Two Bags

I bought two bags recently.

The one I bought at a flea market -- the Seoul Folk Flea Market, to be exact. An old second-hand leather bag. It is not very big -- big enough for a book or two and my cellphone. Just the right size for when I don't feel like carrying anything heavy, but also don't want to put things in my pant pockets. It actually has two long bands, so it functions as a small backpack. Somebody told me it looks a bit girlish (I guess because of the size), but I love it.

The other bag I bought online as a pouch for my laptop. Since I bought my laptop only a few months ago it has already gotten some scratches on its body from carrying it in my regular backpack together with all the other things I have in there, so I started hunting for something appropriate. In an Apple Store I saw something that I really liked -- a pouch for an 11" Macbook Air, but it cost around $80. A friend suggested I look online, which I did, and bought something similar for much cheaper. Honestly I didn't expect the quality to be as high as the bag I saw in the Apple Story, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a great purchase.

Pocket -- reading the webpages I don't have the time to read, but want to

One of the elements on the side of this blog included a list titled Web Pages I Fully Intend to Read One of These Uncertain Days. These were things I found interesting and hope to read eventually, but they are not a priority so I just listed them there for when I have the free time to get to them. The thing is, however, whenever I do have the free time, I'm not necessarily in front of my computer and when I am in front of my computer I often have more pressing or interesting things I'd like to do instead.

Here's the list of pages I haven't gotten to yet. Some of them have been on that list for a couple of years!

• On African American History & Music
• On America's Violence Culture
• On Asian Leads Replaced by Caucasians in Film
• On a Biomass Eating Robot
• On Codex Alimentarius
• On Creating the Future of Learning
• On Freelance Writing Jobs
• On Gold Strategy
• On Ikhana Unmanned Science and Research Aircraft System
• On John Kent (poems)
• On Martial Arts Scepticism
• On Tales of the Black Freighter
• On the 18th Fighter Bomber Wing in Korea
• On the Importance of History
• On What Postmodernism Was 

Then I discovered Pocket. This great app allows me to save webpages from my browser with one click into my "pocket", allowing me to retrieve them on any computer or on my smart phone during those times I do actually have the time to read something, like while commuting on the bus or subway, while waiting in line somewhere, or in the movie theater during the trailers before the feature starts.

What I like about Pocket is that it renders the webpages in an easy to read format, similar to a Kindle reader, making the reading clutter free and efficient. One can also add tags to the pages to sort them according to keywords. It is not really a feature I have used much yet, but I can see the value in it, and as I start to use Pocket for more focused reading, I will definitely use it. I've tried some other online readers, but this is definitely my favourite at the moment.

This is an advert . . .

So in this post I'm going to advertise two services that I really make use off and hopefully you can benefit from it too.

The first is iHerb.Com. Since Koreans are more prone to use Oriental herbal medicine, it is very difficult to find other natural medicines that may be very common elsewhere. Take for instance echinacea which is an awesome immune booster that is proven to cut the chances of catching a cold by half. While one can easily find echinacea tincture in any pharmacy in South Africa, it is practically impossible to buy in Korea. Similarly eucalyptus oil is not sold in it pure state--only as an ingredient in body washes or shampoos. And so the list goes on of herbal medicine commonly found in the "Western World", but not found in Korea, which one can order at iHerb.Com. But medicine is not the only thing one can get from iHerb.Com. I also typically order some mineral solutions including colloidal silver. Something I recently ordered which I have had no success in buying in Korea is coconut oil. The array of uses of coconut oil (see here and here) is just staggering, which makes it an indispensable commodity in any "natural" household. I especially use coconut oil for cooking; not only is it one of the healthiest oils for cooking, it also imparts a wonderful aroma to the food.

So if you do plan to use iHerb.com, feel free to use my discount code: KOL385. Any new customer that uses this code will get a $10 discount on their first order of $40 or more (or a $5 discount if the purchase is less than $40), and I will in turn get some credits with iHerb.com.

Dropbox is a cloud storage service which I have been using for years now, and it just makes my life awesome. Not only can I save important information securely online in case something happens to my computer, it also makes my most important information instantly available from any internet accessible device, like my smart phone. It is furthermore my service of choice to share files with my friends since it is so straight forward. The great thing about Dropbox is that it is available on all platforms: Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, even Blackberry, which means that you can use it from any device. Google Drive, for instance only functions on iOS and Android. Dropbox can also integrate with Facebook, allowing you to share files via your Facebook account on Facebook groups.

