Summary. The video below is an example of Microsoft’s attempt to create a humorous advertisement suitable for a viral marketing campaign.
Advertisers are increasingly producing marketing campaigns that offer embedded humor. In this way, people will voluntarily share the ads with friends and colleagues.
Other examples are the Vodafone India series of ads and the Pantene – Deaf Violinist advertisement.
Summary. Users of Symantec (or Norton) antivirus software, such as Endpoint Security or Internet Security suite, on Apple or Windows computers may notice a slowness when trying to perform data intensive tasks, such as system backups. This can also be an issue with McAfee, Trend Micro, and Computer Associates software. Solutions are provided below for Windows and Apple users.
Windows Users. For best performance and security, consider using AVG or Avast available for free at the Download.com CNET website where they are usually found as the top two downloaded programs. You may need help removing your current Symantec / Norton software since it is very much like a virus or malware in that it is difficult to remove. For this reason, Symantec offers a software removal tool (similar to a virus removal tool) to remove their AntiVirus software. Among Google searches for Symantec, the third most popular search is for the removal tool since many people want to remove Symantec software shortly after it’s installed. If the removal tool doesn’t work, then a manual installation is necessary. This is a very tedious and time consuming mutli-step process, but since it’s so commonly needed, Symantec has provided manual removal instructions on their website that outline the 139 steps required to remove it. Unfortunately, many viruses are immune to Symantec software and are written to not be detected by it (source), so the best virus defense is to use AVG or switch to an Apple computer since there are over 250,000 known viruses for Windows computers but only two for Apple.
Apple Users. There are over 250,000 known viruses for Windows computers but only two for Apple computers, so Apple users will likely have fewer problems with viruses. Even so, it’s helpful to use antivirus software to avoid passing on viruses to less secure Windows users. Although Symantec antivirus for Windows can be problematic, the Apple version seems to work okay. There are other Apple AntiVirus programs such as Avast or ProtectMac, but the Symantec software seems fine. Follow these instructions for installation and configuration.
1. Download. In addition to retail purchase installation from CD, your business or institution may have purchased a license for antivirus software.
For example, University of Iowa students, staff, and faculty can click here for the University of Iowa ITS antivirus download page (requires login). At the bottom of the download page, you’ll find the Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition for Mac. Click on the download button.
2. Install. If you download the software, double click on the downloaded dmg file to expand it. Regardless of how you obtain the software, the installation should be as follows. You will be presented with the following window.
If you need to remove a previous version of Symantec AntiVirus, you can use the Uninstall tool found in the Support folder. When ready to install the new version, double-click the Symantec AntiVirus Installer icon to begin the installation process. This will walk you through the simple installation process and, at the end, require you to logout and then login again to your user account on the Apple computer.
3. Configure. Open System Preferences (found under the Apple menu in the upper left corner of the screen). You will now see two Symantec icons in System Preferences (as shown below).
Click on Symantec Auto-Protect icon to reveal the options. You’ll see the General options first as seen below.
Click on Safe Zones to reveal the following menu.
Click on Everywhere Except In and then click Add to select your backup drive (which needs to be plugged in). Do this for other trusted storage devices such as USB memory sticks and external hard drives used for video production. Any unknown and/or unlisted drives would not be considered safe zones (and would still take a long time to eject after transferring files to them).
At this point, you should be able to backup without any slowness.
There’s only one final setting that you might want to change to make your life easier. It’s described below.
Disable Scan on Mount. By default, the Symantec software will scan every storage device you connect to your computer (such as CDs, memory sticks, hard drives), even if it has completely scanned the device recently and nothing has changed since the last scan. This can be very time consuming. It can be cancelled, but this is an nuisance. Since the antivirus software is actively blocking virus activity anyway, this is a bit unnecessary. For this reason, Symantec offers a simple way to disable this feature.
Using the new Symantec menu that is accessible at the top of your screen, navigate the menu as indicated below to find Disable Scan On Mount (under Symantec AntiVirus). This does not disable the antivirus software, it only disables the knee-jerk action of scanning every storage device plugged into the computer.
Summary. Windows Messenger and the new Windows Live Messenger offer text and video chat as well as the ability to request remote assistance. This page describes the steps required to make that work.
Apple Version. Note that Apple users wanting Messenger will be redirected to Mactopia where the Mac version is available. However, the remote assistance isn’t offered in the Mac version.
Remote Assistance. Follow these steps to turn on remote assistance using Windows Live Messenger. You must have a working high speed Internet connection for optimal results. Each step below may involve additional steps described on the linked page. Steps 1 through 3 are only required for first time setup. Remote assistance should only be used with support people you trust.
Remote Desktop. Another method of allowing remote access to a computer is to turn on Remote Desktop. However, remote desktop presents more of a security vulnerability since it can be accessed even when you are away from the computer.
Summary. With the release of Windows 7, Microsoft has removed some essential software programs and utilities that has previously been included as part of a default installation. These are now bundled as a suite of applications called Windows Live Essentials available for free download and compatible with the Windows Live website.
