Reddit vs. Digg – The Smackdown!

Both Digg (http://www.Digg.com ) and Reddit (http://www.Reddit.com ) are social news sites that accept stories from users and then let users vote for stories they like and allow them to make comments. Reddit was founded in 2005 by two university of Virginia graduates and grew to become a super power of weird news current events. The simplicity of Reddit design puts function before form. There is no glitz, just content and lots of it. Compared to Digg, Reddit wins the simplicity award. Reddit also... Read More

What we can learn from some UGLY sites!

First up, http://noodle-house.blogspot.com/ Much like getting dressed in the morning, putting black and navy blue together is not always a wise choice. The various blocks seem to sit uncomfortably on the blue background and seem unintentional. The goldenrod borders around everything, including boxes within boxes, stare at the reader like a bad blind date.  Thankfully, the fonts are white on black background, so I have an opportunity to read the content. Let us not forget the Sylvester the cat graphic... Read More

Google Wave. Tidal Wave or Wading Pool?

I got an invite to Google Wave, Google’s latest personal communication and collaboration tool, the second day invites were sent.  Having enjoyed many of Google’s other bounty like Google Voice, iGoogle,  and Google Latitude, I was excited to see what Google  was up to.  I launched Wave and prepared for the shock and awe.  I was neither shocked nor awed.  I saw a mix of instant messaging and e-mails.  It reminded me of my initial impression of Twitter.  I saw it, wasn’t excited... Read More

Little-known Free Tools from Microsoft

Live Sync: https://sync.live.com/clientdownload.aspx?ibm=10 Live Sync is a wonderful tool if you need to share files with someone or if you want a hands off backup of important files.  Live Sync allows you to synchronize foldersbetween two computers (Windows XP and later and Mac OSX up to 10.5).  The computers can be on a local network or just connected to the internet.  This is a great way to share photos with relatives or files with other people.  I personally use it to synchronize a folder... Read More

Specialized Social Networking: Networks for Artists & Writers

Social networking giants like MySpace and Facebook have proved useful for a variety of general purposes for both professional and social networking as well as business promotion. However, that generalization can only go so far and for people with more specialized areas of interest or business focus. For this reason, a number of social networks have emerged catering to special niches that allow users to make more useful connections. After all, what is the point of networking with a million people... Read More

There’s more than one way to Skin your Tweets – A Twitter Client Round Up

As Twitter has matured, the Twitter clients have appeared, and they have flourished.  Being a twitter addict, I felt compelled to check into some of these for you so you wouldn’t have to install them only to find out that they are incredibly painful to use.  Here’s my list of Twitter Clients: The Web interface : (http://www.twitter.com)  It would be a disservice to leave out the twitter.com site itself.  In fact, many people only use the web interface to update their tweets.  It’s... Read More

New Twitter Feature. Twitter Lists!

  A new feature coming from Twitter is the ability to add followers or people in general to Lists.  You can create lists of people like family and friends separate from celebrities and keep those separate from the tech gurus.  You can also subscribe to other people’s lists, so if your buddy has a list of twitter users he follows grouped because they all work for a certain company. You can subscribe to that list without having to rebuild that list of users. Thank you Twitter for allowing... Read More

Windows Home Server–Why don’t more people use this?

 Windows Home Server—what is it? Windows Home Server http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx I have a small network at home with 8 computers attached to each other.  I had various shared external harddrives across the network, but finding things became cumbersome and unwieldy.  I wanted something like a server that I have used for many years at my place of employment, but I didn’t want a full server.  I wanted something that was easy to set... Read More

Browser Compatibility? What’s that?

As web developers, keeping up with the web browsers is an ever-moving target.  We write the cleanest, most universal code we can, but unfortunately not all browsers were created equally.  Even when we’ve created what is ostensibly the best application we can, we must still run the site through some testing to ensure browser compatibility. I always have the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari installed on my development machine, but depending on the client,... Read More

5 Google Apps you may not be aware of.

 Google Building Maker.  http://sketchup.google.com/3dwh/buildingmaker.html This is a part of Google Earth that allows users to build 3-d renderings of buildings within the map.  Users can volunteer to construct any building utilizing tools provided by Google.  The creator can then submit the building to Google’s 3D Warehouse where it will be reviewed and possibly accepted.  Accepted buildings will give credit to the creator.  If you see a building that has been previously created, but... Read More

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