NEWS FROM THE EDGE

Tech Tips and Advice from the Experts at Dynamic Edge

Hey Readers! We’ve had a lot of calls today asking about the Conficker worm problem that is threatening to wreck havoc on 9 million-plus PC’s tomorrow (April 1, 2009). We understand the concern and are doing our best to protect ourselves — and we suggest you do the same.

In October, we sent out an e-mail blast alerting all of our contacts that Microsoft had released an urgent security update that was essential for any PC using any version of windows. This patch was designed to protect against the Conficker worm, specifically, as well as similar future attacks. The following directions come straight from Microsoft’s Technet. At this time, we strongly suggest you follow all of these precautions, knowing that we will be here to support you, should this worm prove to be as destructive as the media is presenting it to be. Protecting PCs from Conficker (Directly from Microsoft Technet)
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For months, Dell has been teasing a new laptop that everyone is certain “to fall in love with.” The new PC, aptly named Adamo, is sleek, stylish, and slim — three accolades for which any slave to trendiness would willingly perish.

So, what’s the story on Adamo? You’ll remember the uproar over the MacBook Airthe super-light, super-slim piece of Apple eye candy that fits inside of a manilla envelope (as advertised on TV just over a year ago).
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Check out Launchy!

Looking to break yourself of that Start Menu addiction? Why not try out Launchy, an open-source Windows and Linux utility designed to give you easy access to your favorite programs, documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks in seconds.

In essence, Launchy is a search program that hides in the background until you hit the alt+space key combination; at which point, it tries to guess which program or file you are looking for, and it’ll launch it when you hit the enter key.

A few years ago, a guy named Josh Karlin set out to develop a personal-use application
that eliminated the need for hunting through applications hidden in unexpected locations throughout the Start Menu. It wasn’t long before he and his friends realized how useful such a tool could be. So he decided to release it to the world, for free!
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Rudimentary E-mail Tip

I’m writing today about a hard-fought lesson I’m learning. While I completely understand the “why” aspect  of this little chat, I find myself hung up on the “how.” So, without further delay, here’s the tip:

Don’t send huge file attachmentseven if people know they’re coming!

A little background…
In marketing, I find myself sending drafts, revisions, and proofs of projects I’m working on all the time. (I e-mail a lot of mock-ups as well, but they’re generally low resolution to begin with, so they’re not so much of a problem.) But when it comes time for the boss to see the final version of a new brochure that we’re about to send to print, how do I make sure he gets the full effect of the project’s image quality / layout / design, etc. without bombarding his Outlook Inbox?
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Why Blog?

When I first joined the team at Dynamic Edge, and Bruce told me that I’d be starting up the company’s first ever blog, I was a little (ok, a LOT) nervous. Aside from making keen observations about the quirkiness of the world around me and venting general complaints, I’d never written a blog about anything at all… let alone a company blog that was supposed to entertain and inform readers!

So, why a blog? Had I missed something? Wasn’t a news page good enough?

Not to be confused with your typical social networking blog sites, like LiveJournal, Facebook, Myspace, Xanga, et. al, company blogs serve a much higher purpose. These days, more and more companies are adding blogs because they naturally attract search engine traffic. Blog pages are text-rich, link-rich, and frequently-updated pages that often contain useful information. And, because most blogs run on simple Content Management System (CMS), it is very easy to optimize them by using keywords, headers, bolded text, image tags, and relevant links.
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Discover Pandora

Hey! I just discovered something very cool, big thanks to Paul from programming…

Pandora. Have you heard of this? Nope, not the first woman ever, created and gifted by all of the ancient gods (Greek Mythology).

Pandora Radio. This is a totally different story. Pandora Radio is a radio streaming application developed by the Music Genome Project. So you have to be connected (one way or another) to the Internet to use it.
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