Greased Windows

Since I'm not likely going to be able to make my switch to the world of Apple for a few months, I just had to settle in to Windows and accept my fate. Linux, unfortunately, is not an option for me due to my unique software needs or I'd be there in a hurry. And there's no point going to Windows Vista, is more expensive, slower, buggier, and more annoying than XP (at least for now).

So I decided to make XP as suitable habitat as possible. After reading through many guides, I found some that were worth following and have tweaked my machine to run like a well-oiled machine. It's FAST. Here's what I accomplished:

• Speed: Eliminating useless overhead in Windows and using so performance enhancements has made my machine almost as zippy as it was when I first got it (when it had NOTHING on it). My favorite though, was telling Norton to stop scanning my outgoing emails and program. With that change alone, things are opening in half the time or better.
  
• Beauty: Using some themes for Windows and Firefox that stress speed and space my interface has become delightfully non-distracting and my monitor feels like it grew an inch or two.
• Stability: I can't really claim this one until I've been running it for a while, but I was able to disable most of the superfluous "services" running in Windows. Without so many operations going at once, I expect I will not have as many incidences. Also, I disabled that dumb "Send error report" window! Whew!
• Better Browsing: My browser, FireFox, is no longer a browser for the general public. It's a lean mean browsing machine and it's been bookin' around the web since I gave it a tune up.

So what if your car has live GPS positioning, integrated map plotting, bullet proof windows, four and a half wheel drive, and can drive itself if you can only go 10 mph? I've removed the things in Windows I will never need (I can always turn them back on) and I'm reaping the benefits.

This is extremely Geeky, so I don't recommend this if you don't have at least a couple hours to spend on it (1 hour windows, 1 hour internet). Here's the best of the bunch as far as guides:

PC Stats Beginner Guide
Removing Useless XP "Services" Overhead (be cautious... definitely worth it)
Tweak Guides: FireFox 2.0
FireFox Preloader
TCP Optimizer (speed up your Internet)

That's it. Don't do EVERYTHING in those guides, it would take forever. Just do the things that look the best to you. With a little tweaking, you'd be surprised just how responsive XP can be.

New Song: Lay My Burdern Down

If you could imagine what a Folk/Pop/Rock would sound like... this is an excellent example. The vocals could use a little work, but a very creative song on the whole! Drop Gooma2 a line if you like their stuff! (play the song by using the player on the right)

Sojourner's Song: The Evils Of Alcohol

Sojourner's Song: The Evils Of Alcohol

"From the flustering Prohibition - the only Constitutional amendment ever to be repealed - to the everyday complexities of liquor laws, American society has argued and agonized over alcohol for several centuries. It has often served as a sort of therapeutic punching bag for the ills of society, as it tends to naturally elicit an emotional response."

Sound exciting? Encourage or protest over at Sojourner's Song!

New Music

See the player to the right that says "Project Opus"? I will be updating that occasionally with music from the unlisted (independent artists) world of music. You're unlikely to hear these songs anywhere else because they weren't just "good enough" for the big boys to finance their production.

If you like like what you hear you can add the song to your Project Opus player on your account. Or you can buy the high-quality stereo version play it wherever you like (sometimes they are free, depends on the artist). Drop them a line and let them know they are appreciated!

Support the little guy! I hope to be on the player one day!

A Look at Italy

I've recently become a bit enamored with Italy. It's land, people, and culture are very unique and yet they ride the cutting edge of technology. I'm learning more about it, but I thought I'd provide you, as well as myself, with a small collection of fantastic Italian pictures (in the form of a slide show).

Check it out.

Italy Slide Show

And for laughs, you just have to see the traffic in this place! You know those lines on the road? The lights and signs? All decoration :)

AlterNet Web Design

I guess I haven't updated you on my business endeavors in a while.

Since I left my previous position as a web designer/master of a large health food store, I pursued a new web design venture with a good Christian friend I know through our church. He's a talented salesperson and I can make websites. It seemed like a good match.

Using open source CMS (Content Management System) technology to help design our system, we've created a website that almost anyone can run with no prior knowledge of web design or HTML. In fact, it's nearly as easy to put text in pictures in your site as it is to do so in a simple email.

We recently created our own site using our system and is now public!

www.AlterNetLand.com

If you like it, drop me a line and let me know!


