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Weekend Blog Roundup: Best Of The Week

Phil — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 17:26:48 +0000

This week was a big week for some of the top names in technology. Apple unveiled some new toys, and updated some of their old ones. Microsoft released it's take on the portable media player market, released a beta version of their new desktop RSS reader, and is trying to get the Windows Vista RC1 into more people's hands. And Google strives to stay on top by adding a new feature or two to their start page. Those posts and much more are sure to find their way into this weeks best posts. Take a look at what I deemed as this week's best posts.

iLounge's review of the new iPod nano.

A great review of all the new features that were rolled out in the newest generation of the iPod nano.

iLounge's review of the updated video iPod.

Another great review from iLounge, this time they cover the new 80gig video iPod.

A beginner's guide to Photoshop

A very extensive article dealing with the basics of photoshop, a great resource for anyone looking to get into photoshop.

Beginner's guide from a seasoned CSS designer

Another great design resource, this one deals with the basics of CSS.

Take Microsoft’s New RSS Aggregator for a Spin

It's not a finished product by any means, and is paired with an unusual partner, but this is a step in the right direction for Microsoft

Zune is coming!

Microsoft has released a good amount of information about their portable music player Zune, looks promising.

That's it for this week, go take a look at some of those articles, and if you have any posts that you thought were the best of this week let me know about them in the comments. For some more best of the week goodness, check out my post at The Blog Joint .

10 things I’ve learned in my first month blogging

Phil — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 14:02:06 +0000

My first real post to this blog was just over a month ago, and from that moment on there has definitely been a lot that I have had to learn about blogging. The following may not be earth shattering tips, and they may not help make your new blog the next big thing, but they are just a few things that I have learned along the way. This post is more a reminder to me to keep these things in mind while I write than it is anything else. If you can find some sort of useful information in it, great, if not, that is ok, because I would've written it any way. Take a look at ten things I've learned in my first month of blogging.

1. Being a good blog writer also means being a good blog reader.

A big part of blogging is surfing the internet and reading what other people are talking about. Whether you are looking for inspiration, or taking a break from writing your next post that will make it to the front page of digg, reading blogs will help you write a better post

2. Blog because you enjoy it, not to have lots of traffic and ad revenue.

The main purpose of your blog shouldn't be to make money or receive traffic. Blogging is something I do because I enjoy it, I also enjoy web design, and writing. I'm doing something that I enjoy doing already, any additional attention I may receive is just a bonus

3. Blogging makes you respect other bloggers more.

There are a ton of bad blogs out there, but on the other hand there are many people who have done it right. When you see the work that goes into writing a good post or maintaining a blog, it makes you respect those that have done it right more.

4. If you see a good post on another blog, share it.

Since reading is a big part of writing a blog, you are bound to come across something that you wish you would have written your self. If you think a post is that good, why not share it with your readers, I'm sure they would appreciate you sharing a quality read.

5. Don't be afraid to take a break, no point forcing out a bad post.

If the creative juices aren't flowing, don't be afraid to take a break. There is an old saying that says "it's' better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt," and that rings just as true in blogging. I've taken the past week or so off from posting, because I've been trying to find my voice, and I think that is something I should find on my own, not by spewing bad posts all over the place

6. Don't be discouraged by the lack of comments.

Even the sites that get 130,000 visits a day and are updated by professional bloggers don't get that many comments. If there are 20 comments on a blog with 130,000 visits, that is still less than .001% of the visitors leaving comments, translate that into your traffic.

7. If you want to be successful, be committed.

Blogging is tough work that requires a commitment to writing quality posts. Don't expect to just pound on your keyboard and have a well written, relevant, and quality post, magically appear on your blog. If you want something good, work for something good.

8. Be involved in the blogging community.

Going back to the reading other blogs and sharing good posts tips, it is important to be active on other blogs. If you see a good post, comment on it, trackback to an article you write about. If you develop a strong network, more traffic will be driven to your blog through links.

9. Do something else, besides blogging, on the internet sometimes.

If all you ever do is get online, write your posts, and leave, you are going to get burnt out really quick. It's hard to stay focused on one task all the time, and it is important to find something else to do on the internet so that you brain stays awake. Find a game to waste some time, listen to music, or watch some videos, just do something different.

10. It's alright to rehash an old idea, just do it in moderation.

If you are thinking about writing a post, but find that someone else has already done it, it's ok to talk about it again as long as you have a fresh perspective to share. Don't share information that is already out there, but if you do have something new to add into the mix, feel free to share it.

Hopefully there's something in this list that will help you when you go to write your next post, and if you have any tips that you might have learned along the way, share them with me in the comments.

