Some members of the UMass Community have had activation problems with Microsoft Office 2013. Upon opening Office files or attempt activations, the user is shown “Sorry, we are having some temporary server issues”. The problem is related to Internet Explorer, and resetting the program seems to fix the problem. First, activate your Office product offline. Next, reset Internet Explorer settings to default.
Have you ever had a hard time finishing your school assignments? Is everything last minute? Do you often forget about that online quiz that is due on Friday? Then you, my friend, may have productivity issues. But don’t worry, it is nothing serious and can be fixed as easily as checking your UMass email.
Google’s Chromecast is currently the best-selling Electronic product on Amazon, and there’s a good reason why. People have been looking for the quickest and cheapest way to get content from the services they subscribe to their TV’s. Although there are gaming consoles, and set-top boxes that achieve this, Chromecast’s a little different. It’s a simple HDMI dongle, in a shape similar to a USB Drive. All it needs to operate is some USB power, which most TV’s can already provide via their USB servicing port and a connection to a wireless network, which in the age of everything wireless, many people are apt to have.
Did you get a PC for the holidays, or recently upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1? Well then you’re in luck because today we will be summarizing of all the significant differences between Windows 8.1 and Windows 7.
Before we begin, if you are a UMass Amherst community member and that would like to upgrade and haven’t already switched to Windows 8.1 – you can obtain the software for FREE via the Microsoft Dreamspark web store.
Ever since the era of XBox 360s, PS3s, and the new consoles just recently released, how we play games (and store them) has been revolutionized. The consoles of today have internal storage, usually hundreds of gigabytes, similar to how a computer handles storage.
By looking at a handful of the popular consoles, starting with the fourth generation, we’re going to see how technology has changed over the years – how we’ve built bigger and bigger pieces of software, and more and more efficient storage technologies.
Have you ever had that awkward moment when you forgot the password to your bank account and missed your rent payment? Maybe not, but I’m sure you’ve forgotten a password at least once in your life, which is easy to do considering the average person uses about 10 passwords a day. So how can one avoid the inconvenience of forgetting important passwords in today’s fast-paced world? Simple, Keychain Access and Keepass.
Creating a budget is a great way to efficiently manage your money. Excel and other spreadsheet software can be useful tools when it comes to budgeting. To start, gather any paperwork or information that you may have regarding monthly income and expenses.
Reddit is a popular online website that allows sharing of user created content as well as other material found online via articles, pictures, text based stories or comments, and videos. If you use it, you might want to access Reddit from your mobile device, as Reddit isn’t optimized for mobile browsers.
There are a lot of Reddit browsing apps available for mobile devices, and most of them are fantastic. But how do you choose which one to use? The easiest way to figure out which app works best for you is to try them, and here are a few free suggestions that might be worth checking out.
It seems more and more that paper is on its last legs of usefulness. Most readings are posted online and books can be read on anything from your computer to your phone. One of the few things remaining is taking notes in class. Most touch screen devices don’t have the sensitivity or the speed to take down notes as fast as you can put ink to paper, at least until now. Touch screen devices now have the capability to nearly match paper, with the obvious benefits of having a digital copy of your notes and even helping the environment. Many professors post lecture slides online before class and having a touch device makes it easy to write on them without wasting tons of money on prints (and if you’re taking Organic Chemistry it is incredibly helpful). With that said, there are a couple options to choose from.
Interested in circuits and programming? The Arduino is a good place to start. The Arduino (on the left) is basically a pre-augmented microcontroller that is programmed in high-level Arduino code that is similar to C++/C. The brain behind the arduino is the microcontroller (the black, rectangular chip), which is a device that, when programmed, allows one to automate processes electronically, e.g., it can be used to interpret and respond to data read in from some external sensors, or to turn motors at a certain speed for some amount of time.
Your data is important. Scratch that – your data is very important. Whether it’s just a handful of essays, lab data, or your master thesis that launches you into the profession of your dreams, that data is still important. The worst case scenario is that, by complete accident, that data is lost and there is nothing to do about it. There is one thing to do to ensure that this never happens: back-ups. A pain? Yes. Worth it? Beyond words. Now you have a couple of options: external hard drives, cloud storage, or uploading it to a secure server. External hard drives are relatively cheap, but can be broken or lost. Cloud storage can be accessed anywhere and never be lost, but we suggest that you should be wary when uploading data to a cloud drive for security risks. Instead, a viable option is to back-up data to a server. While it can be a bit difficult at first, the process is easy with a little practice and the right software. This can all be done with with three letters: FTP.
On September 20th, users of the popular videogame distribution platform Steam were greeted with the news that Valve Corporation would be releasing a new operating system; SteamOS. This had been foreshadowed by Valve’s Gabe Newell at LinuxCon the week before, but the news still came as a pleasant surprise for both PC and console gamers alike.
EDIT: The pricing information in this article is out of date. Please see the article here for up to date information on how UMass students can obtain Office 365 for free.
What is Office 365?
Everyone knows about Microsoft Office 2013, Microsoft’s latest version of their popular productivity suite, yet few people have heard of Office 2013’s cousin in the cloud: Office 365.
