My husband asked me to explain Twitter and its uses to him yesterday. Mind you - my husband has zero clue what Twitter actually IS - he’s just heard me talking about it. So, I tried my best …

Twitter is best described as a micro blogging platform. You are limited to 140 characters each time you do an update, which initially, may seem a small amount. However, as you become more experienced, it’s just amazing what you can fit into 140 characters.

That said, Twitter is much, much more than that. It is like one huge global chat room, but then again, it doesn’t have to be. It all depends on how many people you follow on Twitter. If it’s in the thousands, then your “Tweetstream” will be running fast and furious with everything that’s coming in. If you are only following a few hundred, or even less, then things are much easier to keep up with.

Twitter is also a great way to meet new people online, particularly those with similar interests to you. In fact - I explained to my husband how I usually get online and “Tweet” while watching shows like American Idol (using the hashtag #idol or #americanidol). When you use a hashtag you can go to Twitter Search and search for that particular hashtag and find a ton of (or barely any) people talking about the same thing you are. It’s a great way to find more Followers with the same interests as you!

Twitter is pretty cool - you should check it out! There is SO much you can do with it! Don’t forget to follow me @ starryskye81!

As some of you know, I am currently attending classes in order to obtain my Bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems with a leaning towards Web Development; so, I’m always poking around the web looking for interesting things that might help me along the way. I was incredibly surprised to find out that a company that I’ve worked with and ordered from in the past, Vistaprint, is offering website hosting now! The websites are inexpensive – from $6.99 up to $21.97 per month – and require no programming skills to create and maintain.

This offer is awesome for businesses who just want a nice, simple website that they can match to business cards in order to create and market their “brand.” I know that often times a new business or even a business that is new to e-Commerce doesn’t have the budget it takes to hire a “professional” web developer. With Vistaprint you can create an unlimited number of websites and your site is fully customizable, including your URL, text, and design.

The “Professional” package enables you to include a PayPal shopping cart, have unlimited pages, and have unlimited domain pointers. Both the “Professional” and “Standard” packages include ability to include custom contact forms, image galleries, maps, a music player, and YouTube videos.

The “Starter” package is your basic package – but it includes 3 pages, a good chunk of disk space, customer contact forms and image galleries.

All packages come with VIstaPrint’s great phone support where you can use their free of charge number to access the customer support team (although the “Pro” package has priority phone support). You also have the ability to load documents you have created via VistaPrint including business cards, postcards, etc, to your website.

Right now – you can try out the VistaPrint website packages for free! During the free trial, you can create a website especially for you and your business. The free trial lasts for one month. If you cancel before the trial ends, you will have paid nothing and will owe nothing. The package fee will only be charged when free trial offer period ends, and will be charged monthly to the credit or debit card used for your order.

April 7, 2009 (Computerworld) (original article)

Microsoft Corp. today asked people running the Windows 7 beta to return their machines to Vista before upgrading again to the impending release candidate of Windows 7.

The company will, in fact, block upgrades from the beta to the release candidate, and plans to require users who balk at the request to edit an installation file to successfully update Windows 7.

Microsoft urged users who have downloaded and installed the beta of Windows 7 — the offered to the general public — to restore their PCs to Vista.

"We want to encourage you to revert to a Vista image and upgrade or to do a clean install, rather than upgrade the existing beta," Microsoft said in the blog. " As an extended member of the development team and a participant in the beta program that has helped us so much, we want to ask that you experience real-world setup and provide us real-world telemetry."

The problem with upgrading from one pre-release build to another, Microsoft said, is that the bugs or other problems users report in those scenarios are essentially worthless. "We don’t always track them down and fix them because they take time away from bugs that would only manifest themselves during this one-time pre-release operation," the company admitted.

The Windows 7 Release Candidate is the next major milestone for the operating system, and is expected to hit the street sometime next month.

ER departed on a high note on Thursday night, with the series finale receiving one of its biggest ratings in 3 years, pulling in 16.3 million viewers with a "6.0 preliminary adults 18-49 rating."

Its performance bested the 1996 finale of Murder She Wrote and was among the top rated adult shows since The X-Files closed its doors in 2002.

The finale also helped NBC clear out the night over CBS, Fox, and ABC.

Way to go out with a bang!

A database management system is computer software the manages databases.

My SQL is used by individual Web developers as well as companies including Yahoo!, Alcatel-Lucent, Google, Nokia, YouTube, and Zappos.com. MySQL runs on more than 20 platforms including Linux, Windows, OS/X, HP-UX, AIX, and Netware. I personally use My SQL on my website because I am running Wordpress (a blog software) and the database keeps track of posts, categories, comments and much more.

The http://sk.nvg.org/lang/ website provides a large alphabetical listing of all (at the time of the creation) programming languages. The site collected resources and links to more information. The website is unfortunately no longer being maintained.

The IEC or International Electrotechnical Commission website has information about international standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies (electrotechnology). They also have a nice news block on the right side of the site that provides up to date news stories pertaining to electrotechnology and energy efficiency.

ACM Digital Library link contains a list of popular computer science books. This list of books is "classic" (read: outdated) and is available for download (in pdf format).

The Search Oracle website literally has everything you need to know regarding Oracle. There are news articles, topics & tips, an "Ask the Experts" section, along with plenty of guides you can download. There is also a multimedia section where you can listen/view webcasts & podcasts and learn how to use Oracle databases, create infrastructures and more from the top gurus of Oracle.

