junk mail are produced each year with the majority being binned before being read. It is quite unbelievable how much junk mail I was receiving at home. I have now placed a ‘no junk mail’ sticker on the letterbox and the amount of junk mail received has dried up.

As the NSW government advises: ‘Putting mail into letterboxes with a [no junk mail sign] is not against the law but it is against the distribution industry’s Code of Practice. Distributors should respect people’s wishes not to receive this material. For a copy of the Code of Practice, write to the Distribution Standards Board, Level 10, 128 Exhibition St, Melbourne 3000, or email: dsb@catalogue.asn.au’.

Many people however do browse through some of the junk mail and find it useful to get an insight into new products and special offers. Fortunately retailer and service sites usually have copies of their brochures and special offers Online and there are also dedicated brochure and special offer sites such as Lasoo.

2. Receive statements and communication via email

Most of the major organizations now offer the option to receive communication via email rather than via snail-mail. Besides the obvious environmental advantages of not printing and distributing communication via paper there is also the added benefit that electronic communication is far more simple to store. For example, storing tax return evidence in electronic format makes searching for the information significantly quicker as well as electronic records consuming significantly less physical space than paper. Contact your bank, telephone provider, electricity supplier and others to get your communication via email (also  why not lodge your tax return via e-tax rather than using paper).

3. Work from Home

There is a lot of talk about how to solve rising traffic levels (in Sydney this topic is very prevalent at present) and reduce the resultant pollution. One option which is hardly ever mentioned is to allow employees to work from home wherever possible. Many organizations are doing this very successfully using technology; Mckesson, a very large Amercian medical company, provides medical call centre services in Australia. Mckesson enjoys providing high Service Levels and low staff turnover as most staff work from home with a computer and telephone. Many of the staff never visit a physical office. The advantages for  Mckesson are huge as they are not constrained to employing staff in a limited geographic region (if a person wants to work from a station/farm in the Outback that is fine) and staff satisfaction is higher than in comparable businesses.

Businesses in Australia have unfortunately, in general, been very slow to adopt remote working.

4. Read ebooks

There has been significant press coverage of the Apple iPad in recent weeks. One of the selling points of the iPad is that it may be used as an e-reader. Of course Apple is not the only seller of e-readers with the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader being the most established. Samsung and others are all working to introduce their e-readers soon.

E-readers are essentially Internet enabled devices which are well suited to reading content with their included screens (the Amazon Kindle has an excellent screen which makes text extremely simple to read). Ebooks (and newspapers, magazines etc.) are downloaded via the Internet and stored on the e-reader which is in turn used by the consumer to read the pages.

The negative environmental impacts of books is significant. E-reader and e-books offer substantial environmental benefits over purchasing paper books, newspapers and magazine.

5. Download Music

Digital music, in the form of downloadable files (e.g. MP3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4, AAC and Apple Lossless formats) , creates far less waste than music sold on physical media. A Compact Disc for example needs machinery to produce the physical materials (i.e. the plastic CD case, paper inserts, ink etc.), trucks and other means to transport the discs and machinery and consumables to copy the music to the discs. Besides the environmental benefits of purchasing and downloading music Online, there is generally a far larger collection of music available Online.

VBS.TV has released an excellent documentary of their trip to North Korea … very interesting …

VBS.TV has released an excellent documentary of their trip to North Korea … very interesting …

I have mentioned previously that I have been doing some work with the Constructor Theme for WordPress. Unfortunately there is little helpful documentation out there in the form of ‘how to’ tutorials in relation to the Constructor Theme.

A common question appears to be how to get the slideshow option in the Constructor Theme to work. Here is a quick guide using the NextGen-Gallery Plugin.

