Be Prepared – Food Storage Economics Part 3

In PART 1 I talked about some good reasons to set aside a little extra food and water. Looking back on it I think I forgot one more good reason. I may have thought “No, this can’t happen here in the United States” so I didn’t consider it. But looking at the way the economy has failed in the last 8 weeks, and seeing our government’s solution to it, this could be a real possibility towards the end of next year.

Uncontrolled INFLATION! That’s right, the cost of goods could dramatically increase from DAY TO DAY. Meaning the cash you have becomes less and less valuable the longer you hold it.

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Transmit 3.6.7 Released

The latest version of my favorite Mac-based FTP client, Transmit, has just been released. Updates include:

• Re-worked preview drawer to avoid unnecessary file transfers and cancels, thus avoiding possible transfer stalls
• Fixed a possible crash when changing selection quickly and right-clicking
• Fixed S3 uploads with files greater than 2 GB
• Fixed a problem in which files may be deleted when moving them into a subfolder

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Configure Gmail with Labs and Themes

I’ve been using (and loving) Gmail for several years now. It’s the first thing I open in the morning and the last thing I close before I leave the office. I also like to tinker with features and look at pretty pictures. Did someone tell the Gmail team about this?

If you’ve been using Gmail for a while now, you may have stumbled through some of the settings just to see what’s out there. Maybe you’ve heard about these new fangled themes that people have been talking about. Just in case you’re oblivious to the many wonderful ways you can customize and configure your Gmail account, I’m going to go over some of my favorite features and how to use them. Read more

Switch Your Internet Connection To Free DNS Servers

After months of unreliable Internet connection at my office, and after exhausting all other options, I decided to try switching our DNS servers to the servers freely available at OpenDNS.com. Since then we have not had one single Internet outage. There’s no indication that this is a coincidence, and if I’ve noticed anything about the speed of our Internet connection it’s that it has gotten slightly faster.

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Why Can’t I Email My PowerPoint Presentation?

About two or three times a week I am asked, “Why can’t I email my presentation to John?” Of course, I know that our email server is running fine, so I jump to the most likely problem: attachments. I ask if they are sending any attachments along with the email. Most people answer yes with a “how did you know?” sound in their voice.

The most popular attachment in my shop is the good ‘ole PowerPoint presentation. I’ll admit, PowerPoint can be a wonderful and powerful tool. In the hands of a pro, you can make some really nice presentations. In the hands of a beginner (and even a novice), a PowerPoint presentation can quickly turn into a bloated mess, especially if digital pictures and scanned images are used.

In the past, this wasn’t much of a problem. Really large image files were non-existent until affordable digital cameras came on the scene. Now people are putting two great tools together with an inconvenient result. You see, digital pictures tend to have rather large file sizes. Adding digital pictures and scanned images to your PowerPoint presentation can quickly make them too large to send through most email systems. Read more

Child’s Play 2008

Child’s Play is a charity started up by Penny Arcade and powered by gamers. It has been raising money and collecting toys for hospitals around the world since 2003. The charity accepts donations year round, but rolls out a toy drive only during the months of November and December.

Since November is here and the Child’s Play site is being updated with information and a new toy drive, I’d like to help by trying to get the word out. Read more