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Apr 27 2009

Build an Internet Business, Free

If the Internet didn’t create the home office, it certainly empowered it. You won’t want to miss this bunch of freebies that will give your spare bedroom the efficiency of a corporate office. Well, almost…

Host Department

Thought you’d have to out up with ad banners to get free hosting? Meet Host Department. They provide 10 megabytes of space, FTP access, an online file management system and no pop-ups or banner advertisements. They do place a small © linking to their homepage. Host Department also offers inexpensive paid hosting with a slew of features.

eFax

To front your Internet Business you will need a fax number. For nothing, eFax will assign you a non-local fax number and email your faxes to you. You will need to download special offline viewer (yes, that have one for OS X). For dollars a month you can have a local number as well as send capability.

VistaPrint

Now that you have a web site and a fax number, let the world know. Visit VistaPrint and get a pack of free color business cards. I haven’t tried these out, so I can’t say anything about their quality.

PayPal

Your bottom line is payment. With PayPal you can send and receive payments through email at no cost. Upgrade you account (for free) and accept credit cards payments right from your web page (with a 3% transaction fee). Fully integrated with your checking account, and with free ATM and credit cards, PayPal is the way to move money online.

Brian’s word on free services: Many of these providers offer stripped down versions of their services for free in order to promote their pay services. As you use these great free services and are successful, show your support for this business model by upgrading to these venders’ paid services. And long live free on the web!

Go get ‘em,

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

Skin the Cat

Themes have been part of the Mac OS since system 8. Most of that time, theming your OS has been somewhat of a hack. This week we’ll look at themes in OS X.

DISCLAIMER: Theme apps alter resources deep in the OS. Be warned that these applications can severely damage your OS and it’s not my fault. That said, let’s have some fun…

ThemeChanger

This open-source effort shares a common theme format. There are a plethora of theme sites with which it is compatible. ThemeChanger is also Panther-ready and automatically backs-up your Aqua resources. With a preview feature, this app won’t leave you wanting.

There are a bunch of theme sites from which you can download themes for ThemeChanger and they are listed on the ThemeChanger home page.

Themer

Another, older theme changer is Themer. This utility’s compatibility is limited to those hosted at AquaWorld. Also, there is nothing in the documentation about Panther support, though this app does support pre-Jaguar OS X versions that Theme Changer does not work with.

AquaWorld themes are available here .

Skin A Dock

For more GUI-ripping fun, youíll want to try Skin A Dock. Chose from a dozens of creative new dock schemes that will back your icons with steel panels or have them frolicking among leaves of grass. Heaps of fun.

Dock themes for Skin A Dock are available here.

That wraps up our look at theme swappers. Have fun!

Brian

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Apr 27 2009

What Is File System Journaling?

Brought to you by: James

Have you ever wondered, “What is File System Journaling”? Don’t worry, most of us have. File System Journaling was originally a feature only available to the server world. Finally, File System Journaling has made it to our favorite home computers.

Have you ever wondered why web servers seem to be in 100% working order after a crash/restart? File System Journaling is the answer. FSJ keeps a constant record of changes made to the volume after each startup. Should an unforeseen event occur, such as a power failure or kernel panic, FSJ will return your HFS+ volume to its last know “good” state.

FSJ keeps you up and running against most unforeseen accidents. The effect of restoring the drive to its last known “good” state is hardly noticeable (except for the fact that everything works perfectly). This effect also helps prevent drive errors by removing any partial data written at the time of the unexpected shutdown. The record that FSJ keeps also helps to progressively speed up start time, and uses very little disk space.

Are you in OSX 10.3 or higher? If you are, have you noticed that your drive does not need to be repaired after an unexpected shutdown? Have you noticed that your startup has been getting faster since you installed 10.3 or 10.4? Both of these are due to that fact that FSJ is enabled on 10.3′s and 10.4′s installation.

How do you enable FSJ in 10.3 or higher? All you have to do is restart from your 10.3 disk, open Disk Utility (under the ‘Installer’ menu), select your drive, and hit the ‘Enable Journaling” button. If you don’t have 10.3 or higher, just download and run Journalizer (note: FSJ requires 10.2.2 or later). If you have a new hard drive that you want to set up with FSJ active, just choose to format it was “HFS+ (Journaled)”.

Keep in mind, that if you’re a fan of using fsck, you’ll have to enter ‘/sbin/fsck -fy‘ instead. But trust me, you won’t find any errors. Have fun with FSJ!

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