Del.icio.us, which we described a while back to explain what exactly the service was.  Well, we did that just in time for them to launch their redesign!  Nothing like good timing!

For the most part the site still does the same thing it always did, which is work as a social bookmarking site, but it did get an overhauled interface.  They also added some new sorting features to make it easier to search through your bookmarks for what you need.

The biggest change has to be the domain name.  While they formerly went with the creative Del.icio.us, now they are just Delicious.com.  How… common.

If you hadn’t tried the service yet, now is the perfect time to jump in and give it a try!

There is no doubt that Apple makes ridiculously cool products, but there is a definite art to knowing when to purchase them.

Almost as soon as any new Apple product is released, Apple fans begin the countdown to the next iteration of the product.  In the case of the iPod Touch, which was first released in September of 2007, it was almost a certainty we would see an updated version around the same time the following year.  The reason for this is that Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, loves to launch new versions of the iPods just before the holiday shopping season,

The mild surprise this year seems to be that it looks like that not only the iPods will get updated, but from a letter leaked to AppleInsider, it looks like the Mac Books and Mac Book Pros will also be getting an update at the same time.  The letter informs resellers to expect inventory problems within the next week, which means Apple is clearing the decks for new models, and they should stock up with at least 4 weeks worth of inventory.  This puts us at early September… which for the past two years has been when Mr. Jobs has introduced new iPods.

If this sounds like a headache to play a guessing game, it can be, but it is also soemwhat predictable.  If you’re uncertain when a product came out, there is a very handy guide at buyersguide.macrumors.com that tells you the last time an Apple product was updated, and how imminent they think the next update is.  In short, I wouldn’t recommend buying any iPods or Mac Books right now.  September is the magic month for the new products in these lines.

When most people hear “wiki”, they immeidately think of “Wikipedia“.  Well, there are many more out there than that, and we hope to let you know a bit more about what exactly they are.

Essentially a wiki is a website that is made up of a series of web pages that are editable by multiple people, and easy to roll back revisions in case something is overwritten or changed that is incorrect.  There are many, many uses outside of the idea of encyclopedias, such as:

- Teams can work on projects together from anywhere

- Families can set up pages about themselves, reunions, weddings and more

- Sports teams can use them to track practices, progress, schedules and so on.

- Build informational sites about a hobby you have, television shows you enjoy, comic books or anything you can imagine.

The nice thing is that the learning curve for a wiki is very low with no design knowledge needed, and usually a fairly intuitive language for linking to other pages.  There are numerous wiki solutions out there, but the most popular, by far, is MediaWiki which is the software that powers Wikipedia.  Even if you don’t want to run the software on your own, there are many hosted solutions out there that can take care of the technical side of things for you.

What are you waiting for?  Set up a wiki and start sharing your information with the world or just your family!

I was prompted to write yesterday’s post, Electronics And Storms, because of all the storms and flooding we’ve been having in my area.  Well, one important thing I forgot to talk about was phones.

While we have discussed the wonders of VoIP before, and people have cordless phones coming out their ears, all of these items are useless in a power outage.  We lost power for approxiametly an hour last night, and while I have an old style phone in my house, we do not have one in the warehouse for our company, and we also do not get cell reception inside of our metal building.  While I was able to use the old phone in the house to call the power company to report the outage, I had no way to reach my parents who were spending a late night in the warehouse.  I finally drove up to the building in the downpour to check on them and bring them some flashlights.

We are digging out an old phone immediately for just such an occasion, but it is always good to remember that just because technology does make our life easier, it doesn’t necessarily solve all of our problems.  If you do not receive good cell reception in your house, it’s always a good idea to have a traditional, non-electric phone, somewhere you can easily access it.

What should you do about your electronics when a storm is coming? Well, that’s easy and it isn’t.

We’ve talked before about how you should have power back-ups, but those aren’t always going to protect you from electrical surges that can accompany a storm.  A good example was in 2002 when my house was hit by a lightning strike, or near-by, and even with a surge protector on my computer, my computer phycially went up in flames from the force of the charge.

