This post has been a long time coming, and I regret not getting this information out sooner.

As with many of you other modern guys, I am constantly trying to improve myself. At the moment, this means returning to school to get my degree (along with juggling an on-call schedule at work, and my wife + kids also in school). I’ve been in school since February, and I’m sure you’ve noticed the posting schedule has diminished quite a bit. Instead of leaving you readers wondering what’s going on, I’ve decided to officially put the site on hold. You may see occasional articles get released; I do have several already in the works.

For now, enjoy the articles on the site and feel free to leave a comment. And if you’d like to guest post, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Let me start off by saying I’ve been a user of Google Apps for many years. Google really paved the way by providing free hosted email with custom domains to the masses. Along the way they’ve provided many new features, but they’ve also failed to listen to their users and implement highly requested changes.

History

If you’re unfamiliar with Google Apps (formerly Google Apps for Your Domain, or GAFYD), it’s a service provided by Google that lets you use a custom domain for most of their services. For example, instead of Gmail and many of the other services provided from Google, you can register a domain name that you own with Google Apps. You then can use the Gmail interface to access your email with your custom email address. Google’s initial approach was great, allow the IT crowd to test and get hooked on Google Apps. After that, many of these users would recommend the service to their companies for paid premium accounts. Because of this, the number of companies or schools using Google Apps skyrocketed.

The downfall began when users started noticing many of the limitations and lack of features of the “Google way” of doing things. These include:

• The ability to turn off conversation view (this was later fixed, although it took several YEARS for them to implement it)
• Poor email integration using the Microsoft Exchange protocol (deleting an email from your inbox archives the file instead of moving it to the trash)
• Treating Google Apps accounts like the red headed stepchild. You can only use you Google Apps account for certain services, this requires keeping a separate Gmail account around. (Google+, Profiles, etc…)
• Support – I can’t emphasize this enough. Yes the service is free, but some level of support would be appreciated. Google provides a “forum” where users can post questions, but if you check them, there’s thousands of posts with no response.

Next came the number of accounts that could be created with the free services. When I first started, you could have up to 200 accounts on the free version. Then the limit went down to 100, then 50, and now it’s a measly 10. The accounts that I had previously created haven’t changed, but any new domains will be limited to 10. Google is basically cutting off the thing that made it popular in the first place, the average IT guy with his own domains.

The Solution

When I began looking for another free solution to take the place of Google Apps, I found that it was a very limited market. I could of course use the built-in webmail from my webhost, but that only provides email and I would lose a lot of other functionality. So like any modern tech-savvy user, I started searching the web for comparisons or replacement products. And bam, there it was. Windows Live Admin Center. I had no idea that Microsoft had a competing product with comparable functionality to Google Apps. Like Google, they also offer paid accounts for businesses and free accounts for schools.

Check back soon for Part 2, where I compare the features and functionality between Google Apps and Windows Live Admin Center.

Whether you’re a seasoned writer or just starting out, having the write software can make your job easier as well as protect your data. I’ve rounded up what I feel to be the best free writing software for both Windows and Mac, as well as some extra tips that can help you store and publish your data.

If you’re not looking to spend big bucks on many of the commercial writing software available, I’ve got some great options available for you. Why would you want to use a free writing program over a commercial one? For several reasons:

1. Free! Who doesn’t like free?
2. Some of them are written for writers, by writers. This means many of the features are well thought out and beneficial to the writing process.
3. You may just be starting out writing and not sure if you want to make the financial commitment to buying an expensive software package.

Windows

1st Place: yWriter

This is a popular option among writers. It was created by writer and computer programmer Simon Haynes, and is designed to help you organize your novel into chapters and scenes. This is the program I use when I decide to sit down and write.

2nd Place: Blurb BookSmart (Windows and Mac)

BookSmart is a great piece of software that Blurb provides for you to create books (and publish with them as well). It’s well laid out software that is also picture friendly (think kids books/comics/etc). The great thing about BookSmart is you can use it to layout your novel and see what the final product will look like.

3rd Place: Storybook

Like yWriter, Storybook is designed to help you organize your writing. You can organize your writing into chapters and scenes, and view it chronologically. One of the really cool features of Storybook are the charts. They allow you to take a look at your writing in many different ways.

Mac

1st Place: Jer’s Novel Writer

Jer’s is a popular program for Mac writers. It’s not super fancy, but it does have a clean interface and is very stable.

2nd Place: Blurb BookSmart (Windows and Mac)

BookSmart is a great piece of software that Blurb provides for you to create books (and publish with them as well). It’s well laid out software that is also picture friendly (think kids books/comics/etc). The great thing about BookSmart is you can use it to layout your novel and see what the final product will look like.

