Well, it has been almost two months since we got the BlackBerries. I’ve been using my BlackBerry pretty much exclusively since I got it activated, with a couple of exceptions.

See, initially I had planned on using a Windows Mobile-based phone, like the HTC Mogul or the brand-new Touch Pro. In fact, after playing with a Mogul a few times at a couple different Sprint kiosks in the mall, I was ready to get one of those. So ready, in fact, that I actually bought one off of eBay, anticipating that I would sell my like-new BlackBerry and move to the Mogul.

On Tuesday night, I decided to activate my Mogul — that is, more my phone number to it — and try it out. I immediately found myself missing the BlackBerry, and by Wednesday afternoon, my BB Curve was back online, and my Mogul was headed back for eBay.

Honestly, I find myself kind of shocked to have sided with the BlackBerry. The last few months I was with Verizon, I had a Palm Treo 700wx, which runs Windows Mobile. I was sure that I would want to use something with WM. Besides, the BlackBerries just seemed… weird. The interface is different. The way they handle e-mail is different. The browser is different.

So what happened? Why did I ditch the Mogul so quickly?

Simply put, I just missed the BlackBerry! I missed most everything about it — its size, its ease of use, its keyboard, its applications, its functionality as a phone, the cohesiveness of everything.

The Mogul, I thought, was going to be the ideal phone for me. It runs Windows Mobile, and it has a nice touch screen, a large slide-out keyboard, and built-in wireless infrared, along with Bluetooth. It has everything! Almost.

In reality, the Mogul just couldn’t compare to the Curve. Ease of use, the Curve won hands-down, and I think the best way to explain why is to say this: The Mogul appears to be a miniature computer first, a cell phone second. While the idea of a pocket-sized computer is extremely appealing, the device just seems kind of sluggish overall. And the phone aspect of it just doesn’t seem that great.

The slide-out keyboard on the Mogul, which I thought was kind of cool and a very clever design, ended up being somewhat of a pain to use. The keyboard itself seems to work very well, but it’s that sliding that gets to be bothersome. Plus, the Mogul is not very easy to use one-handed when it’s open; you pretty much need to be holding it with both hands while the keyboard is out.

To its credit, the Mogul has built-in wireless, which is a nice plus. Also, it does a real good job of streaming audio and video from my desktop computer. I can actually watch live TV on there if I wanted to, and it looks very good!

Another huge selling point for the Mogul, or any Windows Mobile device, was the ability to be able to use my remote-control software in order to log in to any computer and control it remotely — on the Mogul itself!

This actually worked really, really well, and despite the small screen size, I think it could be practical, particularly in those times where I’m away from the house (and without my laptop), and somebody needs some quick remote help.

The third main advantage for the Mogul, as I could see it, was its auto-complete feature with text. Basically, when you’re typing, a little drop-down menu will appear that suggests different words. So if you typed “def,” it may suggest “definitely,” and it then saves you quite a few keystrokes when you select the word. Also, what was nice is the auto-complete would learn new words. So before long, it recognized “Arndt,” and would start to suggest it.

Back to the BlackBerry. Normally, I’m not a huge fan of a turnkey approach for gadgets or computers. I love to customize, to tweak, to extend whatever it is I’m using. So I came into the world of BlackBerry dreading that perceived loss of functionality or extensibility.

Well, what I have quickly learned is that sometimes it’s a good thing to have someone else do it for you. I’m amazed at just how well-done the BlackBerry is. Everything fuses together so well, and it really is the ultimate e-mail/messaging device!

In addition to e-mail and text-messaging, they have chat clients for AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk, and the BlackBerry Messenger, which is just a great little chat program for BB users. Also, there are MySpace and Facebook applications, which make accessing your account a lot easier.

On top of all of that, there are alerts for each of those programs, and you can customize what happens when, say, you receive an alert on Facebook, or if you have a message on Google Talk.

Also, the way the Curve handles e-mail is unique but very nice! Basically, instead of your device having to check e-mail every five or 10 minutes, the BlackBerry service will do the work for you, and will just send you the messages the instant they arrive. Pretty nice!

I’m not crazy about the way the Curve deals with streaming audio and video, though. For some reason, it’s just really bad at it; I can’t really use it to log in and watch TV. Not that that’s a big issue, really, but it is a really cool feature to have available.

So while the Curve isn’t perfect, I really am blown away by how well it works and by how much I just like it!! The BlackBerry Messenger program is becoming one of my favorites, because all of the guys in the family can chat live on it. In fact, yesterday, Jude, John, and I had a three-way chat going on, as we were trying to figure out some last-minute details on covering depositions. It’s perfect for times where you can’t just make a phone call.