What do I get out of it? Well for every new referral that joins Dropbox through these links, I get 500MBs of extra free space. What do you get? 2GB of free start up space. Even if you don't think you are going to use it, you'll still do me a great favour by signing up for your free no strings-attached cloud drive, which will give me some space online. Also, Dropbox is very secure with a double security system. Of the current three common cloud services, Dropbox has been running the longest with excellent customer satisfaction and is therefore, in my opinion, the best option.

Well, that wraps up my adverts. :-D

Outokorregeer gee my die horries

Microsoft Office se outokorregeer-funksie gee my die horries! Ek het nou amper die sleutelbord 'n vuishou gegee uit frustrasie.

Die probleem is as volg: Ek gebruik vier tale op my kantoorrekenaar: Amerikaanse Engels, Britse Engles, Koreaans en soms Afrikaans. Nou goed, ek het die "Detect language automatically"-opsie afgesit want wanneer jy met soveel tale begin werk en daardie opsie is aan dan spring die woordverwerker sommer lukraak van een taal na die ander. Maar dit is juis omdat ek hierdie opsie afgesit het dat ek so gefrustreerd raak wanneer ek een oomblik nog Afrikaans tik en die rekenaar skielik besluit dat dit Koreaans is en 'n eenvoudige woord soos "ek" skielik "다" word! En omdat die rekenaar dan nie self terug skakel na die oorspronklik taalinstelling nie, kan ek 'n hele sin of twee in Koreaans tik terwyl ek nog dink ek tik in Afrikaans. Dis veral 'n irritasie omdat ek baie goed kan tik en nie na die skerm hoef te kyk nie, so ek besef nie altyd onmiddelik dat daar het skielik iets fout gegaan nie. Maar selfs al sou ek die heeltyd na die skerm kyk, bly dit 'n hindernis wanneer die insleuteltaal skielik vanaf Romeinse letters na Koreaanse letters verander en ek dit dan doelbewus moet terug verander elke keer. Die oplossing is om die outokorregeringsfunksies heeltemal af te sit, maar hoekom sal ek dit wil doen?--woordverwerkers se waarde lê tog juis daarin om jou spelfoute uit te wys en tyd te spaar!

Dropbox and Evernote

There are two online storage applications that I've started to use that have influenced my life for the better. Now we know that the whole world is eager to transit their data to the "cloud". I still have my reservations about this, especially considering the solar storms predicted for 2012 by a NASA study, which could wipe out our online data. So for the time being I will still have the bulk of my data backed up offline. Nevertheless, the ease of having your data online is of great benefit, especially when you are constantly moving between computers--at your work, your home, during transit--as I do. We all know the frustration when you suddenly need to access information that is on your home computer but you are finding yourself at your office. This need not be an issue since data stored in the "cloud" makes geography irrelevant.

Dropbox is a good solution. It provides you with 2 GB of free space. You can upload data to your account and it is available for you to access anywhere you have an internet connection. It is a great way to backup your most important data. For instance, I use it to backup my student's grades. You can also make certain folders within your account accessible to other people, so it is a wonderful way to share data with other people.

Evernote is equally impressive. It is basically a tool for keeping notes, but notes can be defined beyond mere text--it could include online links, parts of webpages and even photos you snapped with your smartphone. For instance, you could take a photo of somebody's business card or of a poster you saw on a lamppost or of a restaurant menu. Evernote automatically recognises the text in the photo and index it for you so when you search for something in your Evernote notes, even the text in your photos are retrievable. The great thing about Evernote is that it comfortably works on your computers and mobile device and periodically synchronises the notes on your computers and mobile device. That means that when I get an idea while sitting on the subway I can quickly enter it onto my mobile device and when I get home the information is waiting for my on my home computer.

My Afrikaanse speltoetser-panarie

Boer-in-Ballingskap het vir my hierdie skakel gestuur waar 'n mens 'n gratis Afrikaanse speltoetser en woordafbreker kan aflaai. Omdat dit 'n Pharos-produk kan 'n mens vertrou dat dit 'n goeie produk is.

