Quick List April 24, 2009

This week the links are mostly about social media. The list is kind of a mixture of topics: A couple of services, informational links, a tool and a new type of search engine. I look forward to implementing some of the ideas I got from the first bullet. Enjoy!

• This was a very informative link for me as I am new to this medium. The 25 styles of blogging…and when to use them. (I think this is style 9)
• A “human-powered search engine” called Mahalo. Not sure what it is? Check out the FAQ
• Some best practices for the new brand pages on Facebook from Marty Collins, a marketing manager for Microsoft Windows marketing group
• Cool service working to localize twitter. Search your zip or read how the service works
  
• A user driven directory for twitter called wefollow
• WriteWith, a workflow system designed to make online word processing work for groups(+2 pts to my fav DBA for the find)

Happy Earth Day 2009!

DYK (Did You Know)- Earth Day is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment and it was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1970.

Each year this day serves as a reminder for me to think green. It provides an opportunity to look at what we have done throughout the year to be environmentally responsible. From an IT perspective this means things like turning off lights when leaving the sever room, buying energy efficient equipment, removing and recycling unused hardware, etc. Today I saw a simple comment on twitter (#earthday) that caught my attention:

“Wake up Tweeps! EVERY day should be earth day.”

It was not a new or original idea, but it had an effect. So I would like to figure out a way to celebrate Earth Day that would have a year-round impact. I am interested in any ideas that would help in an effort to reduce our carbon footprint. (Please leave them in the comments-thx)

PS: Check out another event that you might not have heard of that is growing each year Earth Hour. On March 28, 2009 hundreds of millions of people in over 4,000 cities and towns and 88 countries VOTED EARTH.

What are you doing for Earth Day?

Quick List - April 3, 2009

I missed last week’s Quick List because I was out of the office last Friday thanks to the MHSAA 2009 Basketball Finals. I had a great time and saw some great basketball including, future Spartan, Keith Appling of Detroit Pershing scoring a record 49 points in the Class A championship game. Here is this week’s quick list.

• Want to know more about Twitter. Check out this wiki. I used it to find out what this #hashtag stuff was all about.
• My favorite DBA found this awesome application called Etherpad. It allows real-time collaborative text editing.
• Tiny URL is a web service that shrinks those ridiculously long URL links into short easy to cut and paste links that will not break when emailed. You can also create toolbar button for quick creation of tiny urls from your current web page in one click.
• For those of you that use Digg, check out the new DiggBar
• I mentioned IE8 a couple of weeks ago. I have had a chance to check out and so far so good. Here is a short list of new\improved features:
  · Slices
  · Compatibility View
  · Accelerators
  · Improved Security
  · Color coded tab groups

Friendly reminder: If you have not checked out your new favorite YouTube Channel please do so.