Reinke Faces Life

http://www.masternewmedia.org/new_media/new_media_tools/
best_new_media_tools_of_the_week_20061015.htm

http://tinyurl.com/y8y6ks

New Media Tools Of The Week: Sharewood Picnic 74

1. Google Docs & Spreadsheets http://docs.google.com/ is a web-based editor that allows you to create text documents and spreadsheets.

Nah, do you really want to put your important stuff in a free web service. What do you do if the inet’s offline. And, whatif they lose their mind, your data, or interest. I’ll stick to Open Office.

2. ConnectMeAnywhere http://www.connectmeanywhere.com/ is a service that allows you to make worldwide calls from your mobile phone at the prices you are used to paying for from your desktop.

Maybe, this is worth further study.

3. Divvycast http://www.divvycast.com/ is a service that provides professional tools to create and publish your podcasts and get paid for that.

Nah, before I get paid, I have to pay them. Don’t think so.

4. Wengo http://www.wengo.com/ is a VoIP provider which allows you to make free PC to PC calls with all your friends, whatever instant messenger they have among Yahoo!, AOL and Jabber.

Nah, who needs yet another voip clone.

5. Joopz http://www.joopz.com/ is a web-based text messaging service that enables two-way communications from the Web to any mobile phone.

Maybe, might be worth playing with.

6. GroupMembesOnly http://www.groupmembersonly.com/ is a service that provides private and secure online environment for membership groups, organizations and associations. GroupMembesOnly provides a platform that integrates blogs, instant messaging, chat, discussion forums, event calendar, group libraries, video libraries, and a job database.

Maybe, not sure if I can use it. Depends upon how strict they are.

7. MyTicklerFile http://myticklerfile.com/ is a web-based tool that allows you to manage projects, track time and monitor your activities.

Maybe, “subscription plan” ain’t free.

8. PureVideo http://www.purevideo.com/ is a search engine for videos that uses a RSS feeds-based technology to return the most relevant results from sites across the Web.

Good, now that sounds like it might be a useful keeper.

9. Wild Apricot http://www.wildapricot.com/ is a web-based software designed to facilitate site administration for non-profit organizations (associations, charities, clubs etc.).

Nah, it’s too much like a business that wants real money.

10. Favoor http://www.favoor.com/ is a web service that enables you to create your personalized start page.

Maybe, that sounds like it might be useful.

My thanks to Livia Iacolare and Robin Good for making me think.

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I’ve seen that behavior before usually when switching inet connections. A stop and start usually clears it. Interesting that this time it doesn’t.

1-800-call-google

ring, ring, ring, … …

Just kidding, we all know that Google doesn’t take question calls from users. In India or anywhere.

Not that Microsoft is much better, but do you really want to make Google your preferred software vendor with their web-based paradigm for your email, rss reader, word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, web site operator – builder, and Intelligent Designer knows what else?

I don’t.

I think the jury is still out on the web services paradigm. Certainly it’s still out on the FREE web service

This unavailability of GOOGLEACCELERATOR points to or hints at the risk one is taking.

What do you do operationally when it’s not working? Who do you call for support or questions? And, what is your recovery strategy?

I joke about being “belt ‘n’ suspenders”, but seriously what do you do when your web services vendor is down and has your data?

It is one thing when you don’t care and it is a throw away. It’s another to give anyone the literal keys to your kingdom. If my vanity website goes away, who cares — my ego? It’s another thing if my professional website does.

Bottom line: If it is important, then it’s worth paying for. With that you should have a contract, support, and live person to talk to. And, also if it’s important, you better have a recovery plan for when your vendor screws up.

IMHO

Argh, now our old friend LookOut, aka Microsoft Outlook, has decided that blank lines can be removed from some messages when it feels like it. Who died and left Microsoft king to decide this. If it does do it, then it should have an option to stop doing it. Otherwise leave the messages alone. Argh!

For example, I was doing R&D for my alumni group and was looking at memorial sites that might have obits on my fellow Jaspers. Yeah I know depressing but someone has to do it. And, people like to know about their college buddies with whom they have lost touch.

Any way, back to the point, many sites offer a search. And on many it’s broken. Unfortunately, I have to have a search string with a space in it.

My preferred string is:

“manhattan college” -marymount -“borough of manhattan”

but most places barf at the minus sign. AND, many places search as if you said “manhattan” or “college”, ignoring the quoting. Some are a little better using “manhattan” and “college”.

So for example, I am not interested in “Borough of Manhattan Community College”, but get it if the site doesn’t parse “manhattan college” correctly.

I do often drop back to Google, who does it right, and use the “site:” option. That sometimes works.

I usually leave a nasty gram at the offending site like:

***Begin Quote***

Your advanced search doesn’t seem to work correctly. I searched for “manhattan college” and it returned lost of hits. I didn’t find any of my fellow alums and gave up. Just thought you’d want to know.

***End Quote***

BUT have never received any feedback, an “Ooopps”, or “live with it”, or “wadda ya want for free”, or just a form letter “Thanks for your email, your email is very important to us here in India”.

