Delusions of Grandeur » Techcrunch

The Universal Network Cable is the ULTIMATE Network Admin Tool!

mcangeli — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:45:56 +0000

So this is probably the ~~coolest~~ most useful thing I’ve seen at ThinkGeek lately. If you’re like me, you’re constantly looking for the right kind of network cable to connect a switch, hub, firewall, ip camera, computer, whatever to your network. Sometimes you need a straight thru cable, sometimes you need a cross over and recently, I even needed to create a T1 cable to hook a new router to our PBX system here at the office. Fortunately, I know how to wire cable, but if you’re in a hurry or you don’t want to bother, the Universal Network Cable is the one tool you NEED in your tool box.

I came across this baby in my email today when the overlords at TG decided to share the love. With a spin of the dial you have:

ROLLED: Connect a host to a Cisco router or switch
CROSSOVER: Communicate directly between computers without a hub or switch
STRAIGHT-THROUGH: Use as a standard RJ45 patch cable
ATM/LOOPBACK: Test if a network card is working by checking for link lights with no need for a hub or switch
T1: Connect to DDS lines / T1 trunk lines

Thats FIVE cable combinations in one little bundle. The time alone saved by using this as opposed to having to search for the right cable is immeasurable, now you can look like the SuperHero you are to everyone in your office as you whip out the Ultimate Network Cable and patch the network to save the day.

Oh, and if you think fast, you can save $5 off orders of $25 or more or $10 off orders of $40 or more when you vote using the CODES IMAPC to vote for Birthday Boy Michael Dell, IMAMAC for Steve Jobs or TUXFTW for Linus. Show your support and help decide the leader in computing at the same time!

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The buzz about Buzz

mcangeli — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:09:59 +0000

I realize I’m about a week behind the curve with this post about buzz, but I wanted a little time to get to know the newest of the big G’s “enhancements” before I wrote about it. Google Buzz (not to be confused with BuzzD) aims to be a sort of Facebook/Picasa/Flickr/Twitter/Gmail mashup in one (what google thinks is) tidy package. Unfortunately, it falls short of the mark.

Currently, you can link Youtube, Twitter, flickr, picasa, google reader, google talk status, a web site and what appears to be buzz itself to your buzz account (which is really just a tab in your gmail in box). This is ok, but it doesn’t allow me to add facebook or myspace or any of the other social networking sites I can access through Tweetdeck or socialscope or any number of other apps. Plus, you HAVE to have a gmail account in order to use buzz. So if you’re tied you your ISP’s email, or your ancient hotmail/yahoo email address, unless you sign up for gmail you won’t be buzzing.

One of the other aspects that truly annoys me about buzz is the fact that I get an email for EVERY BUZZ. This is ok, except that it sends me emails about my own buzz’s as well as those I follow. If buzz catches on, I’ll soon be receiving more email from buzz then from anyone else on my contact list. I haven’t found a way to stop this yet, though it seems my mail program is filtering most of the buzz emails out as spam any how.

Unfortunately, I fear Google may have jumped the shark with Buzz like they did with Wave. When wave hit, it was all people could talk about (there were wars over getting invites!) and now, people hardly check their wave inbox at all. Buzz generated a lot of initial interest, until people realized that it was pretty much another service along the same lines of what we already have. True, it does allow for a little quicker response then traditional email, and its a little easier to use then google wave, but is it really needed in this time of twitter, facebook, buzzd and all the others?

If you want to follow me on buzz, check out my Google Profile and let me know what you think about buzz.

Recording Sound in Audacity on Vista/Windows 7

mcangeli — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:54:37 +0000

One of the problems I faced earlier this summer was how do I record a concert that was being broadcast online using my computer with out having to go out to an external recording device or back in to my microphone jack so the sound quality was good. I did some research and found that Audacity would do what I wanted to do. Thats another post. This post is how to fix a problem with using audacity on both Windows Vista and Windows 7.

On windows XP you change the input setting to your sound card in Audacity and you’re ready to rock and roll. You’d think this would be as easy to do on Windows Vista and 7, but it isn’t. By Default, Microsoft has disabled the sound cards (on board or added) as input devices. Its an easy thing to fix, if you know where to look.

