eBooks are the latest buzz in the tech industry. From Amazon’s Kindle to the tablet that Apple is expected to unveil next week, it seems like the 2010’s will do for books what the 2000’s did for music with mp3s. eBooks are hardly a new phenomenon however. Microsoft has been releasing books in a variety of digital formats for many years. Best of all, they regularly offer select ones for free download. Techinch recently featured several of these books, and today Microsoft Press announced one new free eBook and mentioned another they have offered for several months:
Have you ever wanted to make a quick webpage? Not a full site, but simply a page with information, some pictures and perhaps a map or video? Backpack from 37signals is a great tool for keeping track of your personal and business information, but it can also be used to quickly make a public or private site. In fact, the “Unofficial List of Backpack Tips and Tricks” is simply a public Backpack page!
To get started, first sign into your Backpack account. If you don’t have an account yet, signup at backpackit.com. They offer a variety of accounts ranging to a free account with 5 pages to monthly accounts with more pages and features starting at $7/month.
Once your signed in, you need to create the select the “Pages” tab and then click the “Add a new page” button on the right.
Now name your page, and click “Create Page.”
Your fresh page is ready and waiting for you to add content. Simply select any of the links at the top of the page to turn this into the website you need.
You can add lists, notes, dividers, tags, and more to your page. Although Backpack offers few editing tools, you can easily make your content in your notes appear just the way you want it with Textile codes (for a reference of Textile markup, see http://redcloth.org/hobix.com/textile/quick.html). For example, putting asterisks around text ( *like this* ) makes the text bold ( like this ).
Backpack pages can contain a wide variety of content, including images, files, maps, videos, and more. Images and files can only be inserted into pages with a premium account. Many other things, including maps and videos, can be simply inserted with their shortcodes in a note. The Unofficial List of Backpack Tips and Tricks has detailed directions for adding these and more to a Backpack page, so be sure to check it out.
One of the great things about Backpack is how easy it is to edit anything in your page. Simply hover over the content and a handle will appear. From that, you can delete or edit the content, or can drag the content to any part of the page.
Public Backpack pages are slightly different than your standard Backpack pages, so you may need to adjust what you add based on that. In your own account, lists appear as check-off items that you can check to complete. These will simply show up as a bulleted list in your public page. Also, Writeboards will not be visible in your public page, so only add them if they’re for your own use.
Once you’ve got everything you want in your page, it’s time to share your new webpage with anyone you want. Click on the “Share” link at the top of your page.
You can now choose if you want to share the webpage with everyone, or just certain individuals. To make it fully public, check the box at the bottom of the page. You will be given a public URL that you can share with others. Visitors to this public page can see the content, but will not be able to edit it. Do note that shared Backpack pages have random addresses, so if you’d like an easier address to share you could shorten it at a popular URL shortener such as Bit.ly.
If you’d like to share the page with only certain people, enter the email addresses of the people you want to share your page with. They will receive an email with a link to your page, and can sign in by simply entering their email address. When your pages are privately shared, those you share it with can actually edit the content on that page, which makes it great for group projects.
Now, others can easily access your page online. Your shared page will look similar to your original page, without the extra options of a full Backpack. Here is our example page shared:
This is a great way to easily publish a simple webpage, and once you have your Backpack account, you can create pages in minutes. So what do you need to publish today? Let us know how you’ve used this tip, or other easy ways to quickly publish online.
Although Windows Phones have been around for many years, the apps built around the platform often feel dated. Additionally, they are often much more expensive than their counterparts on other platforms such as the iPhone. There are notable exceptions to this, however, and the new Windows Marketplace for Mobile offers some exciting new apps.
This past week I came across a new exciting app on the Windows Marketplace thanks to their Twitter feed – a native Google Reader app! Google Reader is great for keeping up with news from your favorite sites and blogs, and many popular feed readers, such as the excellent FeedDemon, automatically sync your read feeds with it. This makes it very easy to keep up with what you’ve read whether you’re at your own computer or an internet-connected computer anywhere in the world.
