Archive for the 'Reviews' Category

Meebo Me!

Published
by
C.G.
on August 2, 2006
in Computers, Reviews and Site
. 0 Comments

I just added another feature to the site which I hope to benefit from. If you scroll down to the bottom of the right sidebar, you will notice a white widget called ‘Meebo Me’. This widget, created by the wonderfully brilliant folks at Meebo, just launched their Meebo Me applet this morning and the moment I saw it, I knew I wanted it for the site.

The way it works is really simple. Meebo is a Web 2.0 style, web-based, multi-client, IM system. It allows a user to log into their AOL, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and Jabber/Google Talk systems and chat with their buddies within their browser window. You can log in once (and quickly) through the main page or you can create a Meebo ID and set up all your IM accounts for easy sign-in later on; the Meebo ID also allows you to configure multiple IM names for a particular service - say, you’re two AOL names (you know, the one you have for work, i.e. your name, and your personal one, FuZzyBunnYsLiperS). It can retain your conversations if you ask it to and you can use that feature while chatting one on one with someone or in a chat room you set up with the site. It doesn’t support everything IM has to offer yet (like file transfers) but not everyone uses that anyway.

So with a Meebo ID, anyone can go to their site and create a widget. When you are done creating one (and you can make more than one), it gives you the code to cut and paste into your website, blog, whatever. Once you do that… you’re done! Log into Meebo and wait for someone to visit your site. When someone does, you’ll notice a buddy show up online in your contact list. If the user types into the bottom text box of the applet, you’ll hear a chime alerting you to the new message. And through that new window, you can chat back. The visitor, by default, gets a weird name and number but they are allowed to rename their own given ID; meebome12345 can become SiteVisitor or FuZzyBunnYsLiperS - whatever your heart desires.

In case I forgot to mention, it requires Flash. The applet doesn’t work with crappy Flash 7 for Linux (when is version 9 coming out, Adobe?) so you might have a problem if you are an Ubuntu user like me. But if you have a Mac or some other boring miscellaneous non-descript computing device, you should be fine.

But I hope that you visitors will use it. I’d like to hear where you are from, what your interests are, your pet peeves, your measurements - oh, wait… Sorry, wrong publication. Anyway… I want to learn more about other people and would love the opportunity to chat with those who find my reviews, ramblings, and rants interesting.

Hope to chat with you soon!

Site 24×7

Published
by
C.G.
on August 1, 2006
in Reviews and Site
. 0 Comments

I just started using Site24×7 to keep tabs on my hosting provider.  Since I signed up with my hosting service, I only had one outage in the many months I subscribed to their service.  That is, until today.

Just like the other time I had an issue, the support staff quickly resolved the issue.  However, I didn’t know the site was having problems until I tried to visit it - possibly hours after the issue started.  Where I work, I have monitors on all the core servers and running services that notify me of any problem.  If the server begins to run out of disk space, I know well in advance.  If the BES services fails, I know.  And if CPU time runs abnormally high for a certain length of time, I get an alert.

So I decided to look for a service that would do this and not charge me a lot of money.  Right now, Site24×7 is free and all four sites I actively manage are monitored.  Every five minutes, the sites are polled with GET requests.  If they fail, I’m alerted to a specific Gmail account I setup and have configured into my Blackberry.  I’ll be able to email my hosting support and ask that they look into the matter even while I’m away.

I’ve not tested the service so I can only hope that it works.  It does give me some aggregate performance numbers to prove that its actually doing what its supposed to.  I’ll only know it works when something goes wrong.  But it seems kinda flexible and supports most of the features you want in such a system.

According to their marketing information, it supports HTTPS and authentication.  It also can check for defacement by validating against key words you define.  It can also deal with dynamic pages.  It also handles POST commands and can alert you if there is a dramatic slow-down or sudden increase/decrease in page size.

Of course, I can’t endorse this because I really don’t know if it works but I’m willing to give it a shot.  After all, its free for now and it should do what I want it to.  If something does happen to the site and I get a notification, I’ll be sure to update this review.

And let’s hope I never do.