1. Install and activate the Constructor Theme (i.e. Constructor must be your WordPress ‘Current’ theme).
2. Install and activate the NextGEN-Gallery WordPress plugin.
3. Download ‘JW Image Rotator‘ to your computer and unzip.
4. Copy imagerotator.swf from the unzipped ‘JW Image Rotator’ to the nextgen-gallery folder on your WordPress install/server (this will be under the ‘plugins’ folder).
5. Go to Options in the Gallery menu of WordPress.
6. Click the Slideshow tab.
7. Click Search now >> to the right of the ‘Path to the Imagerotator (URL):’ field.
8. Wait until the path is filled for you in the ‘Path to the Imagerotator (URL):’ field. and click Save Changes at the bottom of the Window.
9. Create/Add a Gallery with some images/photos (David Potter has a handy guide).
10. Go to Appearance – Customize then the Slideshow tab
11. Ensure the following:

• Enable Slideshow is checked
• At least one of the Options is checked (i.e. either/both Show on page and/or Show on single post).
• You click/select the Gallery you created in NextGen at the end of the Window to the right of Slideshow
• You ‘Save Changes’
  

Your slideshow will now appear on pages and/or posts (depending which you selected in the Constructor Theme Slideshow options.

Click the image below to enlarge and see an example of the Options used to enable a NextGen-Gallery to be used as the Constructor Theme Slideshow:

I have mentioned previously that I have been doing some work with the Constructor Theme for WordPress. Unfortunately there is little helpful documentation out there in the form of ‘how to’ tutorials in relation to the Constructor Theme.

A common question appears to be how to get the slideshow option in the Constructor Theme to work. Here is a quick guide using the NextGen-Gallery Plugin.

1. Install and activate the Constructor Theme (i.e. Constructor must be your WordPress ‘Current’ theme).
2. Install and activate the NextGEN-Gallery WordPress plugin.
3. Download ‘JW Image Rotator‘ to your computer and unzip.
4. Copy imagerotator.swf from the unzipped ‘JW Image Rotator’ to the nextgen-gallery folder on your WordPress install/server (this will be under the ‘plugins’ folder).
5. Go to Options in the Gallery menu of WordPress.
6. Click the Slideshow tab.
7. Click Search now >> to the right of the ‘Path to the Imagerotator (URL):’ field.
8. Wait until the path is filled for you in the ‘Path to the Imagerotator (URL):’ field. and click Save Changes at the bottom of the Window.
9. Create/Add a Gallery with some images/photos (David Potter has a handy guide).
10. Go to Appearance – Customize then the Slideshow tab
11. Ensure the following:

• Enable Slideshow is checked
• At least one of the Options is checked (i.e. either/both Show on page and/or Show on single post).
• You click/select the Gallery you created in NextGen at the end of the Window to the right of Slideshow
• You ‘Save Changes’
  

Your slideshow will now appear on pages and/or posts (depending which you selected in the Constructor Theme Slideshow options.

Click the image below to enlarge and see an example of the Options used to enable a NextGen-Gallery to be used as the Constructor Theme Slideshow:

WordPress is awesome (yes, I am a big WordPress CMS fan). One of the huge advantages of GPL software (e.g. Moodle) is that a huge community often contributes code to the core software. In WordPress, the most common form of community contribution is in the form of Plugins and Themes.

I have been ‘playing’ recently with the Constructor theme by Anton Shevchuk. Although there are many good (and some great) WordPress themes (e.g. Theme Hybrid), the Constructor theme has immediately become one of my favorites for it’s vast array of options and ease of use/configuration.

One question about the Constructor theme that I have noticed on a few Sites is how to change the default Constructor Footer text which looks like this:

‘© 2010 [NAME] Blog is proudly powered by WordPress | Constructor Theme
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).’

Well this is how to amend the default footer text:

1. Ensure that your Current Theme is set to Constructor.
2. Log in to WordPress as an Administrator.
3. Go to Appearance ->Customize.
4. Click the Footer tab
5. Enter the text you want to appear in the Footer (or just enter a space if you don’t want any Footer text)

You’ll notice that the text you entered above has replaced the default footer Text!

WordPress is awesome (yes, I am a big WordPress CMS fan). One of the huge advantages of GPL software (e.g. Moodle) is that a huge community often contributes code to the core software. In WordPress, the most common form of community contribution is in the form of Plugins and Themes.

I have been ‘playing’ recently with the Constructor theme by Anton Shevchuk. Although there are many good (and some great) WordPress themes (e.g. Theme Hybrid), the Constructor theme has immediately become one of my favorites for it’s vast array of options and ease of use/configuration.

