Technology Updates
Those few regular readers have already picked up on the fact that I throw out information regarding technological updates when I am struggling to say the things that are inside my head (and heart) here in the blog-o-sphere. So, yeah, in some ways, I am cheating you by throwing up a technology update, because those are easy to write, require very little outside of my honest opinion on the matter and that is that. Anyway, here are some tidbits to note about technological things from recent days.
- Zune (the device) is awesome. Yes, I know it is made by Microsoft, it still just rocks, literally. Okay, I probably would be just as happy with an I-Pod and was looking at them along a couple other leading brands, when I got the Zune device completely free. For those that do not know, it an MP3 player, along with video, pod-casting, pictures, and a few other things. It also works on wireless protocols so it does not have to plug-in and if you and friend have one you can share music just about anywhere, at least on a trial basis. If it only hooked natively into Rhapsody or Pandora that would make the best out there, but I can still load it up. Mine is only 4GB, so I am already pondering a 32GB upgrade just so you know.
- Zune (the windows software media player) sucks. First of all I don’t always run windows though I do on occasion. To take full advantage what was offered though I had to get the Zune software. It took a while to download even on high-speed network. It tries to replace Windows Media player (which worked just fine) and any other media player I had installed as well. Then it does these weird things where it sometimes just pops up on top of everything else, but to minimize it ou have to minimize the other windows first. And then it will occur again a few songs later. I was less than pleased with this kind of behavior.
- Tagged.com seems to not be much better than Zune. It is thinly disguised as a social networking site – at which I think between Facebook, MySpace, and the Living History one I used, who needs more? But I get these emails saying so and so has tagged you. On occasion it is a name I recognize. Eventually I decided I should sign up. Turns out though, you can’t take a gander at those people who have tagged to see if they are who you think they are until you add them as a full friend. Now how may Melissa’s are there in the world? Then once I get in, it seems like the only social aspect is ‘tagging’ people in which you are interested, perhaps romantically, perhaps not. Overall this is one example of why social networking has reached its apex of usefulness in my general opinion. Unless it is a very specialized social network that is not otherwise addressed on one of the big five or six you are just getting spammed and advertising for little real value as a client.
- Speaking of social networking and interacting with users and such – on a slightly different note here, I am personally going to step on some toes here. If you don’t want to talk to some one that is in your friends list, for whatever reason either politely tell them so or make yourself as invisible or away. Don’t be sitting there, have them log in and say a polite hello and suddenly drop off. You know if it occurs once or even twice I understand, but every time out of three and four times that is too much. And the same goes for emails – if you don’t want to talk to the person at least have the courtesy to answer and say so. Guess I am being a bit dis-courteous in calling people out, but it is something that has really been getting in my crawl of late.
- MaxBlogPress.com is pretty awesome, especially the ping optimizer if you are trying to build some additional traffic to your WordPress blog. If you are a casual blogger that does not edit your blogs much, not too much to worry, but if you are like me and tend to every time you see a blog you see something you could have written better you edit often, even stuff that is a year old. Default settings in WordPress send out a ping back to several sites every time you save those published blogs. Eventually places like Google Blogs decides you are spamming. The MaxBlogPress ping optimizer solves this by only pushing a ping one time per a new post. *Warning* – they do require a valid email to activate the tool and then will send you an email newsletter. So far the ones I have received have actually had a tidbit or two of good information in them, but some of us get so much email already right?
- Windstream update is this, I finally got hold of some folks who did some testing and determined that yeah, I was not crazy. I was getting less than 1/6 of the speed I paying for and it was obvious that it was dropping. Had a service call today and after he checked, he said what the hell – it is wonder I was getting anything. He did a few things but is coming back on the morrow to re-run lines from the pole to the house and a few things like that, as the wires are probably 1960′s vintage copper. The tech was very nice and very honest, so I am, with a grudge, possibly going to give them a thumbs up. We will see on the morrow.
A side note, no, actually a couple of questions to you all? Yeah, I am being lazy and not having the time to check on them myself.
- I think I have all the historical one of pictures in posts restored – remember the backup mess-up where I was, ahem, confused with what I was deleting. Anyway, I have not done the photo essays yet as I am looking at options for doing that in a different way. Any suggestions? I would probably prefer to keep the pictures hosted here on my space (despite the fact that I deleted them once by accident) but am willing to consider other options as well. Maybe a flicker.com plugin?
- Crap, I was thinking the thought. Had it in my head. Should have put in extended RAM (that would be scrap of paper beside me) and did not. I am sure it will come to me later though.
- … time has passed – two hours worth exactly … And now I recall, though someone will have to surprise me to know the answer. I want to change the order on the blog-links. There use to be a setting and ranking, which means the information is probably still in the database on the back-end of the WordPress. Anyone know the table and fields I am looking for to manually do that?
