Self-Service

You may have noticed that the IT department has installed a new application on your computer called Self Service. This application is much like the iTunes music store you’re probably familiar with, although, instead of music, you can use it to download software. The best thing about it is that it’s easier than downloading software from the internet and it installs our packages we’ve customized for our environment. Let’s take a quick look at what it looks like.



This is the main window of Self Service where you can see a list of available and featured applications. Clicking on any of the Categories on the left will reveal more. Click on an application you’d like to install and you’ll be greeted by some more information on the package and an Install button.



Click install and the application will be automatically downloaded and installed. That’s it! Self Service is also a great way to do some initial troubleshooting if you’re having an issue. For example, if when you launch Microsoft Excel and it crashes, you can reinstall Office via Self Service and it will reinstall the application with the latest version. Self Service will be updated regularly with new and updated applications. A great way to stay updated on what’s new is to follow @npmiselfservice on Twitter!

A sneak peak..

Here's an image of an icon that will be coming to your dock in about a month. I can't tell you what it is yet, but I can say that it will be awesome and that it will be something that will change the way you think about software on your computer!

Update on Leopard

Things have been rather quiet in the software world here at NPMi over the summer, but with good reason. We're working very hard to bring Apple's new version of OS-X to your computer! Leopard will bring a shiny new interface and a lot of new features to your work-flow. I'm really excited about this upgrade as well as some other new things we are planning on introducing this fall! So here's what you need to know:

• The IT staff, TSG and Beta testing team are all now using Leopard and have been testing it so we can address minor issues before you receive it.
• Effective immediately, all new hires will receive Leopard on their machines as well as anyone up for a computer refresh.
• We're working on a plan to upgrade all other staff members and details on this should be available soon. Our goal is to have all computers running Leopard by the end of the year.
• I'll be highlighting several of the coolest and most useful new features here on the blog so you can learn how to make the most of the upgrade.
• Now is a great time to start preparing your computer for the upgrade. It's a great idea to spend some time organizing your files, deleting things you no longer need and making sure you're backed up!

Lastly, if you're interested in a great blog of general tech related tips, Griffin's got a great one at http://ittechandtips.blogspot.com/

Available Now: Plainview!

This has got to be one of the coolest new applications I've seen in a while! Plainview is a new browser (trust me, you DO need another browser) that is designed with giving presentations in mind. If you've ever needed to show a website within a keynote presentation you know how it can really interrupt the clean, professional aesthetic you worked so hard for. You have to exit full-screen mode and proceed in Safari or Firefox. Plainview is a minimal, full-screen browser that keeps your presentation streamlined. When you first launch Plainview, you'll see this screen:

Hit the hot key ⌘L and a Location bar will pop up where you can enter your URL:

Here's where it gets really cool! You can program a list of links into a presentation file and use a hot key to flip through them without having to click links on the site. With this, you can display and navigate websites without ever showing the cursor on the screen.

Presentations can be saved as the Plainview format .pvp:

Plainview will be installed on your computer the next time you're on a NPMi campus and you can find it in your Applications folder! If you can't find it, please visit art.northpoint.org for assistance!

Available Now: Twitteriffic!

It's the latest craze around the NPMi offices, the one and only Twitter. Here's a cool little application that let's you view and post tweetz right from your desktop instead of having to log onto the site. It updates automatically and even plays a bird sound when someone updates!

art.northpoint.org!

Available Now: Google Notifier!

If you've already been moved to the new Google email/calendar system, here's a great little tool that can notify you when you get new mail, or have upcoming calendar appointments without having to keep the Google sites open in a browser. Once installed you'll find this icon in the Applications folder of your computer:

Launch this application and you'll be prompted by this screen to enter your Google username and password. This is the same name and password you use to log onto all the Google apps.

You should then see a couple of new icons in your menu bar, one for Google Mail and one for Google Cal. Clicking on these icons will present you will several options to interact with your mail and calendar right from the menu bar. You'll also see a window pop up for a couple seconds to notify you when you get a new email.

To get Google Notifier installed on your machine, head over to art.northpoint.org!

Available Now: Skype!

Have a loved one overseas and hate spending money on long distance calls? Going on a missions trip and want to talk to family/supporters back home? You can talk online for free using skype straight from your computer! All our computers have speakers and a microphone so it's sure to work.

To get Skype installed for you just ask a technician at art.northpoint.org!

Top 5 Number 5: Flip4Mac Player

1. NetNewsWire
2. Inquisitor
3. Quicksilver
4. Chax
5. Flip4Mac Player

The last of the 5! Flip4Mac is a plug-in for Quicktime which enables playback of Windows Media files right within the Quicktime window or even your browser! You no longer have to mess around with Windows Media player for mac to be able to play WMV content. They'll just work like any other Quicktime file! Here's a shot of a WMV playing in the Quicktime player:



And here's Flip4Mac working it's magic within Safari:




To get Flip4Mac installed on your computer, visit art.northpoint.org!

Top 5 Number 4: Chax

1. NetNewsWire
2. Inquisitor
3. Quicksilver
4. Chax
5.

Chax isn't actually it's own application but it still makes the list! It's a plug-in for iChat that gives it additional features. Once Chax is installed on your machine, you'll see a new pane in the iChat preferences. It looks like this:



The coolest features that Chax adds are the ability to combine all your lists (Bonjour, AIM, Jabber) into one window, as well as put all your chat windows into one tabbed window. To enable tabs click the Tabs pane:



Once you click "Use Tabs for Messages," your chat window will look like this:



To get Chax, just go to art.northpoint.org and ask a technician!

