Yesterday I gave a presentation with my friend David Erickson at e-Strategy (http://www.e-strategy.com/) at a conference sponsored by the Minnesota Council on Nonprofits (http://www.mncn.org/event_communicate.htm). We gave a presentation on Web 2.0. I gave a sneak preview a couple of weeks ago when I sent out a Byte on Twitter. Other topics we discussed included:
• MySpace & Facebook
• Flickr
• Odeo
• YouTube
• del.icio.us
• Bloglines
• Technorati
• Twitter
• Google Docs & Google Calendar
• Upcoming.org
• Yahoo! Answers
This week I thought I would share the presentation with the Byte crowd. http://www.treacyinfo.com/Web2/start.html In the presentation we outlined what each of these applications is and what you might do with them. It was a lot of fun. I always feel like I learn something new when I present with David.
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OK I’ve said it before but this time I really mean it. I moved the Byte to a blog (http://byteoftheweek.wordpress.com/). I spent literally hours this weekend cutting and pasting weekly articles as individual posts – going back to 2003! I added categories, an RSS feed, and I promise to try to add new posts to the blog. I may even try to add extra midweek notes to the blog.
This time I went with WordPress (www.wordpress.com) as the blog tool of choice. Earlier I had tried Blogger (www.blogger.com) and I still prefer Blogger for customizing the look of a blog – but I find WordPress a little bit easier for managing the actual blog posts. Admittedly I have done nothing to customize the look of the Byte blog; maybe I’ll do that next weekend.
Once I completed the blog, I used a tool called Feedroll (http://www.feedroll.com) to create the code I needed to post an RSS feed from the blog onto the Treacy Information Services homepage (www.treacyinfo.com). So now when I update the blog the title of the new article will be fed onto my homepage.
I wanted to thank the people who contacted me last week about Twitter. Some of you big Twitter users; others wondered what in the heck someone would do with it. Bill from St Paul sent me a fun link to a Twitter Mashup (http://twittervision.com/.)
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Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!
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Last week I learned a little about Twitter (www.twitter.com). It’s kind of like speed blogging for the really lazy. You sign up and get free web space where you can post endless text messages. Generally those messages are very quick, 1-2 sentences.
Here’s a sample from a complete stranger: http://twitter.com/MikeWills I picked his because his posts are a combination of work and real life and I think that’s generally how these things go.
I signed up too: http://twitter.com/AnnT
As you can see I just signed up. I will be very surprised if I ever post again.
I’ve been trying to think of a practical application. I think if you were a teenager with lots of time and a great need to be heard that this would be a good format. Maybe if you were on vacation or moved temporarily to a new place it might be fun to keep in touch with people at home – and maybe the people at home would read it.
From a work perspective maybe you could twitter as you worked out a problem – or maybe use this as an online brainstorming tool. Perhaps when you looked at your notes later solutions or idea would come up.
Even though I can’t really think of any great applications somehow Twitter caught my attention.
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About six months ago I wrote an article on how to create a password protected site (http://www.treacyinfo.com/byte.htm#passwordpro). One catch is that the site had to be hosted on a UNIX-based server. Well this week I have had to find a solution to password-protect a folder on a web site on a Microsoft server. I am not a Microsoft hater by any means but I must admit that I did not want to spend a ton of time learning all about Microsoft servers. I am delighted to report that I found a quick solution:
MTopSoft has created a tool that quickly and easily password-protects a site (http://www.mtopsoft.com/htmllock/index.htm). I downloaded it and set it up in about 5 minutes following their simple directions. I uploaded and it worked like a charm. I only need to set up one password but it seems as if it would also be easy to set up multiple usernames and passwords.
First catch – this tool isn’t free. And regular readers know that I am very cheap. However it easily saved me a couple of hours of work so the $49.00 seemed like an easy investment. I can already think of two other clients who would be happy to create a password protected area for clients. Second catch – I need to un-lock the files with this tool each time I want to make a change, which is a pain. Also anyone else wanting to change these files would also need the tool.
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