Caterer.com Video Ads

By Mark Hodder | August 15, 2008

Caterer.com has released a new Little Gordon video that is just as hilarious as the last. These videos are part of a viral marketing campaign sponsered by Caterer.com that they claim is an attempt to help stressed-out summer hospitality workers relax, and “show new industry talent how enjoyable and attractive the sector is.” Check it out:

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Wordpress 2.6.1 Released

By Mark Hodder |

Wordpress has continued the tradition of releasing a “point one” bug fix release about one month after a major release. The 2.6.1 release contains over 60 bug fixes, get it now at Wordpress.org

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Searching your Gmail Account

By Mark Hodder | May 6, 2008

If you’re like me your Gmail account now has thousands of e-mails and the simple search is not cutting it anymore. The real power in Gmail comes from using search operators to narrow your search results like the examples below:

If I want the email Lisa sent me with her flight information so I know when to pick her up at the airport, I type from:lisa SFO. Likewise:

  • A link from my co-worker Michael: from:michael http
  • A photo from my mom: from:mom has:attachment
  • That last chat I had with one of the Gmail product managers: keith is:chat
  • All messages from ebay that aren’t outbid notices: ebay -outbid (the hyphen tells Gmail to return all of the messages that don’t contain the word that follows it)
  • The messages in my inbox sent directly to me that I haven’t read yet: to:me is:unread in:inbox

You can limit the scope of your search to a particular subject (subject:) or label (label:) as well. And you can get pretty fancy. Recently, I was trying to remember the date of my friend’s April birthday. I always send her a birthday email, so I searched to:maya (birthday OR bday) after:2007/4/1 before:2007/5/1. It’s the 19th.

For a complete listing of operators check out the Google support site here.

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Convert files Online for Free

By Mark Hodder | May 3, 2008

Being unable to view a document because you don’t have the latest software is a thing of the past with ZamZar. ZamZar is a free online document conversion tool that allows you to upload a document(s) and have it converted into a format you can open.

They have an exhausted list of conversion types that you can view here. I recently had a chance to try this out when a client who sent me a docx file from Microsoft 2007. The process is simple upload the file, pick which type you want to receive back and hit submit. A couple minutes later my Office 2003 compatible file arrived safe and sound to my e-mail box.

Try it out at: www.zamzar.com

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Posted in Technology, Web 2.0, WindowsXP | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Softphones and VOIP on Leopard Troubles

By Mark Hodder | April 10, 2008

I finally made the jump from Windows to Mac at the start of the new year and haven’t looked back since. So far only 2 major issues have come up in the transition, moving from Quickbooks and finding a VOIP softphone that works in Leopard and connects to our Asterisk box.

After a week of trying a slew of soft phones, I still have not found a working Leopard softphone that provides the same quality as my previous Windows solution, Zoiper.

* Update *

The new version of X-Lite works great! Try it out if you still haven’t found your Mac VOIP solution.

Mac SoftPhones Found so far:

Loudhush - Mac look and feel, supports most codecs. Free version is limited to 5 min calls - $18 to upgrade to unlimited use.

Zoiper - Works great in Windows, poor Mac version… crashes system frequently.

OpenWengo - Works better then most Mac SIP phones on Leopard, however still crashes randomly. Had to use the beta universal version to get it working on Leopard, download it here.

XMeeting - Suppose to work great but I could never get it to connect to my Asterisk box…

SJPhone - Untested, but Mac version doesn’t look like it has been updated for a while so I’m guessing it wouldn’t be a good experience.

X-Lite - Works great in initial tests!

NCH Express Talk - Works great in windows, Mac version seems to be an afterthought, poor audio quality when I tested it.

I have tried testing through my wireless card and through the LAN with no success. All testing was done on an Intel 15′ Mac Pro - anyone out there have any success with Leopard and VOIP?

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New Wordpress 2.5 Out!

By Mark Hodder | March 29, 2008

Wordpress 2.5 has been released and it’s a big one - so what’s new you ask? Well grab a cup a coffee and pull up a chair, this is going to take a while.

  • Redesigned admin interface
  • New dashboard with a quick view on all the important goings on
  • Multifile uploading with progress bars
  • One-click upgrading of plugins
  • Built in photo gallery
  • Media Library
  • Better WYSIWYG Post and Page editor
  • Search posts and page built in
  • Tag editor
  • EXIF Extraction
  • Concurrent editing protection
  • Password strength meter
  • and a lot lot more…

There have also been many improvements under the hood such as database optimization, secure cookies, salted passwords and inline documentation among others.

This is one of the biggest upgrades I have seen to Wordpress in recent memory and I highly recommend checking it out.

Screen shots

Dashboard 2.5

Manage Posts

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PDF to Word Conversion

By Mark Hodder | January 9, 2008

Earlier I talked about a great free software to convert anything that you can print into a PDF document. What happens if you need to convert a PDF back into a editable document? A free software from HelloPDF just does just that converting any PDF into a .doc format maintaining the original format of the PDF.

Try it out for yourself, click here.

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Mashups

By Mark Hodder | December 31, 2007

Digital Camera + GPS + Google Maps = GPS Google Mashup

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