Miscellaneous: Finish PowerBall detergent

Definitely under the miscellanous category, this dishwasher detergent made by Electrosol will make you change your mind about the effectiveness of dishwashers.

I had almost given up on our current dishwasher, which was doing a poor job, even compared to previous ones I used which did barely better.  Then my wife comes home with this new detergent, and the only reason she bought it was because it was on sale at the time.  It's a combined detergent and rinse agent.


So I popped one of those funny capsules into a normal load filled to the guts, and BAM!  Every single dish and piece of cutlery were absolutely clean (didn't have to pick off any dried food) and the glasses were spotless and streakless.  Every single load since then is the same - and I put a lot of filthy dishes in there, even with caked-on stuff.  I used to blame the dishwasher, now I blame the previous detergents I was using.


The rinse aid container has been empty for a long time with no need to refill it using this stuff. I HIGHLY  recommend it to everyone with a dishwasher.  It cleans at least 10 times better than the other products out there.

Website: Join.Me

You've all been in this situation: a friend/relative/parent calls you and asks "how do I do this on my computer?" or "what does this message/pop-up on my screen mean?"  And then trying to help them makes you wanna pull your hair out because you can't see what's on their screen and they aren't describing it as you need them to.

The solution is easy!  Tell them to open up their web browser (at which point they will probably ask you what that is so just say "the internet" instead) and tell them to type join.me in the address box - that's it.  They will see the following:

Tell them to click on the orange triangle button beside the word share.  It will ask them to download and run a little tiny program.  Tell them it's okay to do so, and when they do they'll get a 9-digit number at the top of their screen.  YOU go to the same website, punch in that same 9-digit number into the green join box, and voila!  You can see their screen in your web browser.

You won't be able to take control of their computer, but at least you can tell them exactly what to do.  It also has a nice chat feature to type to each other in case you can't talk through the phone or some other way.  There's some kind of phone to computer conference feature but I haven't tried that yet nor needed to.

It's absolutely free with no sign-up required, and has already helped me tremendously.  The other alternative I use is LogMeIn but you need to have that pre-installed on their computer in order for that to work.  Gone are the days of pulling my hair out.

Smartphone app: TweetDeck

Continuing on the topics of Facebook and Twitter, if you use both of them, you must have heard of TweetDeck.  It's the leading Twitter application - I believe mostly because it has great Facebook integration too.  The smartphone app, available for both Android and iPhone, is slick, smooth, and user friendly.

Your friends' tweets and Facebook updates are combined into one column, so you can view them chronologically.  This simple feature is fantastic, and it beats having to check different two places.  You can swipe over to the next column to find only tweets directed at you or updates about posts you have commented on or directed at you, which your phone can be set to notify you about.

It is not as fully featured as Facebook or Twitter's own applications, but it will display most posted pictures, and it's easy to comment on Facebook posts or reply to/retweet tweets.  Clicking on links will open your phone's web browser.

For your computer, there are also pc and mac versions you can download to your computer and open as separate programs.  Rather than doing that, I've installed the Chrome web app version for my netbook (which doesn't have Rockmelt installed on it) - I can have it open in a separate tab and new posts pop up briefly in the bottom right hand corner of my screen (handy when I'm browsing other webpages - the computer version does the same).

TweetDeck is available for free in the Apple App Store, Android Market, Chrome Web App store, and its homepage for download.

Computer application: Rockmelt

Rockmelt is a free web-browser based on Google Chrome.  Wait, before I go on, if you're not using Chrome as your default web-browser, you are seriously losing out.  It starts up and loads web pages much faster than Internet Explorer, and slightly faster than Mozilla Firefox.  It also allows you to install lots of cool web apps and extensions to enhance your Internet experience.  If some websites don't display properly (or at all) in Chrome, just install the extension called IEPro found here and it loads the website as IE without you having to actually switch browsers.

Okay, back to Rockmelt.  It is basically the Chrome web browser built for facebook and twitter users.  It has handy toolbars that let you know how many FB and Twitter updates/posts you haven't read yet, and opens panes that let you scroll through those without ever leaving your current webpage.  It can also be used to read feeds from other websites (RSS).  Being built upon Chrome, it can also install any Chrome web apps and extensions.


