Facebook Poll: HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray
I would have liked to see reasons why people picked what they did. If I had to guess, it would be price of Blu-Ray players over HD-DVD players. What would you choose and why?
Facebook Etiquette
With a new academic year starting (for some of us as soon as tomorrow), Wired has released some simple rules to follow while facebooking. Facebook is one of my favorite websites because of it’s great functionality and expandability, but one should follow a few rules while using it. Here are a couple of my favorites:
- One should not friend another whom they have no association or connection with whatsoever. Doing so makes you what I like to call a ‘creeper’.
- Beware of potential employers browsing facebook photos. That body shot or keg stand picture might not encourage hiring.
- One’s profile should not be overloaded with unnecessary applications (such as Superpoke, Food Fight, ect.), Facebook is not meant to be like myspace. (emphasis added)
- Being part of too many Facebook groups devalues the ones you truly care about, try to stick to a select few (under 25?) -I keep mine under 15-.
There is one I disagree with though: One’s popularity is based on the number of “Happy Birthday!!!!!†wallposts they receive. Do not forget to leave one on good friends’ walls on their special day. My personal opinion is that if they are a good friend, you could give them a call. If they aren’t you probably didn’t even know it was their birthday to begin with.
I think the most important one is the one about employment. Employers are looking at MySpace and Facebook to get a ‘better look’ at their applicants, so be careful of what you put up, especially if you are, say, under 21.
Quote of the Day
[If China started] making, say, toys without lead in them or food that isn’t poisonous, their costs of production will go up and that means prices at Wal-Mart here in the US will go up too.
Erin Burnett of CNBC
Plaxo
Just recently I started using Plaxo, an online calendar and contacts manager. When Plaxo first started, it was a contacts manager that bought out the online calendar I was using at the time, HipCal. I never really got into Plaxo, especially once I got my Treo, but revisiting it, I’ve got to say it’s quite powerful and has a great interface.
It handles everything Outlook can handle in a web-based format. A really nice feature of Plaxo is that it automatically updates your address book with any changes other friends on Plaxo make. It also give you access to the RSS feeds they choose to share with Plaxo Pulse. The calendar is very slick, displaying the next two days in agenda form and then the next 3 weeks in calendar form. It also displays the local weather and any ‘countdowns’ you add, such as days until your birthday. My favorite part, however, is the powerful syncing options Plaxo offers.
Online calendars have always been a project of mine. GCal has been my web-based one of choice for a while because it’s easy to access when I use GMail. But since getting Yahoo! Go on my Blackberry, I’ve tried going back to Yahoo! Calendar because it autosyncs with Outlook. But this means at any given time, GCal, Outlook/Yahoo and my Blackberry could have different calendars. With Plaxo’s Sync Dashboard, I can set up my Plaxo calendar to sync with GCal and all of Plaxo (calendar, contacts, tasks, notes) to sync with Outlook. Then I sync my Blackberry with my computer. Yahoo is automatically updated, though Plaxo offers Calendar and contacts sync for that too, as well as MSN, Outlook Express, Mac OSX, AOL/AIM and LinkedIn. It also offers a mobile web interface so I can access it via my blackberry. The only thing that would make this better is over the air (wireless) sync with my Blackberry, which I believe they are working on.
All in all, Plaxo is a very nice web app that I am glad I discovered before the start of the school year. With it’s awesome accessibility and sync options, it will definitely keep me more organized.
Blackberry Software
Since getting my Blackberry, I have been scouring the Internet, looking for fun/free/useful software. There are a few programs I use everyday, but most of the useful stuff comes in the form of mobile websites.
Let’s start with the software. The best of the blackberry software is Yahoo! Go. This is a clean, easy to use interface that nicely integrates your Yahoo! Account into your blackberry. Go allows you to get your news, sports scores, finance info, weather, email and even Flickr. On top of that it gives you your calendar and syncs your contacts right with your device. Also ranking on the free software list is TwitterBerry, which I mentioned in my Twitter post. Quickly and easily update your Twitter and get your friends timeline. The last piece of software is JiveTalk. This multi-client instant messaging program, while not free, is the best I have seen for AIM, MSN and Yahoo!. It also supports Google Talk, but I usually use the mobile version of GTalk for that. I did leave out the Google Mobile package, which comes with GTalk, GMail, Search and News. Frankly, while the GTalk and GMail programs are very nice, Yahoo! Go wins out for news and search.