So what is the solution?  The best choice is of course to unplug your electronics, but that isn’t always an option when you are out of the house.  If you know a storm is coming, you can always unplug beforehand, but it’ll never be a bad idea to have surge protectors in place to at least keep you safe from the minor surges.  Some of the power back-ups out there will split half of their outlets between ones that can run off the battery, and the other half are surge protectors to protect your other electronics.

Ultimately it will always be best to unplug them, but if you must roll the dice, at least have some sort of protection in place, but always unplug them if you can.

We’ve talked briefly before about the importance of keeping your software up to date, but this is so important, it deserved it’s own post.

Software updates can be minor fixes, but sometimes they can be extremely important secuirty updates, and those are the ones you have to be most mindful of.  Once a security hole has been identified, and a patch released, it becomes even more dangerous for you to have the older version becauase that means even more people know about the potential problem than ever before.

While some software packages, such as Windows, will tell you when you need to update, there are others that it is far quicker to check for yourself, such as Firefox.

The problem is that sometimes these updates will also change the physical appearance of the program, or some functionalities.  While these may be annoying, they are just a price we have to pay to make sure our systems remain safe.  While it may not always be the most desirable response, it’s either accept that, or possibly have your entire system corrupted.

With each passing day your VHS tapes are getting more outdated, but what can you do to get rid of them without hurting the environment?

There is certainly nothing wrong with keeping your VHS cassettes if you want, but if they are just taking up too much room in your life, what can you do with them? Sure, you could throw them away, but think about the environmental impact of that much plastic being tossed out.  So you need to look at alternatives of people who may benefit from your tapes.

- Local libraries can always use them to increase their inventory, or they can sell them off at annual fund raising events to raise cash.

- Salvation Army can take them as donations.

- Halfway houses, youth centers and anywhere that takes in children or families.

- Sell them to pawn shops.

I am currently in the process of boxing up all my old tapes to take them to the public library and let them do with them as they please, but please try avoid sending them to the landfill!

Ever gotten a phone call that you have no clue it is from?  Your caller ID shows a number you don’t know, but you have “Unknown” as the name.  Well, oddly this is something Google can solve for you easily.

All one needs to do is head over to the popular search engine, type in the phone number and if no one has the number published on their site, there are many sites dedicated to nothing but indentifying who phone numbers , and what sort of experiences each person has had with those numbers.  It is amazing how many scam numbers are out there that will call you but these sorts of websites are all exposing them so you will no longer have to deal with them.

Basically if there is anything you don’t know, more than likely Google can help you find the answer

They have many names such as thumb drives, jump drives, memory stick, USB drives and more, but they all serve the same puprose, and that is being very useful.

These drives have been around for quite awhile, and while they started off as a niche item, they have  grown more and more into the mainstream for their extreme usefulness.  The concept is simple in that you are carrying aroud a large amount of computer memory in the palm of your hand, and due to it being USB, it means you can stick it in any computer and have instant access to what ever information you have stored on there.

When they first came out a few years ago, their cost was prohibitive, but now you can pick up an 8 GB one like the one pictured here for $29.99 on Amazon. Considering the handiness of this, the ability to take it anywhere, and the hassle it can save you in emailing yourself files, it’s a great price for such a handy device.  I own several in the 1 GB and 2 GB range, and I couldn’t live without them any more.

The WordPress app for the iPhone and iPod Touch has finally been released.

For those of you with a WordPress powered blog, this will allow you to access your admin section, edit posts, upload photos and even publish new posts to your site from the convenience of your device. You will need to be running firmware 2.0 for the Apple handsets, and your blog will need to be running version 2.5.1 or higher of the blogging software to take advantage of the new app.

The nice thing is you can also manage multiple blogs from just one installation, so this is a dream come true for people with more than one blog as there always seems to be something that needs to be checked on at least one of them.

While typing an entire blog post on one of these devices would certainly not be ideal, it is a perfect management tool and a nice way to make quick updates if necessary.  Oh, and best of all… it’s free!  So, what are you waiting for?  Download it and give it a spin.