Hello Friday! What a week, huh? 🙃 The world is a little weird right now because of COVID-19. Our small towns here in The Valley (and a bit beyond - Looking south down 220 and along our scenic NY border!) aren't feeling the full weight of what's happening in larger cities. Frankly, that's one of the reasons that many of us choose to live here. We don't have the personal space problems of overcrowded cities. But, we know that it could and probably will reach us eventually. The danger of the disease itself is a worry for older and compromised people, as well as our local hospitals. You can stay updated by checking in with local authorities on Facebook or Twitter. Our local newspapers and television/radio stations will also have updates on their websites. For our part, we can help local businesses set themselves up for employees working from home. We are developing a short checklist of things that a small business should take into consideration when employees are at home communicating and working from networked computers. We will have that available over the weekend and will post when it is ready. It will not be all inclusive as each business has individual needs. Here's the free stuff for Friday. Right now both Google and Microsoft are offering free versions of their enterprise collaboration software. Slack has always had a free version. Microsoft Teams is highly recommended by us. It is also a favorite of some of our current enterprise clients. It's secure, easy to use and will blend well with any business already using Microsoft products. Obviously, you need a Microsoft account to sign up. It is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It is also available for iPhone and Android. Click on the image to learn more. Google is offering a limited version of their GSuite service for free for a limited time. I use GSuite and have always found it a bit confusing, but usable. There is extensive documentation available. The free software as a service they are offering is basically secure teleconferencing for small to large groups. It is Software as a Service, so it is available for all platforms. Click below to learn more. Slack is one of the most used collaboration apps online and they have always had a free version for small teams, but it is very limited. You can view what their free/paid software does here. You can also learn how Slack works by clicking the logo below. It is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android. Give us a call today for a consultation. (570-882-8851) As always, we here at Sayre Computer are here to help all the small businesses here in the The Penn-York Valley (and beyond, south on 220, east and west along the NY/PA border and north into the Finger Lakes) get through this thing and help people stay safe and healthy by working at home.
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It's Friday!
Have you ever wondered where you can get 130 MP3 files of the various sounds people make when they pass gas? No? Burping? No? Okay, I'm not really interested in that either, but I bet someone out there is. On the other hand, I'm interested in animal noises to use as ringtones. Really interested. ZapSplat is a web site that has free sound effects for just about anything you could ever want for any purpose - An audio play, a podcast, background noises for a slide show, music, what ever. Before you can download the MP3s you have to sign up for a basic account (use one of your junk emails!), but once you do, it's yours for the taking. It downloads easily and the site is safe. (I ran it through Google Safe Browsing and it came out clean.) The Free and Open Source Software for today is Nomacs | Image Lounge!
Nomacs is an image viewer with some basic editing capabilities. The best thing about Nomacs is its support for a wide range of file formats and conversion capabilities. I use the program extensively and it is smooth. If you need a good program for viewing or editing multiple formats of images, Nomacs is great. It's available for Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD and others. Check it out!
Friday! Today I'm just going to post a video that gives great privacy instructions for your Android phone.