One question about the Constructor theme that I have noticed on a few Sites is how to change the default Constructor Footer text which looks like this:

‘© 2010 [NAME] Blog is proudly powered by WordPress | Constructor Theme
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).’

Well this is how to amend the default footer text:

1. Ensure that your Current Theme is set to Constructor.
2. Log in to WordPress as an Administrator.
3. Go to Appearance ->Customize.
4. Click the Footer tab
5. Enter the text you want to appear in the Footer (or just enter a space if you don’t want any Footer text)

You’ll notice that the text you entered above has replaced the default footer Text!

The views of what encompasses software User Acceptance Testing (UAT) within various business units and roles differs greatly. UAT tends to get ‘bogged down’ in debates about scope and purpose if a common shared understanding between all stakeholders doesn’t exist. If managed correctly, the UAT process is usually extremely beneficial for all stakeholders.

The aim of this article is not to be detailed and prescriptive in nature but rather created a broad and common high-level understanding of the topic for all roles involved in software distribution and development. The article is brief in order to encourage wide readership.

What is User Acceptance Testing?

User acceptance testing (UAT) is about the user of the Configuration Item (i.e. software or hardware) testing whether the Configuration Item (CI) addresses the business requirements as documented to be met by the CI. Per the SDLC figure below, UAT (part of Acceptance Testing) tests against the Business Requirements.

UAT is also a significant indication as to whether the CI transition from one team to another is ready to occur e.g. from a vendor or project to a support team, and is therefore performed after all other testing has occurred.

What UAT is Not

UAT is not about communicating new wants and needs nor about testing against new expectations and requirements. All requirements of the CI should be documented and agreed during the Business Requirements stage. It is important that testers and other stakeholders are aware that UAT is testing against the documented business requirements.

The UAT Process

UAT is a formal and defined process as illustrated in the figure of the example acceptance testing process below.

Of specific importance is that, should certain test results differ from the expected result, the means of determining the priority and actions to occur for deviations should be defined in the test strategy or test plan. In other words, a deviation from expectation for any test does not necessarily mean that the test is a ‘failure’ or that it doesn’t meet the business objectives.

UAT Benefits

UAT is time-consuming however the benefits of UAT significantly outweigh the ‘costs’. Benefits of UAT include:

• Improved defining of business requirements (through knowledge that requirements will be tested).
• Improved solution quality (as developers, configurers etc.) are aware that users will test.
• Improved communication with users as developers, configurers etc. need to meet requirements.
• No ‘last minute’ requirements as UAT is performed against business requirements.
• Users experience the solution prior to ‘go-live’
• Handover into support of the solution is formalised and defined
• Etc.

Glossary of UAT Terms

Below are a few terms related to UAT and their explanations:

Test Cases: A set of input values, execution preconditions, expected results and execution postconditions, developed for a particular objective or test condition, such as to exercise a particular program path or to verify compliance with a specific requirement.

Test Plan: This is a detailed plan of how the UAT will be performed. This document is more detailed than the Test Strategy and more specific to the UAT for the CI to be tested.

Test Script: A document specifying a sequence of actions for the execution of a test. A test script will usually contain numerous Test Cases.

Test Strategy: The test strategy is usually a document detailing all testing to be performed on the CI (e.g. Unit Testing, System Testing, Integration Testing, UAT etc.) and how and who will perform the testing.

See http://www.astqb.org/educational-resources/glossary.php, http://www.istqb.org/downloads/glossary-1.0.pdf and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa292484%28VS.71%29.aspx for further glossaries.

Excellent rap video of ‘Keynes vs. Hayek’. Economic students, MBA students etc. will love this one …

Learning Management Systems (also termed Course Management Systems (CMS) learning content management systems (LCMSs) and sometimes Corporate Learning Systems (CLS)) have significantly enhanced learning capabilities within educational institutions (universities, schools, training providers etc.) as well as within individual organizations (government departments, businesses etc.). LMS solutions are becoming more attractive to organizations through enhanced features and reliability as well as reducing costs, in particular as a result of significant improvements in Open Source LMS products.

