With the popularity of twitter growing, we wanted to enable users to have the possibility to have a shorter URL for posting. To complete the idea, we purchased http://wblo.gs and http://geekswithblo.gs, and you can selected which ever you prefer. Once the request is made it will be redirected to the page under that http://geekswithblogs.net domain, but it will shortcut the amount of characters needed. Here are some examples:
I hope you enjoy these additions. Photo was taken by me on 6/25/2009 at 5:00am while I was waiting on @clinted to wake up. He forgot to set his alarm.
One thing I have learned about using a Mac is that Apple does not produce very many free applications. The ones they do are typically not full featured and to get the full feature you need to buy their upgraded version. For example, when it comes to Photo editing and cataloging, iPhoto is not a solution for large files or RAW processing, you need Aperture which is a couple hundred dollars. I am not complaining because I like it when an application has a product team who generates revenue with it, because the chance of them being around longer seems to be higher.
What is my point in all of this? Apple does not produce a product for blogging/journaling like Microsoft does with Windows Live Writer. I love Windows Live Writer. If you are on a Windows box, it is a required tool in your toolbox if you publish to a blog. The cleanness of the interface, integration with most blog APIs and ability to Save Local or Publish as a Draft make capturing your thoughts for publishing now or later a very easy task. My hope is that Microsoft will port it to the Mac, but I don’t believe that will ever happen as it is not a revenue generating product and Microsoft doesn’t often port to a Mac besides Remote Desktop Connection and MSN Messenger.
For my configuration I used to use only Boot Camp on my two MacBook Pros I have owned in the past three years because I’m a PC, but after four different rebuilds (not typically due to Windows, but Boot Camp or Parallels) I decided to move off the Boot Camp platform and to VMWare Fusion. This is a complete separate blog post that I should spec out in MacJournal, but I now always boot into the Mac OS and use Fusion for my AJI Software VM or my client’s VMs. It just seems to work better for me and I have a very nice way to backup my Windows environments with VMWare.
Needless to say, there was need in my new laptop configuration for a blogging tool that worked natively on a Mac. I don’t like to power up my machine for writing a document or working on an image and need to boot up a VM just so I can use Windows. Some would say why not just use a Windows laptop and put the MBP on eBay? It is just a preference and right now, I like the Mac OS for day to day work. So in comes MacJournal, part of the current MacHeist package for $19.95 (MacJournal is normally $39.95). This product is definitely not WLW, but WLW is missing some features I like in MacJournal. I hope the price point comes down on MacJournal cause I could see paying $19.95 for it, but it is always hard for me to buy a piece of software for $39.95 when I can use something else. But I am a cheapskate when it comes to software packages. I suggest if you are using a Mac to drop what you are doing pick up the MacHeist bundle today before it is over, but if you are reading this later, than download the trial and see if MacJournal is a solution for you. If you have any other suggestions that are as nice or cheaper, please comment.
Product Links
This post was created using MacJournal.
[Update: The joys of formatting. Make sure if you are a Geekswithblogs.net member that you use this configuration to setup the Metablog formatting of paragraphs correctly]
We want to know what you are thinking bloggers and visitors of Geekswithblogs.net. If you were able to add items to the product backlog for this site, what would they be?
New skins?
Better search?
Organic tag system?
Better twitter integration?
More ways to link other social media outlets to your blog like LinkedIn, Plaxo, Flickr?
….
What would you like to see?
You can leave feedback on this post or email me at support@geekswithblogs.com. We love this community and want to see how we can continue to make Geekswithblogs.net relevant to developers in 2010.
I have recently needed a screen capture tool for my Mac and remembered that TechSmith had recently launched SnagIt, the only screen capture tool for Windows in my eyes, for the Mac. SnagIt is an amazing tool and the fact that it comes with an image editor makes it that much nicer. Well needless to say, TechSmith again has out done themselves with Snagit for the Mac. The interface very much fits the Mac UX. I was seriously worried about that because the Windows version definitely fit Windows well with the Print Screen captures and taskbar icon for capture, but for a Mac you would need to integrate it with the top bar that never feels comfortable, the application bar which would be weird as well, or have it running in the background and accessible much like the tablet keyboard on Vista/7. Well that is how they have done it. You have a little app window running in the corner that lets you select the type of capture you want to do. Very slick UI.
However, I must say the coolest part is the Visual Studio-like hover selection window you get when docking in 2008, but for screen capture. Now once you have initiated the capture, when you hover over a browser, it gives you choice on whether you want a window capture, scrolling capture, or you can always default to a dragable size window capture. The guidelines also make it easier to ensure you are getting the proper capture. Very excited to use this product.
Two Thumbs up TechSmith on this beta!
My Haiti trip was amazing, I learned so much from the culture and how much love they have. I can’t really express my emotions well still because it is a major adjustment to see people living with so little and going through so much while having huge hearts, and coming back here where we have so much and worry about everything. It is a little to get used too. Imagine watching a movie with 300 kids who the majority of have never seen a movie and a few days later getting on a plane with TVs in the headrest and kids complaining that they can’t watch a particular show.
Any who, more to come for sure, but here is a photo slide show from my trip. I will continue to add pictures as I get a chance to review.
Please take an opportunity to take a look at what the Global Orphan Project is doing in Haiti and around the world,
On Thursday, February 4th, I am leaving with 7 other men from my church to go to Port-au-Prince, Haiti to work in a temporary orphanage for a week. I am definitely excited to go on this trip and I really feel God is calling me to go and spread the gospel and bring whatever joy I can to these children. We are going with a ministry called the Global Orphan Project based in Kansas City. They currently have several orphanages around the world and in Haiti, but with the need for more homes for orphans after the earthquake, they created a Temporary Village outside of Port-au-Prince and this is where we will be working.
