Marcus Hamaker is The Sleepy Geek

I wasn’t looking for a plugin to tweet my blog posts but while I was browsing around today I found a new icon. It is from a service called Tweetmeme.com that lists popular tweet links on their web page. The listing of links on the website is secondary to me then is the ability for someone to easily tweet my article.

Some of the Tweet this type icons are very simple and do not offer a number of tweets. I like the Digg style icons that tell you how many times this article has been Dugg. This is what Tweetmeme has incorporated into their link and now you too can retweet on TheSleepyGeek.com.

I was able to install it quite easily by installing the WordPress plugin. It automatically placed it at the top left of every post like I wanted it to do (go ahead… take a look and hit the button up there!), but it does offer other locations in your post. If you are not running a WordPress blog then you can also take raw code from their site and place it into one of your templates.

I like the way this one works and it’s a handy item to have on your site.

Happy posting and happy tweeting!

There is a lot of buzz about this new commercial that Microsoft has made that seems to be drawing a lot of attention in the blogsphere. I have taken a moment to go and watch the video and I am not sure I have a hard opinion either way.

First things first the commercial does what it is designed to do. Microsoft’s sole intention with this commercial is to point out that Macs are more expensive than are Windows based machines. This is true if you look at each other’s low end price point. In US pricing the lowest prices Mac is $1000 and we all know that you can get a Windows based HP or Toshiba for $500-$600 at the entry level.

The issue I have with this the comparison of unlike hardware. The base laptops at these prices are not the same specs as the Mac computers at their entry level. I really am going to watch what people are going to say about this one. I don’t fault Microsoft for the ad, it does what they need to do.

I just wonder if they could have gone about it by talking about features of Windows rather than specifying hardware limits off the bat. The woman in the ad right away says that a 17″ screen is a must. Well they don’t talk about the resolution of the screen, it could be a very poor resolution 17″ screen and that makes a difference. If you look at a 13″ Mac with a high res, then again we are comparing apples to oranges.

What do you think?

I have been using OSX a lot lately but I still do have Windows machines at my house. The most important of those to me is the Windows Media Center computer that controls my entire home entertainment system. I have an XBox 360 that we use to watch TV on in the bedroom so I am pretty locked in with Windows there.

There is often a reason I need to connect to the Media Center machine and of course I connect to other Windows machines as well at home. Well from Windows this is very easy because the remote desktop (RDP) client is built into Windows, but what if you are running OSX like I am? Well in that case you need “Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2” from Microsoft. They have taken the time write a client for OSX which works very well.

Remote Desktop from OSX

Just like with the built in Windows version you enter the computer name and press connect. It’s that simple! Of course you have the option to choose specific options such as screen resolution, saved user credentials, etc. but they aren’t nessesary to make the connection. This is a tool that you need only if you need it. I just wanted to share with you that it exhists and if you do in fact need to make that connection this is the best way.

For sure I am in on this one! I follow @scottbourne on Twitter and simply saw a tweet go by that caught my attention. I knew that he was giving away a couple of Drobos because I heard him talk about it on one of the Twit broadcasts.

This is a pretty simple contest really. Post a link to a site he owns, http://mydl.me/ and from the trackbacks he will pick a winner. That’s a good way to promote his site and it’s very little effort for us to post something. Here is a snippet from his site:

Win A Drobo!

Hey would you like to win a Drobo? All you have to do is link from your blog or website to MYDL.ME. That’s it – must be 18 and live in a country where Drobo ships to be eligible. We’re going to pick a winner on March 31 so get your link up now. We’re going to check our referral logs to pick the winner. Good luck. — P.S. If you don’t win but you’d like a good deal on a Drobo check this out. If you want to buy a 2nd Generation Drobo populated with four WD 1TB Green Drives for $849, you can. Just use the code MYDL849 at the Drobostore–Valid through 3/31/09.

Let’s talk about the Drobo itself, because it’s a very nice little unit. These are basically hard drive enclosures with some pretty cool advanced technology. They use a raid-like mechanism to make sure that if one of the drives in the unit fails there is no data loss. They hold 4 hard drives which can be different sizes (that’s an awesome feature) and automatically sets them up for the most possible free drive space while guaranteeing no data loss. Fricken’ cool and I wanted one when I heard about them a long time ago!

So here’s my shameless advert :) I could more backup space and a safer place to put it!

Despite the fact that individual countries in the European Union – France, especially – are trying to implement extreme measures against piracy, such as kicking file sharers off the Internet after three warnings, the European Union itself has spoken against such measures on several occasions.

via EU Says No To Kicking File Sharers Off The Internet.

My buddy just sent me an email telling me about this new version of the Google Mobile App that allows you to search Google by voice prompts. Immediately I was skeptical so I had to download it right away. Some part of me needs to validate my skepticism for some reason.

The download was quick and easy for my Blackberry Bold as have been 85% of the apps that I have installed. After installation I ran the application and had to authorize some security settings and presto, I was done.