Office 365 is the latest addition to Microsoft’s Office product line. It offers the same Office software packages as Office 2013 Professional, but with two primary differences. The first being that Office 365 includes complementary cloud storage space as well as a number of additional features, and the second difference is that Office 365 is sold as a yearly subscription rather than as a flat rate, one-time purchase.
Most students on campus have these devices called smart phones, but what makes them so smart? Most people would tell you it’s because they are able to do more than just call and text, you can check Facebook, Twitter, reddit, and watch all the cat videos you want from a device that fits conveniently in your pocket. These phones have other features too, and some of them could help make your college career a more enjoyable experience.
What is the recovery partition?
The OS X recovery partition is a tool that is built into all Macs running OS X 10.7 (Lion) or higher. The recovery partition is a collection of system recovery tools that enable users to diagnose and fix their Mac if it is unable to boot.
Welcome back! This week I will be covering motherboards, and what you should be looking for when you are deciding on which one to buy for your build.
Daylight Savings Time has just occurred and as we change our clocks we should also change our passwords. Having a strong password is important and it is good practice to change your passwords regularly. By changing your password you can make sure that your accounts are safe and secure.
This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for Vim. Vim, which stands for “Vi Improved,” is a text editor that is based on Vi, an older editor that was used with the original Unix operating system. Vim is free, open source software that comes with most modern Linux distributions. It is mostly for writing programs and scripts, but can be used to edit any sort of basic text file. It is designed so that the user never has to take their hands off of the keyboard or touch a mouse. If you use Vim properly, your palms can stay in the same position while only your fingers move. For this reason, Vim users are occasionally referred to as keyboard cowboys.
With the release of Windows 8.1 I finally decided that it was worth replacing the trusted Windows 7 with Microsoft’s latest and greatest. Windows 8 is awesome; it provides many behind the scenes system improvements that will make your PC run more fluidly, and with Windows 8.1 Microsoft has fixed many of the user interface flaws that users and critics have been complaining about. I highly recommend upgrading to Windows 8.1 if you are a UMass student, faculty or staff because it is FREE through Microsoft Dreamspark!
The program that I am most thankful for is Classic Shell. Classic shell replaces the start button on Windows 8 so that instead of taking the user to the metro (blocks) interface of Windows 8, it brings up the traditional start menu of Windows Vista or 7. You may ask why not just use Windows 7 instead of 8? Well, Windows 8 is a much lighter operating system than 7 meaning that it uses less storage space on the hard drive and uses less RAM, or memory. Overall Windows 8 is much faster than Windows 7, but some people have found the metro interface unpleasant to use. Classic shell helps to bridge the gap between the two by giving the faster, lighter Windows 8 with the familiar interface of Windows 7 that many people have become accustomed to.
For Thanksgiving this year I am most thankful for solid-state drives. I had an HP notebook with an HDD (Hard Disk Drive) and recently bought a refurbished Lenovo laptop with an SSD (Solid State Drive). It is a great deal faster than my old computer. Though my new computer also has a better processor and more RAM, part of the significant difference in speed has to do with now having an SSD. It is much more expensive than the hard disk drive counterpart, but it was well-worth the cost because I value speed more than disk space.
This week I’m thankful for Elementary OS!
Elementary OS is an open source Linux distribution that’s sure to hit home with anyone who loves minimalism and simplicity. With all the functionality of Ubuntu 13.04 and some design ideas similar to OSX, Elementary OS is lightweight and compatible with most Apple computers and PCs.
The newest release, called Luna, is easy to use and free to download. Just like any other Linux distribution, Luna is highly customizable. Want to swap out your dock for something more OS 10.9-esque? No problem. You also already have all the functionality you need – there’s a software store, system settings, and some preloaded programs. If you’re comfortable with Ubuntu, you’ll have no problems navigating this interface.
Check out this site for more information, and to download Elementary OS for free. If you want a physical DVD sent to you instead, you can buy one at the store for $10.00.
If you find yourself browsing the internet all over the place like I do, you may be looking for a more streamlined approach to browsing on multiple devices. I have found that the easiest way to do this is with a browser called Google Chrome. It can be run on any popular operating system such as Windows, Mac and Ubuntu and can even be run off of a flash drive without installing it first. It even syncs from your computer to your Android phone running the Chrome Browser app.
Users can create a google account or use a pre-existing one to sign into their browser. From there you can change your sync settings and manage any content saved with your account. All of this information and usernames and passwords and such are migrated to any browser on any computer that you sign into from there. This can be managed from your Google account dashboard. In addition to usernames and passwords, the synced content includes things like browser history, bookmarks, theme, your Voice history, saved Youtube videos, your Wallet profiles and purchases and much more. Give it a try by downloading it from the Google page!
Download: here
For more information check out this: tutorial
Welcome back! For those of you who are first time readers, this is a series dedicated to covering the different aspects related to building your own computer. This week I will be going over CPUs, and discussing what you should have in mind when choosing which to get.
If there’s one thing that almost every single student at UMass does with their computer, it’s go online and look at websites. You may be looking at websites just for homework, to check out Facebook, browse reddit or do some research for a class. No matter what you use it for, though, there’s a lot of helpful hints and useful keyboard shortcuts that can make your web browsing experience better.