Which Office Suite to Use? Depends...

Most people will automatically say you should use Microsoft Office (MS Office). In fact, most people may not even know that free or paid alternatives to MS Office exist. Take a few minutes and get to know the two biggest free alternatives.

OpenOffice, LibreOffice and MS Office
OpenOffice and LibreOffice are both free alternatives to MS Office. Both OpenOffice and LibreOffice have pluses and minuses. OpenOffice converts documents to MS Office much better than LibreOffice. LibreOffice pretty much does everything else better than OpenOffice besides exporting documents to MS Office.

If you deal with spreadsheets on a daily basis, I still recommend and use MS Excel. Excel is unparalleled in this arena. This is the only Microsoft product I still use. 

Two questions to ask if MS Office alternatives are for you.

• Do you collaborate using MS Office documents on a daily basis?
• Do you work in spreadsheets often? 

A yes to either of the above will signals you need to have MS Office. If you get a no to both of those questions you can feel free to use OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or any number of office suites that you choose. 

You can be like me and use Excel for spreadsheets and then choose any number of Word Processors that play well with MS Word files. I have not used MS Word in 7 years and I handle almost all of my word processing efforts using, Nisus Writer Pro or Pages. 

I also use Keynote for presentations, but I don't prepare a lot of presentations these days. I feel that sending out the material a head of time for review is good enough. I just don't believe in presentations at work.

Good luck!

Cutting the Cord: HDTV over Antenna

My house has been a long time satellite subscriber. We were with DirectTV for seven years and left them because the move to High Definition (HD) from Standard Definition (SD) was going to cost our first born and an additional three arms and two legs. During that time we lost our TiVo and had to use a regular DirectTV DVR. I know that sounds really dumb to some but it is the difference between a Blackberry and a iPhone. The TiVo is just so much nicer. 

We then went to Dish Network and got a wake up call when we used their DVR. It was like using a Windows 3.1 interface. It didn't matter though because we had HD like everyone else! Everything was going fine until we decided that paying almost $70 a month for two DVR's was crazy seeing how we just don't watch that much TV. I watch Downton Abbey and Madmen. Sports is a given but sometimes sacrifices must be made.

I had been talking about getting an antenna to pickup the local HD television broadcasts. I had talked enough about it and went to Wal-Mart and picked up three antennas. I got two indoor and one attic antenna. After trying one indoor antenna I threw in the towel because it could not keep a signal for all of three seconds. I then assembled the attic antenna and had my neighbor hold it in the air in the living room by the TV. Bam! Golf never looked so good and I don't watch golf.

I instantly jumped into "man" mode and went to work. My first problem was figuring out how I was going to get a coax cable from the attic to the basement. All of my coax cables are pulled back in a not so organized fashion to one place in the basement. I decided I needed a big drill, some coax, and I would use the coax outlet in the garage wall to get back to the basement. I got in the attic which was 1500 degrees Fahrenheit, took my measurements, and drilled a 3/4" diameter hole. I used a flexible fiberglass rod to run down the wall taking a coax cable with it. I coupled the existing coax in the wall outlet to the new coax I dropped down the wall.

I then located the other end of the coax in the basement with a "tone" tool. After that was done, I coupled the coax with a splitter and sent it to our three TV's. All that was left to do was mount the antenna in the attic. I got back up in the attic and mounted the antenna as high as I could. It ended up being about seven feet above the ceiling. I pointed it in the general direction I thought was correct and tightened everything up.

I got out of the attic and cleaned up. I got in trouble with the wife for crossing the threshold, the space between the laundry room and the rest of the house, while dragging insulation everywhere. After taking a shower, I got right to work on testing everything out.

I could not believe it. Going through a splitter and using no amplifier, I had crystal clear HD images on my TV. I turned all three TVs on thinking that I might need to place a preamp inline before the splitter but it turned out to not be the case. Now we have 14 stations coming into our house for free with the majority of them in HD. 

I used the GE (General Electric) Attic Antenna at Wal-Mart for $40. I would recommend this antenna. I live around 43 miles from the majority of the broadcast towers in Knoxville, Tennessee. This is saying something because East Tennessee is not known for being flat and where I live is no exception. 

A photo of the antenna used

This brings up the next point. What I am going to do for a DVR? Once the wife turns me loose, I would like to go with www.Simple.tv or a TiVO unit. You bring your own HDD and can stream up to five devices in your house including your iPads and iPhone. I am not sure what I will be streaming since I don't watch much TV but it is a fact that pausing or rewinding live TV is a convenient necessity these days. I should note that SimpleTV can not pause live TV, it just records. Also, we dare not run out of Curious George episodes or our little man may go Al Capone on us.

Stay tuned as I will be reporting back my results going forward including inclement weather performance and much more (SimpleTV I hope).

GV Mobile + 3 for iOS

A long awaited release of GV Mobile + version 3 hit the iOS App Store today. For me, this was a great day. I have purchased this app enough times that Apple really should rethink how they run their own App Store when they railroad a developer. I purchased this app once, twice, thrice, and now for the fourth time all with a smile. GV Mobile, as it was originally called before Apple pulled it from the App Store, was great. The developer Sean Kovacs, had both a head start on the competition and a great iOS app.

Apple pulled the app from the App Store for reasons that appeared less than stellar and forced Sean to release the app on the underground app market. The release of GV Mobile on Cydia prompted me to jailbreak my iPhone and gladly put the money down once again for the app. After sometime GV Mobile returned to the App Store but the catch was Sean had to rename the App due to App Store policies. Apple could not even bend a rule for a developer they screwed over, hard. GV Mobile + became the apps new name. 

Here we are a great deal of time later and after eight months of development version three is out in the wild and I could not be happier. This app is so much better than Google's official app I can't understand why they just didn't purchase Sean's work and hire Sean to code their own app. Without going into all the features I will instead post a few highlights and recommend GV Mobile + if you decide to purchase a Google Voice app. 

Dialer screen

My favorite feature in the app is the ability to forward my phone number to other numbers attached to my Google account. Sounds like an automatic feature, but with Google's official app this is not an option and you must login in through a browser to set the forward number. This is not convenient when you are stepping on a plane for vacation and realize you forgot to forward your phone to your office.

Call or message by touching the icon in the lower left hand corner of the screen

My now second favorite feature Sean has created is his own Push notification service. I trust Sean more than I do NSA Google on this one. This app has auto and manual setup to enable this feature. It takes two minutes. In fact, it took me about five minutes and I was having difficulty because Sean's servers were overloaded from all the new app activations. Understandable and not a big deal.

All your Google folders at the swipe of a finger

My third favorite feature is the new VoIP option that is included. This means when I am out of the country, in a building where I have wifi but no cellular service, or I just feel like cutting back my minutes, I can call with just a data connection. It works so good that there is little doubt this is the future for all phone traffic.

VoIP as a call option

I get asked a lot why I use Google Voice. I am not the biggest Google fan by any stretch but sometimes they get it right. It is simple, Google Voice allows me to separate my business life from my personal life. As a small business owner, when you go on vacation you just want to turn your phone off but you can't because you are afraid you are going to miss an important call. The alternative is to forward your Google Voice number to your office. This elimnates the worry you will miss a call. You also get two phones in one. No more two phones to separate work calls from home calls. 

My only real con to using Google Voice is the inability to not receive SMS messages. With GV Mobile + the ability to send media is an option but the recipient receives a web address they must visit to see the photograph. It works but it can be a bit awkward.

For $2.99, GV Mobile + is a solid investment for an iPhone app.

Mac Mini as an offsite Backup and Environmental Reporter

The MacMini has a lot of uses, especially in small businesses. Using a mini to back up your core documents to an offsite location is a great use of a mini.

Offsite Backup

This is arguably one of the most important tasks I have a mini setup to perform. I am one to believe you can't have enough backups and backing up everything in our office is a top priority. It can be unreasonable to expect one to transfer all of our backups from one site to another due to bandwidth restrictions and the shear amount of data to transfer. I keep it simple on the offsite backup. Daily sync's from work to a secure offsite location (fire protection included) that backup the core files that I feel we cannot operate without. Another feature I added was reporting temperature, dew point, and humidity of the area the mini is in. 

