New Reviews on Kickstartnews This Week — March 27, 2006

If you're producing your own marketing material or web site, check out the reviews of these useful products:

• PowerDirector 5: All that video footage and no place to put it? Scared of the video capture process? Trying to develop a promotional video or a presentation? Figuring out what to do with school or vacation footage? What you need is an easy, creative and fast way to put your ideas into action.
  
• Looking Good in Print: History will show that the desktop publishing (DTP) movement using PC and Mac software throughout the '90s and the early part of the 21st century resulted in a sea change in the way we communicate in print. Every movement needs its own guidebook however, and this is one you should consider.
  
• Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML: A detailed tutorial and guide from beginner through to advanced practices and code.

Sold Something Lately? Did You Ship More Than You Thought?

I recently sold a Sony NetMD N707 MiniDisc Walkman on eBay. It's a good little player/recorder that consumers (and Sony) have kind of forgotten. It's not that the technology is bad—far from it actually. Recording quality is very good and the device itself is useful for notes, remote or location recordings, high fidelity music listening, music backups and so on. In any case, the person who purchased it on eBay got a good deal.

The only problem is that a couple of months prior to auctioning the Walkman on eBay, I tested the device by recording a podcast preparation session onto a minidisc. The chatter during the test including some general setup information, talk about the appropriateness of using the Sony device, and some other, innocuous banter.

How embarrassing was it to receive an e-mail from the buyer expressing some apprehension about the presence of the minidisc in the player, in addition to some concern about the actual recording content? More . . .

Kickstartnews Revue - Podcast #43 - Show Notes for March 19, 2006

Here's the lineup for show #43:

• Hot News: 1st item - Google is NOT a copyright violator despite the over-the-top litigation efforts by allegedly wounded web site owners. Let's answer the question, "When is the Justice system in the United States going to start applying some sort of filter before money has to be spent?" 2nd item - Google is NOT a copyright violator despite claims or fears by the publishing industry, while Amazon, which is at the center of a publishing competition controversy says, "Who Us?".
• Letters: The KSN interview runs a little long this week so we've got to skip letters to the editor. We'll make it up to you next week, we promise;
• KSN Confab: Expenses and who is entitled to claim them. Some business owners say that any employee who puts out good money for something on behalf of the company is a fool. Other owners scramble to reimburse. Howard and Lianne hash it out.
• KSN Interview: This week, Paul Rochford of Techspertise. You're going to find out about the four cardinal rules of successful web design. Paul takes us through it. Violate any of these rules and your web site might not make it!

Here are the rest of the Show Notes . . .

New Reviews on Kickstartnews This Week

New Reviews Just Posted:

• Nikon D50 Digital SLR Camera
  
• Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design
  
• d'artiste - Digital Artists Master Class: Matte Painting
  
• DVD Solution 4

The Kickstartnews Revue Podcast 43 is Delayed 24 hours

The best laid plans sometimes get hosed by Microsoft. In this case, our Windows audio mapper driver decided to pack it in. It only took about 2 minutes to fix the problem . . . once we actually found it. Tried everything else first (of course) including repatching our entire audio hardware set up and well, you name it. It's a great podcast this week too, at least it will be once we get it recorded and posted on Wednesday (only a day behind our new Tuesday weekly release date).

It never fails. You make one simple change in a schedule and everything suddenly goes straight to hell. It's a plot I tell you — a conspiracy!

Kickstartnews Revue - Podcast #42 - Show Notes for March 12, 2006

Here's the lineup for show #42:

• Hot News: We're watching the wires for stories that concern small business. Dell may be acquiring AlienWare in a deal which might be very favorable to business even though AlienWare has traditionally been known for its killer gaming computers. Dell may get into AMD processors, sort of, after years of threatening Intel with a switch. And, big brother - Google resists the charms of the U.S. Justice Department;
• Letters to the Editor: File managers - literally, what to use when replacing the stodgy old Windows Explorer - are a problem, and somebody wants help making a decision. Hard drive internals - another listener is looking for help figuring out hard drives;
• Kickstartnews Confab: The religious symbol and its place in the office. Who places religious symbols around their office or cubicle and expects every visitor to genuflect in some way? What other decorations, for want of another word, are inappropriate in the office;
• BOAT: This week, Business Online and Technology looks at your assets. Managing Editor Howard Carson and Tugboat Enterprises CEO Judi Tyabji Wilson ask the question, How Secure Are Your Assets. It's all about doing backups using old technology in new, easy ways.

Here are the rest of the Show Notes . . .

Microsoft Office 2007 - Is the Arrogance Gone?

Who on earth is Alan Yates and why does he sound so unrepentantly arrogant about the upcoming new version of Microsoft Office? Mr. Yates is general manager, business strategy, for the Information Worker Group at Microsoft Corporation. Yates develops and guides new business initiatives for the Office products group at Redmond, WA. Yates dismisses open source rival Open Office.org 2.0 as being 10 years out of date.

I'm not a starry-eyed proponent of OpenOffice.org 2.0. I've reviewed, I like it well enough and I'm using it regularly alongside Microsoft Office 2003. But I'm also a long-time Microsoft Office user who has repeatedly been confronted by Microsoft's development arrogance embedded in almost every version of Office. That Yates has the nerve to derogate OpenOffice, flies in the face of Microsoft's own glaring legion of errors visited over the years upon millions of MS Office devotees (some of whom care, and some of whom simply endure the frustrations).

Message for Mr. Yates: Smarten Up! More . . .

Kickstartnews Revue - Podcast #41 - Show Notes for March 5, 2006

Here's the lineup for show #41:

• Hot News: We're watching the wires for stories that concern small business. Your Blackberry is safe once again, and another story about buying new PCs - maybe it's time to consider AMD;
• Letters to the Editor: We've got four e-mails for you this week. Somebody is curious about the Treo 650 Silicone carrying case, a reader is trying to decide which 2D/3D drawing and layout program to buy, somebody lost a product installation serial number, and the desperate plea of a Money Counts 9 user;
• Kickstartnews Confab: Food in the office. I kid you not. Is everybody eating at their desks and making a mess? Have you set up a specific lunch area? Are you asking for work to be done which results in people eating at their desks and essentially working through lunch? It's a problem either way;
• Big City Byte: It's all about Howard's less than satisfactory experience purchasing a monitor from Dell last week.

Here are the rest of the Show Notes . . .