To enable the Wave Out mix:

Go to the Sound item in control panel
click on the Recording tab
Right click on the background of the tab and select “Show Disabled Devices”
find the Wave Out mix item and right click on it and select Enable
It will now show up as a device channel in application like Cubase and Audition

Now you can select the input device as your card. I did have to set the sound card as Default on my windows 7 box, but other then that its been pretty good… Let me know if this has been helpful…
So now you can capture audio from any program in Windows

The Pirate Bay Tracker Shuts Down for Good

mcangeli — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:14:49 +0000

Its a sad day today, after a drawn out courtbattle and years of supplying the world with warez, movies and more the Pirate Bay has officially shut off the tracker. Although the site will remain operational for now, millions of BitTorrent users will lose the use of its tracker and will instead have to rely on DHT and alternative trackers to continue downloading.

In the fall of 2003, a group of friends from Sweden decided to launch a BitTorrent tracker named ‘The Pirate Bay’. It soon became one of the largest BitTorrent trackers on the Internet, coordinating the downloads of more than 25 million peers at its height.

Despite this success, The Pirate Bay operators today decided to pull the plug and close down the tracker permanently. The evolution of the BitTorrent protocol has made trackers redundant they say, as BitTorrent downloads work well with trackerless solutions such as DHT and PEX.

To read the Full article at TorrentFreak Click Here

GoogleWave a second Opinion

mcangeli — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:52:06 +0000

So back in October I posted about my first impressions with google wave. I mentioned in there I was a little depressed by the number of people I had available to converse with, however, that seems to be changing as now I’m on my second round of invites to hand out.

Once the first group of people started receiving their invites, things picked up. Also, the big G added the ability to make “public” waves where anyone can see them, this is a big plus as it opens the whole community to more things. One feature that would be nice to see would be the ability to create groups or mail lists so that I don’t have to click through and add 20 people to one wave.

So far, outside of easily being able to share things like youtube videos, photos and other files with people at the drop of the hat, the most addicting thing on Wave is the sudoku plugin that enables you to play sudoku with your friends in real time. its pretty cool competing against the clock and your friends and watching as they fill in blanks you were going to get to.

It does seem to be a bit of a resource hog, but that could be to the scripting required to make wave run right. I’ve noticed that IE requires the Chrome Frame from google to even load Wave properly and Firefox crashes like Gruntled after a night of moving servers from one building to another if the wave is too large. The only browser that seems to handle it properly so far is Google Chrome (which I guess is to be expected) as it can load waves with 200+ messages in it with out any problem.

The more I use Wave, the more I have to say I actually like it. It takes the convenience of email and the realtime factor of IM and mashes it in to one. There’s room for improvement, but it seems that GoogleWave is getting better and more stable every day (though there were issues with the Sudoku game yesterday that were driving me insane!). GoogleWave will be a boon to organizations who’s users need to collaborate in realtime (even easier then things like goto meeting) and once the full api is available to developers, I would imagine that we’ll see no shortage of plugins and extensions for the Wave of the future.

Oh, yea, if you’re on GoogleWave, say hello mcangeli@googlewave.com

First Impressions of Google Wave

mcangeli — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:29:39 +0000

Google Wave in Chrome

So it finally happened. I stumbled across someone on twitter who was looking to give out some wave invites he had and I actually managed to score one. Less then 24 hours after he said it was sent I received it (Someone else had told me they sent me one, and I’m still waiting to get it, 2 weeks later). I was stoked. Wave has been touted as the next form of online communication and I will admit, even in its somewhat limited sandbox right now, its pretty cool. The problem? Well, there are two.

First, I wouldn’t even consider this a beta product (we all know Gmail was in beta for 5 years before loosing the beta tag recently right?), its more like an alpha product. There are placeholder wave’s promising features to come, theres an expansive, though limited userbase and a system that at times cannot handle all that the world is trying to throw at it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t good, because it is, it just means its most definitely not ready for the prime time yet.

Second, is the limited userbase I just mentioned. Yes. There are a ton of people that received invites in the initial wave. Around 100,000 I believe. The problem is that I know 2 of them. One of them, I didn’t know until I saw his post on twitter offering an invite. Its not a bad thing, there *is* a way to make a public wave that ANYONE on wave can see and respond to, and its fun reading through the various topics. The problem is that I could see how this could be useful for chatting with a work group, a team, a spouse or a friend. I’d like to have more people on here that I could “wave” with on a consistent basis. People who would actually reply.

I do like how you can see responses as the person is typing. Its like watching an old form of java chat in action. I also like how you can post and share photos and files at the drop of an item and the ability to create extensions/plugins is pretty cool too. I think that as google works out the kinks in the wave system and gradually opens the door to more and more people, that wave will be, if not the next big thing, a definite competitor to the current email structure online.

