Tag: Internet

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Blog Groupies

As I read through the Blogs of the Rich and Famous (aka the blogs of the ‘elite’ web designers and developers), I have discovered a recurring theme from site to site that relates to the people who post comments on said blogs.

I don’t know what to call it. It’s like a cult of blog groupies. Perhaps it is the “Bloggie” phenomenon. If you frequent any popular blog, you have seen it too. It goes something like this:

Blog Entry By Cool Blogster
Today I decided to clean my cat litter box, and boy, did it smell.

Response by Bloggie 1
Hey Cool Person! What a coincidence! I just blogged about the same thing! Check it out (www.wannabeblog.com).

Next comment by Bloggie 2
Oh hey Cool Person! How is it that you always nail it right on the head? I mean, who would have thought that cat litter boxes smell?

Next comment by Bloggie 3
LOL – keep it up Cool Person! lolroflmfao.

Next comment by Bloggie 4
I agree with you completely, Cool Person.

If you want to see some prime examples, look at a recent post on the web site of Matt Mulletsomething, the creator of WordPress:

http://photomatt.net/2005/10/31/paper-shredder/

Now are these people really on a first name basis with this guy? Is it their ultimate goal to get Matt Mulletsomething to actually click their link? Is this the modern day version of namedropping? Or is it just people searching to validate their existence (and their web log).

Granted, there are certainly plenty of worthy comments posted on these sites, but a bunch of them always stick out to me as “hey look at me, I wanna be cool too” types of posts.

I’m not claiming to be a Cool blogger or anything – the 8 people total who ever visit here should be evidence of that I am stuck on the level of Blog Mediocrity (Hi, mom). I’m just a little irked for whatever reason.

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IE7 Preview

Neowin.net has a good review of Internet Explorer 7 beta1. The article goes into detail about the pros, the cons, and the bass-ackward interface changes.

“Microsoft is playing the catch-up game with IE7. Nearly every feature included with this build has already been successfully implemented in most alternative browsers. Crucially, the interface is still not up to par with Firefox/Opera; can we honestly back a new version of IE when there are alternative products on the market offering so much more?”

Interesting.

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Web Services

I signed up with a basic account at Blinksale.com a couple of weeks ago. They provide online invoicing services geared for freelancers. I tested it out, and found a couple of limitations in the Invoicing that I didn’t care for. Specifically, I desired a way to add notes to invoices, and hoped there would be a way for invoices to automatically recur. Both of these concerns I expressed in an email to their support staff, to which I received a prompt reply. They told me they hoped to add these things in coming months.

Since Blinksale did a lot of cool stuff and made invoice management easy, I was prepared to stay with them, with the strong possibility of upgrading my account.

Enter Side Job Track, another new kid on the web services block. I learned about them from somewhere (can’t remember now) and signed up.

Looks like I am going to be cancelling my Blinksale account, for Side Job Track offers a lot more, at the cost of absolutely nothing. Side Job Track gives you a way to track your projects, time spent, send invoices as needed, and keep your client info organized. I hope to see Side Job Track stay around, for what they provide is definitely valuable and is done quite nicely.

Check em both out and let me know what you think.

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Good News from Microsoft

Ever since Microsoft announced it was releasing an Internet Explorer version 7, web designers and developers have been sitting on the edges of their collective chair, biting their nails, and crossing their toes in hopes that this time, Microsoft will get it right.

So far, it appears they are listening, and through the help of the Web Standards Project’s Microsoft Task Force, the IE development team has announced all of the things they will be fixing in IE7.

Tonight, I shall rest.

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PC Tips – Being Free

Here is a collection of free software utilities you can use to keep your Windows PC running in peak performance.

I compiled this list after doing a lot of research testing among various applications and computers. In my opinion, the ‘biggies’ such as Norton and McAfee are bloated resource hogs that don’t perform as well as they should. You can expect to fork over at least $30 a year for them, as they force you to renew your subscription after 12 months.

Why use these tools when there are free alternatives that run faster, do a better job, and take up fewer resources?

Antivirus

I recommend the free version of AVG Antivirus, which is fast, thorough, and free. I liked it so much I paid for a copy of the enhanced version for my main PC just to support the company. That doesn’t mean the free version lacks anything important, because it is indeed full-featured.

Spyware

The old faithful, Spybot Search and Destroy does an excellent job of finding spyware, and keeping spyware from finding you. It is important to run the updater weekly to make sure you are protected from all the latest threats.

