Until I get the new Twitter...

Since Twitter is taken their sweet time given me the new version I stumbled on a cool little extension for Firefox and Chrome called "Power Twitter" by Narendra Rocherolle, Nick Wilder.

I take it it's been around for a minute (November of 2009, where the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks HAVE I BEEN?!?) but whats cool about it is that it gives you two important tools you need right at your fingertips: posting a photo and shorten your links. I don't know if I will use the "Update Mood" (what would have been cool if it added the "smileys" to the tweets...hey, I like eye-candy).

At the lower right bottom of the page is where you choose your setting in regards to which app you wish to use in regards to where you wish your pictures to post. Not bad.

Until I finally get to play around with the new Twitter this will have to do and I don't mean using Power Twitter is a bad thing because you keep your same twitter but with a boost.

Firefox Power Twitter extension link Google Chrome Power Twitter extension link

Don't Call It A Comeback (Blogger Style)

I've been a Blogger fan since I first began blogging back in 2006 and I know when it came to templates and backgrounds that Blogger has been kinda, you know, bland. But it was a great starter blogging platform and to be honest I have learned so much when it comes to cutting and pasting code for widgets, how to resize them, how to mess around with HTML (just a little) and to honest it's been kinda fun.

Wordpress for me on the other hand has been...work. Don't get me wrong, WP is a very powerful blogging platform and millions use WP and I have to admit I have a WP account but I could never leave Blogger.

Over the years I come across so many cool templates for Blogger and I have learned through trial and error on how to change the themes. Some days it would get the best of me but what it taught me was to walk away for a couple of hours, get my thoughts clear and come back fresh and the solution was staring me right in the face. Yes, Blogger has been like pal through thick and thin in blogging world.

Getting back to the templates and themes. If anyone has worked with Blogger their themes has been really limited and that is why other bloggers moved on to other platforms because of this and for many, they outgrew Blogger but for me I had a feeling that one day they would bounce back with some cool features. The past couple of years Google is doing some really cool things with Blogger and this latest addition has me turning cartwheels...well not "physically" turning cartwheels, but I could I would.

ShoutMeLoud {http://www.shoutmeloud.com/} is a very cool site where they keep you abreast on the latest blogging tools in regards to many of the blogging platforms so imagining my surprise coming across a post where blogger now has a feature called "Draft Blogger Template"{http://tinyurl.com/yzcutop} maker option and it is so sweet.(If you have been a long time Blogger user go into your Dashboard setting and check the box that says, "Make Blogger in Draft my default dashboard" The themes are still kind limited but two things I really like is the background features and now you choose the Body Layout, Foot Layout and if you need to adjust the width of your Blog it gives you that option. (I believe they give you that option now do to so many computer owners have wide screen monitors).

Another reason why I think this is very cool is the fact when it came to using other templates and themes some of the themes that I would use from an outside source limited me in regards to changing the fonts and sometimes for me something that small would be a "deal breaker" for me. Another small thing is that by sometimes using an outside theme you lost the ability to make a new post on the fly (this feature is in the upper right hand corner). Now with this new feature of themes I have the best of both worlds again.

Now I'm not shooting down the templates and themes that are still being created because I love them and again Blogger has taught me so much when it comes to not only blogging but setting up my blog just right. But it's really cool that Google has finally realize that in order to keep people using your products sometimes you have to listen to your audience. Sometimes the ideas do not take off but on this one I know I'm staying with Blogger for a very long time now.

Lovin' what you're doing Blogger Google, keep up the great work. :-)

Two of my Blogger Blogs that I have switched to using their (Blogger) backgrounds

Theology & Technology
ThisWorldMyLife

wednesday tech evening news

Good evening everyone, It's been another long day/night for me but I'm still hanging in there. Here are some articles that caught my eye earlier today.

Donald Rumsfeld leaving, Vista's in the home stretch to be released, Google makes a 'boo boo'...you gotta love the news. Well everyone, I'm calling it a night.

Be Blessed, Be Safe and Have a peaceful night.