The application presents quite a clean interface that is almost synonimous with Google. The page is quite similar to www.google.com but for one small detail. The push <talk> to search by voice command.

Google's New Mobile App

The first 3 things I searched for were Twitter, Dreamhost and McDonalds. I was amazed that it found all 3 the first time and they were all spelled correctly within the search bar. I assume that the same Google search scripts are used for the results so the first thing in each list was exactly what I was looking for.

Their marketing push for this one is the pain in the ass little Blackberry keyboard, but I just don’t see it. I actually quite like the Blackberry keyboard so unless I am in the car with a need to search (questionable if that will ever happen) I am not sure I will use it.

To summarize – the coolness level is maxed out on this one and if you are in the market for such a feature then Google has done it again.

Happy searching!

I have written about Foxmarks in the past because it’s a great tool for auto-syncing your bookmarks across multiple computers. It is really one of the only reasons that I still use Firefox and not Safari or Google Chrome.

To the credit of the team at Foxmarks, they have been working on support for IE and Safari lately and have released versions of Foxmarks for Safari on OSX and Foxmarks for IE on Windows. Now comes a release of their new product called Xmarks. This is obviously designed as a move away from a Firefox only addin and allows them to market their product for other platforms. I am excited about this move because it allows them to move towards support for even more browsers. I think I might use Chrome if they would support it, and I already use Safari sometimes when on OSX. The best thing they can do is support more browsers because most people use a specific browser for a reason. Many of us our stuck with IE at work and to have that support is already a huge leap.

But let’s get it straight, they didn’t only change the name :) This is a complete rebranding with a completely new site. I suggest you take a look as you will notice a totally refreshed look. In an email they sent to me as I was already using Foxmarks, they listed these as their primary updates:

1. Smarter Search
Xmarks will highlight the three sites in your Google results that have been bookmarked by the most people; this is a quick and easy way to tell which sites are most valued by real people like you.

2. Site Info
Xmarks adds a small blue information icon in your browser location bar. Click it to learn more about the site you are on and see recommendations for the top five similar sites. This is a great way to uncover the best of the web.

3. Xmarks.com
Visit Xmarks.com from any browser to write your own site reviews and to see even more similar site recommendations.

They were smart to have included us in an early step of their rebranding and it is great for their planning. They have taken the time to create a simple survey for existing users to guide them to prioritzing their updates. If you are a user you will receive an email with your link to the survey, if not I would head over to their forums to voice your opinion!

Most of the content on the page is still the same but I have done a lot of back end work in the past couple of days. I use the WicketPixie theme that Chris Pirillo created with the help of some friends and it has served me very well. I like the layout as it allows me to add a lot of extra content to the side bars yet still have a cleaner look.

After a call out on Twitter/Facebook last week to my followers and friends, I found that many had problems with load times and broken Java. I really believe that the first public release of WicketPixie was broken by some of the things that I added to it and I have been limping without realization since then.

I did some looking and I found an updated version through http://chris.pirillo.com/wicketpixie/. The version that I downloaded was an RC or Beta depending on where you look on the site, but with a little tweaking it has worked out well. I had made quite a few changes to the original theme so I had to apply those same changes to the new version of WicketPixie.

I am happy with the outcome so far but I am curious to see what you see. Drop a comment here and let me know how it’s working. If you have and trouble at all, please send me a reply on Twitter @thesleepygeek of course :)

Much like its other mobile apps, Pandora for Blackberry will generate a station for you by asking you to enter the name of a favorite song or artist and then use its “music genome” data to select songs you might like.

via socialmedian: Pandora for Blackberry Now Available.

I was lucky enough to get in touch with Alex from WebNotes (@webnoter) this afternoon and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to get such a warm welcome. Alex (@alexanderking) is definitely someone who understands the social media movement and I have honestly never had such an easy time at contacting someone for a support question in my life.

The team that created the tool describes its “goal is to revolutionize the way people collect, organize, and share information on the Internet”. They have really come up with a cool idea. What if you could highlight something on a website for reference at a later time? What if you could put a sticky note on a website as a reminder so the next time you come back you will see it?  Being able to do these things and then share them with anyone is a great way to make use of specific content from a web page. Quite often I have forwarded a web page to a friend or colleague with the content I want them to read and needed to send them a note telling them what I want them to look at. This clearly is a better way to do just that.

In the past 10 minutes I have read an article about increasing traffic to my site and another about WordPress security. Two subjects that are always on my mind but I am otherwise disposed. Well presto – I have already highlighted a couple of things I want to go back and look at when I have time to concentrate on them… simply awesome!

Atfer my chat with Alex he let me have 10 free invitations to the service for readers of the my blog. To sign up please go here: https://www.webnotes.net/Register/Register.aspx?inviteCode=sleepygeek

Please come back and tell me what you think of the service. What cool uses have you found for their tool.

Happy browsing!