business

Aug 18 2010

Dial back your iPhone 3G or 3GS to a previous iOS

As mentioned before, iOS 4.0 on the 3G iPhone is not awesome—it’s slow, over heated, quickly drains the battery and is generally unstable. And though Apple is apparently aware of the problems and is working on fixing the situation, the rest of us need to get stuff done in the meantime.

My friend, Mike Bjorndal ( @mbjorndal ) pointed me to this iHackintosh article that allowed me to put my iPhone in DFU mode, restore an older firmware and boot back out of DFU mode again. After restoring my apps and settings in iTunes, I was back in business with a faster 3G iPhone experience running an older firmware.

Keep in mind, many of the apps you may be running now might require iOS 4.x and will be inaccessible from an older version of the OS. I take no responsibility for any lost data. Backup and then backup again…and then reconsider doing this hack.

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Apr 27 2009

Corporate Contacts

This week we’ll take a look at freeware that will keep you in touch with your business contacts via Thunderbird, Firefox and free chat networks.

LinkedIn Firefox Companion

Are you LinkedIn? This free webservice can connect you with potential employers and partners. With this extension you have quick access to your account allowing you to search your contacts, recent pages you’ve viewed on LinkedIn and even inside job postings.

BitWise IM

Sure there’s chat, but BitWise cross-platform chat which includes a secure business option and a whiteboard solution.

bitwiseim Corporate Contacts

You can draw, type and upload graphics for chatters to view and edit on Mac, Linux and Windows.

Plaxo Toolbar for Thunderbird

Plaxo gives you web-access to your contacts, calendar and tasks and features an auto-update feature for your contacts that are also members of Plaxo.

plaxotb Corporate Contacts

The toolbar for Thunderbird lets you sync your Thunderbird contacts with your Plaxo account. A word of warning – constant requests of your contacts to update their info can be considered spamming. Use the update feature VERY sparingly (especially if I am on your contacts list).

Peerflix

Take a break from work, and swap DVDs with your peers. This low-cost alternative to NetFlix allows you to list and swap DVDs you already own. DVDs are a buck each to order and the first one’s free.

Thanks for joining me for another episode. I’ll be back next week with more free downloads!

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

Special Feature– ThinkFree Office

I hope this doesn’t invalidate all the work I’ve done in the name of free software. This week I’m going to feature a piece of software that is not free. However, I think you’ll find it hard for any freeloader to pass up.

I’d like to note here that I am in no way affiliated with ThinkFree, and my excitement for this software comes purely from the application itself. That out of the way, let’s get down to business.

What could be so good to distract me from my pursuit of free software? Well, picture a full office suite including word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software, all wrapped up nicely in one suite for $49. Now, imagine if it could read and write files in Microsoft Office’s format? That would be ThinkFree Office.

First off, I’d like to say what ThinkFree Office is not. Think free should not be confused with the open-source effort to subvert – er – replace Microsoft Office. This effort currently underway is called Open Office and is an extension of Sun’s free office suite. Also, ThinkFree is not AppleWorks. In my testing experience, ThinkFree at it’s worst is more compatible with Microsoft Office than Appleworks at its best. Not to pick on Apple, but Appleworks is a half-hearted office suite. Not so with ThinkFree. This is full fledged professional software.

thinkfree Special Feature ThinkFree Office

ThinkFree Office is a composite of three main applications, Write, Calc and Show. These work as Word, Excel and PowerPoint respectively. You’ll find much of the interface familiar.


I did mention that ThinkFree handles Microsoft Office files better than AppleWorks. To be more specific, ThinkFree opens, without breaking a sweat, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. However there are limits to what ThinkFree can handle. These are roughly comparable to the format loss experienced when trading files between different versions of Office (ex: Word 98 to Word X).

word Special Feature ThinkFree Office

Specifically, Macros are lost in Excel, Highlighting and Data Merge formating are lost. But, even in its weakness, ThinkFree has a strength. When you open an Office document and ThinkFree Office encounters formating it can’t convert, it warns you. This way you at least know what you’re missing.

write Special Feature ThinkFree Office

Now, ThinkFree isn’t exclusive to the Mac. Since it is written in 100% Java it is fully compatible with Mac OS 9 as well as Windows. It also has the added ability to manage your files in an online “folder” to be accessed from multiple computers. A nice touch.

And, though this software is $49 (and is worth more), you can download a free 30 day evaluation version from ThinkFree’s website.

And you thought there wouldn’t be anything free today. Shame on you.

Brian

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