Believe it or not, I came up with this one all by myself!

Nearly all Mac users, notorious for storing and transporting files using thumb drives are, at some point, interrupted by corrupt files. The problem is, that once files on your thumb drive start corrupting, the only way around it is to reformat the drive. If this happens to you, make a set of backups and follow

these steps:

1. Start the Disk Utility, which you can find in the Applications - Utilities folder. The Disk Utility window will open to display a list of disks in the left-hand column.
2. Plug your corrupting thumb drive, and it should immediately show up in the list of drives.
3. Click the thumb drive in the list to select it.

[CAUTION! When you reformat a drive it completely erases everything that’s on it. Make sure you’ve selected the correct disk! Now would be a good time to double-check to make sure that you have everything you want to keep backed up.]

4. After selecting the thumb drive in the list click on the Erase tab on the right hand side of the window.
5. Choose a Volume Format from the pop-up — we recommend Mac OS extended (Journaled) for Mac-only users and MS-DOS(FAT) for those who want to use the drive cross-platform — from here, you’ll be allowed to name the drive.
6. An alert will appear to remind you that all data will be erased and asking you to confirm that you wish to erase the drive.
7. Click Erase again to clear out the drive, and after a few moments the disk will be reformatted.

Most users find that re-formatting a drive will resolve numerous issues, including corrupted files. However, it’s a good idea to hold onto the backup you’ve created, just in case the problem isn’t fixed by the reformatting. In this case, many retailers will offer a suitable replacement for less than $30 – which we highly recommend as well.

Really, they don’t. This blog posting is a hi-five salute to our HR Guy, Thom, who taught me how to make coffee this morning! Cheers to you and the delicious coffee we all enjoy so much.

Generally speaking, whenever I make coffee it has two distinct attributes 1) weak and 2) burned. Nobody likes that. On any given Saturday morning, you can come to my house and find me making breakfast for five while burning the weak coffee. Pancakes, coffee cakes, french toast, waffles, even gourmet muffins are areas where I’ve got demonstrated skill (almost mastery). It’s almost always a feast of epic proportions, and guests are more than welcome… But, while the food can be described as tasty and fresh, the coffee is — unfailingly — a disaster. Normally, the whole pot gets remade. I’m still learning.

… But nobody likes bad coffee. So, this morning I went to our HR department and requested some additional training. “Thom,” I asked coyly. “Are you, like, super busy?” To which his reply was “ALWAYS.”

One cup of beans, into the grinder, then to the filter, then make sure the carafe is in the right spot… fifteen minutes later, Voila! Hot coffee that doesn’t taste like it was filtered by State Street Stormwater management! The days of empty coffee pots at DE are OVER! Learning to make good coffee was so simple I just could not believe it!

And to think, I was convinced there was a delicate balance and a special touch required to make the stuff taste right!

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Since the very important lesson I learned today was one on a more functional (less technical) level, here’s a link that may entertain all of you coffee-technology enthusiasts for a moment, until that coffee buzz wears off.

So, this quarter I’m writing an article about VoIP phone systems for our newsletter — which goes out to almost 7,500 business people that DE has come to know at some point during the past several years. In general, people who are either “in the know” or really want to be. And so, they read our newsletter for information.

Needless to say, writing on a subject you know NOTHING about requires 1) a certain degree of madness, 2) much determination, and 3) somewhat credible resources. For this particular project, I got to spend some quality time with one of consultants, Trevor, a task which met at least two of the aforementioned criteria.

Here’s what I learned in a nutshell:

Today, I’ll be calling a representative from Dalcon — one of the leaders in VoIP technology to get some more useful information for the article. So far, it’s just a fancy version of what you just read. But I can’t give you everything right now, or else it will ruin the surprise. If you’d like to receive a copy of our newsletter with the complete story, handy tips and tricks to make your life easier, and  articles about having a green office and what you can do to prepare for an economic upswing, click here to be added to our mailing list. Please include your business name and complete mailing address.

That’s all for now.

Stormie

none other than Bruce F. McCully, Owner and President of Dynamic Edge, Inc. Just remember, you heard it here first, folks!

If you’re one of those people who struggles with conversions — think: metric, liquid, monetary or other — who just cringes when people say they ran a 5K, this tip is for you. Yes, Google does have feelings… and it cares about its users who are incrementally challenged.

