Outlook plays an important role in my day-to-day work. It’s the one omnipresent desktop application – the first thing I open when I start Windows and sticking around as long as Windows is running. Over the years, I’ve adopted, tailored, and shared several techniques for inbox, to-do list, and archive file management. Even with these techniques, I’m always looking for ways that Outlook can meet me half way and make the task of managing the daily email avalanche a little bit easier.
Facebook Me!
Facebook has long been for me one of the last unexplored realms of social networking. Finally, when trying to convince new recruits to join me in using Twitter, I realized that so many of my friends, acquaintances, and colleagues were hooked on Facebook, I stood little chance of winning them over to Twitter without a deeper understanding of where Facebook fits in the social networking mix. I turned to the book “Facebook Me!” by Dave Awl to provide a solid background in how Facebook might work best for me and to help me understand how to integrate Facebook with the rest of the Web 2.0 applications I use. My review of this book from Amazon.com can be found below.
SEO with the IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit
When ScottGu puts the time into creating a mini-tutorial for a new technology, it’s usually something worth investigating. After seeing his tutorial / overview of the new IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit, I decided I ought to give it a look. With the new blog running WordPress on IIS, this seemed especially timely and relevant.
As Scott mentions in his blog, a prerequisite to getting the IIS SEO Toolkit up and running is the installation of the Microsoft Web Platform Installer. I was surprised how easy this installation went. When the installation is complete, you’ll have a new icon on your desktop and a new “Management” section within the IIS admin tool. The Installer looks like a great tool although I’m sure that some (myself included) will be leery about Microsoft installing server-related software on their machines.
WordPress on IIS7
I had long planned the move from the .NET-based DasBlog blogging engine to WordPress but just couldn’t seem to make the time to complete the move. I finally pulled the trigger and cutover to WordPress a couple of weeks ago. The process was not nearly as painful as I imagined and I’m now beginning to reap the rewards of working on a blogging platform that’s more broadly integrated into the Web ecosystem. This blog entry is a collection of the key technical takeaways from my migration. Hopefully they will be helpful for other people looking to migrate to WordPress, especially on the Microsoft IIS platform.
The Twitter Book
Since jumping back on the blogging bandwagon, I’ve been looking to get more familiar with the top social networking sites. I’ve had some experiences with most of the major players except Twitter, which I never did manage to get into. I decided to give Twitter a fair chance and see if it worked for me. In order to do this, I felt some basic background / guidance was necessary before jumping in heads-first. Turns out that The Twitter Book from Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein was really all that I needed. My Amazon review follows:
Release-It! Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
A review long overdue for a Jolt Award winner and one of the best architecture books on my bookshelf, Release-It!
I’ve recommended this book to many colleagues of mine and haven’t heard a disappointing review to date. I’ve heard the terms ‘pessimistic’ and ‘realistic’ used with equal frequency to describe this book. Having just completed my second reading, I can affirm that these terms are both representative take-aways. Nygard openly admits to being more than a bit paranoid about the way he approaches enterprise application architecture. Although this may seem alarming to many new to the IT field, those of us who have been around for a while recognize this as a necessary, at times life saving, defense mechanism.
Wordpress for Business Bloggers
After more than a year-long hiatus, this entry marks my return to blogging. One of the things I decided to do to get myself back into the spirit of blogging was to change my blogging engine. I made the move from the .NET-based DasBlog to the more mainstream WordPress platform. I will be providing more information about the migration process (specifically, WordPress on IIS 7), helpful tools and tutorials, and useful WordPress plugins in an upcoming blog post.
Already Dead
I had to really lay into this movie in my Amazon.com review. I tend to write reviews for products that I’m impressed with and just keep quite on products that don’t really impress. This movie, however, was the exception. It got such good reviews on Amazon that I felt compelled to give it a look. The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) had some of the best information on this flick outside of Amazon. It didn’t make the mainstream movie reviews sites like Rottentomatoes.com since it never made it to the box office. 2 stars was probably a bit harsh, 2.5 would have been more appropriate. I felt the genuine need to remove this movie from the 5 star plateau though as this is genuinely deceitful. My Amazon review follows: