Posts by Rob van der Linde
Posted on September 20, 2007 by: Rob van der Linde
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Reviews
EDIT: Lotus Symphony no longer exists, please check out Libre Office instead.
As the title says, IBM has just released it's new office suite, Lotus Symphony free of charge. When I first read about this announcement myself, it brought back memories of IBM's classic "Lotus Smart Suite 9.5" office package, which was often installed when you brought your Windows 98 based PC. Sadly Lotus Smart Suite slowly faded away as Microsoft Office started to gain popularity, and is now virtually unheard of anymore.
IBM Lotus Symphony on the other hand, is something completely different, it's actually based on the popular free Open Office office suite. So basically "under the hood" it's still Open Office, with a fresh new look and additional features added by IBM. The good thing also, is that IBM is donating a lot of it's changes back into Open Office, so IBM is also helping Open Office along in the process. Lotus Symphony is available both for Windows as well as Linux.
Being based on Open Office, it also uses the popular Open Document file format (ODT), a free and open document standard that is now shared between many other office suites. You can still import your Microsoft Word DOC files off course, and export to DOC format too. One of the big advantages of using open standard document formats such as Open Document, is because the specification to the format is open, your documents are guaranteed to still be readable by software 20-30 years from now, which closed source formats/software cannot always guarantee.
Have a look at the screenshots if you like, on the Lotus Symphony website, or download it if you want to try it out. If you already have Microsoft Office installed, don't worry, you can run both programs on one PC no problem.
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Posted on July 6, 2007 by: Rob van der Linde
Filed under:
Announcements
After cleaning a lot of clients PC's from Spyware over the years, we have guided a lot of people in using Firefox, as a safer, alternative web browser, to help keep new Spyware from reinstalling after removal.
In the past, we have setup Firefox 1.5 on a lot of people's PC's (which was the latest version at that time). The reason I am mentioning this now, is because Firefox 1.5 has reached it's end-of-service life, 6 months after Firefox 2.0's release, and Mozilla will not be releasing any more security updates for that version. Clients are advised to download the latest version of Firefox, uninstall the older Firefox 1.5, and install the newer version.
To check out what version of Firefox you are running, click the Help menu, then click About Mozilla Firefox. The version number is just underneath the Firefox name.
Fore those readers that are not familiar with Firefox yet, Firefox is a free (as in Open Source free), easy-to-use alternative web browser that makes it much safer end enjoyable to browse the web. When you use Firefox, you don't have to constantly worry about the possibility of getting infected with Spyware. However, installing Firefox alone will only prevent most new Spyware from automatically installing. It is advised to clean out Spyware infested PC's first (we can do this for you if you want), then start using Firefox from then on to prevent future infections, and start enjoying a much better, safer browsing experience. For help on how you can combat the Spyware problem, come and talk to us.
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Posted on May 25, 2006 by: Rob van der Linde
Filed under:
Reviews
While going through my daily routine, reading through some of my emailing lists, I found this cool new online street map service for New Zealand, called Zoomin Maps. It's based around the same technology found in google maps, offering features such as:
- Find as you type for street name, your search is narrowed down as you type
- You can pan the map and zoom in, directly in your web browser
- You can switch between street map and aerial modes (With high resolution satellite imagery)
Click the logo below to visit the site.
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Posted on May 22, 2006 by: Rob van der Linde
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Reviews
Paint.NET is a free image and photo manipulation program designed to be used on computers that run Windows 2000, Windows XP, or higher. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.
Originally started at Washington State University as a senior design project, and intended as a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple tool for photo and image editing.
At Ynui Technology, we love Paint.NET 🙂 and can see that it has great potential, it currently sits somewhere in between Photoshop and MS Paint, yet is easy and intuitive to use (and it's FREE!). The program can be downloaded from the Paint.NET website. You will need the Microsoft .NET Framework installed first, if you haven't already got it installed.
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Posted on April 28, 2006 by: Rob van der Linde
Filed under:
Reviews
Mozilla Firefox is a free, alternative web browser to Internet Explorer. It has been around for a while now, and has gained a lot of popularity lately. "Faster, Safer, Better" is Firefox's new tagline, and it definitely lives up to that name. Ynui Technology highly recommends users should at least try out Firefox, we know you'll love it. 🙂
Why should I switch from Internet Explorer, and why Firefox?
There are many reasons to switch to Firefox, but the number one reason is spyware. You may or may not have heard of spyware, but this is the number one problem on the internet today. To put it short, spyware is advertising software that installs on your computer without your knowledge and bombards you with popup advertisements.
Internet Explorer has a history of security flaws that often allowed spyware to install automatically on a users computer without their knowledge. This makes the infected system run very slow, crash a lot, and constantly generate popup advertisements.
Firefox offers the following features:
- Tabbed browsing (Most people find this a very useful feature)
- Built in popup blocker
- Built in google search
- Much faster than IE
- Supports extensions (Install extensions into Firefox to enhance it's functionality)
- Better standards support (The Ynui site actually works better in Firefox than IE)
- Improved security against spyware and viruses
Why not give Firefox a go. You've got nothing to lose, Internet Explorer remains on your system, so you can go back any time. However you may not even want to go back, after you have tried it.
Note: Firefox will prevent new spyware from installing on your system, however if your system is already infected with spyware, this will need to be cleaned out as well. We can help you remove the spyware from your computer.
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Posted on October 9, 2005 by: Rob van der Linde
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Announcements
Over the past week, we have been working on creating the Ynui Chat chat room. Ynui Chat is fully functional now, but it is still in BETA stages and needs some more testing by the public. More features are expected to be added in the future.
You need to be logged in to use Ynui Chat. To read more about the technical side on how Ynui Chat works, click the link below to read the rest of the article.
Read more…
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Posted on March 19, 2005 by: Rob van der Linde
Filed under:
Announcements
Hey guys, just letting you know what's going be coming up to the site in the next few days... I have been working on a Photo Gallery for the last few weeks now and I am getting close to completing it.I have put a lot of effort into writing this Gallery and can't wait to unlock it soon. There's a lot of stuff in the upcoming Gallery, wait and see when it's done in the next few days.
We have some photos of the Respect 2005 gig, Rap Battles at the Palliser Hotel, General photos around Ynui and more... And off course this Gallery is sure to grow in the future.
So be sure to check the site in the next few days...
Update: The Gallery is finally done. Go and check it out if you like. We hope to add more photos soon.
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