Speeed Reader (yes, with 3 e's ... that's not a typo!) now brings this power to Windows Phones in style. Although you can access Google Reader through your mobile browser, Speed Reader gives you a much nicer interface in which to read your feeds. Once you install this app, simply sign in with your Google Reader account and your feeds will automatically synchronize. All of your feeds will be easily viewable, and can additionally be cached for offline viewing. This is my favorite feature, as I can sync my feeds when I’m in a WiFi hotspot and then read them anytime later. When you sync again, Speeed Reader will refresh your read feeds on Google Reader so your feeds will be in sync everywhere.
This semester I am taking a Statistics class from Florida Tech, and our textbook from Pearson includes a statistics addon for Excel called PHStat2. It is apparently included in many Pearson textbooks, so even students not in a statistics class may need to use it. I have been running Office 2010 since the Tech Preview release, and am now running Office 2010 Beta x64 on my computer. It works great and has even run some other addons (especially ones for Outlook) without any problems. However, when I installed PHStat2 and tried to start it, I was greeted with this friendly error:
Ouch. I knew it had installed properly, but just to be sure, I reinstalled it and sure enough, I received the same error message. I didn’t want to reinstall Office 2007 just for this class, so I tested it on Office 2010 x86 (the standard 32 bit version) in Virtual PC. Guess what? It worked! Turns out, the only problem before was that the addin wouldn’t work correctly in the 64-bit version of Excel.
Will PHStat2 run on your version of Office 2010?
[box type="note"]This post has been updated with extra info below. Short version: PHStat supports Office 2003 and newer, including Office 2010. 64bit editions of Office 2010 are not supported, but they're also not recommended for standard use by Microsoft, either. Chances are, if you have a recent version of Office on Windows, PHStat2 will work as intended on your computer.
If you’re also running Office 2010 beta on your computer this semester, you likely can still use PHStat2. Here’s what I’ve found from testing in various configurations:
PHStat2 runs perfectly in Office 2010 Beta Professional and Home and Business. This includes the standalone x86 (32-bit) standard installer and the Click2Run (C2R) installer that "streams" the apps from the internet. I encountered no problems whatsoever with it.
PHStat2 does not run in Office 2010 Professional 64-bit (x64). It comes up with an error message stating that it cannot find the required PHStat2 file. This is not entirely surprising, as it is known that many plugins/addons do not work in the 64 bit edition.
PHStat2 does not run in Office 2010 Starter edition. This edition does not support/run macros, and when you try to open the PHStat2 file it says it does not recognize the filetype.
Otherwise, every version of Office (and Excel) from 2003 - 2010 should work fine. And, like I said, the standard install of Office 2010 beta works fine as well.
If for some reason you do not have a copy of Microsoft Office or Excel on your computer, you can actually download a free beta copy of Office 2010 from. This will run until October 2010, so while not a full fix, it will at least more than get you through this semester.
Also, if you have a Mac and are running Office 2003 or 2008, I do not believe PHStat2 will run on your computer. However, if you have a copy of Windows running in Bootcamp or Parallels/Fusion, then you could run Office 2010 beta in it (free download from http://us1.office2010beta.microsoft.com/default.aspx?culture=en-US – will run until October 2010) or an older version of Microsoft Office and just do the exercises in the Windows version of Excel.
Also, there may be an update for the version of PHStat2 that came with your textbook, so check their website at http://www.prenhall.com/phstat/ to see if one’s available. There was an update for mine, and my book was recently published, so be sure to check.
Macro Security
Please note that you may have to accept an “Enable Macros” dialog whenever you run PHStat2. You can change your security settings to always accept the PHStat2 addin by going to File, Options, Trust Center (click on the “Trust Center Settings” button in this dialog), and then select the Trusted Locations tab. Click on the “Add New Location…” button, and browse to PHStat2’s folder (usually C:\Program Files\PHStat2). Once you’ve pressed Ok in the dialogs, PHStat2 should be fully approved and you should not have to click through the “Enable Macros” dialog for it again.
If you encounter any issues with this, let me know and I’ll see if there’s a solution. Have fun with statistics!
