I've been using Google as a Spell Checker forever. Just type in a word and either check the "Did You Mean" offer that jumps up first or read the first entry to see if you're set.
Turns out Google also offers a Calculator as part of their search feature.
Try this out:
- Either Go to Google or in your Firefox search bar select Google and then type 2 x 10.
- Submit your search.
- Marvel at the first entry on the page!!
How did I miss this?
Earlier this week I broke down and bought a new Desktop PC. The PC I bought is a dual core and hooks up nicely to my Westinghouse TV where it displays at 1360 x 768.
At first the move from Windows XP to Windows Vista was a bit daunting. There's a lot of things that are similar and almost as many that are different. If you're a longtime Windows user and if you're proficient with Windows XP it won't take long to get acquainted with the new setup. One of the early anti-Vista Mac ads pointed out that the OS is annoyingly secure and I have to second that - while renaming some files I had to confirm the changes several times before they took effect.
If you're getting ready to buy a new PC (and I'm sure many folks are with the holidays coming up) don't worry too much about Vista. All my favorite software worked fine on the 32bit Vista system and I even managed to install some older hardware to get onto my network wirelessly.
Has anyone else upgraded to Windows? How has your experience been so far?
Lifehacker's recent System Tray Show and Tell got me feeling really self-conscious about the things that show up on my computer's SysTray. While there are several items that I don't mind keeping an eye on there are a couple of Windows processes that I really don't think need constant monitoring. A perfect example of this is the Windows Local Area Connection icon that sits with a perpetual red X because my laptop is hooked up with WiFi.
Why do I need to see this icon if I never use the wired connection?
I did a little playing around and managed to find two ways to hide the icon. One doesn't appear to work all the time so I'll provide both just to be safe.
Removing the Local Area Connection Icon
This works perfectly for the wireless connection icon but on my machine it doesn't seem to work for the wired one. The first, really simple, option is to completely disable the connection. To do this you can double click the icon to open the Network Connections listing. Once this is done just right click the Local Area Connection item and select Disable.
In the long run this isn't really an ideal solution mostly because it involves completely turning off the wired network adapter. To avoid turning it off you can right click the listing and instead select "Properties."
Under the "General" tab look for the two check boxes and de-select them both. This should disable the icon while leaving the adapter activated.
Last Resort: Hide the Local Area Connection Icon
On my machine this didn't work - it did work to hide the Wireless Network Connection icon though. If you hit the same wall I have a work around that might help both here and in general for hiding icons in the SysTray. To get started right click the taskbar and then "Customize" under the "Notification area" heading.
The next section shows a list of all the items that are currently, or have recently, appeared in the System Tray. Under the "Behavior" column you can change the rules for each of the items - just select "Always hide" to keep the icons hidden.
While I haven't made the move to upgrade bill2me.com quite yet I have managed to upgrade several of my smaller sites since getting home from work today.
Anyone with trepidation over the upgrade should know that it's relatively straight forward and doesn't offer much more of a difference than what most security upgrades require. One word of caution for anyone using a WordPress install that has several plugins - wait.
My smaller sites used relatively few plugins and the result was a smooth transition. Because bill2me.com uses about 10- 15 plugins I'm expecting the move to be a bit more treacherous - especially considering the need to migrate my tags into the new built in WordPress system.
Has anyone made an upgrade on a large site yet? How's it gone so far?
