centre{source}

Today, we had a client call us and ask if we can 'save' their website from an aggressive website designer that is holding their site hostage.  I told them yes and thought an easy solution would be to find a utility that allowed us to easily clone/grab their website.  I must say, I was surprised at the difficulty in finding a free utility to do this.

I just found a great backup app (utility) for my USB drive. The app that comes with PortableApps isn't very flexible and it drove me to finding something better. Luckily, I found Freebyte Backup through PortableFreeware.com. They even told me how to 'make it more portable' by avoiding the installation and simply running the .EXE & creating my own profiles. Hope this helps others looking for a stable, feature-rich USB backup utility.

Today, CentreSource has released its first plug-in for Symfony. This plug-in allows you to interact with Amazon S3 directly from Symfony.

Check it out: http://www.symfony-project.com/trac/wiki/sfAmazonS3

Check out our latest product, Dekko Time. After 2 long years we have finally reached a beta stage in the development and we are working hard towards a full launch SOON!

All account types are being offered for free during this beta stage. Use the coupon code 'free' on the payment tab when signing up for single and multi-user premium account types. Using this coupon will allow you to bypass the payment step and get your premium account for FREE!

Click here to signup for Dekko Time today.

I'm now the proud owner of a 2GB USB Drive & I wanted to share a few tips/tricks I've learned for getting the most use from it! I want my USB to provide a self-contained computing experience that I can take with me. When I pop it in, I want everything that I'm comfortable with at my finger tips :) I'll help you setup your USB drive to address the following needs (no order):

1. Sensitive Data Storage - Examples include financial info, passwords, etc.
2. Email Access - Allowing you to comfortably check your mail from anywhere
3. Synchronization - As storage amounts increase, more data can be backed up
4. Buddies/Contacts - Instant messaging to friends is available anywhere
5. Office & Productivity - Work on docs, spreadsheets, and presentations

CentreSource has jumped on the Blackberry bandwagon! After complaining for months that I spend too much time with email, I gave up trying to avoid the problem and simply decided to further my addiction :) We purchased three new Blackberry 8703e's and have now started the painful process of getting them to work in our Open Source environment. That's right, Blackberries in a world without Outlook and Exchange. The verdict? It works, but not great.

If you own a single slot CD-R, you may wonder how you're supposed to burn copies of your disks and/or make exact images of your distributions. One popular way is to create an 'Image' of your CD-ROM in the format of an ISO. The ISO file is an actual image-copy of the CD-ROM - not the files itself. This may be hard to understand, but CD-ROM's have more info associated with them other than the files that are stored on them. Special security, volume info, etc. - all stored at the low level of the CD-ROM.

I just spent some time playing with PHP Object Generator and thought I would share my thoughts.

I should mention that I think needing code generation is an indication of poor design. The reason is that in order for code generation to work there has to be enough code that is duplicated that the process of creating the code can be scripted.

I will take it a step further too and say that if you need code generation it is an indication that the duplicated code it too complicated as well.

One of our clients called and reported an issue with a MS Access database. The user was able to open a network based .mdb file, but when they tried to click on a switchboard button they received the following error message: "Disk or network error." There are many resources that deal with this error, but none of them provided the needed solution. The TMP/TEMP directories were set properly, the JET Engine was updated, and the .mdb file was not corrupted (verified on another computer).

Ah, this reminds me of the good 'ole days of browser wars! We now have another excellent choice when it comes to web browsers - Opera is now FREE!!! Granted, I don't see this as a big threat to Mr. Monopoly (Microsoft) - but I do see it as a great alternative for those looking to avoid spyware, security flaws, and just wanting better features.