Arghh!

http://www.gliffy.com/

***Begin Quote***

Gliffy is easy, free, and fun!

* Diagramming in your web browser without downloading additional software

***End Quote***

Looks useful!

http://www.alumwire.com/faq.php

What is Alumwire?

Alumwire is a professional college network that provides alumni, students, and faculty personal and professional opportunities.

What can I specifically use Alumwire for?
Alumwire can be used to find a job and recruit current students and alumni from all across the United States in over 1000 colleges. You can also connect with fellow alumni as well as current students, and faculty. Alumwire also features an event system, which allows you to post your own events and see other events happening in the network. Of course you also have your profile, which lets you keep people up to date about your personal and professional info.

How many schools are currently in the system?
Over 1000 colleges are currently in the system. Please let us know if your school is not in the system.

What is required in order to register on Alumwire?
You must have a .edu e-mail address or an invitation from someone who is already on Alumwire.

http://www.techweb.com/wire/software/193300234

Vista Licenses Limit OS Transfers
By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb Technology News

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Microsoft has released licenses for the Windows Vista operating system that dramatically differ from those for Windows XP in that they limit the number of times that retail editions can be transferred to another device.

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Read the article and, if you still want to upgrade, then stop reading this blog. And, have another glass of the Microsoft Kool Aid.

http://1and1.com/?k_id=9113251

Use my link and I’ll get a referral commission! Lots of them.
:-)

It appears to put sent messages in the outbox as unsent. Any attempt to send them fails. Arghhh! Other messages seem to work correctly. Double Arghhh!

http://www.joesgoals.com/

“If you’re bored with life — you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things — you don’t have enough goals.”

You have to admire someone who can strike to the core with an idea. I love it.

http://www.jibberjobber.com

I heard from a usually reliable source that JIBBERJOBBER is backing their assertion to give free service to vets with action.

(Honesty is such a rare commodity these days! We hear all the case where people don’t live up to their promises. They can’t in all modesty toot their own horn. But I can. Toot, toot, TOOT!)

I’m told that JibberJobber has extended their offer to to some disabled vets even thought they are not from Iraqi#2. Kudos to them for their stepping up to the plate.

Now if we could just get the politicians to do more than “lip service”.

Any way, applause in the direction of JIBBERJOBBER, please. They deserve it imho.

http://www.feedblitz.com/

The recent closure of a free bloging service made me feel sorry for those that have content there. Losing your stuff is horrendous and often irretrievable.

Given how stuff happens on the inet, one can’t even be sure that a paid service won’t stop working. Things break; strategies change; sites make decisions. All these things make you a hostage to who holds your data. Now, when I evaluate any new idea, my first concern is if I put effort “in”, can I get my stuff “out”. I’ve been suckered too many times.

So here’s a way to protect blog content that is important to you. (Some blogs I read, it obvious that it’s an afterthought and losing it would be no big deal. I even have one of those for my fellow alums where I post Jasper Sports stories. My fellow alums felt that it cluttered up my ezine. And, so, I created a free blog for that genre. If I lose it, no big deal.

BUT what about content I care about? For example, I want to self publish this blog at the end of the year, and give my Mom a book. I think she always wanted me to be “somebody”, make “something” of myself, or fulfill my “potential”. I figure a nice bound book would fool her into thinking I was an author. That’s pretty somebody-ish. She can say “my son the author”. Not as good as my son the Donald, the doctor, the lawyer, the indian chief. But it’ll have to do.

So, to prevent losing anything and to have the input to self publish, I use FEEDBLITZ to collect my blog postings each day and send me an email. I use a gmail account for that purpose. This creates TWO backups of my blog. As a side benefit, I can use GOOGLEDESKTOP to search the local copy or GMAIL to search the mail archive of it.

That’s me Mister Belt and Suspenders!

You might want to consider it.

Now about becoming an Indian Chief, is it painful?

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Starting November 1st Eponym will start providing a free 30 day trial blog and will be discontinuing our free blog package. For those of you who are using our free blog package, you will be automatically moved to the free 30 day trial package on November 1st. At the end of the 30 day trial (November 30th), your blog will need to be upgraded for your blog to remain active.

If you wish to keep your blog active, please go to https://secure.eponym.com/upgrade/ to upgrade.

It was a hard decision for us to stop offering the free blog package, however there were two major factors that influenced us. First, we did not like having to put advertisements on people’s blogs. We know that our users would put up with the ads to have a free blog, but we don’t want you to have to “put up” with anything, especially an invasive and annoying ad on your blog that you can’t control. Second, the advertising revenue from the free blogs that we did receive was not nearly enough to cover the costs of providing the free blogs. Looking at these two reasons, we knew that we had to make a change to keep Eponym going strong.

We apologize for the inconvenience that this causes for some of you, but we feel that it is absolutely necessary for us to continue to provide the best blogging service, software, and community on the Internet.

Thank you for using Eponym!

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Hmmm. Bad news for anyone who has content there.