3nd Place: Bean

Bean is a word processor, but it has many features that can help you in your writing process. One of the great features is a full screen writing mode. It also allows you to do page layouts and it can autosave and create backups.

What Next?

My first suggestion, if you’re serious about writing, is to encrypt your data files. Most programs don’t offer this feature, but you can use a tool like Truecrypt to create an encrypted drive and store your data files on it. Then just mount your Truecrypt drive before launching you writing program and you’re all set.

Now that you have a well written book or novel, what do you next? Thankfully, this day in age you don’t need to be printed by a big publisher. There are several great options in the self publishing world thanks to the internet. Since I haven’t published a book through any of these websites, I won’t rank them. I’ll list them here for you and you can see which one best meets your needs.

- Blurb

- Lulu

- Xlibris

As you can see, there are a ton of options for you writers just starting out or looking to change the software you use. There are also some great web based writing tools, but I decided to leave them out of this article. Unfortunately with most web-based software, you may end up opening another tab and spending all day on Facebook.

What program do you use to write? Have a suggestion for a linux writing program? Let us know in the comments!

If you don’t own one already, you’ve probably seen e-book readers, or ereaders, around. Why would you want to use one of these over a traditional book you ask? That’s a good question that a lot of people have been asking lately.The first thing to note is that ereaders aren’t for everyone. If you only read a few books a year, or you really only value shop from used bookstores or yard sales, you probably won’t find the value in an ereader. And that’s ok, there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just a tool made for a different set of users.

So what does an ereader do that a regular book can’t? Many things, and it can do them well too!

• It’s portable- You can bring many books with you while only carrying one device
• New book prices- New book prices are typically cheaper than their paper counterparts
• Privacy- You don’t have to reveal to everyone around you what you’re reading (for you self-help guru’s)
• Shelf space- Since you store all of your books on your ereader and computer, you no longer have to fill shelves with books
• Instant access- You can have instant access to books without having to leave your house. This includes sold out copies as well
• Libraries- Don’t worry, many libraries also lend ebooks

As I said earlier, if you’re an occasional reader you probably won’t recoup the initial cost of the device. There’s also the issue of sharing. It’s not as easy as just handing a book to a friend, and some devices don’t allow it at all. But Amazon recently announced that they sell 105 ebooks for every 100 paper books sold. That just goes to show that ereaders are here to stay and I’m sure they’re just going to continue to grow in 2011.

So what are your options? The most popular are:

Amazon Kindle

Barnes and Noble NOOK and NOOK Color

So what is your opinion on ereaders? Love them or hate them?

Do you ever have trouble getting you shirt pressed just right? How about polishing your shoes correctly? Don’t worry, these are common issues for men and everyone can learn how to do them better.

Learning to properly care for you clothes and shoes are essential to any modern guy. A good friend of mine Alan Henry runs the blog TheClassyGeek, and he’s put together a few articles to help you keep your wardrobe looking good.

The Proper Way to Shine Your Shoes

Keeping your shoes polished not only helps them last longer, but they can give others a great first impression of you. They’ll see how well you shoes are kept and assume the rest of your life is as organized and polished. This is especially important on job interviews if they have a keen eye.

The Classy Geek gives you some reasons and tips on making your shoes look great. They also have a video that shows you how to properly polish them.

The Proper Way to Press and Fold a Dress Shirt

I would consider myself pretty handy with the iron. I know that’s not the case with most guys, so don’t feel bad if you’re intimidated to press your own clothes. There are several tricks to getting the job done right, and The Classy Geek is there to point them out to you. Check out the article, and watch the video, then let me know if the comments if you have any questions. Or better yet, ask Alan! He’s always willing to answer any questions the readers have.

Many of us have not only spend a great deal of time on computers, but we also store a great deal of our lives on them now too. It’s hard to believe, but most of our pictures, videos, and documents are now all digital. That’s helped make many of us amateur photographers, and it’s definitely given us more room in our houses throwing out those old file cabinets.

Unfortunately many people take computers for granted and don’t take proper precautions to safeguard their data. This usually happens for two reasons:

I never got around to backing it up. Stop right there, find an opening on your calendar and book it! This is very common and is usually the excuse given by members of the IT community that should know better.

Data loss, say what? If you fall in this group, keep on reading. The second most common excuse people give for backing up their data is they didn’t know that their computer could crash and their data could be lost. That’s ok, we’re telling you now!

The first step you have to take is to identify what data you need to backup.  Think about what you would would worry about first if your computer was fried. This could be family pictures, birthday party videos, your resume, taxes, etc… Make a list and find the location of everything, it may be a good time to do some folder restructuring to make your backups easier.

