If you've been thinking about switching to Apple, this could be the time

Apple's back to school offer for 2008:

"School isn't the same without a Mac and an iPod...

They make the tough stuff like reports, presentations and research a little easier. And the things like music, photography and movies a lot more fun. So whether you’re a new or returning student, a lecturer or a member of staff, you can kick-start the year in style.

Buy a qualifying Mac (MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac and MacPro) and an iPod before 18 April 2008 and receive the price of the 4GB iPod nano after postal rebate.

FAST FACTS:
- What: Apple back to school offer
- Who: Any Australian K-to-12 or Tertiary customer who qualifies for the education discount.
- When: 23 January 2008 - 18 April 2008
- How to buy: www.apple.com/au or 133622- Web information: http://www.apple.com/au/education/offer/"

Flying tomorrow? Self check-in is the way to go..

You may realise by now that I'm a big fan of automation. One thing I've been loving recently is the online checkin you can now do with Australian airlines.

Just jump on to the VirginBlue or Qantas (or JetStar if you.. for some ungodly reason choose to fly with them!) and choose the online checkin option. Type in your confirmation code or booking number at the online checkin area:

- at the virginblue site you'll find it along the left about half way down - Self Check-In
- at the Qantas site you'll find it by hovering over Bookings along the top and then across to Online checkin.

You get to choose your seat, print your boarding pass and then you get to go directly to the Bag Drop counter to drop your bag when you get to the airport. No messing around with those touch screens. Or, even better still, if you only have carry on luggage you get to go straight to the departure gate.

Love it! Wonder when they'll have self-bag-drop?

The world gets smarter - ParkAssist

Every now and then I come across a technology that absolutely blows me away. And it is usually something that makes my life easier....

I visited Sydney last week for 3 days and hired a car. I had 3-4 appointments visiting clients each day and did not have much time to navigate to each destination, let alone find somewhere to park.

The 2nd appt was in Chatswood and I was coming from the city.. stopping at Chatswood for a client meeting on the way to another appointment on the Northern Beaches. I knew there was a big carpark behind Westfield, so I headed in that direction.

On approach, I noticed a sign that said there were 32 car parking spaces available in the multi level carpark. I instantly assumed this was a measure of how many cars had gone in and out of the car park boom gates and thought "how on earth am I going to find one of these 32 spots!"

I entered the car park, crossing my fingers and hoping for a 'rock-star' instant empty spot and discovered more of what I learned was the ParkAssist system. Digital arrows dropped down from the ceiling, instructing me whether to turn left, right or go straight in order to find an empty spot. The number of empty spots kept changing from 32, 35, 31, 37.. and I started to wonder how on earth the system could tell where the cars were leaving their spots.

As I turned right down the first aisle the system directed me to I discovered that above every single car space was a little round light. Red if a car was in the spot, green if not. As a car pulled into a free spot, the light changed from green to red and the number of available car spaces in that aisle changed to minus 1.

I was quickly able to scan the ceiling for a lone green light amongst all the red, head straight for it and park the car - on my way within 2 minute of entering the car park.

Now that's PROGRESS!

And when I was looking for info online, I found another interesting parking-related site - FindACarPark. If you're looking for a car park for rent, it's the place to find one. (or perhaps you've got one for sale!)

The world gets smarter - SmartBus

Whether you use public transport or not, you've probably noticed an update to the boring old bus stop in your metropolitan area? Digital signage which dynamically displays the arrival time of the next bus? You might think this is quite a simple thing to do, but take into account the accuracy provided... here's how they do it:

If a bus is running late, a GPS (global positioning system) communicates the location of the bus to the SmartBus control centre who will then link into the VicRoads traffic control system and request priority. The green light stays green for longer, letting the bus through - which means it gets to you on time.

The electronic display at the bus stop will update, letting you know exactly how many minutes until the bus arrives and vision impaired passengers can press a button for an audio message.

And still on public transport, check out the new ticketing system soon to arrive in Victoria - called MYKI. A cross between an eTag and a credit card, you purchase a MYKI (looks just like a plastic credit card) and load it up with dollars. As you get on public transport, you scan it. Then scan again as you get off. MYKI calculates the best fare for you based on your start and end points and the fare is deducted from your card.

MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn

There's been much interest lately in the social networking sites MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn. I've been asked to comment on radio, TV and in major newspapers about them.

Although they all come under the heading of networking and community sites, there are vast differences between them. You create your own 'page' on the site which is like your own little home on the web. You invite your own direct friends/colleagues to join you and you can view your friend's contacts in case there's someone you'd like to connect with and you can ask for an introduction.

Firstly, MySpace and Facebook are used for social networking. I find MySpace almost impossible to use and I guess I'm showing my age - but I find it slow to load, clunky to navigate and never seem to be able to find anyone or anything using the Search facility. It does seem to be the best place for groups of all kinds to gather - like music bands, book clubs and the like.

Facebook on the other hand is much neater, easier to navigate, quick to search and much more fun! There are great little applications you can add to your community page to make it really fun.. like 'places I've travelled' which is like a little push pin map of the world.

LinkedIn on other other hand is more of a business tool - it doesnt have all the fun toys or photo albums and it really is aimed at connecting like minded business people through their own existing contacts.

What do you think - have you used any of them, and what makes one your favourite?