LMS Categories and Considerations

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are available in two broad categories; Open Source (and free) and paid-for (propriety). LMS could be categorised in a number of other ways such as by the market they serve (universities, private colleges etc.), by capability or any other means.  Implementing a LMS takes considerable effort therefore it is essential to clearly identify the ‘business’ needs of the organization prior to selecting a LMS to implement i.e. what educational and/or training needs is the organization wanting to address by implementing a LMS?

It has already been mentioned that implementing a LMS is a significant task. The needs analysis, configuration (and possibly customization), training and ongoing support (among other tasks) all take time and effort and subsequently money. In general LMS are very powerful and competent Tools capable of fulfilling way more needs than the average organization will require. The time and effort required in configuring the software to meet the needs of the organization as well as the training in, and administering of, the software should not be underestimated. The effort (and related expense) in implementing and using a LMS however offers significant competitive and economic advantages to organizations and the Return on Investment (ROI) on a well implemented LMS is generally very favourable. LMS are not implement and forget solutions (such as Microsoft Word) however a well implemented, configured and managed solution generally proves hugely beneficial to organizations providing and managing learning and training (including large corporate, government departments, Registered Training Organizations (RTO), individual trainers, Online training providers and so on).

LMS Products

So what are the choices in relation to Learning Management Systems (the below are not LMS reviews but rather some information about a few of the LMS solutions available)?

Free (all Open Source)

Most of the Open Source Systems are based on Apache, PHP and MYSQL making installation simple and inexpensive (or free). The software for each LMS is free to download, install, use and update and all have comprehensive free documentation and forums.

Paid-for

Most of the ‘paid-for’ LMS solutions are based on Microsoft .NET and/or Java technologies. Some of the more widely used paid-for LMS Solutions are:

Which LMS to get

There are valid reasons for organizations to use paid-for LMS Solutions such as licensing agreements with related products, specific integration requirements and so on. For most organizations however the free solutions will offer everything the paid-for alternatives offer (and often more) with all the benefits at a lower cost. The days of limited support, usability and functionality of Open Source software is over in terms of the good Open Source alternatives (the University of Canterbury published an interesting LMS review based on their trial of Moodle and Blackboard LMS solutions).

Which particular Learning Management System to implement and use however is dependent on each organizations requirements matched to the solutions capabilities and constraints. My current favourites are Moodle and ILIAS for their extensive capabilities, reliability, Online documentation and resources and generally lower Total Cost of Ownership (TOC).

Malcolm Gladwell is a fantastic author and I have been reading the Tipping Point where he discusses what creates a sudden and large change in people’s activities. One of the recommendations Gladwell offers is to create ‘stickiness’ where the provider creates a product or service which consumers perceive as preferable to an alternative (Gladwell illustrates this ‘stickiness’ using the example of the television success of Sesame Street and all the research that went into creating ‘stickiness’). Of course ‘stickiness’ is nothing new (think competitive advantage, ‘first mover advantage’ etc.) however its importance and the benefits thereof are significant and Gladwell does a good job of demonstrating the importance of it even although the relevant chapter of the book is a bit long-winded.

So where may we find an example of a company creating ‘stickiness’? In my view, price/cost may be an influencing factor on ‘stickiness’ however does not itself create the sticky factor (Michael Porter, the management guru, described that having a competitive advantage based on price/cost alone is extremely difficult to sustain as a price/cost advantage is relatively simple for a competitor to imitate and the switching costs for consumers remain low when based on price alone). ‘Stickiness’ therefore relates to quality or features. And this is where there is a company in Australia which is exceeding …

Provision of ADSL (Broadband) to homes is a very standard product, especially here is Australia where almost all ADSL uses common copper cables and some infrastructure managed by Telstra. Price and service are therefore two of the major sources of competitive advantage for ADSL providers. It has already been discussed that price/cost isn’t good in creating sustainable competitive advantage so service remains as the key to ‘stickiness’. The ADSL market is extremely crowded (a Google search for ‘ADSL provider sydney’ returns 1,140,000 results) so even average service from ADSL providers won’t suffice; excellence is therefore called for to gain and maintain a ‘stickiness’ where consumers have no desire to move to an alternate ADSL provider.