Update: I was just contacted by the PHStat2 team with some new info about PHStat2. First, Office 2010's final release didn't emphasize the 64bit version as much as many of us expected. Microsoft officially recommends that most users should use the standard 32bit version of Office 2010, even if they're using Windows 7 x64. For the most part, the only advantage the native 64bit version of Office brings is support for files larger than 2Gb, something most of us don't encounter anyhow. The 64 bit version doesn't work correctly with many addons, including PHStat2, because essentially the new 64bit version works differently and would not work with most existing addons.
Then, PHstat2 is designed to work perfect on all editions of Office since Office 2003. It should work find on Office 2003, 2007, and 2010. It doesn't work on the 64 bit edition of Office 2010, but then again, your chances of running it are incredibly slim. This article was written while Office 2010 was in beta, and at that time it seemed like the 64 bit version would be standard. That's not the case, and now that it's out, most of us are using the 32 bit edition.
Finally, PHStat2 is designed as an educational tool. Sure, you could do many of the same things in Excel itself, and professional users likely will. But if you're learning statistics, you shouldn't have to learn everything about Excel to get started. That's where PHStat2 comes in. It's designed by professors for students, and does do a great job making complex Excel tricks seem easy.
I'd like to extend a special Thank You to the PHStat2 team for stopping by and filling us in on these details. For me, I'm glad I've moved on from studying statistics, but am excited to see their team listening to their customers and working to keep their tool great for the next generations of students!
Microsoft Press often offers eBooks for free, and the Windows 7 launch has prompted several new releases ... for free! I recently saw an article on Rob Margel’s Windows Help blog about a new free guide to Windows 7 from Microsoft (actually, it's from TechNet, though, not Microsoft Press. Keep reading for the Microsoft Press stuff!). It is a very nice PDF that gives a quick overview of some of Windows 7’s newest and greatest features, including the taskbar preview with Aero Peek, Libraries, Windows Snap (my favorite new feature), and more. It’s only 8 pages long, so it is not an in-depth Windows handbook, but if you haven’t been following the development of Windows 7 it can be a great introduction to Windows 7 features. Download it now in PDF form at this link:
And, if you’d like more in-depth coverage of Windows 7, Microsoft Press is offering 10 chapters from recently published books on Windows 7 for free. These cover a wide range of topics including installation, backup, maintenance, the new taskbar, remote access, security, and more. All chapters are available as PDF or XPS files at this link:
Windows Server 2008 R2, the server version of Windows 7, has a free eBook offer too. It includes a number of new features too, such as the newest version of Hyper-V with Live Migration, BranchCache, DirectAccess, and support for up to 256 processors! And students, don’t forget, you can download Windows Server 2008 R2 for free from Dreamspark! So here’s a complete, 182 page guide to every feature in Server 2008 R2 from Microsoft Press, for free. What more could you ask for?
Have you ever wanted to create your own games for your PC? Most people assume game development would be costly and dificult, but today Microsoft has lowered the bar and made it easy for even children to create their own PC games with Kodu. I recently reviewed it at Digital Inspiration, so head to http://www.labnol.org/software/create-video-games-for-windows/12435/ to find out more about this exciting and simple way to create your own games and learn programming skills. Perhaps you can create the next Tinker!
Here’s a second installment with links to my writing that’s been published at Digital Inspiration. Hope you find something interesting and useful here; if you, check out my first list of articles at Digital Inspiration. I will continue to list my new articles going forward, so check back here for updates.
Free Virtualization Software for your Windows PC – FYI, VMware Player and Virtual PC are my favorites, and are essential for testing software. Plus, they can be a lot of fun. One day I did a screenshot on my computer running Vista with a copy of XP, Ubuntu, and freeDOS, all running in their own windows. You could see them all via flip3D, which was cool. Not too practical though, especially as I only had 1Gb of ram in my computer at that time!
How to Use Windows 7 Themes on XP and Vista Computers – this is fun, and will be increasingly useful as more sites have Windows 7 themes for download. And, hey, the XP tip would work on Mac or Linux computers, too!
Comparison of Online Project Management Apps – My personal favorite is 37signals’ Backpack, which I have found great for managing projects even if that’s not its primary purpose. The article does cover 37sitnals’ main project management app, Basecamp, which is great too. Depends on your personal organizational style for which you will like better. Both offer free and paid accounts, so there’s something for everyone! And, the article lists a ton of other options which are very good too, so be sure to check it out. Project Management apps is a crowded field!