PostgreSQL is another database management system that runs on all major operating systems, including Linux, UNIX (AIX, BSD, HP-UX, SGI IRIX, Mac OS X, Solaris, Tru64), and Windows.It can run large databases and can be modified and distributed. It is a development platform upon which to develop in-house, web, or commercial software products that require a capable RDBMS.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via search results. Typically, the higher a site’s "page rank" (i.e, the earlier it comes in the search results list), the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

If you are looking for a great way to optimize your website or blog for search engines why not submit to directories? Directories provide you with cheap or even free back links – with your own chosen anchor text. In fact – not only should you be utilizing directories and switching up your keywords; but you should also be using those keywords in your posts (naturally, mind you – not in a spammy sounding way).

For those web masters who do not have the time to sit and submit to the thousands of directories on the internet there is hope. This is where directory submission services like Directory Maximizer come in. For a small fee, they manually submit your site to 1109 quality web directories.

Some of the benefits of using submitter services like Directory Maximizer include receiving a continuous flow of links by having your website submitted to their regularly updated list of directories, insurance that the directories your site is being submitted to are in fact SEO friendly, being able to submit based on the PR of a directory and also an option to have them submit your website to 100 directories every month for 12 months (instead of all 1109 at once).

The cost of using Directory Maximizer varies depending on the size of your order, for instance, the number of directories you wish to have your site submitted to. They charge 14 cents per submission; so if you wish to submit to 100 directories, it would cost you $14 (one-time). Keep in mind they have a minimum order value of $5 with which one can make up to 35 submissions.

Want to learn more about SEO? Check out SEO Book! It will teach you everything you need to know about maximizing your search engine ranks potential.

I’m thinking of checking out Cozi, a website that promises to get me organized. Well, no - they didn’t PROMISE really, but they sound good. Sounds more user friendly than my Outlook calendar - and Cozi apparently syncs with Outlook anyway - so my husband will be happy because my Outlook syncs with his Google which syncs with his Outlook (confused yet?). Makes it easier for us to keep track of our separate calendars.

Anything that will help me keep track of housework, playgroup functions, girls nights, school stuff, and maybe even all the “happy” and diet pills that I take daily. Like I said - anything to get me organized …

Wonder if I can add Flylady stuff to it? Maybe there is a plugin!

I’ve been doing some research on the best diet pill lately. I’ve been taking some Green Tea stuff, but I keep hearing about Acai Berry pills and hear they really work. The Acai Berry Diet is designed to give you the benefits of Acai berries (a supposed "super food") in pill form to help you lose weight. The pill also includes green tea extract. Not much publicity has followed this supplement, leaving consumers to speculate on actual results and capabilities.  After Acai berries were touted as being the #1 Superfood by Dr. Perricone on Oprah’s television show, more and more products are incorporating this supplement into their products.

There are a couple pills that are listed on a few websites as being "the BEST" - Anoretix and FentraPhen ..  While they both sound a little scary, not to mention expensive - they both are high rated for those who want to lose weight quickly.

Do you take diet pills? What ones would you recommend?

The Macintosh - the first Apple computer to bear the name - turns 25 on 24 January. The machine debuted in 1984 and kicked off a product line that were Apple’s flagship computers for many years. The Macintosh helped popularize the combination of graphical interface and mouse that is ubiquitous today. The machine was unveiled using a hugely expensive TV advert, directed by film maker Ridley Scott and shown during the US Superbowl on 22 January 1984.

We’ve got a MacMini here at our home. I love how easy it is to edit video on it, but, with it’s 80 gig harddrive it’s a little lacking in room. I’m a PC girl - what can I say? Even with Vista being the pain that it is.

So say you? Are you into Macs or PC’s?

It’s incredibly cold here in Virginia right now - in fact; I’ve heard that this is the coldest it’s been in about four years! Snow is coming and I’ve been looking for ways to "winterize" my car (since I drive out to school early-early in the morning). Each day I have to scrape ice off my windshield - so I purchased some window wash that had a de-icer built in. Maybe that will take care of the ice a little more.

I found some tips off eHow to share with you:

1. Don’t put off a 30,000-mile full service, if your car is due - some of the things they will check during this service will be the transmission, brakes and power steering rack along with a cooling system flush, tire check, oil check/change, and fluid level check. This is all incredibly important - you do NOT want to be without something like power steering while you are trying to drive in the snow and ice! (If you work on your own car check out the link I posted - they have a full warranty on their products and free shipping! They have the highest quality power steering boxes and racks - products that only dealers previously had.)
2. Replace the windshield wiper blades. Put windshield washer fluid in the windshield washer reservoir (plain water will freeze).
3. Have the battery serviced (clean the battery terminal ends and add water) and load-tested to check its ability to hold a charge. If the battery is more than 4 1/2 years old, replace it.
4. Use a tire gauge to check the tire pressure. Air contracts with cold, and the tires may become low as the temperature drops.
5. Make sure there is air in the spare tire and that all the proper tire-changing equipment is in the trunk.
6. Make sure the tires are in good condition. If you are not sure what this means, ask a mechanic (in a shop that doesn’t sell tires) for an opinion.
7. Check the lights, heater and defroster.
8. Keep the gas tank as full as possible to prevent moisture from freezing in the gas lines.
9. Get a brake check if you haven’t had one in the last six months.
10. Put together an emergency winter kit for the trunk of your car: blanket, extra boots and gloves, ice scraper, small snow shovel, flashlight and kitty litter (for traction when stuck in the snow).

Now is the time to winterize your car if you haven’t already - it’s not that difficult and it could save your life.