Going back to the beginning now . . .

Working With Windows 7

Since the public release of the Windows 7 Beta I have been using the new Microsoft operating system on one of my main computers.  Since then Microsoft has released a the Release Candidate version and I quickly upgraded.  All I have to say is . . . finally Microsoft has gotten something right.  Now Windows 7 is simply a retool of Vista which eliminate the hardware driver issues that plagued Vista at release.  Windows 7 runs better on lower end machines which is especially targeting the new netbook computers that have become so popular.  When Windows 7 is released in October I highly recommend upgrading from either XP or Vista.  If you can’t wait until then you can now purchase computers from most of the big pc manufacturers and get a free or low cost upgrade certificate to receive Windows 7 in October.

Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo?  Good Question.

After trying out all three on there on I have decided that the best course of action is . . . a little bit of all of them.  Each has a leg up on the others in some area so here is a list of what I use.

Email:  Google Gmail (free, large storage, access from anywhere, lots of customization, syncing contacts and calendar to iPhone)

Photo Software:  Microsoft Live Photo Gallery (free, easy photo fixing, upload to Flickr plugin)

Online Photos:  Yahoo Flickr (low cost unlimited storage and viewing, great community)

Blogging:  Custom Wordpress install on Argonaut Design servers. (I can install and customize this for you too, just give me a call)

Office Suite:  Microsoft Office (everyone uses it but Open Office is a great free alternative)

Other Online Stuff:  Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed (all great free online social networking sites)

This is not to say that these options are best for you, just check them all out and see for yourself.

Ubutntu . . .

Gave up on this pretty quickly only because I didn’t have the time or spare computer to test it thoroughly.

iPhone 3.0 Software

I’m still discovering all the new additions to the new iPhone software and will post a full report in a couple weeks.  Stay tuned.

That’s it for now.  Keep watching for more updates from Argonaut Design!

On Friday, July 3rd I was sitting at my desk at my day job working on some website changes when one of my coworkers called me to say that the credit card payment website was not working.  We use Authorize.net to take credit card payments from our customers and sure enough after thorough troubleshooting I determined that the site was definitely offline.  We tried calling technical support but couldn’t get through.  We searched the web and couldn’t find anything.  The last place I thought to look was Twitter, and what I found was incredible.

A simple search on Twitter for Authorize.net brought up many tweets complaining the site was down but mixed in was a single post mentioning a fire in a plaza near Seattle, WA where Authorize.net has its corporate headquarters and main server facility.  About five minutes into my search the word had spread about the fire taking out the power and then setting off the sprinkler system that in turn shorted out the backup generators and left the entire plaza with no power.  Now this had all been happening since early in the morning yet no major news site, or even the local Seattle new stations, were covering the storing until well into the afternoon.

What this shows is that Twitter is a great place for first hand reporting on news events long before the big media can get to it.  We also saw how powerful Twitter can be during the recent political unrest in Iran when illegal “tweets” where the only way the news was being revealed.  I believe this signals an upcoming change in how and when the public gets the news.

You can follow Argonaut Design on Twitter at @argodesign or my personal account at @jaypbennett.

If you have any questions about Twitter please feel free to email me.

The iPhone 3.0 software update is now available for download in iTunes and as I type this I’m installing it on my iPhone.  Looking forward to the great new features like copy/paste, MMS (eventually, thanks AT&T), and shake to shuffle music.  I’ll follow up when the update is done.

Don’t forget about the Windows 7 Release Candidate coming out tomorrow to the public.  First big download test for the new DSL line here.

Have a read here.

I tried to download this from one of the many servers and it was very busy.  If you know how to work with torrents, this is a much better option at release time.  Here is a link for the torrent I’m downloading right now . . . Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Torrent

Lets get things back in gear here at Argonaut Design.  Back in January I mentioned that I downloaded the beta version of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system.  At that time I installed it in a virtual machine just to test the waters.  Well, I liked it so much that I took the plunge and installed it on my main computer.  I have to say that Microsoft really has something good here.  Actually all they have done is tweaked Vista a little bit and give the look and feel a good once-over.  File and folder navigation is much improved over Vista, one thing I never really got comfortable with.  There is a big update to the task bar that might take some getting used to, but I’ll explain that in a later post.  For now what I can say is I like Windows 7, and I’ll be purchasing it when it is released later this year.

One thing to watch for is the RC, or release candidate, version set to be available for download on May 5th.  I’ll report more after that.

http://www.twitter.com/argodesign

Over the next few weeks I plan on trying all the products that each has to offer and reporting back to you, my readers and customers, what I think.

First week . . . Microsoft.  I will report my findings next weekend.