Today we get to see part two of the 2009, Double Click review.  Sit back, relax and browse the web for the sites that interest you.  As always, if you prefer clicking to typing please visit the DoubleClicks.info site and read the column later the same day it is published in the paper and actually click the links.

Here they are in their order of their appearance with short descriptions if needed.

• WalMart.com and Costco.com, these need no explanation; although, I wrote about their specific ability to print your vacation photos online.
• Picnik.com, an online photo editing program.
• Picasa, a site where you can download a photo organizational tool to edit and store digital pictures but you can also upload them to Picasa online to create photo albums.  (Our vacation photos shortened, http://bit.ly/lJgaF)
• Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows, an excellent blog about MS Windows products.
• MSNBC news & information site
• CrossWalk, a Christian study, blog, information site, etc.
• RonDoyle.wordpress.com, my boring blog which is pretty much in no way related to my columns.
• WordPress.com & WordPress.org, two sites for creating your own blog (There are differences between the two.)
• Hulu.com, an online site where you can view movies and many current TV shows for free.
• Firefox (mozilla.com), today’s best internet browser (in my opinion).
• Microsoft Office 2007 discount (TheUltimateSteal.com), the entire MS Office program for students at a much discounted price of $59.95 (as of the date I wrote this…it may not last long).
• Bing.com, Microsoft’s new online search engine.
• Google Earth, a great mapping application.
• MMTaskbar, extend your task bar across multiple monitors.
• Desk Drive, allows a desktop icon to appear when you plug in an external drive, including thumb drives.
• MS Live Workspace & Google Docs, two similar but different free online file storage sites.
• Google Chrome, Google’s internet browser.
• Evony, free online role playing game.
• Gutenberg.org, Audible.com & Podiobooks.com, three online books sites which have text and/or audio books for free and/or a price.
• Medicalert.org.
• Go to My PC, a site that allows you to login to your home/work computer from another location.
• Team Viewer, similar to above but free and not as stable.

I hope you have found the two "Year in Review" columns helpful!  Don’t forget to keep those emails coming in 2010.

Tags: audible, bing, chrome, Costco, crosswalk wordpress, desk drive, evony, Firefox, google, google docs, gutenberg, hulu, medicalert, mmtaskbar, mozilla, paul thurrott, picasa, picnik, podiobooks, RDP, supersite for windows, taskbar, team viewer, Wal-Mart

Last week’s column about “Working At Home” and using “Remote Desktop Connection” received many thanks and a couple of emails with suggestions.  (Thanks to all of you who write each week; I really appreciate “talking” to my readers even if it is just to say, “Hi”.)  One of those suggestions submitted by Daryl in Elkton suggested a site/application that I had not heard of before.

The application is named, “TeamViewer” and is a free and reasonably simple way to log into  another computer with the TeamViewer software installed.   Keep in mind that this is only available free to home users and not commercial businesses.  Go to the site to, “Find out why more than 60 million users trust TeamViewer!”

There are several excellent benefits and one potential drawback.  The benefits would start with ease of installation.  The site says you can be up and running in 2 minutes.  That is a fairly accurate statement, but if you read all the documentation I would plan on 15-30 minutes.  Next, you can create a group which has all of your computers in the group.  This allows you to login using your group username and password and easily connect to any of your group’s computers.  Another benefit is the ability to easily transfer documents back and forth between computers.

Since I have limited space here I will hit one HUGE benefit of TeamViewer.  If you set it up correctly you do not have to have the TeamViewer software installed on a computer to access your group’s computers.  You can log onto your account using your internet browser.  The address is simple (login.teamviewer.com) and once you log in there you may connect to one of your computer’s desktops to interact with your “long distance” computer as if you were sitting in front of it!  This is a tremendous advantage over most ways to access your computers from a distance.  It sets up a secure site connection using “https” the same as your bank’s website, so security should not be an issue.

The one drawback that does bother me is that they have a menu item that reads, “Enable black screen”.  I have tried this feature with computers that are side by side to check that and other features.  When I choose to “black” the remote screen it does, but not when I click on the remote screen.  The remote computer flashes and anyone can see what is clicked.  This is not terrible but I believe it is a security problem.  At my home it really doesn’t matter since it is just my wife and me, but if you have visitors or robbers it is different.  If someone from TeamViewer would like to contact me and tell me how to correct this issue I would whole heartedly recommend TV to everyone.  However, at this point I see that as a possible security issue.

OK, one last benefit.  Since you can log onto your computer long distance using your browser it works on all windows enabled computers.  I have installed it on my wife’s notebook, our desktop and even my little netbook.  Two of these computers run Windows 7 and one of them Windows XP so I can verify that it works well across those operating systems (including Mac OS X 10.4 and up).

Give it a try this week and let me know what you think.  And as with all software I recommend, use at your own risk and check their website for issues since I can’t possibly know all the details for all the software I use/recommend.

Last but not least, “Happy New Year” to you and your families!”

Tags: add-on, computer, computer help, google docs, new computer, other computer, RDP, Ron Doyle, Transferring Files, viewer

As the excitement builds around the Microsoft’s new operating system, "Windows 7" rollout this week I thought I would mention another good product provided by Microsoft.  By-the-way, you will be hearing way too much (in my opinion) about Windows 7 in the upcoming days.   Not because it isn’t a good product but just because it is such a good product.  I have been using it very successfully for quite a while now and it is excellent; however, I have decided to let some of the uproar die down before I write about it much.

Today I would like to suggest you try out one of Microsoft’s ventures into the cloud.  I have written about Live Mesh previously, also a great application, but today, I’ll discuss "Office Live Workspace". 

First off you will need a Microsoft Office Live account (Live ID) which is free.  As unbelievable as it sounds to me, it doesn’t even have to be a Microsoft email account (i.e., hotmail.com or live.com).  I opened mine a couple of years ago with my Gmail email address.  However, you do have to have a verifiable email address somewhere so that they can make sure you are a real person.

At this time you get 5 GB of online storage with a maximum individual document size of 25 MB.  This allows you to store and access your documents from any internet connection.  MS says that you can store Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Rich Text Format, Adobe PDF and HTML files.  However, I have found a few others that work well also.  I guess the list keeps growing faster than they can document.

Also, you do not need to have Microsoft Office installed on your computer to use this site.  However, if you do have Office you can install the "Office Live Add-in" which allows you to open, edit and/or save documents to or from your "Live" online account.  I use this often.  For instance, when I saved the final version of this column I used, "Save to Office Live" in Word which is added to Word, Excel and PowerPoint.  This file is now on my local computer and in the Live Office workspace as backup.  The "Office Live Add-in" installation also places, "Open from Office Live" in those programs. This allows you to open docs from the cloud from within Office.

Now, all of you Google-freaks out there (just like me) can write that "Google Docs" does pretty much the same things.  You would be mostly correct but I write about all of the major places’ best apps and I mentioned Google Docs several months ago.  Both MS and Google have some first-rate applications…in time we will see who wins out or will they continue to play happily together, in the clouds?

Tags: add-ins, google, google docs, microsoft, office, office live