I’m still really surprised in myself, that I’m so quickly giving up on the idea of the Mogul. But, honestly, this BlackBerry is just such a nice little device, so tightly-integrated and VERY wisely put together. I think I’m in love!

A few days ago, I finally took the plunge and installed Windows Vista on my desktop computer, as my primary operating system.  I had previously had Vista installed on my laptop, and I was dual-booting with XP.  Realistically, though, I found myself almost never booting into Vista, so I never had much of a chance to use it.  While I have been very, very happy with Windows XP, the main reason for installing Windows Vista was to get more familiar with it, as a lot of clients of mine have newer machines that have Vista installed.  And, let’s be honest:  Vista hasn’t exactly received the best press.  So I wanted to find out for myself is Vista was a bomb, or if it really was a worthy operating system.

Anyway, I’m just going to share some of my early impressions, the good and the bad so far.  Just for reference, I installed Windows Vista Home Premium, and my computer has an Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 processor with two gigabytes of RAM.  For safety, I installed Vista on a totally separate hard drive from XP, so if I want to go back to Windows XP, I can just switch the boot order.

So, first impressions here, starting off with the good:

• Aesthetics.  Vista is definitely prettier than XP, in my opinion.  Now, to be honest, I found myself turning off some of the extras.  I quickly reverted back to a classic start menu and classic control panel.  I do like how Windows Aero Glass looks, and Flip 3D is kind of a nice alternative to Alt + Tab.  It sure looks nice, although I doubt I’ll be using it often, as I prefer the speed of the old Alt + Tab for program switching.
• Driver Support.  Vista seemed to be able to automatically download and install drivers for all of my hardware, including my Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT graphics card, my memory card reader, and my Hauppage WinTV-PVR 1500 MCE video capture card.  Pretty nice!  It even automatically installed my Brother MFC-3360 all-in-one printer that was connected via USB.  Good job, Vista!
• Windows Media Center.  I’ve got to say, I’m pretty impressed with WMC!  It’s very pretty, and, again, it was a cinch to set up.  As Vista had already loaded the drivers for my capture card, including the USB infrared receiver and the IR blaster, it was a piece of cake to get up and running with Windows Media Center.  Even my remote control worked great.
• New Sound Mixer.  This is actually genius.  The new mixer in Vista allows you to control the volume separately for each running program!  So you can mute any given program or tweak the volume.  I didn’t even know this existed, but once I opened up the mixer I saw this.  It’s a pretty good idea, and I had never even thought of it previously.
• Speed.  My computer is pretty fast, so speed hasn’t been an issue, yet.  It isn’t noticeably slower than XP, although, to be fair, I haven’t really done too much in the way of testing things.  But so far, everything is nice and speedy.
• Error Reporting.  After my introductory Blue Screen Of Death, Vista notified me that the problem seemed to be associated with the driver for my graphics card.  I appreciated that!  It made it nice and easy to find out what caused the crash.

Now, for some of the things that I’m not so crazy about:

• Windows Explorer.  It has a funky new layout, and I just do not like it.  For one, I feel like it wastes so much space at the top of the window.  On top of that, it just… I don’t know.  I miss the old Explorer.  I bet there’s a way to get the old layout back, but I haven’t found it yet with clicking around a little bit.
• Stability.  I have had one BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death).  I think it was related to my Nvidia graphics card, though, so it’s possible that this isn’t really Microsoft’s “fault.”  I should go and download the latest driver from Nvidia, though.  Also, to be fair, this BSOD was prior to me installing Vista Service Pack 1.  Since then, I haven’t had any additional crashes.
• (Not Responding).  This is a big annoyance.  For some reason, it seems like windows (especially Windows Explorer) are very quick to fade out and add “(Not Responding)” in the title bar, even when they haven’t crashed.  In my past experiences with XP, the “(Not Responding)” pretty much meant that I had to manually kill the program — that is, I had no hopes of it recovering.  But with Vista, it seems like certain programs will eventually snap out of it, after doing some heavy processing.  So it just seems like Vista is a little too fast to assume that there is a problem, and so if I didn’t know better I might end up terminating some applications that would be just fine had I waited a little longer.
• User Account Control.  This got to be a bothersome in a hurry, all of the “Are you sure you want to do this?” warnings of UAC.  I understand the idea behind it, but it just got irritating to run into that prompt whenever I wanted to do anything!  I currently have it disabled, just so it will stop bothering me.  When I have the time, though, I may try to find a way to re-enable it but prevent it from bugging me so often.  It does get kind of extreme.
• Compatibility.  So far, there has been one program that I have installed that no longer works correctly in Windows Vista.  The program is Sorenson Squeeze 4.3, a program that converts videos.  I guess this is not necessarily Vista’s fault, but I’m bummed that this version of the program doesn’t work with Vista, while it works fine in XP.
• Network Activity Icon.  Okay, this is something that really bugs me.  In Windows XP, the system tray icons that show network activity (the single computer monitor for a wireless connection, or the double monitors for a wired connection) are very noticeable, very easy to keep an eye on, to watch for network activity.  For some reason, Vista’s new network-activity icons are very, very hard to read — that is, there is very little difference in the indicator lights, making it real difficult to tell if there is any traffic.  I honestly don’t know why they made this change.  Hopefully I’ll find a way to replace those icons with ones that are easier to read.

