Instant Messaging All-In-One (AIO)

July 4th, 2010 Filed Under Blog

It was just a few years back when Trillian dominated the IM scene, that was when they didn’t require an additional account. Trillian 3 was the last of its kind, or at least I thought so for a while.

To be frank, if I were forced to sign up for a new account I would rather use Meebo. Meebo is another popular AIO IM platform, their thing is that you don’t have to install anything; all you need is an Internet connection to get going with them. Still a new account is required if you want to see all your clients in one place.

But after some searching, I found Pidgin. Pidgin, the universal chat client is exactly what Trillian 3 was and my new favorite AIO IM program. Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once. It is simple to use and light on resources. So, if you are on the hunt for a new chat client.

Give Pidgin a try…

“IM all your friends in one place.”

Ultimate Frisbee San Jose

July 23rd, 2009 Filed Under Blog

So, I have been looking for pick-up Ultimate Frisbee games back in San Jose, CA and can’t find any! If anyone out there finds this post and knows of any please leave a comment.

Thuan Can Cook!

March 12th, 2009 Filed Under Blog

One of the cool things about a blog is we can talk about anything. Even off-topic blogs. Here’s one for example… …

It has been a while since I cooked anything, but it was time for me to relearn cooking. How would a person go about doing this? My opinion… a good way is to learn a few basic recipes.

The search for those recipes was on… until I found recipezaar.com. As of now, it’s my favorite recipes site for these reasons:

a nice user friendly interface
plenty of recipes
most of the recipes come with pictures
great user ratings / comments
a cookbook to add your favorites
it’s all free

I have cooked over a dozen meals for the family. some of them weren’t too great, but many of them were simply fantastic dishes. So if you are in need of a few recipes, give them a try.

Free Business Cards

February 27th, 2009 Filed Under Blog

Need business cards for that new small business, but you don’t want to go over board and get thousands of cards? Been there, done that. Personally, for as long as I could remember ever needing business cards I have gotten them free from VistaPrint…

I have been using them for years now and still do. Yesterday, I referred them to a friend’s dad in need of business cards and thought I’d share the same information with everyone…

All we have to pay for is the shipping, which has gone up a bit but altogether it is a great deal.

Oh, they don’t just offer free business cards. They also offer free magnets, calendars, etc… so look for their “free products” tab.

Set Up Your Computer To Receive and Send Faxes

December 10th, 2008 Filed Under Blog, Sys. Admin

I was at the store the other day and noticed that people still buy fax machines. Instantly, I thought to myself, “Wow, are you kidding me?” At our technological state, we should all have the necessary components to configure our computers to receive and send faxes.

Here’s what you’ll need to receive and send faxes (bare minimum)*…

A computer with Windows XP or Vista on it
It has to have a modem
A phone line

*To send paper documents, you’ll need a method of getting the desired fax documents to your computer, ie a scanner. If the documents are already on your computer than you won’t need that scanner.

Here’s how to setup your computer to receive and send faxes (straight from Microsoft)…

XP –> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/hwandprograms/printfaxscan.mspx#3

Vista –> http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-us/help/488ac4fb-7436-4a03-bb70-6ded839dd3c21033.mspx

After everything is up and running, you’ll need to test your setup; luckily, there’s a free service that you can use…

http://www.interpage.net/sub-wwwfax.html

Good Luck.

Opening UIF Files

November 10th, 2008 Filed Under Blog

A friend recently came across an uif file and couldn’t open it. Why? Well, it’s quite simple he is too cheap to go buy a copy of MagicISO. What did he do? That’s simple too, he asked me to open it for him like I was some sort if tech geek. Anyways, I told him what I normally do, which is…

Go to download.com and download a trial version of it, linky.
Extract
Uninstall

Downfall… the trial version has a limitation, the file size must be 300mb or less. You guessed it, his file was 800mb. So, another method was needed. I did some Googling and hit a gold mine by the name of UIF to ISO Converter GUI. This simple yet very useful program did the job perfectly. All credits go to Luigi Auriemna for the program and Janis Elsts the GUI. Thank you both.

Yes, this program only converts the file to the ISO format. The only difference is there are a handful of free ISO programs, while MagicISO (you have to buy it) is the only one that handles uif files.

Final Thoughts: In the end I walked away from helping someone in need with a nifty little program. NICE!

Turn Off XP Error Reporting

November 9th, 2008 Filed Under Blog

XP Error Report is today’s subject. Specifically, if you wish to turn it off because it is super annoying… this is how you would go about doing it…

1) Go to your Control Panel
2) Select System Properties
3) Select the Advance Tab
4) Click on the “Error Reporting” tab
5) Turn it OFF

You will see that it is possible to turn all off or do it for specific programs; this is especially useful if you have a third party software that consistently causes the errors but want to know of all the XP Operating System errors.

Wordpress = Spam Central

October 30th, 2008 Filed Under Blog

Lately, my blog has been inundated with spam. I have tried blocking a few of the servers that had been leaving me all the spam comments but the number of IPs have also been growing exponentially. If someone has a solution to this incipient problem, please let me know.

Thanks,
Thuan

Don’t go to the Post Office

September 14th, 2008 Filed Under Blog

An important lesson I recently learned since I started actively selling on eBay is that no one should have to ever drive to the post office. It doesn’t matter how close you live to your post office, USPS should come to your house daily if necessary, except Sundays.

We all know that mailing a letter is as easy as putting it in our mail box, right? Well, I hope so.

The internet has made mailing packages just as easy. If you sell through eBay, this service is tightly integrated into their system. Once a sale is done and payment has been received, all a seller does is click on a link labeled, “Print Shipping Label.” From there we are sent to PayPal’s shipping center where we enter in the package’s weight and our preferences. The final step is to print out our “save a trip to the post office shipping label” and stick (clear packaging tape is necessary) it to the package.

What if you want to ship something that wasn’t sold through eBay? Can we still ship our packages using this method? The answer is YES! My uncontrollable excitement for this answer is the reason for this blog. All you have to do is follow this link…

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_ship-now

Oh, of course, you’ll at least need a PayPal account to this service.

There are many benefits to doing things this way:

1) you’ll save gas < — hello my name hurricane IKE
2) you’ll save time
4) you can stay in PJs
3) you’ll save with delivery confirmation, which cost $0.75 at your local P.O. and $0.18 online.

You don’t want to use PayPal? There is still hope. Go straight to the USPS.com website and sign up with them, just click on their “print a shipping label” link. The drawback to this is you are limited to Priority or Express Mail only, which cost much more.

Final notes… you’ll need a scale of some sort to accurately see how much your package weights. And if your packages is a big one, you might have to take it in to your local post office. If you aren’t sure what is or isn’t too big, I’d visit USPS.com for their say in it.

I hope this helps someone because it has helped me tremendously; especially for the non-eBay items.

The Dilemma, What would you do?

September 8th, 2008 Filed Under Blog

As an IT expert, I try to do whats best for family, friends, and clients all alike. I give them all the same advice. However, I have been having a dilemma with a specific piece of software.

I am talking about the Firefox plugin, named Adblock. What it does is blocks virtually all ads while you are surfing the web. What this means is faster surfing and less annoyances. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without it… as a constant web surfer. But as a website developer, I know those very ads sometimes pay for the site’s cost.

So far I still tell everyone to use it as normal, mostly because my sites are either hobbies or so small that their cost doesn’t mean much. I could just imagine the big time players running multiple servers and their cost.

What would you do?

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