Future Trends

I heard Craig Rispin, business futurist speak on Monday evening. Wow - amazing stats... he made me think of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth actually. Craig outlined that 98% of jobs will be obsolete in the coming years and also that we're going to have a massive worker shortage. Because the jobs that will need filling are jobs that traditional Australian workers won't be able to fill.. that's why there's such a shift to outsourcing overseas.

It was great to hear the hot topics for the coming couple of years are Innovation and Creative Thinking.. I'm about to finish my brand new talk on just that. Hot off the press.

Top Tips from latest presentation

I spoke this morning to 109 people in Ringwood, Vic. I decided to turn the topics over to the audience... and let them set the agenda. I asked them to cast their minds back to the last time they were sitting at the computer and found themselves saying "grrrr!".. and asked what made them get angry.

Digital camera issues - loading photos from the digital camera to the computer should be as easy as connecting the cable.. give it a try and Windows should do the rest for you - just answer the questions that pop up on screen. The best way to send a photo over email (and to make sure it's not gigantic!) is to right mouse click on the photo name in My Pictures and choose Send To from the shortcut menu - then Mail Recipient. Windows will ask if you want to resize the photo first - say YES!

People asked how you choose a digital camera - well my advice is simply to decide on a budget first - $200 should be enough.. then go shopping for the best your money can buy.

Virus issues - I told everyone to go to free.grisoft.com and download the free anti-virus program that will keep you safe.

Pop up ads - install the Google toolbar for the best pop up blocker.

Google searching - I talked about using quotes to enclose search phrases so you can narrow down your searching. eg: "banana bread" instead of banana bread. To narrow down even further, use minus sign and plus sign. eg: "banana bread" -sultanas +chocolate.

Once you've got a list of search results, use the Shift key as you click one at a time - that will open each result in a brand new window so you don't lose the list.

When trying to print from the internet, click and drag over the bit you want to print, then go to File, Print and choose Selection before you click OK/Print. OR - Ctrl + C to copy the selection, then go to Word and Ctrl + V to paste. Clean it up .. THEN print.

Everyone was over the moon with all of these tips and came up afterwards to buy my best-selling Conquer Your Computer book.

Red Hot Chili Peppers fans

I went to the gig on Tuesday night and absolutely loved it. Even more so because we've been following a blog written by the RHCP roadies for the past few months. They started the blog at the beginning of this world tour for Stadium Arcadium.. if you want the inside word, it's here. One thing missing: Who the HELL is Josh Klingenhoffer!? He appears to be the 5th RHCP for this tour, and there's hardly any info on him online at all.... its a mystery.

Imagine Cup for Students

Know a student who's quick with technology and likes creating gadgets and software? Get them to enter the 5th http://www.doccenterinc.com, employs 27 people and has three core products on the market.

Websites you wish you'd thought of..

I love these two new websites I've come across:

www.findababysitter.com.au - what a great idea! Parents pay an access fee of 3mths ($49), 6mths or a year, and they have access to do a search for babysitters in their local area! They have over 3000 carers registered, and you can narrow down your search to include only people with police checks, references, first aid certificates, hourly rate. Perfect!

www.mytickets.com.au - a solution for the frustration of trying to find tickets to an event, and not knowing which promoter is selling them. I have this trouble when I want basketball tickets - you can never be sure whether it's Ticketmaster or Ticketek because it changes based on the venue. At My Tickets, you just do a quick simple search for the event and location and all the info is presented at your fingertips. If you want to purchase, you get sent through to the right spot. Love it!

ABC Queensland tech support calls

Hi there - thanks for listening today! There was an outstanding problem from the calls today - I think it was Allan who asked it. The Run command is missing from the Start menu. Here's how to fix it.

In the meantime, why not sign up for my very fabulous and handy free newsletter, FingerTips?

1. Open gpedit by double clicking on 'gpedit.msc' (C:\WINNT\system32\gpedit.msc)
2. Open 'User configuration' -> 'Administrative Templates' ->'Start Menu & Toolbar'
3. In the right pane find 'Remove Run from start menu' and double click on it
4. Chose 'Disable' and push OK button
5. This will sove your problem

Questions with listeners of ABC Radio QLD

Q: Monitor is faded, it's about 7 years old
Mega's Answer: Get a friend to bring their monitor over next time you have a visitor and see if their's works well on your computer. Or take your monitor to a friend's place and plug it in to their computer. That will tell you whether it's a monitor problem or a computer problem.

Q: Uninstalled some HP software and now can't run AVG anti-virus.
Mega's Answer: Go in to Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove programs and remove AVG then go back and reinstall it from scratch. You'll find the free version at http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-virus-free

Q: Having trouble with Red Hat
Mega's Answer: Red Hat is a version of Linux and I'm not up to speed enough to help out sorry! Jump online to a Linux message board and they'll help you out.

Q: Having trouble with Naturally Speaking but has lots of errors and issues
Mega's Answer: It is likely to be the hardware thats the issue because the voice recognition software is quite heavy duty. Try it out on another computer if you can, then you'll know whether its the software or hardware.

Q: Every time I try to open a particular email, Outlook shuts down
Answer: Check your anti-virus software. I bet it's not up to date.

Q: Trying to find the music I've been listening to on a retro music site. Where are they on my computer?
Answer: Those files are 'streaming' to your computer, which means they are playing directly from the source. They are not being downloaded to your computer, which is why you can't find them.. and you can't download them.

Q: Trying to install a Lexmark printer driver under Windows XP.
Answer: Right mouse click on the setup file for the Lexmark printer and Properties. Choose to run it as a Windows 98 or Windows XP file.

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