I believe I have found a company which is leading the way is creating ‘stickiness’ in the very competitive Broadband market. I have used Internode for a few years now and on the very few occasions I have needed to call them for support my expectations have been exceeded. To illustrate how this service excellence relates to sales consider that I was using Skype with Philips VOIP321 phones and needed new phones. Because of the continuous great service from Internode my first call for new phones was to Internode with whom I signed up for their NodePhone VOIP service and purchased two Siemens Gigaset C470 IP phones.

Unfortunately after installing the new phones (which Internode had configured for me before shipping them to me) I was getting the error message ‘Provider registration failed’ on the handset after making a call. I noticed, after a Google search, that other C470 IP phone users with various VOIP providers (including Internode) were getting the same error. I therefore called Internode support and this is where Internode absolutely exceeds:

A call back from Internode technical support resulted in the technician remotely connecting to my modem/router and changing various settings for me which resolved the VOIP problems. Now my Siemens phones and NodePhone VOIP work fine.

There are two aspects of this service which I believe create the ‘stickiness’ factor for Internode:

1. The problem wasn’t with Internode nor VOIP but rather my router/modem setup with which the technician assisted even although he had no obligation to assist.
2. The technician focused on the problem at hand and resolved the error as expediently as possible (whilst being totally professional).

There are many ADSL and VOIP providers and some are less costly than Internode. Internode however deserves even further success through its focus on service quality which creates a ‘stickiness’ which makes them the ADSL, VOIP and related product provider of choice.

There is so much software out there, some good and some really not great at all. I am however continually amazed that people are prepared to pay for software when there is a better free alternative available. Below is my favourite software that is free to use and provides exceptional productivity gains:

Notepad++

Category: Text Editor, Source Code editor and Notepad replacement

Alternative: Windows Notepad

Getting roughly 500,000 downloads a month this is GPL software at its very best. This notepad replacement is excellent as a basic Word processor as well as having some advanced source code editor features and is available in many languages. Notepad++ is extensible through its multitude of plugins and should be used as a notepad replacement by all Windows users (instructions are given on how to use Notepad++ as a notepad replacement).

Download Notepad++

FeedReader

Category: RSS Reader

Alternative: RSSOwl

FeedReader is a free, powerful and reliable RSS reader and manager. FeedReader loads when the PC starts and collects new articles in feeds on a set schedule. A little notification icon lights up when a new article is available to read. FeedReader articles may be read Offline and the application includes some clever and useful functionality such as OPML import and export, simple ‘search to RSS’ from Google Blogs, Bing Search, Delicious tags and so on.

Download FeedReader

WordPress

Category: Content Management System (also Blogging Software)

Alternative: Drupal, Joomla

WordPress originated as Blogging software however has evolved into a powerful and extensible Content Management System (CMS). WordPress has been successful in maintaining its reliability and ease of use whilst extending the possibilities of the software through the availability of thousands of themes and WordPress Plugins. WordPress is used by very large Sites such as CNN as well as small personal Blogs. WordPress.com provides free hosted WordPress implementations similar to Blogger for those who don’t want to host their own WordPress implementation.

Download WordPress

Moodle

Category: Learning Management System (LMS)

Alternative: Claroline, ILIAS

Moodle is from Australia and is the most popular of the GPL (free) Learning Management Systems. Moodle is simple to implement however takes a fair amount of configuration (this is because of the extensive capabilities of the software and the differing needs of training organizations). Moodle, like WordPress, is equally capable for large Universities and organizations as well as small limited training providers.

Download Moodle

FileZilla

Category: FTP Client

Alternative: FireFTP (Mozilla Firefox FTP Client Add-On)

FileZilla is an extensively used FTP Client. The advantage of FileZilla over many other FTP clients is its ease of use, such as the ‘drag and drop’ file functionality and ease of setup. FileZilla is also often far quicker to use than using Java based and other FTP Clients (e.g. for GoDaddy hosting it is much quicker to transfer files to and from a GoDaddy hosting account than using the GoDaddy file transfer Tools). FileZilla is one of the ten most downloaded SourceForge project applications ever.

An FTP Server is also available which is called FileZilla Server.