Some Tech News this evening:

Vista's last mile
from CNet.com

The last stop for Vista is a windowless conference room in Building 26, on Microsoft's sprawling campus in the Seattle suburbs. Each day, members of the Windows team gather inside this "shiproom" to go over the bugs that remain, and to debate which of these can still be fixed in the days left until the product is declared finished, a milestone that is expected any time now. The intense "end game," as these final weeks are known, is a well-worn tradition inside the shiproom, which is on the third floor of the Windows development building. The small room, with its dated, dark wood conference table has been the war room for every Windows release since Windows 2000.>>>more

Adobe Releases Tamarin
story from Wired.com

As we reported in this morning’s reboot, Adobe has open-sourced a bundle of code to the Mozilla Foundation under the name Tamarin. The whooping 135,000 lines of code in today’s release constitute the largest single contribution to the Mozilla foundation since its inception. The code consists primarily of the source behind Adobe’s ActionScript Virtual Machine, but that doesn’t mean Adobe is open sourcing the Flash player. ActionScript 3.0, the language used in the Flash Player v9.0, is based on an international standard by the name of ECMAScript. ECMAScript is also the basis of Javascript, which is the language behind the ever-growing AJAX>>>more

New MacBooks to use Intel Core 2 Duo chips
story from msnbc.com|tech

Apple Computer Inc. said Wednesday a new line of MacBook notebook computers will use Intel Corp.'s Core 2 Duo processors and be up to 25 percent faster than the previous generation. Apple announced the new consumer computers ahead of the holiday season with prices starting at $1,099. Last month, the computer maker said its MacBook Pro line of laptops would use Intel's Core 2 Duo processors.

Mozilla Patches 'Critical' Bugs in Firefox, Thunderbird
story from eWeek.com

It's a bumper patch day in Mozilla land. The open-source foundation released a batch of highly critical updates for the Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey brands and warned that unpatched users face the risk of PC takeover attacks. The Firefox update applies to Firefox 1.5x and does not affect the newer Firefox 2.0 version. Mozilla says Firefox 1.5.0.x will be maintained with security and stability updates until April 24, 2007. After that, support will only be extended to Firefox 2 users. The latest patch covers a trio>>>more

Linux Pact for $348 Million
story from nytimes.com

Microsoft will make two payments totaling $348 million to the Novell Corporation under an agreement to allow Novell’s open-source Linux software to work with Windows. Microsoft will pay Novell $240 million upfront in subscription fees to use the Linux software and an additional $108 million in upfront payments for use of patents, Novell said in a filing yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Microsoft and Novell, longtime rivals, announced last week that they had entered into a broad set of business and technological agreements.

Google accidentally sends out e-mail worm
Story from ZDNet.com

Three postings were made Tuesday evening to an e-mail list that sends out postings to the Google Video blog. "Some of these posts may have contained a virus called W32/Kapser.A@mm--a mass-mailing worm," Google said in a note on its Web site apologizing for the incident. W32/Kapser.A is better known as the Kama Sutra worm. Some antivirus companies raised an alarm about the threat in February, but it ultimately shriveled. Kama Sutra was designed to overwrite files on infected computers on a specific date. However, the worm, which spread under the guise of pornographic content, caused virtually no damage. Google advises people who may have received the worm in e-mail or downloaded it from the group's Web site to run an antivirus>>>more

other news around the world:

SIUC chancellor is ousted
story from stltoday.com

Dogged by allegations of plagiarism and "intellectual dishonesty," Southern Illinois University's chancellor will be replaced with an interim chief of the 20,000-student Carbondale campus, the university system's president announced Wednesday. University President Glenn Poshard tapped SIU Provost John Dunn to temporarily succeed Walter Wendler, who was told last year that his contract, set to expire in June of next year, would not be renewed. Dunn's appointment takes effect Nov. 15. As a tenured full professor in architecture, Wendler will be reassigned to the school's College of Applied Sciences and Arts. Wednesday's announcement came eight days after a Poshard-appointed panel announced that Wendler admitted "lifting" excerpts from a strategic plan for a Texas school where he>>>more

AP: Webb wins in Virginia; would give Dems control of Senate
story from USA TODAY

Democrats won the last undecided Senate race to complete an election sweep that ended Republican control of Congress, according to an Associated Press canvass of Virginia's close contest. The strong gains prompted President Bush on Wednesday to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, architect of the Iraq war. If Democrat Jim Webb's victory is certified by the state, Democrats will pick up a sixth GOP-held seat and secure a 51-vote working majority in the Senate. That total includes two independents who plan to vote with the Democrats. The AP declared Webb the victor Wednesday night based on a canvass of election officials in all 134 localities where voting occurred. Webb, a former Navy secretary under Ronald Reagan, had>>>more