You could probably re-create Rockmelt using Chrome and various Facebook and Twitter extensions, but I find this much easier and it's ability to display posted content very slick.  I use this to stay on my Google Plus pages but still have the ability to check FB and Twitter without having to open up those webpages.  Helps me lower the data usage on my smartphone too.


The computer version is only available for PC, but there is an iPhone app.  I've never tried it on the iPhone and I don't know how useful it would be when there are FB and Twitter iPhone apps (like Tweetdeck! - to be in a future post), but it's there.

Software: Soluto

Soluto is dubbed the PC Genome Project.  It's totally free and works great on my Windows 7 laptop and is supposed to also work with XP.  Its main function is to "heal" computer crashes.  If you aren't paranoid about privacy, Soluto's collects information about what programs and services are running on your computer so that when you computer crashes, it can check the state of your computer against its database to see if other users had crashes in similar situations.  This way it can help you narrow down what the problem is.

I haven't had any real crashes that I couldn't figure out yet since I installed Soluto, so I can't vouch for its effectiveness in that area.  I've tried the "Lighten Web Browser", but since I use Google Chrome with very little add-ons, it couldn't find a way to speed up my browsing experience.


However, I've used it to cut my boot time down to a quarter of what it used to be.  It knows which startup programs and services can and can't be tampered with.  I've delayed low-priority programs until after startup is finished, like SugarSync (my online backup program which will appear in a future post), webcam software, etc.  I've also disabled unnecessary ones.  It even shows you how much each adds to your boot time.  My boot time once Windows loads is now just over 2 minutes.  I think it used to take about 8 minutes before my computer was fully ready for me to start using it.


I highly recommend it to anyone getting sick of how long it takes to boot their computer.  If anyone was having frequent crashes, I'd recommend it too, although I couldn't say I witnessed success first hand; but it seems a LOT of thought went into its creation, so I wouldn't doubt that it would at least help.

Website: Minus

Got some websites I wanna recommend before I forget.  The first one is Minus, a free, no sign-up necessary website for sharing large files.

It's perfect for sharing files for multiple people and they're stored there until you delete them (if you sign-up).  If you do sign up, your file size capacity increases from 25 MB to 50 MB.  I've searched but could not find a storage limit.  So, this is actually ideal for sharing lots of photos or small videos or applications quickly with no hassle, and no worries about an email limit.

If you need to send people one or two large files under 100 MB, I'd recommend YouSendIt instead.

Website: Google Plus

My very first post on this blog!  I hope you take away some valuable information on things important to you.


My first post features my current passion: Google Plus - the new social network.  It's still in beta testing mode so kinks are being worked out, like the Chat contact list and sorting posts in streams, but at the rate users are joining it, despite the beta stage, it's going to be big.

It's going to not only challenge Facebook, but also Twitter, LinkedIn, and microblogs (and possibly other social sites in the future).  With it's availability of options of who to share posts with, whether publicly to all, certain circles of "friends", and/or individuals, it diminishes the reservation of who we don't want to share what with.


Speaking of circles, they work both ways - we can filter messages and posts by the circles we've put those people in, so posts from people we care about don't get lost in the "noise" of the huge rivers of updates from all friends or followers that Facebook and Twitter forces upon you.  Like Twitter, I currently follow some celebrities and other techies and it's easy to separate their posts from my friends.

The smartphone app is slick and very user-friendly (available for both Android and iPhone currently).  Having G+ integrated on all my google websites (Search, gmail, igoogle, maps, etc) is handy because I can check my notifications and post things on any of these websites without having to actually go to the Google Plus homepage.


When more of my friends join, I will definitely take advantage of Huddles (group text messaging) and occasionally Hangouts (group video chat).  I use Sparks everyday to bring me search content of the things I'm searching for everyday.


Once Google allows for business accounts, searches within posts, and an iPad app this thing is really going to take off.  I don't recommend people leave facebook and twitter just yet, but you should at least make a google plus account and get used to its features so you don't miss out on the next best thing.


Look me up when you join and add me to your circles.  Let's get this party started.  I got invites if you need one.