I have some other businesses that are still in the brainstorming phase, but if they become solidified I will keep you posted!

How to install the new Windows Vista

For those of you who want to upgrade to the new Windows Vista Operating System, Aaron introduced me to an excellent guide to help you through the process. Perhaps one of the best free guides on the net today. Enjoy.





(fedora style hat tip, Aaron)

New Look, New Purpose

Originally, I had decided to discontinue the "Taking Your Life Online" series and changing the direction of this blog. If you want to see the series completed, please let me know, otherwise I will assume it's not really important to those of you who do read my blog.

So what am I trying to say here? I want this blog to have information that you CAN'T find anywhere else on the web, and for that to happen, it needs to be about me. So the following items will be my new focal points for creating posts:

• My Music: Thoughts on music and, of course, delivering the original music I have written (as they are recorded). If I feel particularly daring I may post some demos of songs that haven't yet been recorded properly as well!
  
  
• My Tech Recommendations: No more long articles about various products, that's easily found on the net already. Instead, only my recommendations and opinions. I may still write articles, occasionally, if I'm passionate enough about it :)
  
  
• My Life: I'm going to begin to try to include more information about the various events going on in my life to help give you a glimpse into what I'm up to when I'm not blogging.

I also hope to increase things like video posts and pod casts in the future.

To keep things simple, I hope you will consider subscribing to my feed by clicking this link or the feed icon at the top of the right column on my site. If your still not using a feed reader for some reason, then I've provided one more alternative so that you are, officially, without excuse!


Subscribe to Just A Leaf by Email

There! In all its aged cave man glory, you can now receive my blog posts in your email! This link is now permanently on the side bar as well.

Cya around!

Even More Feedable!

Notice the two new icons on the right? No more complaining about not being able to get my RSS feed. The orange icon will work with any feed reader (Thunderbird, Google Reader, etc) and the shiny-beautiful-new "webwag.this!" icon adds my feed directly to your webwag.

That's ONE click. Can you handle it?

Blog 2.0

It shouldn't take this long to make something look this simple.

Anyways, take a look at the new coat of paint and let me know what you think. I tried to follow some of the Web 2.0 "less is more" mantra along with bigger fonts. Hopefully, this is starting to look better. I will probably be tweaking it off an on while trying to avoid my usual, complicated, decorating habits :).

Here we go again!

Alright... my blog is going to look ugly for a little bit, but this in the beginning of a new template :).

My Webwag

My Webwag

Wow....

This is a competitor to PageFlakes... actually, never mind, this is the defeat of PageFlakes.

It's similar in that you can make your own home page with the exception of one majorly incredible feature...

Widget on Demand - Make a widget out of any piece of the web. ANY piece!

This is a feature I wanted to move to Mac to get (it's going to be on the new OS X Leopard) but here it is right now! Yours for the taking.

Do me a favor and just try it, you will NOT be disappointed, it's the most incredible net feature I've seen in a long, long time.

Just go to www.WebWag.com and click the Widget on Demand demonstration video on the right to see how it works.

Have fun :)

Q&A: Making a Website for Free

Here's a question I was asked recently that you may find interesting:

"Do you know what's the best way to go if I want to set up my own website for free? I googled "free website" and pulled up a bunch of stuff that looked kind of tricky--like officelive.com that said it was free but when I looked deeper it said it would charge my credit card after awhile. I was wondering what you thought."

Of course, if you are willing to put up with the culture and ads, MySpace was made for this. But since I can't reccomend Myspace to anyone without feeling like I have to make a burnt offering to the Lord afterwards, I suggested a more creative approach... WARNING: This is not for the feint of heart (or those afraid of "words" like HTML):

Free hosting is hard to come by but there are some options out there for the creative.

I guess it really depends on what you need the site to do. If you were doing a basic info site with some downloadable files I would probably try a Wordpress/Google Group combination. Wordpress, while intended to be a blog is actually a highly evolved CMS (content management system) that can be used to make great websites.

The best part is, the site is controlled like a blog, so it is very easy to edit content.

The reason for the Google Group is that you can upload files to it and that link directly to those files on your site (this is transparent to users).

Another plus to using this set up is, no ads! It's completely ad free.