But as I said, most of the stuff I use is mobile web stuff. The sites I frequent on my blackberry include Facebook, Plaxo, MLB.com and Remember the Milk, all of which have very nice mobile sites. ESPN and CNN also rank on the mobile site list. Full functionality of these sites on my Blackberry is nice and convenient, especially with Remember the Milk and MLB. I love getting the play-by-play which I can’t catch the game on the TV or Radio.
I have still yet to find: a good mobile FTP program (for free), a good version of Wikipedia for mobile use, and while I am not a huge fan, a mobile version of MySpace. I refuse to pay extra for a site I use for free.
Twitter & Productivity
Twitter, a website that allows you to post short (140 characters or less) updates, has been becoming more and more of a productivity tool. I have been a Twitter user since April, but haven’t really started using it until just recently. With integration for Google Calendar, Remember the Milk and GTalk among other things, using Twitter isn’t just a fun little app anymore. It’s a tour de force of productivity for those who use it right.
First thing first: Anything I can do from IM is a great thing. While it’s AIM support has been on and off and is currently off indefinitely, the recently added GTalk support is awesome. I can send updates from GMail or my desktop quite easily now, as well as eliminate those direct message emails I get by just allowing Twitter messages to go to IM. Plus, I have GTalk for my Blackberry, which is an added bonus.
With a number of different bots, I have all the information I want at my fingertips. Weather, sports, headlines, etc. Not to mention an alarm with Twitter Timer, integration with GCal and especially Remember the Milk. My favorite Tasks web app got better because now I can easily, from anywhere, send a task to my phone.
Finally, with TwitterBerry, I can easily send updates from my blackberry, without the extra resources required for GTalk. This program was the final nail in the “Use Twitter to GTD” coffin. In the coming days I will be scouring the internet for more Twitter Resources, and frequently checking Retweet for news on new Twitter Bots. So…How do you use Twitter?
Software for College Students
In the last two installments of this series, I mention 10 Items and 10 Websites for college students. Now, here is some essential software for college students.
- Microsoft Office
- This is a Software Suite you will use every step of the way throughout college. Familiarize yourself with Word, Excel and Power point. Not only is it the best of its kind, it’s pretty much the standard in college and the real world.
- Free Alternative: Open Office– With Open Office you can create and open Word, Excel and Power point files. A great alternative if you don’t want to shell out the $100 for the student version of MS Office.
- MS Outlook
- With Calendar, Address Book, ToDo List and Notes, MS Outlook is a nice one stop shop for organization. This also comes with the MS Office software suite. It also syncs with most smart phones and PDAs.
- Free Alternatives: While I haven’t seen something quite like Outlook, there are a number of tools (mostly web-based) that can help you out. Online, I use Google Calendar, Remember the Milk for tasks and Google Notebook for notes. As far as desktop software goes, Thunderbird is the way to go for email. Plus with Lightning, you can get a calendar built right into Thunderbird.
- Anti-Virus Software
- Let’s face it. You will be on a residential network with possibly thousands of students using the internet. Most wouldn’t be able to spot a virus. Anti-Virus software is essential all of the time, but especially if you are moving out of the house and onto a shared network. My school made me install their brand of computer protection, but if you have the choice, I recommend Norton Anti-Virus.
- Free Alternative:– AVG Antivirus. It’s pretty rock solid and a nice free piece of software.
Those three, I feel, are the most important pieces of software. Below is a list of free software that might not be exclusive to college students, but still very helpful.
- ITunes– I am not a fan of ITunes. I use Windows Media Player 11. However, living on campus, where a majority of people on your network use ITunes, it could make discovering music easier. With MyTunes Redux, it is easier to share music with your friends. There is also something out there called ITunes U, which allows schools to add content to ITunes for its students to download.
- Picasa– Photo Organizing and Editing by Google
- Ad-Aware– Free Spyware cleaning program.
- AIM/Google Talk– Instant Messaging programs are pretty essential in college. IMing is the quickest and easiest way to get in contact with someone, especially since most campuses are pretty well connected; not to mention IM makes it easy to keep in touch during the summer and after graduation.
- FireFox– The best, most secure browser, period.
- Skype– Free VoIP (over the internet phone calls) and very cheap calls to US and Internationally. Great if you have a prepaid cell phone (or no cell phone).
- FoxIt Reader– PDFs in college are inevitable. While Adobe Reader is the more popular PDF reader, FoxIt Reader is much more lightweight and very easy to use.
As a Comp Sci guy, IDEs, Linux and notepad got me through my Undergrad program. What software helped/helps you?