www.matthewbhowell.com

• Fiddling with my blog post: ( http://tinyurl.com/cmckaz ) #

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• Fiddling with my blog post: ( http://tinyurl.com/cc9fxu ) #
• Fiddling with my blog post: ( http://tinyurl.com/cqea3d ) #
• I just installed a more accurate bandwidth monitor, the old one was giving erratic results. #
• I’m currently performing a network backup. #

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• Test #
• TEST #
• Listening to MacBreak Weekly. It’s odd to hear Steve Wozniak referred to as a “dancing teletubby”. #
• Backing up a customer’s computer before re-installing XP. #
• Fiddling with my blog post: ( http://tinyurl.com/c5cgzf ) #
• Fiddling with my blog post: Why OpenOffice is a Valid Competitor to Microsoft Office ( http://tinyurl.com/chg8ur ) #
• Fiddling with my blog post: Why OpenOffice is a Valid Competitor to Microsoft Office ( http://tinyurl.com/c6t4cf ) #
• Fiddling with my blog post: Comparison of Evernote and Onenote ( http://tinyurl.com/dztwe4 ) #
• Fiddling with my blog post: Comparison of Evernote and Onenote ( http://tinyurl.com/c396yf ) #
• Fiddling with my blog post: Comparison of Evernote and Onenote ( http://tinyurl.com/c7m5bl ) #
• Fiddling with my blog post: Comparison of Evernote and Onenote ( http://tinyurl.com/c7m5bl ) #
• Fiddling with my blog post: Comparison of Evernote and Onenote ( http://tinyurl.com/cb2yvl ) #
• Fiddling with my blog post: Comparison of Evernote and Onenote ( http://tinyurl.com/dztwe4 ) #
• Fiddling with my blog post: TEST ( http://matthewbhowell.com/wordpress/2009/03/28/test/ ) #

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• Fiddling with my blog post: TEST ( http://matthewbhowell.com/wordpress/2009/03/28/test/ ) #

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I decided to compare Evernote 3.10.1139 with Onenote 2007 (60-day trial) and here is what I found out:

This comparison was done on a Windows XP Pro SP3 machine using IE 8 as the web browser. While downloading both programs, the first difference I noticed was that the Evernote package was 21.1 MB in size while the Onenote 2007 package was 195.81 MB in size. After downloading both programs, I noticed that Evernote took around 30 seconds to install while Onenote took approximately 2 minutes to install – both installations were done on an Intel Core 2 Duo machine with each core being 2.50 GHz.

Upon opening Onenote, it became strikingly obvious Microsoft had added so many features that people could easily become confused with how to use them. Compare this “overkill” to the feature set in Evernote, which is much more straightforward and far easier to navigate – I will admit, however, that the explanations given by Microsoft for why you would use Onenote are very clear and concise. While Onenote does  not have a very intuitive interface (for example, I was unable to locate the image that I had saved using Onenote’s clipping feature) the fact that you can copy and paste anything into a Onenote notebook as well as place your pasted items anywhere on the notebook’s page is quite handy.

As for Evernote, I was quite pleased to see an “add to Evernote” option added to the context menu (right-click) of my browser – this added to the ease of use of the program. I also noticed that, when you paste an item from the Internet onto an Evernote page, the URL of that item is also added to the page, making it an easy process to remember where you originally found the item. The one aspect of Evernote that surprised me, however,  was that after installing the program I was required to create an account on the Evernote website. I also discovered that I was limited to 40MB per month of transfers to the Evernote website and that I could increase that limit to 500MB per month for either $5 per month or $45 per year, which is not a large amount dollar wise.

Overall, if I had to choose between Onenote and Evernote I would definitely choose Evernote due to it’s ease of use as well as it does not have a laundry list of features that I would never use.

I would like to know your thoughts about this post. Feel free to leave a comment.

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Fiddling with my blog post: Why OpenOffice is a Valid Competitor to Microsoft Office ( http://tinyurl.com/chg8ur )

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Backing up a customer’s computer before re-installing XP.