Are you using wave? Connect with me: mcangeli@googlewave.com or let me know what you think of Wave by leaving a comment here. Oh, and I currently do NOT have any invites so please do not ask.

5 twitter tools to make life more fun?

mcangeli — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:04:40 +0000

One of the cool things about having an open API like Twitter’s (and somewhat facebooks) is that you get a ton of cool and useful apps (websites) that can help you do everything from manage followers to search better to Assassinate Unhinged Industrialists. One of the bad things about having an open API like Twitter’s is that you get a ton of cool and useful apps (websites) that can help you do everything from manage followers to search better to Assassinate Unhinged Industrialists. It seems everywhere you turn these days everyone and everything is about twitter. Which in itself is ok, though twitter is quickly becoming the Z Cavaricci’s of 2009. Pretty soon, the cool kids in class will be on to the next internet fad while you’re still begging your mom to let you on twitter.

To help usher that along, here are FIVE twitter tools which may or may not make your “Tweepularity” rise.

Twistory – Twistory is a cool little app that actually ties your tweets (or the user you want to stalk) in to your ical application so you can see what was tweeted when. The neat thing about this app is that it works with ANYTHING that can use and iCal file, so google calendar, outlook, mac, thunderbird. It just works. I was interested in trying it out so I fired it up in outlook and I had a NEW calendar with just my tweets. Its actually pretty cool. Though something affected it as of 3pm yesterday and I haven’t updated the calendar yet (I keep getting errors…
TweetPsych – Tweetpsych admittedly does not do too much. But its a fun and interesting one to play with just to see whats in your psyche. From the site: “TweetPsych uses two linguistic analysis algorithms (RID and LIWC) to build a psychological profile of a person based on the content of their tweets. The service analyzes your last 1000 tweets and works best on users who have posted more than 1000 updates. It also works best on accounts that are operated by a single user and use Twitter in a conversational manner, rather than simply a content distribution platform.” Put in your userid and see how you psych out.
Tweefind – Tweefind is simply a search site for twitter. Its a little pink (ok, a lot pink) but its a handy tool for searching. Some of my favorite searches so far have been for words like “Twiends”, “OMG you guys”, and “Iran”. THere’s some crazy stuff posted out there!
TwitterAnalyzer – TwitterANALyzer is cool simply because it has the word ANALyzer in it but beyond that its a pretty well designed tool that is a good way to see how YOUR twits are trending. It provides all kinds of goodness that those in the marketing world would kill for to know who wants the newest shade of HOT PINK lipstick. Its also got some good built in metrics for figuring out your reach. TwitterAnalyzer is the TWITTER MARKETER’s DREAM!
Tweepular – Tweepular is one of those tools I actually keep going back to. I’ve written about it before and I was fairly impressed. It turns out that the folks behind tweepular have more up their sleeves and are working to make it better (if possible). Some potential improvements include tweeting from the interface, a blackberry and iphone app, and more ways to improve your following. One of the coolest features of tweepular is the ability to mass follow and unfollow people as well as the ability to find out who is the most tweepular (think popular) and follow them as well. Its a handy tool thats good for building a following.

Mind you, those are just some of the tools online that I’ve come across to help with twitter… I may take a look at clients or games next who knows… got any suggestions?

SugarSync Redux

mcangeli — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:34:53 +0000

So somewhere around two weeks ago, I talked about SugarSync. I was pretty impressed with it and the ability to share documents between my desktop, laptop and blackberry with ease. Today, I’m still impressed (enough so that I’m on the 4.99 a month plan) and I’d highly recommend EVERY sysadmin adding this to their arsenal of tools. Here’s Why…

I have the sugarsync manager setup on my desktop. I created a ‘hot folder’ of sorts that I can drop documents, images, pdfs, whatever in to and it syncs to the server. So the important stuff (passwords, network keys, server information, contact information, etc.) is safe in the case that I loose another Harddrive. I can log in on any PC anywhere through the web interface and have access to my important files.

So I can be sitting in a web cafe in Paris (though, one in Kennesaw is more likely), pull up the sugarsync web site and log in, have access to the email password or system passwords and access the accounts I need. Even better, there are blackberry and iPhone apps for sugarsync that allow me to do the same thing! SO I can be in the process of setting up or diagnosing a computer or email issue and pull up what I need right there on my blackberry without wasting space on my device. Totally adds a new tool to my box.

In addition, I can now keep photos accessible over any device with little effort as well. So once I clear the camera of photos of the little ones, I can pull them up for family and friends on my BOLD for anyone to see. How awesome is that?