Windows Optimization

To replace the tools that Norton System Works offers, I suggest you download and install Easy Cleaner, which does everything Nortons does but without the resource hogging. From cleaning up your registry to clearing out old temporary files, Easy Cleaner is fast, small, and powerful.

Firewall

Only recently did I learn about Kerio Personal Firewall, but since I have installed it on three machines and used it for a couple of weeks, I have been thoroughly impressed. One suggestion: when installing it, choose the ‘basic’ interface and not ‘advanced’. That is, unless you are a savvy computer geek.

Other System Protection

Another cool tool to keep things from getting broken in Windows is WinPatrol. This tool puts a little black dog named Scotty in your system tray. Scotty will bark at you when something weird is going on, such as an application trying to change your hosts file. Scotty monitors your system files and protects them from spyware, trojans, and the like.

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4-11

It is National Information Day, which we celebrate every April 11 (because, hey, it’s like, 4-11 man). On this day it is good to do nothing but surf the Internet in search of useless facts, urban legends, and the cold, hard, truth.

OK, so maybe I made this up and it is only I that celebrates National Information Day. Allright, allright, I have never celebrated it before, and in fact, I have a lot of work to do today, so I shouldn’t be wasting any more time.

At least I finally got my taxes done last night. So much for my new-year’s resolution of having them done before the end of March.

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Tunes and Tweaks

My old college chum Chris Geer emailed me the other day. I hadn’t heard from him in a while and it was good to hear that he is staking out his territory on the WWW.

A couple of years back, Chris asked me to sit in on banjo when he was recording in the studio, and I had not heard the songs we did since that day. He was kind enough to send me one (and is looking for the other), so I posted it on my free music site for download. It’s under the “Morgan ‘Chris’ Geer” section of that page.

While I was doing that, I realized that my entire music site was getting cramped, so I went ahead and redesigned it from scratch. Why I chose to do this at 9pm on a Thursday night, I don’t know, but thanks to the magic of Cascading Style Sheets I was done in an hour.

So, then I started looking at the disheveled appearance of this site and messed around with the typography, layout, colors, and other stuff. You may or may not notice a cleaner appearance now. I plan on changing the header soon.

I also cleaned up the links at left, removing some dead ones and adding some new ones. So take a few minutes to peruse all the newness.

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Oracle

I’m in Oracle Application Server 10g administration training all this week. The AF brought in an Oracle person to teach us how to use the software since that’s what we will be developing the new site on. We have two more weeks coming up soon. So far, I have learned a good bit of cool stuff.

A large part of the training has related to using the Apache web server, which unfortunately in Oracle AS 10g is version 1.3 instead of 2.0. I am realizing that much of what this expensive piece of software does is simply make it easier to edit Apache configuration files. They just present you with a nice GUI interface in which you can change config settings, add virtual hosts, and restart the httpd service.

I’m sure there will be a lot more to it than that though. I learned a lot about mod_rewrite today, which I have used in the past in a limited capacity. It helps me a lot to learn in a classroom setting though, and I now understand it much better than ever before. Being able to ask questions and get things explained in various ways if need be helps a lot.

This is a link to the learning track we are on. Note the URL in the address bar once you are there. Wonder why they don’t use mod_rewrite to clean that up?

Hopefully, once the training sessions are complete, Oracle will offer the 10g Web Administrator certification. Right now it’s still only offered in 9i.

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Link Goodness

Allrighty, how about a little linkitudinal updatage going on here?

First, for those of you in the Asheville area, I have for you perhaps the best online weather info available. Current NCDC Weather Conditions provides you with current data from atop the Grove Arcade in downtown Asheville. There are also links to regional radar maps (loopable) and lots of other cool weather geek info. I have an inside track on this sort of thing these days, which makes me even geekier. I know you are jealous.

Montage-A-Google is a neat way of creating photo montages by searching with Google Images.

If the news that Microsoft is finally releasing an update to its bug-ridden, non-compliant, piece of doo security threat called Internet Explorer (for XP users only, mind you) isn’t enough to make you crumple over with a hernia from laughing, check out their “A parent’s primer to computer slang” article.

Key points for learning leetspeek

  • Numbers are often used as letters

40w 08|?10U$, M@N.

And about the Internet Explorer thing, it’s not really a new version of the browser, it’s a service pack. Looks like they are feeling a wee bit threatened by someone.

In case you didn’t know, you can opt out of a lot of credit card junk mail. It’s your legal right, so do it.

Lastly, for those of you who need to surf the Internet in style, I give you Pimpzilla the bling-bling Firefox theme.

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