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Listening to MacBreak Weekly. It’s odd to hear Steve Wozniak referred to as a “dancing teletubby”.

computerfix Uncategorized

In my professional opinion, eventual sales of Windows 7 will not kill sales of Vista for the following reasons:

1) Windows Vista will still be sold after Windows 7 is released.

Just because Microsoft will eventually release Windows 7 as their new Operating System, they will not simply halt sales of Windows Vista due to the fact that your average computer user will not rush out to purchase a brand new Operating System (Windows 7) that they have no previous experience with and will generally prefer an Operating System (Vista or XP) that they are more comfortable with. Microsoft realizes the fact that computer users, in general, will stick with the tried and true over the bold and unknown, and will continue to market Windows Vista as a viable Operating System choice. Case in point: Windows Millenium Edition was widely regarded as a horrible Operating System yet, when Windows XP was released, copies of Millenium Edition could still be purchased for quite a while afterwards before Microsoft finally denoted it as End Of Life. If people were only interested in purchasing XP over Millenium Edition then why was Millenium Edition still being sold, and subsequently purchased, on 3rd Party websites? The reason was that their was still demand for Millenium Edition as a viable Operating System. Microsoft is no different from any other major corporation in that they are in business to make as much money as they possibly can from their product line.

2) Not everyone has heard about Windows 7.

I have made it a point to mention to my customers, who are considering upgrading their computers, that a new Operating System called Windows 7 will be released soon. The expressions on their collective faces, followed by the inevitable question “What is Windows 7?” tell me that not everyone has heard about Windows 7 or, for that matter, even know why it is being released. This just goes to show, at least in my opinion, that not everyone is waiting for Windows 7 with baited breath as has been suggested in certain technology circles.

3) Windows Vista is not as horrible as the media hype suggests.

I have several customers who purchased new computers that came with Vista and, to tell the truth, only a minuscule number of them have had issues with their computer. Of my customers who did experience issues, I have only had 1 person who told me, “I hate Vista, it is completely unusable.” For the other customers with Vista issues, I was easily able to solve their issues and, now, they are able to use their computers quite well. The media, at large, simply picked up on Vista’s earlier flaws and went wild – all the while never bothering to update their information on how Vista was currently faring.

I would like to know your thoughts about this. Feel free to leave a comment.

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I have been using Open Office v. 3 on my Mac Mini as well as using Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 on my Windows Vista Home Premium computer for quite some time now and, in my professional opinion, I think that Open Office v. 3 is a valid competitor to Microsoft Office 2007 for the following three reasons:

1) If you compare the basic programs of both suites (Text v. Word, Spreadsheet v. Excel, and Presentation v. Powerpoint) you will find that many of the features available to you in Microsoft Office 2007 are also available in Open Office v. 3. Granted, there are certain aesthetic differences between the two (the Ribbons in Office 2007 are a good example) yet, for the most part, you will be able to the same things in OpenOffice v. 3 as you can in Microsoft Office 2007.

2) While Microsoft Office 2007 has introduced a new, proprietary set of file formats which have been met with mixed reviews OpenOffice v. 3, as well as all previous versions of OpenOffice, have kept the same file formats in place so that OpenOffice users have easily been able to use their existing files no matter which version of OpenOffice they are using, they are also able to both read and create files that are compatible with Microsoft Office 2003 and earlier.

3) The fact that OpenOffice is free of charge, as opposed to the convoluted price points of Microsoft Office, is a very compelling reason to give OpenOffice a trial run to see if it will work out for your needs. I will mention one caveat in terms of OpenOffice being free of charge: On the occasion when I have needed to request support for OpenOffice, I have found myself spending needless amounts of time searching through forum postings on www.OpenOffice.org and coming away with the feeling that the “support people” for OpenOffice are belittling the very users that are requesting help from them. Contrast this approach to how Microsoft tends to handle Microsoft Office support: With Microsoft, you have the option of either phone and/or chat based support as well as quality support from 3rd party vendors who are specifically trained in Microsoft products. As far as technical support is concerned, Microsoft easily wins out over OpenOffice.

I would like to know your thoughts about this. Feel free to leave a comment.

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