Die enigste probleem is dat hierdie speltoetser werk in tandem met Microsoft Word. Ongelukkig gebruik ek nie Microsoft Word op my persoonlike rekenaar by my woning nie. Byna al die programme op my rekenaar is oopkode ("open source") gratis programme. Ek gebruik die Open Office-pakket as my woordverwerker. Ek het wel die Microsoft Office-pakket op my kantoorrekenaar, maar wanneer ek by die werk is, funksioneer ek eksklusief in Engels en het dus nooit behoefte aan 'n Afrikaanse speltoetser nie. So bevind ek my dan tans in 'n paradoksale-panarie. By die huis waar ek by tye 'n Afrikaanse speltoetser benodig kan ek dit nie gebruik nie, en by die werk waar ek dit kan gebruik het ek dit nie nodig nie.

Seoul Tube & Gangnam Fashion Festival

Saturday I went to Seoul Tube and mingled with a great bunch of Korean and expat in Korea vloggers. On Sunday I went to the 2011 Gangnam Fashion Festival at COEX.

On both days I took videos with the intention of editing them into something to upload onto YouTube and then embed here. Unfortunately I recently had some serious hard drive problems, forcing me to format my computer and installed a new version of Windows. This resulted in me loosing some programs -- including the only video editing program that can handle my camcorder's file types.  

Hopefully I'll get a substitute soon enough.

WhatsApp Messenger

Hey, I just downloaded WhatsApp Messenger on my Android. It is a Smartphone Messenger which replaces SMS. This app even lets me send pictures, video and other multi-media! WhatsApp Messenger is available for Android, iPhone, Nokia and BlackBerry and there is no PIN or username to remember - it works just like SMS and uses your internet data plan. Get it now from http://www.whatsapp.com/download/ and say good-bye to SMS.

In short, I can now SMS friends and family with smart phones (regardless whether they are Android based, Apple, or Blackberry) for free.

WhatsApp Messenger: Android + iPhone + Nokia + BlackBerry

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Free Media Players and Open Source Programs

Since formatting my computer, I've been slowly reinstalling programs as I need them. Unfortunately I do not have the original CDs for some programs with me here in Korea, therefore I'm looking into some open source and freeware alternatives.

I've already mentioned that I use Miro as my podcast and videopod aggregator.

For my audio player I've installed Foobar2000 again. This little program has been my music player of choice now for a couple of years. I enjoy its simplicity and because it uses so little RAM compared to most other media players. Foobar2000 can play practically all known audio formats with ease. True, it is not as fancy looking as most media players, but it is for this exact reason that I like it. It is simple, sufficient, customizable and if I were thinking of making the interface prettier, different skins can be downloaded for it.

My all purpose video player is Gom Player. This is probably the best free video player available. When it requires codecs it will take you to a web page from which you can download the appropriate codecs. One of the best features, I think, of Gom Player is that it can play incomplete files. If you have a video file that is still in the process of being downloaded, Gom Player can actually play those clusters that are already downloaded. Or, if you have a broken video file, Gom Player can play those segments of the file that is not corrupt. It also has a variety of other features like brightness and contrast control, subtitle viewer, screen capture, a playlist that automatically lists similar files and everything else one would expect of a complete video player. I must admit, however, that there have been isolated moments where Gom Player did not play to my utmost satisfaction. In those occasions I fell back to VLC Player. Since formatting my computer I have not yet had any problems with Gom Player, so am yet to install VLC. I will do so only if the need arise.

As my Office Suite I've installed Open Office. This suite contains all the programs one would need for your daily "office" work like a word processor, spread sheet engine, database platform, a presentation designer and a drawing program. I use the word processor the most and find it quite comfortable and efficient. Unfortunately the computer in my office has Microsoft Word. Although Open Office can save documents as a Microsoft Word document and easily read .doc-files, the formatting, i.e. page layout, is different from program to program. This means that when I format a page at home and send the file to my office PC, it looks different. However, as far as normal word processing is concerned, I feel quite comfortable with Open Office. To think that such a great product is free, is a wonderful testimony of what unselfish people can do to better humanity. This program is empowering many people that cannot afford the prices of expensive programs.

The most difficult thing for me is graphic design programs. I studied certain programs during my training as a graphic designer and having to learn how to use new programs is just a nuisance. There are some excellent free open source graphic design programs available -- it is just that I'm frustrated at the slower speed at which I do things now which I did much faster on Photoshop and Corel Draw because I'm so familiar with these.