Are you using SugarSync yet? If so, how? If not, WHY NOT?? It will change the way you do business!

Sync it with Sugar!

mcangeli — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:13:34 +0000

I was looking for a good way to get some documents and photos on my Blackberry with out having to use up the precious memory card space I’m saving for Slacker Cache files and videos, mp3s and other stuff I must have at all times on my Phone. That’s when I came across, SugarSync.

SugarSync is another in a long list of Online Backup Solutions. This one however, ROCKS. I was a little skeptical at first as I signed up for the 2gb FREE account, however, once I had downloaded the PC client, I was pleasantly surprised. My account was setup and ready to use in a matter of minutes and after I verified the account, I was able to grab the client and set it up on my laptop. Once installed, I logged in and selected the folder I wanted to “share” on the cloud. As I went cheap (I’ll talk about the other accounts in a minute) I created a special folder that I can drop things in that I’ll need on the go. That way, my entire itunes DB isn’t being backed up on the account.

I added a couple of files and logged in to the web interface. The cool thing is that you get a special “subdomain” thats all yours. So, I’d go to http://mcangeli.sugarsync.com and log in and viola, I’m looking at my shared folders. Almost as soon as I drop an item in the folder I can refresh the screen and see it. Making it available to me anywhere I have internet access. HOW FREAKING COOL!?!?

Its easy to navigate the web interface, but what had really caught my attention was the Blackberry client they offer on their site as well. Yes, you can also hit m.sugarsync.com and use it via the BB Browser, but that has some limitations and isn’t always the best choice and while the current client is rather basic, it offers all the functionality anyone needs. I was able to browse my folder and open an excel spreadsheet with out any issues and it loaded as quickly as though it was on my Berry (note: I was on wifi at the time, that probably didn’t hurt at all).

The other nice feature is the ability to take photos from with in the SugarSync. client and have it automatically uploaded to the server in the mobile photos folder. This is great for those who like snapping off pics of whatever they see (like giant cows on the side of the road) and is a great tool for getting the photos back to your computer without having to sync up.

SugarSync. has a number of different accounts ranging from the 2gb free plan to 30gb for $4.99 a month up to 250gb for $24.99 a month. They claim their most popular account is the 60gb for $9.99 a month (or $99.99 a year) which I could easily see. My problem would be I’d fill that 60gb in a second and would have to up my storage.

So far, I’m fairly impressed with the ease of use of SugarSync., the options available with it and the speed. Not to mention, the FREE 2gb account is a good starter package for those looking for a simple way to share documents between computers and devices like Blackberries and iPhones. The other cool thing is that I can load the SugarSync. client on another machine and use it to sync folders on another machine as long as I’m with in my limit. This brings a whole new meaning to file sharing!

5 Good Twitter Tools

mcangeli — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:47:14 +0000

Yar, I’ve been using Twitter for a while now and I’ve finally developed a list of five of my current favorite tools for twitter. I thought I’d share them with you.

Twhirl is perhaps my favorite desktop app for twitter. Its cool because its done in AdobeAIR and can run on Mac, Linux and Windows (making it fully crossplatform), you can reply, retweet, and tweet right from it and it updates on its own. Follow friends, keep tabs on whats happening and even view profiles for other twitter users. When I’m not twittering on my blackberry, I’m using twhirl.

SocialScope Its still in private beta, but this app for mobile devices is amazing. When I’m on my berry, its what I use to keep track of twitter AND facebook status. You can update both as well. If you’re rockin a smartphone, register for the beta. Its getting better every update.

I came across this next one on a post on Twitter Tools by Felicia Day. Twitterholic is a good ranking of top twitterers based on number of people following them. Its no big surprise Obama is number 1.

If you aren’t using Twitter Tools by alex king or TwitMe by Johnny Mast to update your twitter status with your blog posts (both wordpress plugins) then you’re missing out. One of the best ways to drive traffic to your blogs and posts is by letting your “followers” know of current postings and both do an excellent job of that. Twitter Tools is the more robust allowing for a little more customization and options.

Lastly, Take a look at another wordpress plugin, TweetBacks by Joost de Valk. TweetBacks Show the tweets about your posts and pages as comments on your blog. This helps you gauge who is talking about your posts as well as drives more people to twitter. Works well.

Oh what the hell. I came across this gem today and I wanted to share. Twistori. Twistori makes use of the Twitter API to search out tweets with certain words (love, hate, believe, feel, think and wish) and then streams them to you live. Its a little earie to see it in action, but quite addicting….