Valparaiso Broadband Communication Systems

Here is a LINK to watch the live webcam feed from the space shuttle.

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If you are like me, you just got a new computer or thinking about getting one you will need additional software. Used to be that a new computer came with all sorts of software to get you to buy the computer. Now computers are so cheap that they have stripped it to just about nothing and instead they offer “try and buy” software. Well I am a big fan of open source or free ware software. Google has had for a while a product called Google Pack. It provides you with some essential software for you computer. While they offer a good range, I dont care for all of it, but you can pick and choose what you want. Now you can go and get each of these items on its own, but this is just a way of gettting it all in one place. I usually grab the Firefox with google toolbar, Picasa (which is an awsome photo manager), and they also offer Star Office for FREE, where Sun normally charges $69 for it. It is a great office suite that is compatiable with MS office files. While I had been using OpenOffice.org, Star Office is its big brother, and has a few more features. If you would like to try the pack, click on the link below. Let me know what you think.

Jessie – jmason@valp.org

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I am going to the moon! Well not really, but my name is. I ran across this site where you can add your name to a data base that will be loaded on a computer chip and sent to the moon by NASA.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/main/index.html

So go add your name and go to the moon with me.

Jesse

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I ran across a interesting piece of software the other day. While it does not help me at home because I run linux on my laptop, on my windows desktop it worked great. Most windows computes will get bogged down with “stuff”. CCleaner http://www.ccleaner.com/ scan your machine and will find all the stuff taking up space on your computer. I ran it and found almost 800 megs of “stuff” just lingering on my machine taking up space that I could use for more important “stuff”. Even on a new Vista machine it found a great deal of items that could be removed and cleaned.

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If you are like me or somewhat like me you may have AIM/AOL instant messenger, Yahoo messenger, MSN messenger, Gtalk messenger, MySpace messenger and some IRC chat rooms. The big problem with having all of those is the software that comes with them. Most of it is bloated with ads and junk that you really could care less about. I have come across a great open source, cross platform messenger, that will connect to all the services with out using their programs. Pidgin is a messenger program that you set up your accounts in and allows you to connect to all the services at once. There is a version that will allow you to load it on a USB drive. I use linux on my laptop at home and there is a version for that as well. Click on the link to get your copy today and try it out.

http://pidgin.im/

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I had a call the other day, user we setting up a new computer and made a comment about wishing they were able to get there bookmarks off the old computer before it crashed. Well I have been using the google tool bar in Firefox for some time now. It allows me to book mark pages that I come across and I can log into my google page at anytime and have a list of my bookmarks no matter what page I am on. There are other features that I enjoy using such as my history of where I have been so If I forget about a page I can search for it.

I have been using Firefox since it first come out. There are a few (not many) sites that I still have to use IE, but I never have to worry about something getting auto installed on my computer with Firefox, it blocks a number of popups and it will notify me if I happen to stumble upon a page that is trying to steal information about me.

Now you can use the Google toolbar with IE, I can not speak to it, because I don’t use IE, however I can tell you that I LOVE the toolbar with Firefox. Below is a link to get the current version of Firefox with the Google toolbar.

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Welcome to the first posting in the Geek Corner. This is an online extension of the newsletter geek corner. I plan to start posting tips and tricks from around the web.

As we are all getting ready to receive our tax refunds and stimulus package checks, if you are like me you will want to spend it on something. I enjoy shopping online cause I hate having to find a parking spot. The only down side to that is paying the shipping. So here are two websites that will help you with that. They offer coupons for FREE shipping. Both are good sites and have different online stores listed.

http://www.freeshippingon.com

http://www.freeshipping.com

Good luck and have fun.

Jesse – Resident Geek

jmason@valp.org

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