We are hoping to return next Monday, but we may stay until Tuesday. The main goal for our team is to interact with the children at the village by playing games, telling stories, drawing, and just being a kid. After nearly 18 months in youth ministry, I know how to think quick when it comes to making up games, so I should have some skills in this area.
Tonight we are packing our bags as a group. We are allowed two 50lbs bags on the flight along with our carry-on so we are packing the two bags with clothing, games, dental products, soccer balls, crayons, and other supplies for the children and our stuff in the carry-ons.
I would like to solicit as much prayer as I can for our team while we are on this trip. I know we are about to enter a country that has been devastated by this earthquake and some of the experiences I have will be life changing.
(Side Note: Yes, I know, do not take the children outside of the country would out the appropriate paperwork.)
Along with the new TV we purchased, I need a new antenna for Over-The-Air HD/DTV because I absolutely hate the Trek antenna I bought last year because of it’s bulky size and lack of a strong signal. I was strolling through Lowe’s picking up some stuff for youth group and I wandered by the home audio/video section. You will be amazed sometimes by the stuff Lowe’s carries and the prices compared to Best Buy and the chains. In this case I for the RCA Flat, non-powered antenna (see picture) for around $50 bucks. Being I spent well over that for the other antenna, I thought I would give it a try and take it back if it didn’t work (which I planned, because I didn’t think it would).
First off, it has no power adapter, which is awesome, but scary at the same time. I figured every antenna needed a amplifier or signal booster of some sort to get a good picture in KC. I was wrong. Very wrong.
THIS IS THE BEST ANTENNA I HAVE EVER USED.
Now that said, I have never attached anything to my house and I am at the top of a hill at the new place so I am sure these factors all play in, but man is this thing amazing. I have always struggled in the past to get a good mix of VHF and UHF channels to come in, but this thing handles them perfectly. In fact I get every known channel listed on the over-air channel list for the metro area without any signal lost. The picture is perfect without all the digital fallout that I have seen with most antennas.
The ease of use is what makes this thing some awesome. No power cord, No mounting, No tweaking or pointing. I just sat it on top of the cable box and plug the coax into the TV. Once the auto-tuning was done on the Samsung LED 6000 Series, we were ready to rock with free HD. The device is so low profile, you don’t even notice it.
Like all reviews I need to state that this is my first reaction to the product, I have used it for only 4 days now and we mainly use Time Warner as our HD provider, but I do truly think this is a solid product for you to try.
Christmas is coming and so are the deals. Right now Best Buy has a huge discount (and you can find them in-stock) on the Samsung LED TVs. (I think I saved $960 off of the original price)
I have needed a new TV ever since we moved. The main reason is we wanted something we could mount on the wall to keep away from the kids in the new house and my wife watched enough Food Network (she bakes cakes and cookies as her hobby) that the logo started to get burnt in. The black lines were definitely burnt in, but who really wants to watch SDTV all stretched and nasty just to save from burn in. No one's head is really that wide and squished looking :D
That said, I have been shopping the reviews and sites that have the in-store stock status of their TVs. Currently it seems like most places are selling out early on big TVs this year since the price has dramatically dropped from $3-4k for a big flat TV to $1-2k. This week there are a lot of sells on TVs so they are few and far between. I really don’t like the idea of having a TV shipped either, though everyone offered it. I know they were shipped to begin with, but if I open the box that night and something is wrong, I can take it back right then. I like that with big purchases :D.
Anyway, I decided to go with the Samsung 55 in Series 6000 LED TV, purchased from Best Buy due to these factors:
- Depth – Less than 2 inches is very very small
- Price – Little over $2,000 sell price (- tax) is dang good for a LED or LCD TV of that size. 10 years ago, I paid that for the mid-level projection TV that took up 2 foot of space from the wall, this one mounted on the wall is less that 2 inches.
- Weight – You can mount it very easy on almost any surface. In fact, the mounting kit comes with drywall, concrete, or wood screws and instructions.
- Brightness – Wow, seriously, go to Best Buy and stand back and just compare it to the other TVs, it is hard to find a better picture than an LED TV due to the brightness level
- Go Green – Just kidding, I don’t purchase anything for this reason, but they state on the site you can Go Green with this purchase.
- Availability – It was and still in in-stock at most stores.
So far I truly love everything about this TV, and am still amazed by the items I listed above. This will definitely be a great Christmas present for me … opps, let that cat out early, but I will really enjoy using it through this holiday season and the next couple years. Then like most modern devices, it will start to flake and most likely crash and I will replace it with a TV made purely of glass and the picture is projected from the side like all those Microsoft future videos promise.
Last week I deployed a small update to Geekswithblogs.net based on a blogger suggestion to get the last version of the Admin Blog Editor’s input control on the server so he could do some cool stuff he wanted to with syntax. I published that update and then fixed some of the annoying CSS issues we had on the server side to make it a little cleaner looking UI. I need to do more work for sure, but I fixed the majority of the issues.
Another area I put some time into was the long standing request for allowing users to control the number of tweets that show on their blog (with a cap of 10). I have noticed a few registered bloggers add themselves for the SEO and twitter integration only, so pushing more than 10 would probably prolong this issue. You also have the ability now to say “Do Not Show” and the twitter widget will not show, but your tweets will still remain part of the community feed.
Idea Request
Beyond just showing the latest tweets from the community, how would you like to interact with this data? What else would you like, what would be beneficial for you to see?