Download FileZilla

Firefox

Category: Internet Browser

Alternative: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Apple Safari

Mozilla Firefox is the choice of Online Content and Web Page creators. Firefox subscribes to Web Standards and best-practice and is enhanced through its 3^rd party add-ons. Firefox is also the second most popular of the Web Browsers after Internet Explorer and is considered the most secure browser (Firefox has integration with Internet Site blacklists by StopBadWare.org).  The latest version of Firefox includes Google-based location-aware browsing (geolocation).

Download Firefox

Google Picasa

Category: Digital Photo Software

Alternative: Paint.net, Windows Live Photo Gallery

Picasa is a free Google digital photo organizer and editor. Some cool features in Picasa are the face recognition and tagging which make searching very quick and the ability to upload photos for remote printing (e.g. Snapfish) from Picasa itself. Picasa does not create duplicate copies of photos as some software does but rather updates the original photos with tags or other amendments made.

Download Picasa

XAMPP

Category: Apache Web Server, MYSQL, Perl and PHP

Alternative: Server2Go

XAMPP is a simple to install and use Apache, MYSQL, PHP and Perl package. Within minutes it is possible to have a fully functioning Web Server which may host the likes of WordPress and Moodle or any other Web application reliant on Apache. Many people have an XAMPP install on their PC or Mac as their test or demonstration Server and then host the live Website or Application at a dedicated host. The days of battling to install Apache, PHP and MYSQL are over thanks to XAMPP.

Download XAMPP

Windows Live Mail

Category: Email Reader

Alternative: Mozilla Thunderbird

As far as free Email readers with Online calendaring goes, few can beat Windows Live Mail from Microsoft. Windows Live Mail is a small application which is able to send and receive from multiple Email accounts including Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and a multitude of other free and paid email accounts. This application is simple to use and has a great Graphical User Interface (GUI). Mail is available when offline and calendars may be shared.

Download Live Mail

Microsoft Security Essentials

Category: Anti-Virus Software

Alternative: AVG Anti-virus Free

Free anti-virus and malware protection is now just as good, if not better, than the paid-for alternatives. Microsoft Security Essentials leads the pack in terms of free Online security software with AVG Anti-virus Free coming in a very close second. Either of these two software products are highly recommended.

Download Security Essentials

P.S. I’m fully aware that there are some noticeable omissions from my list such as Linux, OpenOffice and Google Docs

Back in 2006 I started using an email account with the free email provider icmail.net. I always used the icmail.net account as a secondary email address and stopped accessing the email about two years ago.

I recently had a need to access my icmail.net email messages however found that icmail.net is extremely unstable these days and I couldn’t login to my email account from www.icmail.net using Internet Explorer 8 nor Firefox. After much searching on Bing and Google and then some experimentation I have found that connecting via an email reader such as Windows Live Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird does the trick (I’m sure that access via Gmail, Hotmail etc. will also work although I haven’t tried).

Here are the necessary settings to extract your email from icmail.net:

Incoming Mail Details:

Type: POP3

Port Number: 110

Enable ‘Logon using Clear Text Authentication’

Incoming Mail Server: mail.icmail.net

Email Username: this is your email address without the @icmail.net e.g. if your email address is smooth.operator@icmail.net then your username is smooth.operator

Outgoing Mail Details:

Just copy the settings from an existing account i.e. don’t try to send through icmail.net but rather send using an exisitng account that you send through.

Diagrams of icmail.net Email Settings (POP3)

In the pictures below, getting email from icmail.com using POP3 with Windows Live Mail is shown:

1. The first property screen when adding a new email account for icmail.net in Windows Live Mail:

2. Ensure you have ‘My incoming mail server is a POP3 server’ entered and mail.icmail.net entered in the ‘Incoming Mail (POP3)’ field. For the ‘Outgoing mail (SMTP)’ settings just copy the settings from any other email account set up (you don’t need to send through icmail.net). The other necessary details are per the picture below (obviously the ‘E-mail username’ with be your unique icmail.net username):

3. The ‘Incoming mail (POP3)’ port number is 110:

Good luck!

Many of us have huge volumes of duplicate file with the most common being multiple of the same digital photos. Replicated photos not only take up large amounts of hard drive space but also cause confusion when sorting and adding information to the photos themselves.

