Jimiz.net – Jim Becher on the web

I realized after a discussion at work today that I don’t view news and information sites in a browser that often. I find that I use an RSS reader more than actually going to the sites. I did not think about this too much until a co-worker was discussing Twitter as a service does not get that much direct traffic (people going to their site) most twitter users use a 3rd party software or tool to tweet or follow people. I realized how true this was when I realized that I had not gone to www.twitter.com for a long time. I use my Iphone, digsby, or outtwit instead of going in a browser to twitter.

The same is true for most of the other sites I like. I use my RSS reader (Google Reader) to view most of my daily reading. I will post the blogs and sites I follow in another post. Today, I am interested in what people view in their browser.

I found that I enjoy a few sites directly (even though I may follow their blog):

• Lifehacker (www.lifehacker.com)
• Digg (www.digg.com)
• woodtv (www.woodtv.com) – Local news – can’t get school closings in RSS
• news.google.com – for some reason I’d rather use this site than reader.

Other than those sites I use Google Reader to get info. Now don’t get me wrong, I do search for sites, research, code and purchase on sites directly. However, I don’t really view news or info other than in a reader.

So what sites do you browse to?

I love the new version of IIS. One of the great elements of Server 2008 is that it has IIS7 installed. A great aspect of the new IIS is that you can now run very common applications (wordpress, and photo gallery) on Windows. These applications are PHP based and typically are hosted on Linux Servers. IIS 7 allows for you to host these applications on Windows with some great performance

A new tool from microsft allows you to install all of these applications with little or no configuration.
(Web Application Installer) http://www.microsoft.com/web/channel/products/WebApplicationInstaller.aspx

Applications: DotNetNuke, Drupal, Gallery, Graffiti CMS, osCommerce, phpBB, WordPress

Give it a try. Works on Vista sp1 and Server 2008

I was directed to this program by one of my co-workers http://twitter.com/macfowler

OutTwit: a way to monitor and post to twitter through outlook
http://www.techhit.com/OutTwit/

Great application, you can check twitter when you want and then respond. It stores the tweets in a folder.

I am not a big fan of ring tones.  My cell phone is normally the old fashion ring of the 50′s and on vibrate.  I was reading some blogs this morning and came across this url http://www.makeownringtone.com/ and gave it a try.  I’m not sure I’ll use the ring tone I made but, it was fun and would be a better alternative than purchasing the 4 dollar ring tones from the carriers.

I think that microsoft is finally doing something right with their Beta system. Even though there were issues the Windows 7 Beta seems to be a success. People who wanted to test it could download and install (maybe not the first 2 days due to capacity of the servers) .

I am currently in the Azure beta (limited beta) and that is also going well. Overall, it seems like Microsoft is catching on by letting people (the public) be part of their beta programs and doing it well. Realizing that the Microsoft Beta is different than the Google Beta (Think Gmail, which just got out of beta).

Here is an article that talks about the Windows 7 beta being extended (Windows 7 Extended till Feb 12)

I finally made the full migration over to windows 7.  It is fast and uses less memory than Vista.   I now am running it on my primary machine.  I was on Vista x64 and I have found Windows 7 x64 to be more responsive.

To make the migration work I used a drive image software and a spare hard drive.  I first installed Win 7 on a smaller 60 gig drive to make sure that my base applications worked (Visual studio 2008, SSH, IM, and other tools). 

Once I was happy I made an image of that drive using Macrium Reflect (http://www.macrium.com/) The free version.  This was a very easy program to use.  I’ll post more on this later.

Once I had a valid image of the Win 7 build.  I made an image of my larger drive 120gig vista drive and saved it to my USB drive.  I then took the boot CD for Reflect and restored the Win7 image onto the 120 gig drive.  

This was a painless process that I did over 2 days.  I had a day where I was unable to do any work on the migration and had to use my Vista disk.   So I am now a happy Win7 user.

I rarely post on things such as MAC vs PC vs Linux. This is because I’m kind of in the middle. As far as I am concerned, they are just an OS. I use Linux at home (typing this out on Ubuntu) and Windows at work. When I read this article I had to include it for reference. In this case the authors (Gizmodo) think that Windows 7 has done something right.

I’m currently running Windows 7 on my work machine. I figure why not go all the way and use the new technology. The feature I’m still getting used to is the Task bar. This post is calling the new task bar better than OSX. I don’t know if I fully agree yet, but it’s growing on me.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5131933/giz-explains-why-the-windows-7-taskbar-beats-mac-os-xs-dock

So install Win 7 yourself and leave me a message. I for one, will always vote for a Terminal window or slick run for command line launches. I’m still bitter that Vista took (START | RUN) away by default.

I just saw today that there is an app that you can get to allow for Copy and Paste. It appears that it does not work in Safari. I can live with that. The ability to copy and paste is huge. One example is for a wireless network key that is 32 characters, get it in an email and paste into your key area. Typing that is a pain in the rear.

This app is only for those who have completed JailBreak

http://lifehacker.com/5136011/clippy-brings-copypaste-to-jailbroken-iphones-everywhere-except-safari

It is tax time again. I love doing taxes and I don’t know why. My favorite store is closing so I picked up my copy of taxcut on sale and got 10% going out of business discount.

I still like taxcut instead of turbo tax

I found this interesting. A new worm is spreading on a non fixed Microsoft security issue.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9125941

I have been thinking of getting a NetBook for a while. I have many reasons to get one, most of all is the portable size of the unit. It will also make it easier for me to not break out “my work” as my wife calls the laptop at the moment.

So if you were to get a NetBook what would you get it for? Which one would you buy?

As far as I can see Acer one, Dell Mini, and Lenovo seem to be the leaders. I have heard good news on the Samsung version as well.

Since I have an Iphone and I have loaded JailBreak. Here is a good little article on why to do it.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_you_have_to_jailbreak_the_iphone.php

My reason was simple. I wanted the Modem application (to use my iphone as a modem)

I finally got around to upgrading my blog last night. Please ignore any left over things that have to be fixed. WordPress 2.7 is now in place.

I love lists of free software. I came to this one from reading an article about Windows 7.

This is a good list of items:

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/28435

After reading this I was a bit angry. I have had AT&T for a long time. My last 3 phones I have been able to either use a usb cable or just Bluetooth to connect my computer through the phone to the internet. Most recently with the 3g network I got close to 1.5 megabits of transfer.

Now, with my Iphone someone thinks that I have to pay more for this feature (that was previously free). Previously if you had an unlimited data plan you can use that data for what ever you wanted.

So 10 bucks seem way too high for me. Shame on Att and apple.

http://www.macblogz.com/2009/01/09/iphone-tethering-att-may-shock-us-all-and-charge-10/