The video is for things that almost anyone can do on their phones by following instructions. Clearly the video is meant to be paused. He's not selling anything. At all. In fact, just the opposite. He's trying to make it easy for people to reclaim at least part of their private life back from big tech. A great side effect of doing these things is that your phone will run faster and your battery will last longer. The links you need to implement the changes are all listed below the video. You can implement one or all of the changes he recommends. Loads of people have given up privacy for convenience and it's a fair trade-off, IMO. We all do it in some form. It just depends on who you are willing to trust. I have never had the Facebook app on my telephones, but I've accessed it through a browser with good tracker and ad blocking on my phone. OTOH, I can't shake Google and I use a lot of their apps. There is always a trade-off. The guy who made the video - The Hated One - Is fantastic. He does a lot of privacy videos and talks a lot about giant corporations and tech law (politically, he's neutral) in ways that most people don't find reassuring. Browse through his back catalogue to see what I mean. Happy Friday! Today's freebie is for gamers. Valve made their Half-Life series of games free to play (streaming) on Steam until March 2020 when the new chapter of the game, Half-Life: Alyx, will be released. The games included: Half-Life: Source Half-Life 2 Half-Life 2: Episode One Half-Life 2: Episode Two Opposing Force Blue Shift If you aren't a gamer, this is the perfect time to give this classic game a try and dip your toes into the world of gaming. Steam is available for Windows, Mac and Linux computers. You can read more about it on Steam's Blog. Enjoy! This article is going to be a bit different from my usual Friday free stuff recs. A couple of weeks ago friend asked me about podcasts and how to listen to them. Here it is. I'm addicted to podcasts. I love them. I listen to them compulsively. Podcasts are big right now. Huge. It's easier than ever to both find a player (podcatcher) and find a podcast that captures your interest and compels you to listen. Professional actors and newscasters are involved in making podcasts. The subjects are broad. My own subscriptions range from Celtic Christmas music that posts only in November and December every year to Ronan Farrow's new podcast that covers the release of his new book "Catch and Kill". There are a plethora of apps available for all platforms. The podcatcher that I use on my desktop is GPodder. It's short for Gnome Podder and it is an open source tool for catching and maintaining a feed of podcasts for Linux machines. GPodder is not a podcast player. It is an aggregator. When you hit the play on an episode you want to listen to, it opens up in the media player of your choice. I use VideoLAN and recommend it highly. But that's me. I am compelled by unseen forces to use open source everything unless it is on my phone. Which is where nearly everyone else else listens to podcasts. The lesson here is don't be like me. Go with the easy stuff. The easiest way to listen to podcasts is with native apps: If you have an Apple phone use the pre-installed Apple Podcasts app.
Yes. It's that simple. If you have an Android Phone use the Google Podcast app. I've been using it for a couple of days now and I like it. It's dead simple to use and doesn't drain my battery to death. The app is a win for me. (Side note: I'm not sure WTH is up with the reviewers - I have not had the problems they are describing at all. It's easy to close the program in 'close all' and the podcasts are supposed to start where you leave off. That's how it works.)
You can also rinse, lather, repeat with Spotify. Spotify has an excellent interface for podcasts and is one of the podcast catchers/players of choice for all platforms - Mac, Windows, Android, Chrome, iOS and even Linux. I've been using it on my desktop for a few days and it's good. The ads can get annoying, but it's a commercial product, not open source. I didn't expect to get it for free. There are other podcast catcher/players that are platform specific like Overcast (iOS) and Podcast Addict (Android/Chrome). I didn't like Podcast Addict when I tried it a couple of years ago, but other people seem to like it well enough. Like Spotify, Podcast Addict is free for basic use, but has a paid version that removes ads.
Finding a good app for catching and listening to podcasts is easy. What's hard is finding a good podcast - Mostly that's because there are so many good ones out there. You could spend the rest of your life listening to interesting podcasts and still not reach the end of them. And that's what I'll be talking about next week. Finding good podcasts that are right for you in an ocean of good podcasts. Hello Friday!
Today's freebie is a web site that will show you how to tie any kind of knot that you could ever want to tie. From the web site: "Animated Knots by Grog is the web’s #1 site for learning how to tie knots. From Boating Knots, Fishing Knots and Climbing Knots to tying a tie, or even Surgical Knots — we’ve got it covered. Follow along as ropes tie themselves, showing just the essential steps, so you can master a knot in no time. Jump into any category to get started. If you’re unsure where to begin, try starting with the Basics, our Knot of the Day, Grog’s Blog or check out every knot we’ve got!" It's super awesome and easy to use and we're heading straight into the season where some decorative knots might be very useful. Have fun!
Ironically, if you've fenced in Facebook, you can't see this post.
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