The first program I'm testing now, in place of Photoshop, is Gimp. It is a wonderful image manipulator with a fully adjustable interface. I'm certain that once I make time to go through the tutorials, I'll be equally adapt at it.

In place of Corel Draw I installed Inkscape, an effective vector graphics editor. Again, it will take me some time to acquaint myself with the tutorials before I'll be able to work with the same ease that I do on Corel Draw, but I'm sure it will be worth the effort in the long run.

I'm also looking into the online graphic manipulation programs discussed in the Rocketboom video below. They will be quite useful on occasions where I do not find myself at my own computer and quickly need to do some basic image editing.





Hopefully you will find some of teh programs on this list useful as well.

SA Nuus en Internetmedia-aflaaiprogramme

Weens my geografiese verwyderdheid en besige skedule is dit moeilik vir my om ophoogte te bly met wat in Suid-Afrika gebeur. Soms as ek kans het maak ek 'n draai by News24, maar dit is maar baie sporadies.

My oplossing -- iets wat ek baie jare terug begin het -- is om elke week na RSG se Sondagaand nuusprogram, Kommentaar, te luister. Kommentaar is 'n uitstekende weeklikse program waartydens 'n paneel van kenners, soos nuusredakteurs, politieke analiste en joernaliste, saam gesels oor die hoofnuusgebeure van die afgelope week. Deur na Kommentaar te luister kry ek in 'n halfuurspasie 'n opsomming van die belangrikste Suid-Afrikaanse (en soms ook buitelandse) nuus, sowel as ingeligte kommentaar deur mense wat hierdie nuusstories binne die groter konteks plaas.

Kommentaar saai uit om agt uur in die aand in Suid-Afrika, wanneer dit drie uur in die oggend in Korea is--'n baie ongeleë tyd vir my. Gelukkig het RSG podgooie (podcasts) sodat ek gerieflik die program kan aflaai vroeg in die week en daarna kan luister later in die week wanneer ek tyd het.

Die meeste mense gebruik iTunes as hulle podgooi-aflaaier. Ek het 'n snaakse fiemiesgeid wat my verhoed om iTunes te ondersteun; ek pes monopolieë--vernaam daardie wat die heeltyd advertensie vir jou flits--en weier dus om iTunes te gebruik. Toe ek nog Windows XP as platvorm gehad het, het ek die podgooi-aflaaier Juice gebruik. Juice is 'n baie gerieflike gratis programmetjie wat my podgooibehoeftes met gemak hanteer het. Ongelukkig is dit nog nie vir Windows 7 aangepas nie.

Ek het 'n ander media-aflaaier wat ek hoofsaaklik as my Internetvideo-aflaaier gebruik, naamlik Miro, voorheen bekend as Democracy Player. Miro is 'n wonderlike program wat ek al vir jare gebruik omdat dit aan jou verskeie video-kanale op die Internet bied waarvandaan jy goeie gehalte gratis televisiestyl programme kan aflaai. Die jongste weergawe van Miro laat ook nou oudio-podgooie toe, so ek gebruik dit nou sommer om Kommentaar mee af te laai. Ek gebruik Miro ook om baie van die preke waarna ek luister outomaties af te laai, sowel as nuusprogramme soos Democracy Now. Ek besit nie 'n televisie nie en het ook nie 'n behoefte aan een nie. Ek hou ook van Miro se volumeverhogingkapasiteit. Baie keer as 'n mens video op 'n rekenaar kyk is die klank onaangenaam sag. Miro het 'n ingeboude volumestroomversterke ("sound booster") wat hierdie probleem oorkom -- soveel so dat ek gewoonlik Miro se klank sagter moet stel. Dis nie my enigste videospelerprogram nie, maar dit werk uitstekend vir sekere video en podgooie.

AAARRGGHH!!!

Dit is nou die tweede keer dat ek 'n bepaalde kreatiewe woordskets skryf van 'n ou paartjie wat ek op die moltrein gesien het wat net verdwyn. Ek het die eerste keer die stuk geskryf en vanaand toe ek dit wil oorlees kan ek dit nêrens vind nie. So toe dag ek laat ek dit gou oor skryf. Net toe ek klaar is en die laaste bietjie redigering wou aanbring toe druk ek verkeerde kombinasie warmsleutels en vee die ook perongeluk uit, sonder enige "undo"-opsie. Dis asof daardie twee vir wie ek voyeuristies op papier vasgelê het (ek het notas omtrent hulle in my notaboek geneem) wyer om enige ander plek te wil beland.