Hamas says death of 18 civilians will be avenged
story from GuardianUnlimited

The leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas called on his fighters yesterday to "activate resistance" hours after an Israeli artillery strike killed 18 civilians, mostly women and children, from a single family in Gaza. Khaled Meshaal, who lives in exile in Damascus, promised retaliation after a wave of artillery shells landed before dawn on a residential street in Beit Hanoun. Several homes were hit, all belonging to one family. The attack sparked international condemnation and came a day after the Israeli military ended a six-day operation in Beit Hanoun that claimed more than 50 lives. More than 350>>>more

Bloggers Link Another Story That Is On The Mark

Google makes video
play with YouTube buy>>>more
from CNet.com website

It finally happened...Google purchased YouTube. I think what really blows me away is not the purchase of YouTube (it was rumored that pretty soon YouTube might have went under do to the bandwidth cost to the company) but the fact that once again, a blogger broke the story.

Remember when we were in the grocery store and we saw magazines like the National Enquirer and other magazines that we would just walk right past them because they were 90-95% crap and the rest may and I say a small may have been true. Now these 'throw' away newspapers (can't believe I just called them newspapers) have more truth and break more stories it seems than People, Time, Newsweek and other legit news organizations.

I think some of it now comes from the fact of, you guessed it...technology. Ted Turner started it all with CNN to be honest. People thought he was nuts to start a 24hour, around the coverage news organization. Yep, he was crazy..crazy like a multi-billionaire fox. Now we have the Weather Channel, ESPN, the Golf Channel, Speed Channel. Yep Ted, you were the innovator.

It was the blogs that told on Mark Foley and this leak with the Google purchase of YouTube. Most blogs you have to take it with a grain of salt but rather the big news organization want to recognize this or not, bloggers are making there mark when it comes to delivering news. Hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq, the news is getting out to the masses..the good and the bad. Even now when you go to websites (CNN, MSNBC, CNet) they have 'blog" sections on their site.

I listened to my TWiT podcast today and they were kind of scoffing about the Google/YouTube story. John C. Dvorak (you're still my hero) did not think this was legit...sorry John.

Yes, blogs are here to stay and that gives me hope that maybe I can do this full time one day soon.

other tech articles: MySpace organizes Sudan fundraiser, Ray Noorda, The CEO Who Led Novell Dies, In the home stretch toward Vista, Firefox 2.0 RC2 Is a Step … Backward?

Christian readings: insight for living, Coping with Loss, God's Curriculum

netcast for your mind & soul: Futures in Biotecha>, dl.tv: Episode 101, Chosen by God, Part 3

photo: google image

Making Operation Systems Fun Again

Canonical seeks profit
from free Ubuntu>>>more
from CNet.com

A new, leaner open source OS (operating system) has the tech world abuzz..Ubuntu. A Linux based OS, which is free, has some people installing it on the secondary machine to get familiar with it(I have it installed on my old IBM Thinkpad 600E). The cool thing about Ubuntu was how smooth the installation went. I'm having problems getting it to recognize my sound card and I really have to sit and play around with this new OS (I tried to install Flash Player and it's not loading correctly). I know there is a fix for it, I just need to take time out to learn this new OS.

This is my first time using Linux and most hard core Linux user think, and which Ubuntu is, a more watered down version of Linux. Watered down or not, I like it because:

• No worry about spyware, adware, viruses
• It has OpenOffice (an office application suite...similar to Microsoft Office), Firefox (web browser), Gimp and other software built in where you would have buy individual applications when using Microsoft.
• Many, many forums for help and support
• It's free
• Ubuntu makes learning computing fun again (like when I first got my first Mac)
• oh...did I mention it's free

It has a long way to go no doubt but with the problems with Windows and the uncertainty with Vista (can't count out Vista just yet...I have learned over the years that sometime you have to have a little patience) but I hope Ubuntu is around for a while because like Apple, this OS has giving me a thirst for learning something new in the world of OS again.

other tech news: Google 'in talks to buy YouTube', Analysts split over Vista launch date, *Your Mac’s Best List Of Personal Notebooks

news from around the world: Deep in the galaxy, signs of Jupiter-like planets, FIREPROOF Bible Study, Instant-messaging conversations can easily linger for years

podcast for knowledge & wisdom: The Chris Pirillo Show; Crown Financials: Clergy Appreciation,Your Calls, Teach Your Children Well; What is the Gospel?


“Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.”- Isaiah 26:4

photo: google image