A simple Automator routine combined with Transmit from Panic Software can work wonders for a small business. Several days throughout the week at a specified time (launched by an iCal alarm), Automator opens Transmit and "sync's" all of our core files to our offsite location. To get the first sync off to a good start I copied all the files from work on a portable hard drive and copied them to the drive at the offsite location. I check in on the server once every other week to make sure everything is running smoothly without error messages popping up. From time to time, every six months give or take, I will have to remotely restart the mini.

In this workflow Transmit is doing the moving and shaking but doesn't store any data on the internal hard drive of the mini. It syncs from work to another offsite location of a Synology storage device. In essence, the mini is just doing the moving and not the storing.

Environmental Sensor
I installed a THUM (Temperature Humidity USB Monitor) to monitor the atmosphere around my mini. If the temperature gets to cold or warm, I get an email alert. If the humidity gets to high or low I get an email alerting me to the condition. In my case I am specifically concerned with humidity. What makes the mini great is the compact size small enough to fit in small enclosures that offer superior protection.

The THUM software also can log these data points on time intervals from every 10 seconds to every 60 minutes. It stores the data points in a plain text file that is tab delimited. The Mac version of the software is handicapped compared to the Windows version. I have wrote the company asking for better functionality with no success. I own and run two of these hardware sensors and highly recommend them for those who require environmental information.

MacTHUM Program Window

User Experience with offsite backup: A+
Transmit Price: $34 US as of June 25, 2013

User Experience with THUM: B+ (give me more options)
Transmit Price: $120 US

Recommendation: If you need offsite backup and environmental controls, Panic and the THUM will do a great job if you can use Automator.

The Mac Mini: The Little Mac that Could

I am going to be running a series on the Mac Mini and several uses for one at home or in a small business. With the new Mini's being more powerful than ever and having the ability to run headless with confidence it is becoming a must have gadget to take care of some critical tasks and not so critical tasks in your life and work.

Here are the upcoming articles:

• Offsite Backup and Environmental Reporting for Small Business
• Security Camera Server
• Wiki Server (requires OS X Server; easy to get running)
• Time Machine Back Up
• Your office computer

Get your reading glasses ready because it should prove to be a fun series to read.

Apple's New Airport Extreme 802.11ac Base Station

New Apple Airport Extreme 802.11ac
Apple unveiled a new redesigned Airport Extreme on June 10, 2013. A radical change in design was an understatement if you happened to be watching the keynote live that day. It is a tower. A square tower to be more precise. Instead of smaller or slimmer (more flat), they went taller. 

Going larger and taller does seem to make more sense after having a few minutes to soak it all in. With the new Airport Extreme supporting faster connections speeds 802.11ac, the likelihood of the device shrinking in size was unlikely. The faster the transfer speeds, the more antennas you have to cram in the router. The taller the router, the better the wireless footprint will be. Almost seems too easy to predict but yet there is no way anyone would have predicted this shape. Same for the new upcoming Mac Pro as well.

I purchased a new router to test out and use. My initial testing after having the Airport Extreme N (with guest network ability) shows the reception on my iPad Mini and iPhone 5 have improved in the one part of the house that had no wireless coverage. The iPad and iPhone don't support the ac standard but the footprint the new Airport Extreme lays down is superior to it's predecessor  Looking for an extra 20 - 30 feet of coverage in that house of yours? I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this new router by Apple.

Airport Extreme 802.11ac on the network table

Yes the router is faster! Yes it is different yet better than before! Boo I don't have a single device that can take advantage of the new gigabit wireless speeds everyone is talking about.

Biggest and best feature wasn't the new router at all
The best feature of the day was when I plugged in the router and was ready to import my configuration file from my old Airport Extreme N into the new Airport Extreme ac. The setup was automatic! This has been the best experience ever when replacing or upgrading routers. 

Magic Router Transition

I simply clicked on my wireless icon in the Menu Bar, selected the new router, and it went all Apple and within 2 minutes I was up and running on my new router just like magic. It was able to import the current configuration file from the old Airport Extreme, reset the old Airport Extreme to factory defaults, and I not one of my devices so much as hiccuped asking for new passwords or permission to connect to the new Airport Extreme. All with one click of a button!

User Experience: A+
Price: $199 US
Recommendation: If you need a new router or just need more footprint, then don't hesitate to pick one up if you have the money to do so.