Monday, January 30, 2012

How To Clean the Screen of Your Electronic Devices - And Save Money -With Video

Would you like to clean the screen of your electronic device but do not want to purchase that pricey "safe" cleaner that won't damage your screen? I'm not going to tell you (or take any responsibility) that my method is "the way" to clean the screen of any electronic device. This way has worked for me personally for years, leaving all of my electronic devices clean and in mint condition.

You're already probably warm enough to know what I'm going to reveal as my method of cleaning my electronic screens. Yep, that's a picture of a pile of Microfiber Cloths. These microfiber cloths of mine pictured above are approximately 25% of the box that I purchased on Amazon. They were just under $23 with free shipping and I seriously think that this is all of microfiber I will need for maybe a decade; They're washable.

Once you have your very own microfiber cloth in your possession (don't I make that sound nice ;), you'll only need one more thing: Filtered water (I prefer any non-mineral type water), so that you're not worrying about any residue after a good screen wipe. Maybe it's just me, but when I think of well water, or any water that doesn't have a good chlorine filter on it, I picture calcium and other deposit buildups (who knows what's in your city or well water).

When I apply the water to the microfiber cloth, I approximately use only a couple tablespoon's worth. Be sure to pour the water very slow. I say this with caution because often, even though microfiber can absorb many times it's size, it takes long to do so; The water will splash right off and shoot in another direction if you pour it too quickly.

Next, gently take the wetter part of your microfiber cloth and wipe your screen. I've read many cleaning guides over the years and they often inform one to wipe in a circle. I personally find it much, much better to wipe in a straight path (think of squeegeeing). Why lose track of where the dust is at? I have attached a video to show you my results. I will admit this is not optimal quality as I'm holding a recording device in one hand and screen cleaning with the other.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Abiword


From now on I will be prepping my RandomRandy.com posts in my favorite Word processor - Abiword. See? That screenshot ^ up there is what I’m typing in right now.

Abiword is a lightweight, lovely, simple Word Processor that does everything I need. My most recent post on RandomRandy.com was my first post using Abiword. I typed it up, saved my document (I autosave to a dropbox drive because that’s just as effective as saving to the cloud via an online word processing app - so in case my power goes out and I need to restore my data), and then simply copy and paste the entire article right into my blogger account. All of the formatting was preserved and I ended up with a RandomRandy.com post analogous to the one on my hard drive. “Yay” for simplicity.

Unless you have some super multi-core computer with a bazillion GiGs of RAM, your computer may noticeably require some processing power to open up a full-featured Word Processing application such as Word, LibreOffice Writer, or OpenOffice.org Writer. Expect to use over 100MB when installing any Office Suite in general. I’ll cut to the chase and say that Abiword is about 8mb to install - ridiculously awesome! This is a full-featured word processor that runs on multiple platforms, it supports plugins, things like Mail Merge, and much more.

Abiword does not only run on a couple of platforms, it runs on a bunch of them! The good thing about being able to install this tiny, full-featured gem on all of your platforms is that, when combining the total amount of disk space you’ve used up among all of your computers, it probably will not even come close to the amount of disk space one would use up installing a single copy of any office suite on any computer. The last time I checked, hard drive prices were going up - like 150% up!

Have I convinced you yet to at least try it? If so, I’ll recommend a little trick that I have used over the last couple of years to integrate the reliability of cloud computing with my local hard drive. What you can do is set up a free Dropbox account, download it for your platform, and install. Now just remember to save your Word Processing documents to a Dropbox folder on your computer and you’ll have the reliability of the cloud + your local hard drive in case, say, the power goes out when you’re typing, or if you would like to easily access your document from multiple computers without having to remember to email yourself an attachment every time.
I hope that I have at least given you some ideas to make your Word Processing tasks more efficient.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Facebook = The New Myspace?

I've been coining this phrase for months to my Facebook friends. There are even some pretty darn hilarious videos poking fun at the idea. And then Facebook (in my opinion) even went as far as to redesign profiles of their users to the "Timeline". Is Facebook the New Myspace?

For me, using Facebook lately has felt more and more like a chore. Today, I was reading an article on TechCrunch about another Facebook-related chore: Users Get a Week To Clean Up Profiles. Alright, man, that's it. I think it would just be easier to delete my Facebook. What are your opinions? I'm sure I will get some diverse responses such as: "All my friends are on Facebook, why should I delete it?", or even as diverse as: "All my friends are on Facebook, why should I delete it?". I know, I just repeated myself - so do people.

Even though I've been saying that Facebook is the new MySpace to my friends for months, when I finally saw Facebook Timeline, it was the icing on the cake. I really am surprised that Facebook is pushing this. Since this is a blog written by me alone (as of this posting), and I don't have a team of Web Developers, etc, this is just for fun and I can just make some predictions. I'm going to predict that Facebook Timeline was a bad idea.


Monday, January 23, 2012

Where It All Begins




There are many famous, professional bloggers on the Internet, making a living by posting articles on a regular basis – I am not one of them. I have been blogging on and off for the last few years, but in a very inconsistent manner. For the year 2012, I have promised myself that I'm going to post on a fairly regular basis. I have titled this posting appropriately in that I feel this will be the year that I begin as a serious blogger and not just a person that owns a domain name that is, as far as content goes, on life support.

