April 24, 2009
Posted by jimintriglia in Communications, Internet/Web Services, News & FYI, Personal Computing, Personal Interest.add a comment
Recently, I was motivated to setup an account and establish a profile on Facebook. While I have maintained a presence on LinkedIn for several years, not everybody that I need to stay in touch with has a LinkedIn account. Further, LinkedIn is geared for professionals and executives, while Facebook is targeted at the general population who basically want to engage in recreational social networking.
A high school buddy contacted me several weeks ago. After catching-up a bit, our dicussion turned to what other members of our circle of friends were up to of late. One of our mutual friends has done extremely well career-wise, and is currently the CEO of a Fortune 1000 ranked company. Much to my surprise, this friend did not have a LinkedIn profile, but did have a Facebook page.
Trying to contact my friend through his executive assistant would prove difficult and time-consuming. (How many people try to contact CEOs of major corporation using the guise of being a “good friend”?). His personal contact information was unlisted, not unusual for executives. So, I created a Facebook account and contacted my friend through a Facebook “friends” invitation. A few days later were were in touch and catching-up on the events of the past years.
An unexpected surprise was finding that my friend had stayed in touch with other high school friends who I had no luck in finding current contact information. Additionally, through my Facebook page, I’ve received invitations from other friends. I’ve also received invitations from people around the world that share common passions and interests.
As a person who values his personal and professional network of friends and associates, Facebook appears to be a valuable web service for staying in touch with friends and meeting people form all walks of life. While I can visualize people rolling their eyes wondering what took me so long to discover this, I would remind them that many similar services promise the same benefits as Facebook and fail to deliver anything other that an increase in junk mail.
I would also argue that some popular web services, such as Twitter, can be extremely addictive and serve to disrupt people from focusing on their own life pursuits. (For more on this perspective, have a listen to Mark Horstman on Twitter.) I have seen some unique applications of “Twittering”, so I may revisit Twitter at some future date. In the mean time, there are many other great web services rolling out that hold greater promise of delivering benefits that are of interest to me and those that I count in my circle of friends and colleagues.
Review of Parallels VM for the Mac February 26, 2009
Posted by jimintriglia in Apple Mac, Microsoft Windows, PC Security, Personal Computing.add a comment
Cameron Sturdevant of eWeek has written a review of Parallels VM software for the Apple Mac. I chose VMware for my MacBook Pro with no regrets; I’ve been running my Microsoft Windows XP applications flawlessly under SP3.
If you are a fan of Acronis True Image and Kapersky virus/firewall software, the Parellels software may be a better deal as compared to VMware. The license fee for both the Acronis and Kapersky software is included in the cost of the Parellels software.
I’ve used Acronis for many years and Kapersky Internet Security 2009 to protect all of my home and business PCs with excellent results.
Create Your Custom Newspaper with Pageflakes January 2, 2009
Posted by jimintriglia in Apple Mac, Internet/Web Services, Management Strategies, News & FYI, Personal Computing.Tags: web services
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The nature of my work demands that I stay on top of developments in many different areas. I don’t have the time (or patience) to sort through dozens of periodicals and daily newspapers searching for pertinent facts.
Pageflakes is a free web-based service that delivers pertinent news and information in real time right to my desktop. Since I can specify the topics and select the news sources for my news pages, I can control the content and layout of the information that is delivered.
Pageflakes provides custom ”flakes” that you can choose to populate your custom news page(s). You can also import other subscribers “pagecasts” (Like Jenny Zuko’s “Mac Attack” pagecast, for all things Apple) and specify RSS feeds so you can keep track of blogs of interest.
With Pageflakes as my default web browser home page, I have up-to-date custom news and information at the push of a button. In the age of information overload, Pageflakes is a valuable resource for the busy professional.
Parental Controls for the Home Network December 28, 2008
Posted by jimintriglia in Home Networking, Internet/Web Services, Learning through Fun, PC Security, Personal Computing.add a comment
Santa brought my son a Wii to replace his aging Playstation game console. The latest generation of the Wii gaming console is designed to connect to the Internet to enable updates to the Wii console and allow multi-user play with gamers all over the world. The Wii also enables users to surf the Net right on their TV.
Having a gaming console that is Net-aware presents an all new dimension in the gaming and simulation experience. It also presents a challenge for parents respective of securing their home network and protecting their children from inappropriate Web content and applications.
To continue the level of parental controls that I had established on my son’s
laptop, I now needed a home network solution that would enable me to apply parental controls to Net-enabled gaming consoles like the Nintendo Wii and DS portable gaming platforms. Enter the iBoss Internet Parental Control router from Phantom Technologies.
The iBoss is a wireless G router designed to enable parents to assert parental control over their home Internet connection. The product manages both wired and wireless Internet access by personal computers, gaming consoles, anything that can connect to the Internet via the home network.
The iBoss won the 2008 iParenting Media Best Product Awards from family organizations and was received accolades in an online parental control forum. As Phantom Technologies was running a holiday special for the iBoss at $99.95 and offered a 30-day free trial, I decided to give it a go and placed my order.
From the reviews that I have read, the iBoss looks like a terrific solution. In addition to providing parental controls for the Wii, it will also provide an additional layer of protection for my sons laptop, which also has NetNanny parental control software installed.
2009: Year of the MacBook Pro December 27, 2008
Posted by jimintriglia in Apple Mac, Personal Computing.Tags: Apple, MacBook, Personal Computing
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2009 will be the year that I purchase my first Apple computer. My transition from a Microsoft Windows personal computing platform to a Mac platform was as relatively easy decision to make.
From my perspective, business and technology professionals have not adopted Microsoft’s Vista operating system, opting to hang on to the relatively stable Windows XP o/s and their current hardware. Once Windows 7 was announced by Microsoft, that pretty much sealed my decision to switch my personal computing platform.
When the Apple MacBook Pro laptop was released earlier this year, I was impressed with the design and the advanced Leopard operating system. I reviewed Apple’s peripherals such as the iPhone 3G and iTouch. I liked what I saw respective of the hardware and software design. My wife loves her Apple iTouch; my musician son uses his iPod Nano 4G daily. He would trade his brand new Dell laptop for a MacBook in a heartbeat.
The MacBook Pro can run all of my Microsoft Windows application efficiently via VM Fusion, so my considerable investment in Microsoft application software is preserved. I’ve noticed that Apple distributors are selling Mac hardware and software for considerably less than the Apple retail store or online.
By smoothing the migration path from MS Windows to Apple Mac while also addressing the price point of Mac hardware and software, Apple has set the stage to significantly increase their marketshare in multiple categories.
I believe other career IT professionals will be migrating their personal computing systems over to the Apple platform, especially if they have teenagers and technology adverse spouses. In the enterprise, we will use whatever platform makes sense for the business application at-hand that is also in compliance with the overall enterprise architecture.
2009 can be the year that Apple significantly increases it’s personal computer market share beyond the current 9 percent share. Time will tell.
