Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

Seeing as I've just upgraded the server, I decided it was about time I upgraded my desktop PC. After all, I'm still using a five year old Pentium IV machine that I bought when I first went freelance. It works, but it's showing its age. Some of the USB ports don't work any more, and its fans get really quite noisy when the office gets warm (and then the office gets warmer!)...

After a bit of research I decided on this reasonably priced machine from my usual component supplier up in Watford. It should be with me on Friday.

Then of course comes the joy of migrating applications and tools to a new machine. I suspect I should make a list of what I use regularly, and use that as a place to start...

I've been playing with Listas, Microsoft's online list-sharing application. Just out in public beta, Listas is perhaps best thought of as a wiki for the rest of us, focussed on editing and storing those lists we keep making and keep forgetting to carry around with us. Like a wiki, you can make a public list a community, with readers encouraged to edit entries or create new ones. Private lists remain for your eyes only, while others can be made read only.

There's an IE toolbar if you want to use Listas as a tool for storing research notes, or if you're co-browsing with co-workers...

Listas shows its SharePoint ancestry in its WYSIWYG outlining tool, and in its simple UI (though I'm, not sure about the beta's orange colour scheme). Sign on with a Windows LiveID, and you can start creating and sharing lists.



There's one big problem with Listas, and that's that it doesn't go far enough. Ray Ozzie has said that Microsoft's Live brand is about delivering software that works better when connected to online applications. Microsoft already has a desktop outliner in the shape of OneNote, so why doesn't it link the two applications? After all, I have my to do lists in OneNote, along with a selection of other lists that I might want to access when I'm on the road. Listas could be the ideal solution, a simple online outliner that synchronises key documents with OneNote.

It shouldn't be difficult to bring the two together. SharePoint is part of the Office family, and it's become an effective enterprise document management tool. If Microsoft can SharePoint's list management elements and turn them into consumer services,it should be able to do the same with its document management tools. I don't mind if it uses SkyDrive as a synchronisation hub, as long as it gives me the tools to blend my online and offline experiences the way I want...

Microsoft has sneaked out a fix for the performance issues some Outlook 2007 users have been experiencing (as per this KB entry).

If you've got a large local mail store - which, to be honest, you should have if you're using Exchange and doing the sensible thing and running in cached Exchange mode - download and install the update ASAP. You should find Outlook quite a bit snappier.

Well worth pushing out to your users or supported sites.

Remember that giant paper clip I got in the post last week?

It's now been joined by a pocket calculator. A pocket calculator that's bigger than my laptop...

Oh, and there's a new URL. Owned by the same people. I'm pretty sure that it's the teaser for an online office platform, and I'm pretty sure I know which one now...

Twenty scenes from famous films, put together using common pieces of office equipment.

Can you guess them all?

I'm stuck on number 8 and number 9. They don't seem to be "Jaws IV" or "Convoy"...

[link via By The Way...]

The Royal Mail's online stamp service has got a little easier (and cheaper).

Go online, buy some postage (which has to be used by the end of the next day), print out the resulting labels, stick them onto an envelope and post.

You can even use a credit card for less than £3.50's worth of postage...

Useful. And no need to subscribe to the old system.

Today I finished the final piece of office reorganisation.

The 3 x 6 unit rack of Effektiv shelves now fills one side of the room, and is slowly filling up with kipple, while the venerable old Sten unit that sat beside my desk has now been mounted as a wall unit above marypcb's desk.

The tricky bit here was dealing with the room's picture rail - but four rubber door stoppers made excellent spacers, and the shelves now hang in the air in just the way that bricks don't. At least, now that's finally fitted, I don't have to perch precariously above a desk, powertools in hand while trying (like a doctor in ER hunting for a vein) to find a spot for a rawplug in a wall full of blown dry paster...

The whole exercise made and excellent excuse for purchasing a cordless screwdriver/drill combo - which came in the most macho black and orange box. marypcb rather enjoyed carrying it home from the shops...

The last few days have been spent removing the old wardrobe that acted as storage space in our office, and replacing it with spiffy new shelving units from Ikea.

(As marypcb put it: "First we eat, the hat vaccuuming comes later...")

We now have lots more storage space, in a lot less floor space - I can get at all my O'Reilly's now - and I also have a nice selection of cuts, bruises and contusions. Self assembly furniture leads to self disassembly!

I also have managed to get even more than my previous record of flat packed furniture in a small sports coupe: 11 standard shelf units, one wall unit, 3 double size, two small shelves and assorted bits-and-bobs.