I work with several blogs, and I have to tell you that I pretty much hate the native user interface for all of them. I don’t care whether you’re talking about Movable Type, WordPress, or Blogger, the basic UI pretty well reeks.
Under Vista, I had become quite happy with Microsoft’s Live Writer, a solid blogging tool that is especially good at putting images into a blog post and linking to images or video clips in other blogs. My happiness was tempered when one of my blogs changed policies, requiring entries to be edited before they went live. Live Writer couldn’t deal with the blogging platform’s interface in order to post an entry in “draft” mode, so I was back to creating (or at least finalizing) blog posts in the native blog UI.
Since moving to the Macintosh, I’ve discovered Ecto, and it has quickly become one of my favorite programs on the Mac. Not only does it have solid editing tools, it will happily work with the application interface for Movable Type and Wordpress to post in draft mode, set advanced publication times, and insert all sorts of interesting things into a blog post. The user interface is easy, the rich-media features are hardy, and the overall experience is wonderful. I first heard about Ecto, as I hear about so much, from Lifehacker, and their advice has been good on this one.
Now, if I could just figure out a mail program that is as good as Outlook — and far better than Entourage…

Categories: Media, Software
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No, not the clouds in the sky, but cloud computing. It’s a broad category, with folks meaning everything from Google Mail to widely-distributed applications (think SETI at Home) when they talk about cloud applications. I just wrote a blog entry at InfoWorld on the question of what happens when your cloud fails. I’m going to be looking deeply at cloud computing this fall — you’ll hear more about why in an upcoming post.

Categories: Enterprise, Software
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Audio slide shows (or SoundSlides) are wonderful ways to tell a story — they are, in fact, one of the best tools I’ve found in the last year in school. At InfoWorld, we’ve put up another SoundSlide on the Pimp Your Datacenter project. This one was a great collaborative effort, with photos from several contributors, narration by Brian Chee, and production, well, by me.

Of course, now I have to go out and buy a new copy of the software for the Mac, but that’s a small price to pay. The functionality of the Sound Slide software is superb and the Mac is the best platform I’ve used in years. The combination — well, I’m looking forward to seeing how much I can do with it this year.

Categories: General computing, Software
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My friend Brian Chee pointed me at Microsoft LiveWriter a while back, but I had trouble getting the software to work with the blog here. Now, it’s working, and I have to say that it’s pretty slick. It’s even nicer than ScribeFire, the FireFox extension I’ve been using for some time.

I’ll be using LiveWriter to update my student blog, and I’ll be creating some photo pages here in the near future. LiveWriter should make building the blog and those pages much easier — and I’ll just have to live with having to say nice things about another Microsoft product.

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We’ve got the first assignment in the Journalist’s Toolkit class, and it’s all about audio. We broke up into teams of two or three and recorded interviews with one another using an Olympus recorder. Now, we must edit it down to a 60-90 second recording using Audacity. The hardest part, oddly enough, was getting the files converted from WMA to WAV format. It’s interesting–there are scores of programs out there that will happily move files from one graphics format to another, but a much smaller number that will deal gracefully with audio.

We’re going to be turning our assignments in using web space provided by UF–I’ll put links here so you can watch/listen and let me know what you think.

I’ve found another interesting note-taking tool…more on that next time.

Categories: Grad School, Software
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So I’m a big fan of iGoogle, but ran into an issue with my new job at InfoWorld: there are Google productivity features that the team uses to coordinate activities, but we’re supposed to use an account based on our InfoWorld information, rather than our personal Google accounts. Fair enough, but I like to keep calendars and such open, and Google says that you can only be logged in to one account at a time. What’s a geek to do?
Well this geek started playing around and found that you can log in to two separate accounts as long as you use two separate browsers. Now, I use IE 7 for the work accounts and FireFox for the personal information, and everything seems to be working fine. If I can keep from having a third group that requires a separate account, I should be in good shape.

Technorati Tags: Google, productivity

Categories: Consumer, Software
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One of the things that Windows has never done particularly well is manage the process of getting rid of software. Sometime an application shows up in the “install/uninstall software” dialog, sometimes the software has its own uninstaller, and sometimes neither is true. Sometimes the supplied process gets rid of every trace of the unwanted software, and sometimes stray bits and pieces are left scattered across your system. Now, there’s a bit of freeware that helps get rid of software you don’t want: Revo Uninstaller. It’s a great little piece of software that gives you several options for zapping unwanted applications. There are also features for managing the software that automatically starts when you boot your system.

I tried Revo Uninstaller on a USB camera application that, it turned out, was incompatible with Vista. The app didn’t show up in the Windows dialog, and didn’t include its own uninstaller. Revo Uninstaller found it, got rid of it, and even asked about some stray registry keys when it was finished. I end up loading and unloading a lot of software on my systems, and I can see this being the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Thanks to the always-useful LifeHacker for the pointer.

Technorati Tags: consumer, enterprise, software, utility

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If you’re into graphics (and if you’re working on the web, you need to be into graphics) then the list of resources Snap2Object has put together in this post will be useful. You’ll find everything from libraries of company logos to tutorials, and most will be helpful, especially if you’re not a professional art director. Highly recommended reading.

Technorati Tags: graphics, resource, art, web

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One of the things that blogging does well is put together lists of resources. Snap2Objects has done a great job of building a list free design programs and posting it here. Highly recommended reading.