So, I think I’ll just give you a little rundown of how I plan on contributing to my blog regularly. This is not a personal blog about RandomRandy; This blog is about anything, really. If I receive an email from a reader suggesting a topic to cover, I probably would consider it and post it right on this site. I often post video reviews, generally Android App reviews on Youtube.Those videos will be shared on this site, along with a little write-up to compliment it.

I really think that blogging is about sharing. Google Plus is about sharing and I feel I can prove this by using it as the main method to get across content to my readers. When a post goes live (published to this site), I immediately share a Google Plus link to that post to all of the users that choose to follow me. The reason I have decided to use Google Plus as my sharing method is because the integration with my favorite search engine, Google, is perfect. When I post content to this blog and share it to Google Plus, it seemingly spreads like wildfire!

This blog is apparently still kicking as long as I'm still posting – something. Where it all begins for me is a “New Document” in LibreOffice Writer. From that point, I'm in a mindset similar to when I was writing a paper in high school. When I finally press “ctrl+s”, count to 100 to myself, down 4 coffees, tap on my nose 3x’s, I’m done. I then have to muster up the courage to copy and paste this finished “paper” to my blog, RandomRandy.com.

And there you have it! There is really not much more to it, other than I'll occasionally use Google Docs to backup my local documents for reassurance that I can access them at any given time.

. . .Here we go:    “CTRL+S”

Action.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

An Oldie But Goodie Android App: Launcher Pro

Android launchers/Home Screen Replacements have come a long way over the last couple of years. Right now, for Android, the leader seems to be Go Launcher EX (a very customizable, free Launcher - I mean completely free too - there is no dumbed-down version). Please forget about Go Launcher for just a second. I want to look back at a Launcher that was the King of the Android launchers for quite some time: Launcher Pro. The only reason I do not currently consider it "King" is because the author has not updated the app since May of 2011 (as of this writing, this holds true).

Launcher Pro is sort of frozen in time. I do not necessarily consider this to be a bad thing, however. There are mobile phones being produced today having specs akin to those found on phones produced 2 years ago. A phone that comes to mind would be the Samsung Replenish.

I thought that maybe Launcher Pro could be an alternative launcher that may play well on this low-spec, Samsung Replenish. I installed Launcher Pro Plus on the Samsung Replenish (the full paid-version of Launcher Pro which can be purchased through an unlocker) and the results were fantastic. With full screen widgets such as Calendar, Facebook, Contacts, SMS, and Twitter enabled, the file size of Launcher Pro only weighed in at 2.86 MB. Go Launcher EX Will set you back 4.4 MBs before it's even installed to your phone! So here I give you Launcher Pro running smooth as silk, Widgets and all, on the Samsung Replenish. Enjoy the video!

Download Links are Below

Launcher Pro Free Download Link: Launcher Pro Android Market

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Poor Man's Electronic "Check-In"

Have you ever been frustrated by your friends being one step ahead of you when it comes to technology? Do you get on your computer to check "The Facebook", only to see your friend displaying a detailed, chronological Timeline of his or her whereabouts and check-in status? Today, I put myself in those shoes and thought up an idea of how anybody with a wallet can check in.

I didn't think too hard actually. I just want to make this sound official. Take yourself out shopping today. After you're done shopping and you go to the register to pay, you'll probably be given a receipt. On that receipt (usually at the top or the bottom), you'll see the time, date, and *gasp*, even the location of your existence, at that very point in time!

Take the receipt home, scan it, upload that scan to some website like you did in 1998, when you first configured this rig. Once you have your photo (scan) uploaded, you could even caption the file, or just name the file itself to be self-descriptive. I even scanned a couple of my receipts tonight to get you started. Enjoy, and welcome to the past!



The first receipt shows that I checked into Home Depot in Lake Orion, MI and purchased some drain cleaner just before the store closed at 9pm. The second receipt shows that I stopped at Kroger, a local grocery store, in Richmond, MI. Sorry if you've wasted your time reading this, but have a splendid day!

(Drunken?) Mike Portnoy Doing a Drum Clinic in Berlin

Honestly, I do not know how legit these clips really are, but they just surfaced on YouTube the other day, (Jan 9th). I make it a habit to run a YouTube search every few days, to find the latest posted video clips of many talented musicians. I ran my search tonight, and I what I stumbled on was pretty hilarious. One of my favorite bands, Dream Theater, is an excellent Prog Rock band, composed of some of the world's best musicians. This is not a clip of the band acting crazy. These are clips of Dream Theater's former drummer, Mike Portnoy, acting very strange.

When viewing the 4 separate video clips, we see Mike Portnoy getting a little crazy. Normally his drum clinics are tame, and he has a mild sense of humor. In these clips, over and over, he's putting his underwear on his head and constantly blurting out nonsense. If it had to be my guess, I'd say he was borderline trashed, or just putting on a good act. Either way, It's probably happened to many of us before.

I went ahead and attached all 4 videos for your convenience.
Enjoy viewing them before they are pulled from YouTube!





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