CHRISdotTODD

TechRepublic recently posted a link to a great site for fonts, dafont.com . dafont.com has nearly 7500 fonts of all types and styles. The only complaint I have is that some are inappropriate for children; this is not a site that I would share with my teens. Font themes include Fancy, Foreign look, Techno, Gothic, and Holiday among others. Here are some samples of the Sci-Fi and TV/Movie fonts. dafont.com also contains links to free and fee font related software. So next time you need just the right font, give dafont.com a look.

For the last several months, Outlook 2003 has periodically been real slow. The most common time would be first thing in the morning, so I wasn't sure whether it was network related or startup related. I would also experience it occasionally when sending an email... it would hang for a long time before starting the spell checker, and then between words it would hang again. I did some research, and though it has not been long enough to be certain it has been corrected, it looks promising. Here are the suggestions that I tried: Archive everything older than 3 months (it was 6). This should reduce the size of your PST file -- mine was 2.6 MB. My understanding is that newer versions of Outlook do not have problems with large PST files, but why take a chance? Tools | Options >> Other >> AutoArchive... Start a new outcmd.dat file (C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name]\application data\microsoft\outlook), as it could be corrupt. Close Outlook, rename the file, start Outloo

As Time-Warner puts packet-shaping technology in place to throttle service, Senators Snowe and Dorgan are still fighting for the public's right for Net Neutrality. Wouldn't it be nice to have more Senators representing the public instead of the huge corporate contributors? -- oh, that's for different blog. For all intents an purposes, Time-Warner's RoadRunner service just change their offering (June 6). Now, regardless of the bandwidth package you purchased, during busy times, they will slow down or throttle back certain traffic. So regardless of the service, instead of improving their infrastructure, Time-Warner will limit your bandwidth of certain tasks. "...implemented for newsgroup applications, regardless of the provider, and all peer-to-peer networks and certain other high bandwidth applications not necessarily limited to audio, video, and voice over IP telephony." I think it's high-time that the government steps-in to at least regulate that the ser

In September 2006 , and again in April 2007 , I wrote about great, free music on the Internet. Well, I recently discovered some additional sources. My latest discoveries are SeeqPod Music and The Hype Machine / Hype Radio . Hype Machine follows music blogs discussions while Hype Radio streams songs listed in the blogs. Hype Machine also provides easy links to buy the music via iTunes or Amazon.com. Perhaps the best feature is the RSS feed. The feed send down the current song being played, which you can save and play locally. I did encounter a few that failed. If you don't want to receive the RSS feed, and perhaps just checkout the music, you can also listen from your browser, vis-à-vis Hype Radio. To get a song played, it has to be mentioned by a blogger that is signed up with Hype Machine. SeeqPod is a search engine specific to audio and video on the Internet. When you first reach the site, you can click on one of the scrolling search results (from other searchers called PodCra

Well I downloaded and used Safari Beta 3 for Windows tonight... it looks and feels a lot like iTunes. Of course the first question is, "Do I really need another browser?" My first answer was "No." But upon reconsidering, I wondered if it might be a good alternative to testing sites for users of Macs and possibly the iPhone. So maybe for that reason, it's a good idea. I already have IE7 and Netscape in addition to Firefox. I also have a Linux VM with Firefox for test too. With that in mind, I decided to test the popular sites I frequent. Here's my results: This blog -- no problems Authoring the blog -- failed: couldn't get the cursor in the Title field eBay -- warned me to upgrade my browser, but worked PayPal -- no problems Gmail -- no problems Google Calendar -- no problems Last.FM -- no problems Pogo -- failed: couldn't load a game My company website -- no problems (includes Flash movies and apps) My bank -- no problems del.icio.us -- no problem

Do you like those commercials? Well in addition to finding them at Apple's website and parodies on YouTube (including Linux), you can also find parodies at TrueNuff TV! In case you haven't had enough, here's one more.

Yep, last month the cash machine turned 40 years old. The first cash machine was located north of London, and it used carbon 14 checks, a mildly radioactive substance — not a plastic credit card. When initially installed, the cash machine, invented by John Shepherd-Barron, would dispense up to 10 pounds UK. Learn more about the first cash machine on the BBC's website .

I have been listening to podcasts for years now, and the one that continues to stay on top is TWiT (This Week in Tech), the flagship show for the TWiT Netcast Network. Created by tech legend Leo Laporte, the TWiT network contains many wonderful technology podcasts for those of us who enjoy technology so much. (Go to Wikipedia to learn some TWiT history.) You can read Leo's bio yourself to get a sense of where he's been or read what Wikipedia has to say about Leo. Many of us remember him from the days of the Screen Savers and TechTV. Leo is well balanced between having a deep technology understanding and understanding that main stream technology (i.e. computers, cellphones, and the like) is too difficult for the average person. [BTW: he also hosts a technology help show, The Tech Guy , every Saturday and Sunday.] So what is TWiT and why do so many people enjoy the show? Well, it is Leo and his tech friends discussing the latest in technology news. You can get opinions on new

I viewed Apple's iPhone demo on their website, and despite a few quirks, I'm hooked. As they say, their best iPod ever -- it sure looks that way. Of the many features , I'm not sure if it is the touch-screen controls, the great interface, or some of the nice features such as how voice mail and Google mail is done, but my next cellphone will be an iPhone -- that's assuming I can afford AT&T. If you're not sure, checkout the demo , I think it'll sell you.

Did you see Computer World's, " The top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills " published last month? Some have been on the list for some time, such as Cobol -- it's needed just long enough to finally get companies off those legacy systems. What surprised me is even the mention of non-relational DBMS and non-IP networks. I guess I'm a bit ignorant in the fact they these two still exist in places. Then there is the more obvious, Cold Fusion. Of course with open source solutions and better scaling solutions, Cold Fusion is on its last legs. I remember when it was a good choice, because the open source alternatives and Microsoft had not matured; now, if you're not a Microsoft shop, you're probably using open source. For the rest of the items, couldn't we get something that is a little more "on it's way out," not already gone? take for instance the hobbyist turned pro developer. In the early days of the Internet, HTML was easy, and it didn't