Numerous digital photo software packages such as Google Picasa have duplicate photo finders included however I have yet to find one of these packages which is accurate and simple to use in removing duplicate photographs. I have been testing ‘Duplicate Cleaner’ for a few weeks now. Duplicate Cleaner is duplicate file finder and remover software by Digital Volcano of the U.K.. I have found that for finding and removing duplicate photos, even when the names of the photos do not match, it is excellent. Duplicate Cleaner is free to install and use and comes with a multitude of options. Even with all these options it is still very simple to use.

After installing Duplicate Cleaner, all that needs to be done is to select the folders where you want the software to search for duplicate photos (this may be all your drives if your photos are a real mess). After selecting the folders, the ‘file filter’ options are set and this is where this software is very good; various options for search may be set such as ‘Same Date’, ‘Same file Name’ and ‘Same Content’ and any combination of these options may be set.

After the search is run (by clicking ‘Go’) the software will go and search for duplicates and return a summary of the search results.

After clicking ‘Close’, a list of all duplicates will be found (the list may contain thousands of photos for some people).

At this stage it is necessary to select the photos requiring deletion. Fortunately a clever ‘Selection Assistant’ is provided which makes selecting genuine duplicates so much simpler and more accurate.

Once the Selection Assistant has been used, removing the duplicates is as simple as clicking ‘Remove Selected’

This is a very good duplicate file finder and cleaner. I thoroughly recommend using ‘Duplicate Cleaner’ for its accuracy, power and options. Above all it’s free however is far better software than most of the ‘paid for’ alternatives.

I loved my Dell M1330 notebook until my laptop became another Dell product inflicted with NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS display adapter problems …

Dell Getting Hot and Shutting Down Resolved

After having owned my M1330 for just over a year, it started to behave erratically with the symptoms including; getting very hot, shutting down unexpectedly, ‘freezing’ and the screen suddenly showing multicoloured lines. My laptop was out of warranty and I did significant investigation as to what may be the problem (and resolution). After a lot of Googling and searching the Dell support Website (and I mean many hours searching for a resolution) I came across a blog post by Dell explaining that they are aware of the errors with NVIDIA GPUs and they and are providing a Limited Warranty Enhancement for the following Dell products; XPS M1530, XPS M1330, Vostro Notebook 1710, Vostro Notebook 1510, Vostro Notebook 1400, Vostro Notebook 1310, Latitude D830, Latitude D820, Latitude D630c, Latitude D630, Dell Precision M2300, Dell Precision M4300, Dell Precision M65, Inspiron 1420, Latitude D620. As described by Dell ‘the limited warranty enhancement is specific to this issue and will extend coverage by 12 months from the date the original warranty term for the laptop expires. For example, one-year warranties will be extended to 24 months for this issue only. The maximum combined period for the initial warranty and the limited-warranty enhancement is 60 months. Systems purchased with 60-month warranties will not be extended. Customers whose warranties have expired will be eligible for this limited warranty enhancement from the date the initial warranty expired’.

I contacted Dell support and they sent out a technician who replaced the relevant parts and my M1330 was up and running perfectly until …

Black and White Screen Resolved

Well, I woke up this morning and was welcomed with a black and white screen. After a bit of Googling I have discovered that there are many more people afflicted by this NVIDIA GeForce with Vista problem. My solution to this no color screen problem was to roll-back the display adapter driver which appears to have done the trick (i.e. I have a color screen again). This is all a bit baffling as the display driver hadn’t been updated for a few weeks so I have no idea why the screen was suddenly black and white.

Dell Service

I was a firm Dell proponent until the NVIDIA GeForce problems (note that prior to the display problems my XPS M1330 hard drive required replacement). I can understand that should Dell contact all owners of affected products to advise them of the potential problems they will have a stream of support requests that have nothing to do with the faulty NVIDIA issue which will be costly and onerous for Dell. As a consumer however I believe that Dell has not been altogether forthright with providing information about the NVIDIA GeForce being erratic. Even if Dell provides information about the known error on its support pages that would be a start. Dell is aware of a wide spread issue and should make information easily and readily available for consumers.