The second step is to find a target location for your backups. This could be an external hard drive (preferred), or a NAS device. I would not recommend a second hard drive in the same computer or another computer in the same house for the following reasons:

• A second hard drive in the same computer is more likely to fail due to power surges or a manufacturing defect if they were produced at the same time.
• A second computer in the same household is not recommended because there are too many variables that could affect your backups. Are the devices on at the same time? What if your backup affects the other user’s performance while they’re trying to write a paper or watch a movie?
  

Another thing to consider is getting your backups in multiple locations or offsite. This may seem a bit over the top for some people, but what if you had a fire in your house? You now just lost your computer and your only backup of it. There are three economical solutions I’ve used in the past that you may want to consider:

1. Buy a second external hard drive and make a copy of the first one. Take it to a friend or relatives house for storage and update it quarterly.
2. Burn copies of your most important data to CD/DVD and take it to a friend or relatives house for storage and create new ones quarterly.
3. For a few GB of data, online storage such as Mozy, Carbonite, or Dropbox work great.

The next step is to select and configure your backup software on a schedule. Because of differences in Mac vs PC, free vs paid software, and a number of other factors, I won’t go into much detail here. I will link you to some other guides that do, or you can ask your trusty IT buddy what their preference is.

Five Best Offline Backup Tools
Back Up Your Data on a Windows PC
Back Up Your Data on a Mac
Geek to Live: Automatically back up your hard drive

The final step, and the one that is almost always over looked is to TEST your backups. This is one you should do regularly. You don’t have to actually delete your precious pictures and files to see if they work, but move them to your desktop and see if you can recover using a backup from a few weeks ago. Each time you perform a recovery test, try to use different files so you know that the whole backup system is working correctly.

Any questions or tips? Leave them in the comments…

So a month ago many of you were probably feeling excited about the new year with a list of changes, or resolutions, that you wanted to make. Unfortunately not all of you are able to keep those resolutions and you end up making them year after year in an endless loop.

I want to lose weight…
I want to quit smoking…
I want to go back to college…

Here at TMG we understand that sometimes, life happens, and you’re not the only out there trying to juggle many things at once. Here is a one month check-in you can make to see how you’re doing, and some tips to stay on track.

Well first of all you’ve got to know that you’re not alone. I’ve already tackled, or am in the process of tackling the list you see above.  Two years ago I quit smoking, I’m successfully losing some weight, and I start school again in a few weeks. This is on top of having a career, a wife, two active kids, and hobbies of my own, so nobody said this would be easy!

Set Yourself Up To Succeed

The best advice I have is to make sure your goals are realistic. Take a minute to review yours and see if they’re actually ones you feel that you can follow through with. Now that it’s been a month, do you think you’re on track? It’s ok to readjust your goals to make them attainable or even create new ones based on your findings.

Use Technology As A Tool

Find ways to use technology to make tracking or meeting your goals easier. For example, spreadsheets are a dead simple and great way of tracking your progress throughout the year.

For my weight loss goal, I use the following:

1. I use the DailyBurn iPhone app to track my weight. It has popup reminders if I haven’t entered data within a set number of days.
2. If I find that I’ve been slacking, I block off time on my calendar to exercise. This helps me mentally if I plan my evening and “book” myself to workout.

It’s Never Too Late To Start

You still haven’t gotten started on your 2011 resolutiosn yet? That’s ok, you don’t have to wait until next year to make a new resolution. They really are just new goals or life changes and you can make them any time. Start with something simple and get started TODAY… That’s right I said TODAY, because if you wait to do it tomorrow, guess what you’re excuse will be? Exactly, “I’ll do it tomorrow”.

Many people add a punching bag to their home gyms, but the task of seeking one out can be daunting. I’m going to try and break down the selection process for you and show you some shopping tips.

The first thing you should ask yourself is why do I need a punching bag? There’s quite a few reasons you’d buy one for your home gym:

• You don’t go to a gym or yours doesn’t have them available
• You run a suburban fight club out of your house
• You just like to hit stuff

Whatever your reason, there are a few considerations to take into account before you make your purchase. There are several styles of punching bags to accommodate your needs.

Styles

Hanging Heavy Bags – These are round bags suspended from the ceiling using chains and they are constructed to take hard blows and handle years of abuse. These are very universal and can be used for punching, kicking, knees, and elbows. Unfortunately a standard heavy bag has a huge downside and it comes from the required mounting method or stand. A stand limits your access to the bag and only allows you to rotate around 50-75% of it. A ceiling mount is also a problem because you need a solid joist to attach the bag to. This leaves out almost all renters and limits quite a few home owners as well.

