Computing

17
Sep
By Bob Weeks

New Computer Setup Today

Last night I bought a new desktop computer. I'd been needing to for a while, as my current computer was about five years old. Everything was becoming slower. I run a lot of software, such as Google desktop indexing (and even another desktop indexing program, if you can figure that out), and my old computer was just overwhelmed. Plus, last week at the State Policy Network conference I became convinced of the power of video to report and tell a story. So I bought a video camera. My old computer was way underpowered for video, so that's part of the…
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11
Aug
By Bob Weeks

Liberty Search

Liberty Search is a Google custom search engine that I developed. It searches sites friendly to liberty, capitalism, and free markets, such as mises.org, cato.org, and many others. Or, visit the page at Google for Liberty Search. This page has more information about this Google custom search engine.
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08
Feb
By Bob Weeks

More good computer and Internet things

Bloglines "Bloglines is a FREE online service for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content." That quote from Bloglines accurately describes what Bloglines is, but doesn't really communicate its benefit. Here's what Bloglines does for me: I like to keep current with the content of about two dozen blogs, mostly blogs in Kansas that might not publish new articles very often. (You can see a list of some of them here.) Instead of visiting each of these sites every day or so, I simply add them to my list of "feeds" in Bloglines. Then, Bloglines…
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13
Dec
By Bob Weeks

More favorite computer and Internet things

More things I like and use. The first article is here: Favorite Internet and computer things. A Notebook Computer Until this year I had never owned a notebook computer. But now that I do, I understand and appreciate the benefits of portability. When combined with a wireless network, I can sit anywhere in my house and do any sort of computing that I want. The backyard deck and front porch are possibilities, too. Even if the computer was to be totally deskbound, a notebook computer is still nice for its small size. Today you can get serviceable notebook computers for…
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07
Aug
By Bob Weeks

Favorite Internet and computer things

Pdf995 Pdf995, available as a free download at http://www.pdf995.com/, lets you create documents in the popular Adobe Acrobat pdf format. This is immensely useful for many situations. A companion program, PdfEdit995, lets you edit some attributes of the pdf files. For basic usage, though, Pdf995 works just fine. After you download and install the software, you'll be able to "print" any document to pdf format, and then do with it as you wish. When using Pdf995 you have to watch a small advertisement, but this is what keeps the program free. What's so great about pdf files? They're a good…
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13
Feb
By Bob Weeks

What is Not Good About Internet Search

The success of the Internet search engine Google is amazing. It has become a cultural phenomena, as "to Google" someone or a topic. The implication is that by using Google, you can find all there is to know about a person or subject. In my opinion, this attitude can be deceptive. Relying exclusively on Google or any other search engine can lead to conclusions based on erroneous or incomplete sources. For example, The Wall Street Journal, one of the most important sources for research on current topics, is absent from Google. Its content does not appear in searches. That's because…
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