Twitter is surprisingly addictive. When I first heard about it I thought, why would I want to send an SMS message to a bunch of people to let them know what I was doing? The idea of receiving a slew of texts wasn’t too appealing either especially if the content was stuff like “I am at the bus stop” or “I’m going to the grocery store”.  I joined Twitter reluctantly when I attended a technical conference back in September because the conference organizers were promoting it and communicating to attendees via the free service.

So what is Twitter? PC.com has a good write up titled Family friendly Twitter Tips and explains:

‘This free Web-based service shares qualities with blogging, social networking, instant messaging, and chatting, but is not exactly any of these things. Twitter allows you to broadcast 140-character dispatches (or “tweets”) to your friends and followers from your computer or cell phone; everything from what you’re doing at any given moment (“at coffee shop consuming 1500 calorie snack”) to links you want to pass along to replies to other Twitter users. Using Twitter isn’t unlike sitting in a friendly cafe overhearing bits conversation around you and then piping up when you feel like it.”

Read the rest of the PC.com article to see how you can use Twitter to keep up with your family. I’ve been using Twitter to broadcast blog updates and post random thoughts and activities. I’m not sending a Tweet for everything I do, but I can see (and follow a few people) how it’s easy to do.

Check out my Tweets at http://www.twitter.com/rbrambley, or if you sign up then follow me. I also have a widget in the sidebar of this web page with my 10 latest tweets.

Here are some other applications and add-ons to compliment Twitter that I have found useful. (more…)

If you are like me you have multiple web and pop3 email accounts, multiple instant messaging identities, and belong to several social networking sites. In all of these accounts you get frequent messages or updates that you have a hard time keeping up with across several independent clients. I recently realized that Digsby is the consolidated single client answer for my problem.

From Digsby.com:

“digsby is a multiprotocol IM client that lets you chat with all your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber with one simple to manage buddy list.”

“digsby is an email notification tool that alerts you of new email and lets you perform actions such as ‘Delete’ or ‘Report Spam’ with just one click”

“digsby is a social networking tool that alerts you of events like new messages and gives you a live Newsfeed of what your friends are up to.”

For example, I am using Digsby to monitor my Gmail, Yahoo, and vmetc.com POP3 email accounts, my Gmail and Yahoo instant messaging accounts, and follow updates on Twitter and Linked In. The screen shot in this post is my desktop client. Using the Digsby options you can configure the program to remain running after you close the desktop client and then provide Outlook style pop up notifications when you receive new communicatons.

Since the majority of my accounts are web page -based, setting up new accounts was (more…)

Ubuntu 8.04 has several cool features that were not previously available in past versions. The coolest is when you load the Ubuntu CD on a PC running Windows you have the option to perform a Wubi installation. The Wubi install installs like a Windows application (and it is removed as a Windows app too – i.e. from the Control Panel > Add / Remove programs) but configures your PC to dual boot Ubuntu and your Windows version. It does not modify partitions, the MBR, or any part of your hard disk. It simply creates a new folder named Ubuntu on the drive you choose to install to.

When I first tried the Wubi install I attempted to load it to the same partition Windows boots from. The installation failed, so I then installed it to my data partition and was successful. After a reboot I was prompted to choose which OS to boot. I selected Ubuntu and was amazed as my Lenovo T60p booted successfully. The only problem Ubuntu had with my hardware was that the wireless indicator L.E.D. did not light up, but wireless was working fine.

I was then able to download and install packages / updates, modify my theme and appearance, and configure Ubuntu as you would expect. I could even access my Windows files because the data partition was mounted as /host and the boot partition could be mounted as a removable drive. The end result is the screenshot of my dsktop in this post. (more…)

Lifehacker.com’s post Top 10 Free Video Rippers, Encoders, and Converters reports:

“Commercial video converter software’s aplenty, but there are several solid free utilities that can convert your video files on every operating system, or if you’ve just got a web browser and a quick clip. Put DVDs on your iPod, YouTube videos on DVD, or convert any video file with today’s top 10 free video rippers, encoders and converters.”

Here’s the list of all ten of the utilities. Read the entire article at the link above for more details on each one. (more…)

I could not agree more with the consensus to uninstall Norton in the thread at Norton stinks | Ask Metafilter. It seems all new home desktops and notebooks come with Norton pre-installed with a 1 year license subscription for updates (I’m not sure of the exact time period because I uninstall it asap). Do yourself a favor and uninstall Norton immediately. Especially before you renew the license.

I recommend either ClamWin or AVG. Both are free, protect your email, have real time and scheduled scans, and have (more…)

Whenever family and friends come to me and say my PC is running slow the first thing I do is install and run the free utility CCleaner for them. The features page on ccleaner.com explain why:

Program Summary:

CCleaner is a freeware PC optimization tool.
It combines a system cleaner that removes unused and temporary files from your system and also a fully featured registry cleaner!
CCleaner allows Windows to run faster, more efficiently and gives you more hard disk space.
The best part is that it’s Small, Fast and Free!

Cleans the following Windows components: (more…)

Converting videos to the correct format for my iPod Nano has been frustrating to say the least. The Videora tool has made it much more simple, however.

From videora.com:

“Videora iPod Converter is a free iPod video converter that converts video files, YouTube videos, movies and DVD’s so you can play them on your iPod. The software, developed by the creators of Videora, can convert all types of video files (avi, divx, xvid, flv, x264, vob, mpeg, DVD’s, YouTube, etc.) into the proper video formats (MPEG-4, H.264) that play on the iPod.

With Videora iPod Converter you can convert videos for any (more…)

OpenDNS is a free Dynamic Name Resolution Server (DNS) replacement service that has some very cool internet protection and web site filtering controls for your family. I’ve been using the DNS replacement service for several years now, but I have recently discovered the features that help make the home network more secure. I am pleasantly surprised and very impressed by the reporting, control, and the protection I now have from this completely free service.

From the OpenDNS web site:

“OpenDNS protects millions of people a day across hundreds of thousands of schools, businesses and homes. We block phishing sites, give you the power to filter out adult sites and proxies among more than 50 categories, and provide the precision to block individual domains.”

To start controlling your family’s internet usage you must (more…)

Innotek VirtualBox is a free, open-source alternative to VMware workstation. Aquired by Sun Microsystems earlier this year, VirtualBox has quickly become one of the leading developer platforms for the desktop with current features that rival even VMware’s latest version 6.5 currently in beta testing. I have used VirtualBox in the past, but because I had not used it in over almost over a year I was not aware of the latest features in the most recent releases. The feature that specifically caught my attention was the seamless window integration of Microsoft Windows virtual machines. Like VMware Workstation and Fusion’s Unity feature, VirtualBox allows Windows applications in the VM to pop out of the VM session making it available from the host operating system’s desktop.

I originally published this post on VM /ETC. Read the entire article at vmetc.com (more…)

If you have a Nintendo Wii then you know all about creating Mii characters to play in the games like Wii Sports, Wii Play, and even other titles like Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.

Miieditor.com is a website that lets you create or edit a Mii and save it to a .jpg. So you could create your own avatar for other applications, for example. With some additional software and a bluetooth connection to a computer, you can even transfer the Mii you made on-line to your WiiRemote.

Try it for yourself here.

(more…)