Pedestal bags – Floorstanding punching bags have been gaining in popularity the last few years. I chose one for my home gym and I’ve been very happy with my decision. Many of the floorstanding ones offer you quite a few decisions before you purchase. You get to decide if you want adjustable height, the shape of the hitting surface (typical round or human shaped), and the amount of weight in the bag.  The base of a free standing heavy bag usually comes empty and you have the option of filling it with sand or water.  I highly recommend sand because the bases tend to leak after use. Another problem with free standing heavy bags is that they tend to “walk.” This means that when you punch or kick them repeatedly, they tend to start moving around your room. This is particularly true as you get better and develop more power. Hanging heavy bags do not have this problem. “Walking” is just something you will need to deal if you need to use a free standing bag. There does not appear to be any free standing bag on the market that does not “walk” if you hit it hard enough.

Other Considerations

It’s important that you use proper hand protection during your training routines, especially if you’re just starting out on the heavy bag. I recommend a combination of handwrap + bag gloves as your best bet. Handwrap is an an inexpensive cloth roll that is used to protect your knuckles and skin from abrasion while securing the wrist for repeated impact. Bag gloves are designed with extra padding and support in order to disperse the impact of strikes and reduce the strain on your joints. Different bag gloves have different thicknesses, and the sturdier the heavy bag the more padding you might want in your gloves.

A heavy bag can really add an important element to your workouts. There is no substitute for being able to hit a target if you want to develop as a martial artist or boxer, and heavy bags can give you a great workout. Make sure to research what kind you need, or better yet give them a try if the store has them on display.

So 2010′s been a great year for guys movies. With the screenwriters back to work we’re seeing more and more films back on the silver screen. Want to know who won our Movie of The Year award?

That’s right, there was no question this year on what the Movie of The Year was going to be. The Expendables is an ass kicking action flick with the largest list of testosterone pumping actors the world has ever seen.

-To the entire crew and cast of The Expendables, TMG salutes you.

So in case you weren’t aware, the American version of Top Gear premiered Monday on The History Channel. This wasn’t the first attempt, but in fact the second at recreating the award winning British TV series for the American audience. This version has a lot of steam behind it to live up to the standards of the best automotive show …in the world.

Top Gear isn’t just a show about cars, although that is the general genre. The show combines stunts, reviews, celebrities, and of course downright bad ass cars into a hour of astounding visuals and witty narration.

The Show

The first episode included a mix of several segments meant to give the viewers a full view of what the show has to offer. We’re first introduced to the hosts (more on them later) and then we’re given a glimpse into what’s coming up for the rest of the season. We then move onto the first car segment which has Tanner Foust introducing us to the Dodge Viper. Not only does he explain why it’s an extremely raw super car but he demonstrates just how much rubber it can lay down when you’re having fun. Then we transition into the first competition, between the Dodge Viper and a Cobra Attach helicopter. This is a recreation in essence of an episode from the British series. I won’t give away the ending, but let’s just say that there’s some high speed adrenaline pumping action.

This episode also includes a top speed shootout with three different Lamborghini’s driven by the hosts. They are all also driven around the test track by Top Speed USA’s in house driver, The Stig. The Stig is used as a reference point for cars that are brought onto the show by having one driver attempt the best time on their test track. At the end of this episode he had recorded 4 times, one for each Lamborghini and one for a Viper ACR.  I have to say I was very disappointed in the track when we were introduced to it. It seemed like it wasn’t in very good repair and I don’t think it’ll hold up very well after having super cars ripping down it week after week.

We are also introduced in the weekly segment called “Big Star, Small Car”. Also a ported segment from the counterpart, the weekly activity involves bringing a celebrity onto the show and driving a designated car around the test track. The American version uses a Suzuki SX4 with a manual transmission, and the times are recorded on a score board similar to The Stig’s times. I was extremely happy to see that they used a car with a manual transmission instead of a slushbox. This should make this segment even more interesting than the British counterpart due to the fact that few American’s even know how to drive a manual. I think in the upcoming weeks we will see a number of celebrities embarrassing themselves on the track. This week’s celebrity was Buzz Aldrin, which since he was the first celebrity driver is at the top of the leader board. He had a respectable time and I think other celebs will have a tough time beating him.

The Hosts

The show is hosted by three guys, Adam Ferrara, Tanner Foust, and Rutledge Wood. As much as I’ve heard about Tanner’s discomfort, I’d say the stand out is really Rutledge Wood. The whole episode he just seemed like he was anticipating seeing his first set of boobs. His lines seemed very scripted and he was always anxious in front of the camera. Their interaction isn’t quite in sync yet, but by the end of the episode you can tell they’re starting to settle in together.

My Reaction

I’m not a die hard fan of Top Gear, but a fan none the less. I did find the visuals very appealing and I can’t wait to see some of the other places they visit. Unfortunately throughout the episode I just kept waiting for some of Jeremy’s clever use of adjectives and metaphors and found myself left unfulfilled.I hope as the season goes on the hosts set in to a rhythm which could turn this into a great show.

What did you think about the show? Let us know in the comments.

Overall Score: C+ (with room to grow)