Is daar nog gremlins in my PC?

Gremlins in my rekenaar

Gisteraand toe ek by die huis kom en my rekenaar aan skakel toe is daar weer "niks." Dis nadat ek oortuig was dat die probleem iets met 'n hardeskyf te make gehad het. Vandag het ek maar weer die tegnikus laat kom. Hy het nie juis gedoen wat ek nie kon gedoen het nie, naamlik om die verskillende komponente uit te haal die rekenaar te boot en sodoende te sien wat die probleem is. Ek kon dit self gedoen het, maar was te moeg en geirriteerd. Boonop sou ek nie geraai het dat die rakker die grafikakaard was nie. Gevolglik, honderd Rand en 'n blikkie koeldrank later, weet ek nou dat dit die grafikakaard is. (Dis natuurlik totdat die gremlins aan iets anders begin kou.) 

En soos wat dit mos altyd gaan het hierdie grafikakaard se waarborg verlede maand verstrek. Ek is byna oortuig dat die vervaardigers 'n breekveer in hulle produkte bou wat vuur sodra die waarborg verby is. Sodoende hoef hulle nie die produk te vervang nie en jy moet 'n nuwe produk koop -- dis slegs hulle wat wen. Wel, hierdie keer gaan ek 'n ander fabrikaat se produk koop, thank-you-very-much. Intussen hardloop ek maar my skerm vanaf die moederbord se VGA-konneksie. Dis nie te sleg nie. Op my wye skerm kom ek nie juis die verskil agter tydens alledaagse take nie. Ek het nie onmiddelik enige grafiese werk om te doen nie, so ek sal kan uithou totdat die nuwe grafiese kaard wat ek 'n rukkie terug aanlyn bestel het oor 'n paar dae hier aankom.

Ek moet bieg dat die nuwe Windows 7 wat ek op my rekenaar gelaai het, laat voel of ek 'n hele nuwe rekenaar het. Dankie aan almal wat my aangemoedig het om na Win7 toe te skuif. Ek was so teleurgesteld met Windows Vista dat ek nie Windows 7 vertrou het nie. Dit wil vir my voorkom of Windows elke ander keer 'n geslaagde platform skep. Windows '95 was stabiel, maar toe kom daardie wankelrige Windows '98. XP was weer stabiel, maar toe kom die mislukte Vista. Nou sit ons weer met 'n stabiele Win7. So vermoedelik -- as volgens die huidige patroon -- gaan die volgende Windows platform weer gemors wees.

Aangesien die helfde van my programmatuur verlore is met die formatering van my hardeskyf is ek tans weer in die proses om sagteware te soek. Ek mik vir oopkode vryware (open source freeware) produkte. Het sopas Open Office gelaai en oorweeg Gimp as 'n alternatief of Photoshop.

Beeldmateriaal: Gremlins Online

Happy to See My PC

The computer technician returned my computer today. My hard drives were formatted. He was able to retain the most important information from one hard drive, all of the information from the second, and none from the third. It was this third hard drive that caused the problems. It had some cluster problems; also, the drives motor malfunctioned. On this hard drive I had hundreds of gigabytes of information, particularly movies, series, sermons and the like. Luckily some of the movies and series I still have the originals for -- DVDs in South Africa, but the sermons I have collected over many many years. It is possible to retrieve the information, but it will cost me a lot.

In the meantime, I have my computer back with Windows XP installed. The XP-platform is still the most stable of the Windows platforms, so I don't mind it; but I have to wonder if I should not just go ahead and get Windows 7 while everything is all squeaky clean.

Platforms aside, I now need all my programs again -- original disks being in South Africa. My computer, as it is outfitted now, does not even have Microsoft Office installed, not to mention all the other programs I frequently use like Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver, Corel Draw and the like. It is also without my basic Internet browser, namely Mozilla's Firefox and all the add-ons I've come to depend upon. It could attempt going all open source. I guess that is what I'll keep myself busy with this weekend -- customizing my PC again.

That and competing in a grappling tournament on Sunday.