So these are some different things that I have noticed after playing around with Vista for a few days.  All in all, it has been a pretty positive experience.  We’ll see what happens once I have a month or two of usage under my belt.

When on my computer, I love to find shortcuts, ways to get tasks done faster, and to eliminate unnecessary mouse clicks and keyboard strokes.  Here’s a list of eight free programs that are must-haves for my computers.  Without them, I can still get stuff done, but it takes me much longer. 

AutoHotkey

One of my favorite programs is AutoHotkey.  It’s a lightweight program that allows you to do an incredible amount of mouse- and keyboard-related functions and shortcuts.

It is a very vast program, but my use of it is very, very basic.  I use it for keyboard shortcuts.  There are a handful of built-in Windows key + <key> shortcuts in Windows, such as Win + E (launches Windows Explorer), Win + R (opens the Run dialog), and Win + F (opens the search box). 

So what I am doing is using AHK to give me many more Win + <key> shortcuts.  For instance, Win + Q opens Firefox.  Win + W opens Thunderbird.  Win + A opens Winamp.  It goes on and on.  It’s such a handy little tool.

One other thing I use AHK for is to remap the caps lock key into something more useful.  I actually use it as another Windows key, believe it or not.  This is especially handy on my Thinkpad, which has no built-in Windows key.  But I even find myself using the caps lock key as the Windows key on my desktop computer, which has two regular Windows keys.

Firefox and Thunderbird

I mentioned Firefox and Thunderbird.  Firefox is just an amazing web browser.  It is so versatile.  It is just so far ahead of Internet Explorer, in my opinion.  I actually can’t really stand browsing in IE for very long these days.  I am so spoiled by Firefox!

Thunderbird is a pretty nice desktop e-mail client.  It seems to be more functional than Outlook Express, but I can’t say that Thunderbird is light-years ahead of OE.  It’s better, in my opinion, but it doesn’t just blow Outlook Express out of the water. 

Taskbar Shuffle

Another brilliant little program is Taskbar Shuffle.  It’s a very simple program.  Basically, it lets you drag and drop your open programs in the Windows taskbar, rearranging them after they’re open.  After using Firefox and getting so accustomed to rearranging the open tabs, I thought how nice it would be to be able to do this with programs running in Windows. 

After a little bit of Googling, I found this great program, and I really love it.  I miss it a lot whenever I use a computer that doesn’t have it installed!

Another feature of Taskbar Shuffle is you can use the middle-click on the mouse in order to close a given program — again, like you would close a Firefox tab.  It’s just a great idea, and it saves so much time.

Fast Note

For memos, messages, or to-dos, I use Fast Note.  It’s basically a sticky-note program that lets you easily keep, edit, or view notes.  I have it always running in the foreground of my screen, minimized (when not in use) to a small horizontal bar at the top of my screen. 

When I need to edit or view the notes, I simply double-click on the titlebar, and the full note pops up.  It’s very simple and very lightweight.  Notes are saved automatically, so I never have to worry about losing what I type.

bmem

A second program I have docked at the top of my screen and always shown in the foreground is bmem.  It gives you a little horizontal bar that shows you your computer’s current usage of the resources.  It shows free RAM, the disk cache, and the page file.  Additionally, it shows the current CPU usage, and it has a hard drive activity light.  These last two are super handy, because I can instantly tell if a program is hogging up the processor or if something is accessing the hard drive.

Process Explorer

When something is hogging the CPU, then to find out which program is the culprit, I simply open up Process Explorer, using a quick Win + P, thanks to AutoHotkey.  This program is just amazing.  It’s like a Windows Task Manager on steroids.  It shows you graphs of processor usage, the commit history (which, honestly, I never even pay attention to), and also the hard drive input/output.

One of the best things about this program is that you’ll see this CPU graph hitting the ceiling, and then if you hover your mouse over the graph, it will show you the name of the program that is taking those CPU cycles.  So it is a very fast way to find (and kill) a program that is either taxing your processor, or a program that is accessing your hard drive like crazy.

Process Explorer is so vast, that I feel like I’m only scratching the surface.  Someday, I need to take some time to sit down and learn more about all of the different features.  But even as-is, it’s such a handy little tool.  I definitely miss it when I use a computer without it.