I would advise that you buy a domain name though unless you want mysite.wordpress.com to be your address. You can get one for $8 a year at godaddy.com. Using domain-forwarding through godaddy you can have your site appear to be hosted on your own domain. :)

http://wordpress.com
http://groups.google.com/
http://godaddy.com/

You're going to have to get your hands pretty dirty to get it done (what do you expect for free!), but it should be fun and completely convincing when you're done. WordPress is an awesome system. You'll need a good template that allows for multiple pages. Here's some good WordPress links:

http://themes.wordpress.net (if you don't like any of the defaults)
http://wp-plugins.net/
http://faq.wordpress.com/ - to answer your questions :)

If you need to host images for your template, try photobucket.com or flickr.com.


There's probably an easier way to do this if you want to put up with ads, but for the best end product, this is the route I would take!

Sorry if that seems like too much work to you! You could always fork out the dough if you don't like it though :)

Pageflakes - The whole Web at your Fingertips!

Pageflakes - The whole Web at your Fingertips!

For those of you who are not completely Googled already, this is a very nice way to create your own homepage with all the trimmings.

Alright, I promise to stop posting! I have work to do!

FeedBurner

Do you have a blog or podcast? Feedburner is a unique site to help spread the word and attract users to your blog's (or podcast's) feed. It allows you to universalize your feed and pretty it up as well, instead of straight text in your subscriber's feed reader. Pretty slick stuff :)

FeedBurner

MP3 Music Downloads, Free Hosting, Music News, Playlists, Indie Music Community - Project Opus

MP3 Music Downloads, Free Hosting, Music News, Playlists, Indie Music Community - Project Opus

Check it out, a great place for small bands and their supporters on the web.

Take Your Life Online: Part 1

If your computer suddenly exploded today, what would be the most detrimental data to lose on your computer?

• Email
• Bookmarks (favorites)
• Documents
• Photos

While we all have our special needs on the computer, the 4 items above represent the most likely items on your computer to be inseparably important to your lifestyle. Up until recent years, you've only had one choice: buy a back up hard drive or burn your data to CDs.

The problem with backing up is that it duplicates your data. Unless you very frequently update it, if something goes wrong you will still be missing data or your data will be outdated.

Although backup solutions are getting better (such as Apple's Time Machine), the easiest way to protect yourself is to store your files AND access them, online.

The great thing about storing and working on files online is that every computer with an Internet connection can now be used as a workstation with full access to your email, bookmarks, documents, and photos. It doesn't matter what operating system or make the computer is, as long as you have a web browser.

Oh yeah, it's all free too.



So let's get started! We've talked about Gmail in the past. Well, I'm bringing it up again! Nearly everyone who is close enough to me to be influenced now has a Gmail account. And it's with good reason too! Gmail provides you with the following features and benefits:

• Full featured email program (like Outlook Express, Mail, or Kontact) right in your browser! Not only is it great software, but it's fast!
• Almost 3gb of storage space... and it's constantly growing. (for most users, that's enough space for 5,000-10,000 emails!)
• No picture ads. Only clean, non-disruptive text ads that do not detract from Gmail's clean look'n feel
• Spam Free - Gmail has the best spam filter I've seen. I didn't receive a single junk mail for many months, and when I did Gmail filtered it safely into my junk mail box.
• Search your email - I can't even tell you how important it is to easily sort through your mail. You can search subject, user, or favorites in your mail box and quickly find what you are looking for.
• If any of your friends are also looking at their email when you are, you can send text messages back and forth (chat) right inside of Gmail!

And that's just some of the features of this stellar email client. Again, you can access it from any computer with an Internet connection.

To make this a little more interesting... suppose you have an email you've been using for years and everybody knows they can reach you there. No sweat! Gmail can receive mail from any normal email account! That's right... ALL your email in one place, and safely online at that, (in case your computer suddenly combusted) that can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection (even your mobile phone!).

If you really want to bring your email down to your hard drive anyways, Gmail can do that too. But it keeps the emails backed up online so that they will always be safe.

So free your email from your hard drive today and take your first step towards hardware freedom. Get your gmail on!

monde_US.jpg (JPEG Image, 650x336 pixels)

monde_US.jpg (JPEG Image, 650x336 pixels)

A popular understanding of the world :).

Don't worry, Internet series of posts is still on the way. I'm just a bit busy right now!