So, the next time you need to find out what your $35 American dollars will buy you when you cross the border into Mexico, visit your friends at Google and let them do the mathing for you! Here’s how it works:

1. Go to Google.
2. In the search bar, tell Google what you want to convert.

Example:

3. Click “Google Search” button and…
4. Get Results.

Wow! Now that sounds like a really good deal! … I wonder how many margaritas that would buy. Hmmm…

Other common conversions would be for non-runner types. See the following:

… and for those preparing for chef school or applying for work at a bakery…

Google can convert just about anything you need to know. All you have to figure out on your own is what units you’re converting from and to. It’s so easy that even I can do it. Try it yourself at www (dot) google (dot) com.

Thanks, Bruce for this handy tip!

Super-Technology.
Physics at its finest.
One of the biggest, most expensive science experiments of all time.

“Building a contraption like the LHC to find the Higgs is a bit like embarking on a career as a stand-up comic with the hope that at some point in your career you’ll happen to blurt out a joke that’s not only side-splittingly funny but also a palindrome.”

I heard about the LHC in the office for the first time this week. Yes, it’s true — I live in a black hole. Since Comcast is unwilling to supply cable to my house because it is one mile outside of their jurisdiction; and I simply loathe the idea of affixing a plastic bowl-on-a-pedestal to the roof of my house, I do not currently subscribe to television programming.

Furthermore, being relatively new to Dynamic Edge, I find myself doing a lot of on-the-job-learning, and late nights reading about technology and marketing… shameless plug, but I digress.

Needless to say, I knew nothing about the Super Particle Accelerator until Tuesday, when I learned that the world is allegedly going to end sometime in the year 2012; and that it is several people’s opinion that it may be caused by “worm holes” that a particle accelerator created or something like that.

“Nonsense,” I thought to myself. “These guys watch way too much science fiction.” I proceeded to make a bet with Jason, one of our programmers that the world would not end in 2012, the stakes being a $200 glass of brandy at La Dolce Vita in downtown Ann Arbor. Knowing that if the world actually did end in 2012 (losing me the bet), I would most certainly be dead — and therefore, not obliged to pay up — I took the odds, whatever they were.

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And then, in my quest for learning, I started reading about the LHC. I found an outstanding article on National Geographic’s website that put the project in layman’s terms. So that if any of you, like me, need things rather carefully explained: click here. My favorite part of this article on particles is that, for non-scientific minds (like mine) the coined phrased “God Particle” makes the concept of the Higgs boson make a lot more sense.

In essence, they’re building the world’s largest and most expensive particle accelerator to smash protons together in hopes of finding a trace of the God Particle’s existence (or as the Joel Achenbach puts it “the detritus of the disintegrating Higgs.”) Achenbach elucidates that the basic princible of the LHC is “simple but ambitious: to crack the code of the physical world; to figure out what the universe is made of; in other words, to get to the very bottom of things.” I highly recommend reading the full article.

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So what do you think? Will I get that $200 glass of brandy or what!?

Well, since I’m not the world’s foremost expert on anything computer — or specifically, web — related, I’ve decided I’ll write a layman’s terms review of the newest Google exploit, the Web Browser.

Yes, folks, they’ve done it again. In their latest and greatest attempt at total web domination, Google has reached a new level of triumph… providing a cleaner, simpler, redeveloped transport vehicle for my favorite media mechanism: the internets. What does this mean to you and me? Well, that’s up to you at least partially. I can only tell you what it means to me: not much.

The Chrome browser means that I’ll have to preview this posting in 3 web browsers before it goes live to make sure the pictures look right, and that there are no html tags hanging out. It means that DE’s home page and all of its subsidiaries will need to have some plugins (or something???) updated so that our flash images show up. It means that if I try to log in to hotmail, I’ll be prompted to update my browser even though I just did…

On the bright side, there’s something about the way Chrome was programmed that allows it to load differently, thus storing less useless junk on your drive… which makes it go faster longer. There’s a lot less clutter at the top of the screen, and while I’m aware you can customize Firefox and IE to look any way you want it, Chrome seems to be set up more intuitively.

I definitely appreciate the fact that you can search Google by typing in your search terms into the address bar. It saves time, it saves space, and it just makes sense. I also really approve of the way they’ve chosen to handle downloads, specifically application downloads. For example, when I downloaded Google Earth, I was prompted to run or save the program. I choose “save” and it did it’s thing… then at the bottom left-hand corner there appeared a little tab which showed the install I had just downloaded. One click, and I was installing. No minimizing windows, no double clicking through options… very smooth. Intuitive, I’d say.

I’m surprised that I didn’t know about Chrome before today…. I remember the day Firefox launched v.3 and everyone (well, almost everyone) was very eager to try it out. Chrome emerged with little preface, and I’d have to say that, if nothing more, it feels easier to use than any of its predecessors.

If you’re curious about Chrome, or in limbo… give it a test drive. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

ttyl.

storm