Power Box Failures and the Future of the PC

My home PC has been acting up for a while now. Eventually today it would not boot up properly anymore. There is power, but it is as if there is not enough of it to fully energize the hard drives. This means that I need to take the tower box to a computer shop to check it out. I'm assuming that the power box will have to be replaced. Power boxes are usually part of the tower which means I'll likely have to replace the whole thing and build my motherboard and other hardware over into a new box.

I'll do that tomorrow.

In the meantime I'm drooling over Samsung's Galaxy Tab coming out later this year. I want one!

University Founding Festival Day

A couple of weeks ago we had “Founding Festival Day” here on campus, in celebration of the founding of the university where I work. Like with “Sports Day” it should actually be referred to as “days,” in the plural, as it ran over two days, but in Korea such semantics are overrated.

During the two days of “Founding Festival Day” (sigh!), we had classes in the morning and other activities in the afternoons and evenings. Apart from the little food kiosks (I had excellent Italian spaghetti on the first day, and mediocre Japanese noodles on the second), there were all kinds of games and shows to keep the students (and wondering teachers) busy.

A big stage was erected with a giant computer screen at the back. A variety of performances were held, including a talent show, which was pretty good. They also had the Korean Police Academy. Coming from South Africa, the performance given by the Police Academy was marvelously peculiar. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine South Africa’s Police Academy putting on something like this. The Korean Police Academy had a number of young policemen sharply outfitted in their uniforms, perform an assortment of acts. There was a musician doing all kinds of slight-of-hand tricks; there was a famous actor (who is now doing his military service, in the Police Force) singing a beautiful ballad; there was a group of percussionist playing the drums in unison as only the Koreans can; and so on. This is all part of the Korean Police Force’s goal of making the police more attractive -- more public friendly. And apparently it is working, as the girls went crazy.

Another uniquely Korean thing was the computer game events, displayed on the big screen on the stage. Yes, you are reading the posters correctly. They had a Tetris tournament and an X-Box soccer tournament. The Tetris tournament was something to see. Never in my life have I seen people so fast at Tetris. The little geometric shapes spun and zapped down faster than I could follow. I did not get to see the soccer matches.

USB Microscope

So if you don't want to buy me those Star Wars-chopsticks, thinking that I need something more educational, how about this: A USB-microscope that you hook up to you PC. It's another Japanese invention and costs around US$130. Please buy it for me! Just think of all the things I can discover with this baby. Please . . . pretty please . . .

Applications I Cannot Go Without

There are some applications that I just have to have on my computer. I will list some here, as my gift to you. The best thing about these programs is that they are all free!

InternetFor my Internet browser, I cannot go with Firefox. Not only is Firefox safer to use than IE, but the many add-ons make it so customizable that you can have it set up, tailor-made to your surfing needs.

Certain add-ons are a must for me.

Firstly, TrackMeNot – a simple little add-on that camouflages your surfing trail from all the “sneaky ones”. It’s not high-tech, but it will blur your trail by spewing out all kinds of fake searches on your behalf. Just install it and forget about it. No hassles.

Secondly, DownThemAll! is a very functional download manager that actually increases the download spead. When you want to download something, just right-click and save with DownThemAll. Multiple downloads are possible at the same time and definitely faster than Firefox’s build in download function.

Thirdly, Video Download Helper. This add-on can download media files, including embedded videos from most video directories, such as YouTube. Yes, with this you can download YouTube videos for later viewing. An absolute must in your surfing-arsenal.

Then, Cooliris. This plug in is a image viewer that displays images in a fully zoomable 3D wall. Use it when doing image searches in Google to quickly navigate to the images you’re looking for. It also has a slideshow function. I use Cooliris all the time.


A recent find, and something that I will probably use all the time from now on is the Split Browser add-on. With this nifty little gadget you can split your browser in two or more frames. I use it to keep my email account in plain view all the time while I do my normal surfing in the other browser. I also use it when watching online TV/video programs.

Security

Standard on all my computers is AVG’s free virus protection. I’ve always been quite happy with it. Recently I’ve replaced AVG on my home computer with AVIRA AntiVir Personal.

Another must on your computer is a good firewall. I used to use Zone Alarm, but recently changed over to COMODO.

I also have Spybot Search & Destroy to handle spyware. I furthermore make use of PeerGuardian 2 to keep me safe from the “sneaky ones”, especially when doing P2P-sharing.