Weekend Blog Roundup: Best of the Week

Phil — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 16:08:55 +0000

This past week has been crazy for me, I've been fighting with the admissions department of USF trying to get all my paperwork finalized, and I've been going round and round with HCC trying to get my AA posted onto my transcript. So, with that being said, I didn't have all that much time to check out what other people were talking about this week, but check out what I thought were the best posts of the week anyways.

Computer Zen: Ultimate Power Users Tool List

a nice collection of tools that will make your computer experience more enjoyable.

Techcrucnh: iTunes To Have Movie Downloads This Month

iTunes is looking for one more way to dominate the music and movie delivery scene.

Lifehacker.com: The Best Wordpress Plugins

A great resource for anyone that uses Wordpress as their blogs backend

MAKE Blog: Fake Model Photography

Very interesting post about making photos of real things and place look like models.

theblogjoint: Flash Games

Another great resource of flash games to waste a little bit of time on.

Hopefully next week things will calm down a little bit, and I will actually have time to read, and enjoy, a little bit more of what the other people in the blog world have to say.

Firefox 2 Beta 2 available for download

Phil — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 02:30:17 +0000

Last week it was Microsoft who was showing of the latest version of their internet browser, and now it's Mozilla's turn. Firefox has been my choice of browser for a while now because of features like, tabbed browsing, integrated search, and better protection from spyware/adware, and this newest release of Firefox 2 Beta 2 doesn't back off on upgrading the existing features, and rolling out some new ones.

I never downloaded the Beta 1 release because I wasn't really interested in dealing with some of the stability issues, so this was my first experience with Firefox 2. One of the first things I noticed was that the user interface, while not radically different, has received a little bit of a face lift, including some new icons and a new look for tabbed browsing.

Some other notable new features include, but are definitely not limited to:

Built in phishing protection.

Phishing Protection warns users when they encounter suspected Web forgeries, and offers to return the user to their home page.

Enhanced search capabilities

Search term suggestions will now appear as users type in the integrated search box when using the Google, Yahoo! or Answers.com search engines.

Inline spell checking

A new built-in spell checker enables users to quickly check the spelling of text entered into Web forms without having to use a separate application.

Previewing and subscribing to Web feeds

Users can decide how to handle Web feeds, either subscribing to them via a Web service or in a standalone RSS reader, or adding them as Live Bookmarks.

Beware that this is a beta release, so you are bound to have some issues with it, and, because it isn't the official release, many of your extensions won't work. You can try this trick to get some of your extensions working, but no promises. If you don't feel like waiting, and want to see what the next generating of web browsers will be like, you can find a download link for both Mac OS X and Windows XP here .

Weekend Blog Roundup: Best of the Week

Phil — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 20:17:06 +0000

Some of this weeks best posts included a google calendar desktop application, a pretty entertaining counter-telemarketer script, some positive news on the Windows Vista release, and much more. It's becoming easier to find best of the week posts as I expand my list of blogs that I frequent, and hopefully it keeps getting easier. Check out what the bloggers had in store this week:

Paulstamatiou.com: Calgoo-Standalone Google Calendar App

A desktop application that syncs up with your online Google calendar.

Lifehack.org: Empower Students with mynoteIT.com

School is back in session, and this looks like a pretty interesting resource for students.

Lifehacker.com: Kill that sales call with the telemarketer counter script

A pretty interesting/funny script for messing with telemarketers.

5thirtyone.com: Shorty - Your own TinyURL generator

A neat utility to host tinyurl.com like urls on your own server.

Gizmodo.com: Microsoft Vista Preview-Release Candidate 1 In The Wild

Not only has Microsoft been busy getting Internet Explorer 7 up and running, but apparently Windows Vista is one step closer to release as well.

That's it for this week, definitely found some interesting stuff while I was reading my way around the web. Go check out some of these posts, and if you have anything that you think was one of the best posts of the week, let me know about it in the comments.

Internet Explorer 7 RC 1 released

Phil — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 03:51:28 +0000

I'm a firefox user, as are many of my friends because I have either convinced them of how much better firefox is than internet explorer, or because I use their computers and installed it my self, but when I caught wind of the fact that Microsoft has made the first release canidate of IE 7 available for download, I was slightly intrigued.

Now, I haven't actually installed this or any of the previous betas yet, and I don't see myself making the permanent switch back to IE, but this is at least a step in the right direction for a browser that has been a real annoyance from both a design and usablitly standpoint. According to the Microsoft website:

The Internet Explorer 7 RC1 build includes improvements in performance, stability, security, and application compatibility. With this build, Microsoft has also made enhancements to the fit and finish of the user interface, completed CSS platform changes, added language support, and included an auto-uninstall feature in Setup, which automatically uninstalls prior betas of Internet Explorer 7, making installing the new build even easier.