Technorati Tags: design, software, free

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So MSNBC has an article telling us that some folks are still complaining about Vista. They’re right about the major problems–driver incompatibilities and the utterly ridiculous way in which User Account Control was implemented–but they haven’t really touched on the basis of the bad feelings some of us have toward this product.
I sat down over a year ago with Jim Allchin and other members of the Vista team, and they told me two things: First, Vista was going to be on time; and second, Vista was going to be fabulous. At that point, they had already been tossing features overboard to make the ship date, but by now it’s obvious that either the final feature set or the ship date should have been revised in a big way before the end of last year. Microsoft had become so heavily invested in their self-imposed deadline, and so wrapped up in the hype machine surrounding Vista, that it was beyond their corporate ability to give full value to both. I say this because most of the “Vista will be fabulous” talk we got that day on the Microsoft campus revolved around Vista’s 64-bit capabilities. Guess what? Installations of 64-bit Vista are still rare as hen’s teeth because Microsoft is working very hard not to sell the licenses. They work so hard because the still-growing number of 32-bit drivers dwarfs the number of 64-bit drivers available.
I’m still using Vista on one machine, and the experience has spanned the distance from acceptable to intensely frustrating. Will I go back to XP on the one machine? No. I need to keep Vista for part of my work, and I’ve gotten it to a state in which it doesn’t interfere with most of my projects. Will I recommend anyone else move to Vista? Not right now…at least not if the anyone else is someone I like. If XP no longer meets your needs, look at Linux, try Mac OS, but don’t plan on shifting to Vista unless you feel you just have way too much productive time on your hands. I’m sure that Microsoft will eventually get it right, but I have absolutely no way to predict when that will happen.
It’s a shame, because Vista does show promise. The slow-motion, dribbling release of Vista might go unnoticed at a lot of firms, but Microsoft isn’t a lot of firms. Microsoft will use bluff and bravado to try to convince the world that the Vista roll-out has gone precisely as planned, but if this is how things are supposed to work, God help us if Microsoft ever has a broken release.

Thanks to Instapundit for pointing out the MSNBC article. It’s worth reading.

Technorati Tags: Vista, software, operating, system, Microsoft

Categories: Consumer, Enterprise, General computing, Software
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One of the tools I’m having fun with right now is ScribeFire, a Firefox add-in that makes blogging much easier. I wasn’t initially convinced about the need for a tool beyond the WordPress editor, but I find that ScribeFire makes this sort of quick post much faster and easier. I’m sold.

Technorati Tags: software, mozilla, blog, tool

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The second article for PCMag.com is on Voice over IP (VoIP) security. Like most technologies, there are risks that go along with the benefits. Head over to the article to check out what some of the experts are saying about what you should do to protect your network if you’re deploying VoIP.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Categories: Security, Software, Threats
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You know, there’s something nice about re-discovering an old friend. Since I moved over to Vista, I’ve been using Internet Explorer as my browser. Microsoft has done a good job of making it better with each major release, but it’s still not as stable as I’d like, and it can be terribly sluggish at times. Last week, I downloaded Apple’s Safari browser and have been, on the whole, underwhelmed. The one good thing Safari did for me was to make me re-think FireFox. The good folks at LifeHacker are big fans, but I’d been away from it for a few months. I have to say it works beautifully under Vista. Fast, stable, and customizable–I think I’ve found software to make me happy.

Categories: Consumer Technology, Software
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Vista is, in many ways, like a new puppy: I enjoy taking it out, but I’m always on the lookout for stray puddles on the carpet. I’m working on a set of tests down at the university, and today was the first trip to the lab with the new Vista machine. On the whole, I was pleased. My laptop recognized the university wireless network, properly complained about a certificate, and asked just how vulnerable I wanted to be while I was there. Good stuff. On the other hand, I needed to download a file and Vista worked hard to keep me from storing it where I wanted.

That really sums up my experience with Vista, so far: Lots of good stuff with a lot of little annoyances thrown in to keep me from being enthusiastic. I’ll agree that it is, on balance, an improvement over Windows XP. I wish the 64-bit version was readily available (and usable) right now, but I’ll limp along with the junior version. With everything I’ve been through on the switch to Vista, though, there is one thing I’m confident of: If Apple released a version of the Macintosh OS that would run on my laptop I’d switch in a heartbeat. I’m confident I’m not alone in this. Apple should be listening.

Categories: Consumer Technology, General computing, Software
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After a week of working with Vista I can say that I’m…still here. I can’t say that I’m thrilled with Vista, because I’m not, really. There’s the sort of “did I just survive that!?!” one often gets after a particularly reckless motorcycle stunt, but it’s not the kind of thrill you generally want in a business setting. There are some interesting things going on, but I should set this up just a bit…

I got my copy of Vista through the Express Upgrade program. My Gateway laptop, ordered in late November, shipped with XP, but I jumped through the hoops necessary to get my disc sent on its way. It arrived in due time, I backed up all my data files, and the Great Upgrade began.

I decided, against Microsoft’s advice, to try the update (rather than the clean install) for my first installation attempt. Big mistake. There’s nothing like a looping Blue Screen of Death in an OS install to get your attention. After an hour or so of trying to get the installation process to fix itself I gave up and did the clean install. Much better.

Vista comes alive, and it’s first impression time: Hmm, they seem to have given me a new toolbar. I’m a fan of the Google sidebar, so I look at the Microsoft version and spend about ten minutes with it before downloading Google.

Getting things set up was relatively straight forward, though it took a while before I got the MTU issue settled. I run a screwy custom MTU on my home network (thanks, BellSouth), and getting the new value established took a while. It was finally done, though, and I could start using the system.

First note: I’d been told that Office 2007 ran faster under Vista than under XP. My impression is that this is true, tbough the difference in performance isn’t nearly as great as I’d like. Perhaps if I work up the courage to upgrade to Vista 64…

More later, but it’s late. I’ll be back soon.

Categories: Consumer Technology, General computing, Software
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