Have you met my friend ART?

Ever feel like there's a thousand people in front of you in the ticket queue? Have a computer emergency? Ever lonely and in need of a friend? All you have to do to talk to a real person right now is to go to art.northpoint.org (or .brownsbridge or .buckheadchurch depending on your campus) and one of our help desk technicians will be immediately available to assist you.


Just go to art.northpoint.org and click Chat Now and get the support you need. ART is available Sunday through Friday from 9-5. How easy is that?

Top 5 Number 3: Quicksilver

1. NetNewsWire
2. Inquisitor
3. Quicksilver
4.
5.

Quicksilver is probably the most difficult of the Top 5 to explain mostly because it just does so many different things. First and foremost it's by far the quickest way to launch applications. Instead of having to navigate through finder, applications and then find your application, you type a quick hot key (of your choice) and begin to type the name of the app. A window appears with the list of applications as you type. Once you've found the one you're looking for, you press enter and the app launches. There are also tons of other plug-ins that give you the power to do all kinds of things right within the Quicksilver window. Things like, create and manage contacts, create an iCal event, send an email, search the web, play a song on iTunes, and on and on. With all that said, let me show you how to set it up and use it!

Once Quicksilver has been remotely installed on your computer, it will be in your applications folder. The first time you launch it, you'll be taken through the process of setting it up.


You'll be asked if you want to install any additional plug-ins. I chose the iChat and iTunes modules. You can mess around with any of these.



The next window is where you can set your hot-key. Click on the Hot Key space and type whatever you like. I'm going to use Option-Space bar.



Once you're done setting it up, you're ready to rock. All you have to do is press the Hot-Key you chose and this window will appear: (it may look different depending on your settings)



Begin to type the name of any application and Quicksilver will search and display the results as you type.



Once you've got the one you're after, press enter and the application will launch! One really cool thing about Quicksilver is that the more you use it, the more it learns the way you work. If there are applications you launch often, it will put them high on the list so you get to them faster. Soon you'll be launching applications faster than you ever thought possible. And don't be afraid to check out all of the other cool features and plug-ins! If you fall in the love with this app and really want to dive into all it has to offer, you can find all kinds information at http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver/what_is_quicksilver.

To get Quicksilver remotely installed on your computer, just email computer.help@northpoint.org.

Top 5 Number 2: Inquisitor

1. NetNewsWire
2. Inquisitor
3.
4.
5.

Google is famous for making web searches quick and simple. Here's a plug-in for Safari* that makes it even easier and faster. Once installed, the Google search bar in the Safari window will change to say Inquisitor.



As you begin to type, Inquisitor (using Google) searches the internet and displays the results in a drop down window, updating with each letter you type. Once you see the result you're looking for, you can click on it and go straight to the website instead of first having to see the Google results page. It's just like spotlight for the web. You can see here I only had to type "buckhe" to get the results I was looking for.



To get Inquisitor, send an email to computer.help@northpoint.org!

*Note, this will not work with Firefox. Only Safari.

Top 5 Number 1: NetNewsWire

1. NetNewsWire
2.
3.
4.
5.

Ever wish there was a better way to read all your favorite websites without having to slowly click your way through your bookmarks list? Well there is and it's called NetNewsWire. It takes all your favorite websites and puts them into one window. With it, I can can read over a hundred websites every day in about 30 minutes. I use it to stay up to date on the news, read my friend's blogs and keep track of apple software updates. Once you've got it installed, you'll see that this website, NPMi Software, is already loaded into your list of sites you read!



A list of all the recent updates appear on the left and the content itself below that.



Whenever there's a new update to this site (or any site to which you subscribe) it will be automatically loaded into your list of subscriptions.

Here's how to add all the sites you read:

Ever notice a blue RSS logo in the far right of the address bar of your browser? It looks like this:



Well all you have to do to add a site to your subscriptions is click on that RSS button. When you do it will pop up in NetNewsWire and ask you to confirm:



Another way to add a site is to click on the "Subscribe" button in the top left and enter the website URL.

So there you go. Pretty soon you'll be reading your favorite sites much faster giving you much more time to be productive at work! Just don't blame me when you get addicted to RSS feeds and your list gets into the hundreds!

To get NetNewsWire, or if you have questions once it's installed, just email computer.help@northpoint.org!

My Top 5 Applications

To get things going here, for the next 5 posts, I'm going to publish my list of the 5 applications I simply could not live without. If I were only allowed to have 5 non-apple applications, these are them. I'll show you what they do and how to use them and best of all, every one of them can be automatically installed on your computer!

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

So what's all this about??

Greetings NPMi Staff! Ever wonder if there's a whole bunch of software out there that could help make you more productive but you just don't have the time to get out there and find it? That's where I come in. Part of my job is to make sure everyone has the software they need to do their job and keep it up to date. I'm always looking out for new applications that can help me work better or more easily, stay better organized or be more connected. When I find an application that really works for me, I want to make it available to everyone here, which is why I've created this blog. Every week (or perhaps more often!) I'll highlight a new application or utility that will make your life a little better. Then, if you want to have the application on your machine, all you have to do is send an email to computer.help@northpoint.org with your request and it will be automatically installed on your computer. simple.

Let's hear it for great software!