If you use a laptop very often then you are fully aware of how hot they can become on the bottom. As a result, the stores are full of devices popularly referred to as “Laptop Cooling Pads” or “Chill Mats”. They are USB powered fans in a portable mat that you place between you and your laptop or on a desktop. They protect your lap from the warm, bottom surface of a laptop and also keep the laptop cool which is important to prevent overheating. This becomes especially important when you are using one of the more high-end models with powerful CPUs and graphics capabilities. Just … [Read more...]
Tips on Downloading Perimeter Church Sermons as MP3
Perimeter Church is a large Presbyterian PCA church in north Atlanta. They make their sermons available from their web site and via pod-casting using iTunes. The sermons are some of the best, scripturally based teachings you will find. Most are from lead teacher Randy Pope who founded the church over 25 years ago. This article explains how to access the online sermons both in streaming format from the church's site and via downloading MP3s directly to your computer using your browser, Outlook 2007 or any RSS reader. Podcasting means the you can listen to the sermons online using a computer or … [Read more...]
Possible Clue to Getting Long Battery Life with HTC Thunderbolt Android Phone
Poor Battery Life defined: Could not go through a normal workday without having to plug into AC! I have had the new HTC Thunderbolt Phone from Verizon for several months now and have had to live with horrible battery life like everyone else until recently. I had read all the blogs and tried all of the tips including task killers (which can actually use more power than they save), cutting back on sync schedules and more. Nothing had really helped and I tried them all. Coming from the Palm and then Blackberry’s I was used to going several days on a single charge. At one point the battery … [Read more...]
Verizon 4G LTE Mobile Broadband is Fast…very Fast!

I was an early adopter of wireless broadband for laptops starting several years back with an offering from T-Mobile that was only as fast a dial-up connection. Later I upgraded to Verizon EVDO 1x (3G) and achieved on average about 1.5 MB down and 0.5 up. This was much better than dial-up but still slower than most cable or DSL connections to homes or businesses in the U.S. In the beginning this 3G was limited to major metropolitan areas but now is available just about everywhere. Just a few weeks back, Verizon released its new 4G LTE wireless broadband capability, initially limited to … [Read more...]
Easily Save and Retrieve Application and User Settings in VB.NET or C# Apps

We used to save our application or user settings in an INI file (dark ages) or more recently in XML files using our own code or classes borrowed from other developers. But applications built with the .NET framework using Visual Studio can take advantage of built-in tools to simplify or speed up access and saving of runtime values. Once common example is saving database connection string information in a configuration file so that it may be changed without need to recompile the application. Here are some simple examples in VB.NET. C# code uses a slightly different syntax the concepts … [Read more...]
Has the Demise of RIM’s Blackberry Already Begun?
UPDATE: 12/23/2010 – Cannot update the applications on my Blackberry Tour even after using the latest available version 6.0.1.18. The updates just hangs and never completes. It did this with the previous version of the Desktop Manager but hung at a different place. My wife has the same phone and syncs with a different laptop. Both of us cannot update or inline or using the Desktop Manager. RIM – With all of your resources… you should be able to make this work. The more frustrated I get the the Blackberry the more attractive the new Android phones look! UPDATE: Leaked copies of … [Read more...]
Is your project team on the same sheet of music?
Every business or corporate project team has daily issues and tasks to track and resolve regardless of size or industry. What separates the successful teams from the others is how effectively they share the information needed to resolve and complete them. Project teams are like the members of an orchestra. The quality goes way down unless everyone is looking at the same sheet music! Is your business team or project members viewing the same sheet music or are they guessing which notes to play? The Problem Every business group or project teams needs to... Identify issues and tasks … [Read more...]
Official Twitter App for Blackberry now Available

Well if you like to tweet and or keep up with all those you are following while on the go, then it just got easier if you are a Blackberry user. Let’s face it, many of us are using the Blackberry for business needs or because we won’t give up our great call quality with Verizon to get an iPhone with AT&T. But Blackberry users need applications too and while Facebook (also available) and Twitter are not necessarily business applications, they do allow us to track our friends on the social networks from anywhere. Features include: automatic URL-shortening easy photo-sharing push and … [Read more...]