Winamp

I mentioned Winamp.  It’s my primary music player.  I’m not as crazy about it as I was in the past, but it still does a pretty good job.  I would like to find a better alternative someday, but Winamp is holding steady for the time being.

Volumouse

One of my latest additions is a program with, again, a very specific purpose.  Volumouse is a small program that rests in the system tray.  It simply provides you with an easy way to use your mouse’s scroll wheel to change the computer’s volume, or a number of other properties.

The way I use Volumouse is very simple, yet very handy.  When I right-click, a little vertical slider pops up.  That slider controls the volume, and I simply scroll the mouse wheel up or down to raise or lower the volume.  It’s handy for those times when you don’t want to reach for the keyboard, or you don’t want to have to click around to change the volume.

So there you have it!  Eight programs that speed me up tremendously.  And the amazing thing is they’re all free!  I always marvel at the fact that people spend countless hours developing and troubleshooting these great programs, and then publish them for anybody and everybody to freely download.  What a cool setup!

One of my recent projects has been to find a good automated backup system that I can deploy across the computers in the house.  Even though we’re technically a household, with a family of this size and all of the different businesses (not to mention FamTeam), we rely heavily on computers.

I just recently counted the number of computers that are currently on our network, and we have nearly 20!  That’s not counting the handful of laptops that are offline at the moment.  So basically, I need to find a way to automatically back up 20 computers, and I would like for the backups to be nightly, automatic, and, obviously, reliable.

I have played around with countless different backup and synchronization programs, looking for one that will fit our needs.  Since I’m looking for something that will run on nearly 20 computers, I’m pretty sure that eliminates any commercial product from contention, because it’s going to add up real quick to buy 20 licenses for any product.  Because of that, I’m looking at free products.  So far, I’ve yet to find the perfect solution, but I have two strong contenders.

The first one is DataSafe Backup 1.0, the second is Cobian Backup 9.  I have been testing these two programs on different computers for a few weeks now.  Here are my thoughts on each program:

I like DataSafe because it has a very nice interface.  It’s intuitive, easy to use, but has some pretty advanced settings.  I like its ability to use hard links to create multiple full backups without wasting disk space by copying the same files more than one time.  Instead, the program will create a hard link, which will, in a sense, create a shortcut to that file on the disk.  The bottom line is that backing up a 100 MB file twice only takes up 100 MB instead of 200 MB.  A big, big plus if you want to create full backups, but don’t want to waste hard drive space.

Secondly, I like DataSafe’s lists of existing backups, providing an easy way to view/restore a previous backup.  There is also a log viewer and an area that shows the failed jobs, with detailed errors to help you figure out why a given job didn’t run (or finish).

A couple of things I would put on the wish list for DataSafe Backup would be:

1. E-mail support - The ability to e-mail results of backups, attaching logs and/or any errors.
2. Remote control - Have several (say 20) computers run the DataSafe client, and then have full control of their backups, including a log viewer, from the one server.
3. Bitwise (rsync-style) copying - This would be a really nice feature as well, because the beauty of rsync (as I mentioned near the bottom of this this Luke’s Notebook entry) is that when copying a file, if the file already exists (that is, if it has been copied before), the full file won’t be overwritten.  Instead, only the bits of data that have changed in the file will be copied.  So, from my understanding, that means that in the example of a 100 MB file, instead of copying all 100 megabytes again due to a slight change in the original file, only the pieces of the file that have changed are copied.  So that would speed things up tremendously, as well.

All in all, I really, really like DataSafe Backup.  I’ve exchanged a few e-mails with Gabriel Adomnicai, its programmer, and have actually suggested he adds these features.  The top two are ones that I would really love to see, especially #1.

Cobian Backup 9 is also an impressive program, and it actually does #1 and #2.  The remote control feature could be a lot better, though, as it’s kind of clunky and hard to use, in my opinion.  It’s a great idea, and if it was just a little easier to use, I think I would be sold.

The e-mail feature works nicely, and it will send a log (if requested) after each backup.  Still, though, just something about Cobian doesn’t quite do it for me.

I’m not totally decided yet on what I’ll use, but I am definitely leaning towards DataSafe Backup.  After a little more testing, I think I’ll have a verdict.  I will say this, though — if DataSafe would have an automatic e-mail feature, then the choice would be easy.

Welcome to my new blog pertaining to all things technology.  In the future, I want to have a place to share tips, relay stories, and give people a snapshot of how technology is used for me personally, for Arndt Computer Services, for the FamTeam.com website, and for the Arndt family in general.

So stay tuned for some (hopefully) interesting articles!

- Luke Arndt