Review: Ubuntu

Published
by
C.G.
on July 18, 2006
in Computers, Linux and Reviews
. 4 Comments

Before I get into the details of my review, let me preface this post by summarizing it first.

Ubuntu ROCKS!!!

Now that I’ve given you my opinion, I’ll tell you why.

In short, it’s fast, fresh, and surprisingly easy to use. An added pluses are the versions they offer and the support that is optionally available (for a fee). Now on to the review.
Continue reading ‘Review: Ubuntu’

Flock

Published
by
C.G.
on June 14, 2006
in Computers and Reviews
. 0 Comments

So I’m browsing the Interweb and I see this article on Flock. Based on the same Mozilla engine that powers FireFox, Flock (aptly titled, I think) integrates tools and features for the new Web 2.0 craze of social something-or-other.

Social networking/bookmarking/sharing/whatever is the newest thing to hit the wired world and it offers new opportunities for people to communicate with one another and businesses to earn money off those social services. Typically, these Web 2.0 companies are funded with VC (as in venture capital for the noob) similar to that of the Web 1.0 or Dot Com craze/bubble/crash/ of before. These sites typically use newer programming concepts like Ruby, Ruby on Rails, AJAX, DHTML, to deliver dynamic web pages for a fast and interactive user experience. Some popular social sites include Flickr, Basecamp, Listible, Digg, Del.icio.us, Writely, YouTube and a whole lot more.

So anyway…

Flock integrates into Flickr, MySpace, and similar services. Your favorites: all your Del.icio.us bookmarks - with tags! You can post to any Blogger, Drupal, LiveJournal, MoveableType, Typepad or WordPress blog. In fact, I’m writing this post using Flock right now!

Because Flock is based off of the Mozilla engine, it renders web pages just like Firefox. It shares virtually all the features of FireFox including extensions and themes. Even the options page looks the same. There is tabbed browsing and everything. Not all of the current extensions work with Flock but it is relatively easy to convert them to their format. People have already created applications to do that for your favorite extension that hasn’t been converted already.

I’m not endorsing Flock (yet) because its not perfect. Mostly because the extensions don’t all convert well or work the same. But then again, FireFox is already at 1.5 - soon to be 2.0 - and Flock is only at 0.7 Beta 1. For a 0.7, its damn good just not as matured as FireFox. When I do endorse it, all those extension bugs will have been worked out. However, I am really excited that this idea had enough success to get this far.

One other concern of mine is its apparent ties to Yahoo. I don’t like Yahoo. It’s hard to say why but it boils down to subjective reasons that I have and don’t really share. Yes, I know Yahoo owns Flickr and Del.icio.us but I don’t really consider them Yahoo IP because at this point in time, 90+% of the code, concept, and spirit of these sites didn’t come from Yahoo and if it ever gets to a point that Yahoo “upgrades” these services, I’m willing to bet that many people will not be pleased with what they are served.

Regardless of what you think of Yahoo, its hard not to notice the “plugs” Flock gives them and the disses (is that really a word?) it gives other sites. The default page is Yahoo (which looks like Google’s homepage and not the the ugly heavy Yahoo homepage). Flickr and Del.icio.us are Yahoo offerings and the setup wizard places them first in the list of sites to integrate into. There is no mention of Riya or Zoomr. Conspiracy theory? Probably not. Developing a product like this can’t be easy and you can’t expect every feature under the sun for the first beta - I realize that. But with such ties to Yahoo, I wonder if Flock can ever grow and integrate into other social sites if Yahoo is behind all that VC funding they just got.

I fully understand why Yahoo would want to partner with Flock; it makes great business sense (Google, are you coming out with that browser yet?). I would want to do the same thing. I also understand why Flock would want to partner with Yahoo; what an easy way to get bought or extra VC. It’s not like Microsoft is giving any of that up to them. Let’s just hope that any partnerships don’t obscure the original concept and essence of Flock.

Now that I’ve ranted, check out Flock and give it a try. I don’t think you will disappointed. I’ll be using it for a while and give my two cents after a few days of using it.