Find the Song Name Without Knowing the Lyrics – I’ve said for years that we need an audio search engine, and here are a ton of promising apps that do just that. They don’t recognize everything (or even most songs I like – Christian and Classical), but they’re getting there. Very exciting!
Wow, that was a long list! Once again, remember to check back here at www.techinch.com frequently, as I’ll keep adding my writing from Digital Inspiration and unique articles just for Techinch. And if you’d like to see something covered here, let me know, and I’ll try to cover it either here or at Digital Inspiration. Enjoy!
Communication and teamwork are crucial for the success of any projects. Whether in building something for a contest, organizing a sports team, or writing a class paper together, education is filled with ways that group coordination is crucial. And it ought to be that way, as students must learn these skills to be successful in the workplace. What better way to do that than to use real-life professional collaboration tools, right?
Last spring semester, I was assigned team project in my TeleCampus class from the University of Texas. Excited to put technology to the test, I quickly set my team up with a wiki from PBworks. It seemed simple enough to use. But it turned out to not be so easy. Classmates felt overwhelmed and resorted to emails and merging Word documents, and even I had trouble figuring out some of the system. Eventually, our wiki was abandoned, and the class project hobbled along as every other end-of-20th-century class project had.
In the fall semester, I once again had a group class project at my new college, Florida Tech. This time, I had heard of Writeboard. Writeboard is an amazing product from the people at 37signals, and best of, it’s free! It is an incredibly simple online text editor. That’s it. What, you say? Does it have feature x? Probably not. But that was the problem with PBworks. It had every feature and then some, but everyone was confused by it. Do I click here or there, or both? With Writeboard, we simply were able to focus on writing.
Writeboard does support simple text formatting, e.g. asterisk around a word make it bold (*example*). I actually discovered the formatting by accident, because it is just natural to give emphasis to text like that. It also saves every version of our file, so we could easily see what we’d done before or what someone else changed. We all signed in with a simple password; no new accounts for every student to setup. Everyone in my class found it equally easy to use, and we had a vibrant community helping each other with class notes and the group project. Altogether we had over 4,000 words in one Writeboard; not necessarily recommended, but it shows the power of Writeboard! The tech is so easy to use, everyone enjoyed it. And the important thing is that it actually helped us achieve our goals in ways no other tool had ever done. Even though we techies love new features and tools, the truth is that when something needs to be done, just getting it done is sometimes better!
One other tool that helped our team out was my Backpack account. This great tool, which I hope to write about more in the near future, lets you store lists, notes, links (including Writeboards), and more on easy-to-edit pages. For our class, I made a public page where I put a link to our team’s Writeboard, notes with important deadlines and information about the project, and lists of assignments and participants. It just tied everything in the class together easily and quickly. No starting a new website, designing HTML/CSS, or anything, just getting the job done.
I can’t wait to try this out in my next class group project again. If technology can make group projects both fun and productive, that’s really something! So next time you’re in a group project, give Writeboard and Backpack a try; your team might get more done (and a better grade) too!
Hi and welcome to Techinch.com! This my newest technology blog, and basically I am moving the content from my old Wordpress.com blog, theoldestof8.wordpress.com, to a self-hosted Wordpress solution. You can check out our new About page for more information, but here is a quick rundown. This site is, of course, powered by the excellent WordPress software. After searching extensively, I ended up going with Mochahost as the host for this site. The hosting has been good so far, offer a wide range of hosting services, and their support has been both quick and excellent. They offer both Windows and Linux hosting, and you can always switch if your needs change. Techinch is using a theme from ElegantThemes, which I highly recommend. Their themes are beautiful, price is unbeatable, and their support forums are very helpful.
I hope to post more articles about my experiences setting up this site and the technologies I’m using with it, so check back soon for more. By the way, don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS and Twitter (main and twitterfeed-powered RSS only) feeds! And as always, the majority of my writing appears on Digital Inspiration; I’ll cross-post links to my articles here and at Twitter.
Techinch | Making tech simpler, inch by inch! That’s our motto; let us know how we can do that better!