A quick rundown of the new features that may be a little easier to understand include:

A redesigned interface to cut down clutter
tabbed browsing
improved printing from within IE
RSS feed integration
better search
increased security features like phishing filters and spyware prevention.

Some of the best news comes from the design front because they have finally made IE more standards compliant. That means that IE actually does what it is supposed to when it comes to webdesign, for the most part.

I'm sure that there will be many things that still need to be worked out, but at least it is an improvement, and it will be interesting to play around with and see how they handle some of the features that I've grown custom to in firefox. Check it out and see how it works for you, and let me know of any problems you may encounter in the comments.

Download from Microsoft.com

Program Review: RocketDock

Phil — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 01:26:24 +0000

I've always been a Windows user, but I have had Mac OS X dual booting on my laptop before, and during that time there were a few different things that I found very useful in OS X, one of which was the object dock that they used for launching files and programs. I'm not a big fan of icons on my desktop, and keeping things neat and simple is a big priority of mine; enter RocketDock.

RocketDock looks, and exacts almost exactly like the dock that is in OS X, although one thing that I wish it did was automatically add open windows to the dock so you can see what you currently have running, but I guess I'll have to still use my Windows taskbar to see those for now. It is compatible with other skins from programs like ObjectDock, MobyDock, and Y'z Dock. Take a look at the many different features that are covered on the download website:

Compatible with MobyDock, ObjectDock, RK Launcher, and Y'z Dock skins
ObjectDock Docklet support
Unicode compliant
Simple drag-n-drop interface
True multi-monitor support
Supports alpha-blended ICO and PNG icons
Icons zoom and transition smoothly
Auto-hide
Popup on mouse over
Layering options
Horizontal and Vertical offsets
Fully customizable
Runs great on slower computers
Supports many languages and can easily be translated
And best of all…its FREE

That last feature is one of the ones that really sold me on it, you could pay as much as $20 for other progams like this, but this one will not cost you a dime. If you are looking for some of the mac user interface features in Windows XP this program is for you. Check it out and see if you like it, and if you have any other programs that help bring OS X and XP closer together let me know about them in the comments.

Newest version of Azureus released today

Phil — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 01:45:47 +0000

For those who use Bittorrent software, Paul at PaulStamatiou.com is reporting that Azureus 2.5 is now available for download.

The popular Java-based BitTorrent super-client, Azureus, has hit version 2.5…notable improvements include reduced CPU usage when connected to large numbers of peers and the ability to detect your connection’s latency and automatically adjust your upload speed.

You can download it here, and while you're at it, why not check out Paul's website, it has some useful information.

Facebook “Notes” unveiled today

Phil — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 01:30:38 +0000

There are many different social networking sites, and they are always trying to one up eachother with new features. One of those sites, Facebook , which is an online social-networking site for college and highschool students, has been pretty busy rolling out a couple new features in the past few weeks, and their newest release trys to catch them up with some of the many blogging sites on the net.

About a week ago they introduced "badges", which they describe like this:

A badge is a customizable clip of your Facebook profile that you can share on other web sites. You can choose what information (e.g. picture, name, birthday, mobile number etc) to show on your badge. Put one on a site and it will be automatically updated each time you update your Facebook profile.

And today they unveiled "Notes"

Notes allow you to describe what's going on in your life through written posts. You can upload photos to your notes and tag any friends that you mention in a note just as you would tag a photo.

Notes comes with some interesting features, like mobile uploads which allows you to write Notes and upload pictures from your cell phone, in hopes that users will be able to take advantage of the Facebook services from where ever they may be. If you use Facebook, be sure to go check out some of their new features, and find me at USF

Free Music: Photographs EP by Lakes

Phil — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 21:44:36 +0000

Watashi Wa, Eager Seas, or Lakes, call Seth Robert's band what ever you want, but whatever you choose know that you will be treated to amazing music. Seth's music has been a staple in my music library since his debut album as Watashi Wa, Lost A Few Battles But Won The War first found it's way to me. Now, three albums, two name changes, and a new record label later Seth is at it again with his newest band Lakes.

Lakes has decided to offer their first EP as a band to their fans for free! I'm not here to review this CD, but I will say that you owe it to your self to check out Lakes' first release as a band. If you are a fan of well written, well performed music, that clearly displays the passion that the performers have put into it, check out their stuff.

Free EP download from Absolutepunk.net

Scroll to the downloads section under the Album Cover and Absolute Player.

Lakes on Myspace
Lakes on Purevolume