Media

I use Foobar2000 as my default audio player. It is an extremely simple player that takes very little system resources; however, it can play practically any audio format out there. It also allows multiple playlists, which is ideal for me, as I usually have a couple of genres of music I like to listen to interchangeably and often also have a playlist open for the spiritual (sermons, seminars, audio Bible, etc.) stuff I’m listening to, as well as an audio book, or philosophical lectures of some sort.

For video files I usually use Korea’s Gom Player; a great product that plays basically all typical video formats. A nifty thing about Gom Player is that it downloads its own codecs. Gom Player is also my player of choice to watch .flv-files – those YouTube videos I downloaded with Video Download Helper.

Where Gom Player doesn’t work, I fall back to VLC Player. Between these two players I can usually play any video file I stumble across.

For downloading Internet TV programming I use Miro. You can subscribe to “channels” and Miro will download you the latest episodes in that channel as it becomes available. It works pretty much like a podcast downloader, just for videos. With so much media to consume, I never watch regular TV. (In fact, I don’t even own a TV.) I especially like to watch the alternative news programming, using Miro. I’m also subscribed to some tutorial channels and nature related programming.

My podcast downloader of choice is Juice. Unlike Apple’s iTunes, Juice is free of ads and giant corporate agendas.

Torrents

For torrents I use uTorrent. It’s simple and effective.

File Manager

I recently found Q-Dir again. This was a little program I used back in the MS-DOS days. It’s made a comeback as a Windows friendly application and allows you to easily manage files across directories and drives. You can have multiple frames open and drag and drop between them. It’s much faster and convenient than opening multiple windows.


SyncToy 2.0 is a great application to synchronise folders on different drives (e.g. your hard disk and a memory stick). Something useful from Microsoft.

Launcher

Launchy is a neat little application that opens with an easy hot-key short cut (ALT+Spacebar). You simply type in the first letters of any program you wish to launch and Launchy intuitively guesses the program, and shows you a list which you can easily choose and quickly open. It can also automatically do Internet searches and an arsenal of other things, such as mathematical calculations. Very useful.

Office Applications

Open Office is an alternative to Microsoft's Office Suite, and it totally free, fully functioning office suite, which include applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics and databases.

The freedom (or not) of having a (working) PC

A couple of days ago I bemoaned my computer troubles.

I haven't been able to get the Boot CD I needed, but I did something else which seemed to have done the trick. I vacuumed my PC and fidgeted with all the wires, making sure that everything is plugged in properly. And lo and behold! It is working fine again!

I am experiencing some other issues though. I am blocked to many websites -- especially American websites -- from my home computer. On another blog I post all kinds of critique of the US government, so maybe I've been targeted as some kind of anti-America propagandist. Which I am definitely not. I believe that America was blessed by God because of the freedoms they secured in their constitution. And I get really disturbed when I see how those freedoms are eroded away. What I find most upsetting is probably the blase attitude of people. Their freedoms are taken away and they don't even notice it.

Computer trouble

So my new (second hand) computer was working just fine, when suddenly, out of the blue (pun intended), I got the "Blue Screen of Death". This happened two days ago. At first my PC didn't want to boot up. Eventually after Sabbath I desperately tried something and eventually got it to boot again. But now it is ever so slow. It will be working perfectly fine, but then, say after every 15 seconds, everything will stall -- no mouse movement, no sound, nothing -- and then again after a couple of seconds it will continue again as if nothing is the matter.

When I open the Task Manager, I cannot identify anything suspicious that is eating up my resources during those moments of zombie-like non-performance.

Is it a virus or other malware? Seriously, I do not know. It is even possible for it to be hardware malfunction. I did travel with the PC by subway and bus, so it is possible that it got a knock on the way and the hard drive or something might have been damaged. But why did it only start acting up days afterwards?

Tomorrow I'll get a boot disk and reinstall a backed-up image of the hard drive just after it was formatted. If it is still showing these symptoms after that then I'll know it is hardware malfunction.

Currently it is not broken to such a degree that I cannot work; it is just broken enough to irritate. I better not get so frustrated that perform percussion maintenance on it, by kicking and punching it into obedience or collapse.

Luckily I still have my office PC...

The picture is from Franklarosa.Com.