Included Applications. The following applications are available for download as part of the Windows Live Essentials software bundle:
Summary. Windows 7 is a significant improvement over previous versions of Windows. However, when upgrading from Microsoft Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7, you’ll soon discover that all of your email messages are missing as a result of the migration. This page explains how to recover your email messages using Mozilla Thunderbird and a special Thunderbird Windows Mail import and export utility available from Nic-Nac-Project.de as a free download. The step-by-step instructions are found at the bottom of this page, following some general information about email clients and why Windows no longer includes one. There is also information about best practices for upgrading to Windows 7. If you’ve not yet upgraded to Windows 7, it would be wise to install Thunderbird first and import your information before the Windows based mail programs are removed. Exporting your address book from Outlook Express or Windows Mail would be a good idea also. More about Windows 7 can be found on Microsoft’s What Is Windows 7 page.
Missing Mail Client Program. Windows 7, like previous releases of Windows, eliminates features that were included in previous versions. For many years, Windows has included email software such as Outlook Express or most recently Windows Mail with Vista as an email client. Windows 7 doesn’t include an email client. This isn’t the first time a software upgrade resulted in lost functionality. Windows 95 included Fax capabilities as part of the installation, but Windows 98 did not. Microsoft Office 2003 lacked utilities and functionality available in previous versions. When Microsoft adds and later removes features from their products, it appears they are making an effort to avoid antitrust action.
Benefits of Email Client Software. Many people use web-based email services such as Google, Hotmail, and Yahoo. The benefit to web-based email services (not using an email client) is that your entire collection of emails are easily accessible from any computer. You don’t need to worry about losing your e-mail if your computer crashes. Also, it’s one less program to install when you upgrade from one computer to another. However, despite the advantages of using only web-based email services, many people choose to use email client programs such as Thunderbird, Outlook, or Apple Mail for the reasons and benefits listed below. It’s also possible to use both systems (client and web-based) simultaneously through IMAP configuration (or POP). Here are some of the advantages to using an email client instead of (or in addition to) your web-based email.
Windows 7 Upgrade. Assuming you have an existing copy of Windows Vista that is stable and problem free, the best upgrade path to Windows 7 is probably to purchase the $120 Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade DVD. This will retain your programs, settings, and user data.
Windows 7 Clean Installation. If you have several days of free time, there may be a benefit to performing a clean installation of Windows 7. This will required reinstalling and configuring all software programs, as well as drivers for printers and other accessories. For users with only a few data files, who need only Word Processing and Internet access, a clean installation is fairly easy. For users who have numerous programs and hardware devices, and gigabytes of photos, music, and videos, a clean installation will be quite time consuming.
Importing Windows Mail Messages. Below are instructions for importing Windows Mail messages into Thunderbird.
Windows Live Essentials Mail. As an alternative to Thunderbird, some users may prefer the free Windows Live Mail email program bundled with Windows Live Essentials from Microsoft.
Document History. This document was originally posted on 20091101su2300. It was revised and republished on 20091120fr0900.
Effective Living > Technology > Apple
Summary. When editing and then saving text files using the Apple TextEdit program, once viewed with Windows Notepad, the added lines will appear to have been appended to the end of the previous line with no line break (carriage return line feed). This is because the codes used for Apple Carriage Return Line Feed (line break) are not recognized by Windows.
Windows WordPad. To fix the file in Windows, simply open it with WordPad, then save it as text. When the file is opened in Notepad, the text will display as expected with line breaks restored. Windows WordPad apparently repairs the line break problem.
Apple Encoding Options. Apple TextEdit offers various text encoding options such as: Non-lossy ASCII, Western ASCII, Western DOS Latin 1, Western Mac OS Roman, Western Unicode UTF 16, and Western Windows Latin 1. Regardless of the text encoding used, after saving, any new line feeds (carriage returns) were not recognized by Windows. If the text file originated in Windows, only the new line breaks added by Apple will be ignored by Windows. The line breaks originally created in Windows will be retained.
Virtual Windows Computer on Apple. To edit text files in the Apple environment, using a virtual computer with VM Ware Fusion on the Apple will work fine. Note that this isn’t necessary in most instances. Only when issues arise with editing text files.
Microsoft Word as a Text Editor on Apple. Using Microsoft Word as a text editor will work well when needing to edit files between the Apple and Windows platforms. Word has the ability to preserve the CR/LF (Carriage Return / Line Feed).When saving the document, simply choose Plain Text as the format. After clicking the save button, you will be prompted for specific settings for your file. Choose MS-DOS Latin-US (DOS) as the text encoding. The default setting for ending lines will be CR/LF (to end the lines with a Carriage Return and Line Feed).
Text Files as Data Files. Sometimes text files are used as data files for programs to read and write to. In such cases, it’s common to use Tab characters to mark the end of fields and CR (carriage return) to mark the end of a record. For this reason, a file with a Carriage Return only (and no line feed) may look messy, but a program can still read it and determine where one record ends and another begins.
Summary. The LiveScribe Pulse SmartPen is a device that records audio as you write on paper. The audio and notes can be transferred from the pen to a computer using the LiveScribe Desktop software for Windows or Apple (Mac) computers.
Search and Find. Because the software includes handwriting recognition capabilities, it is possible to search through handwritten notes to find specific text once the notes have been transferred into the computer.
Audio Review. To review what was being spoken at the time, simply click on the writing pad or on the computer screen where the handwritten notes are displayed.
Applications. There are a variety of applications where the Pulse SmartPen would be ideally suited.
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