Almost every day I think "I really should take some time today and post on my blog." It looks like today is finally my lucky day. I see another month has gone by. But boy has it been busy!
My brother (the one that I work for), his wife and my two nephews came for an extended visit (they live overseas). Fortunately, cell phones, email and other wonderful technology has made it easier than ever to have flexible work time, so that was very nice. My four year old nephew loves everything Cars (the movie) and related to Cars, so I got a nice healthy dose of Lightning McQueen and crew. I think I have childhood worked out of my system for a while now. :)
On the work front, things have continued much as they were, though at a reduced pace while my brother was here for Christmas-time and half of this month. It took a little while to get caught up on all the mini-projects that I had let sit during the visit, but now those are mostly worked through. The BitWise front has been fairly calm, other than some new bug reports in the forums that seem to echoing some earlier ones about crashes related to voice chat. I'm still puzzling that one over. OxONet has seen some growth the past few months, so that's been very exciting as well. I don't talk about OxONet much, but it's still around, serving up web pages like a pro. :)
Earlier this month I debated making a me-too post talking about the iPhone but decided against it. No one probably cares what I have to say about the iPhone, nor do I probably have anything insightful to say about it that hasn't already been said. They look awesome, but I wish it had been Verizon instead of Cingular. See, I said I had nothing new!
Also in the Apple department, I was planning to get a Mac Pro when Leopard came out, but since that's still nowhere in sight and my old Windows 2000 machine was getting pretty cranky, I bought some new hardware and put together a shiny new computer, complete with Windows XP. I wasn't a huge fan of XP when it first came out, but a couple of Service Packs later, it's without a doubt a step ahead of 2000, which I had clung on too a little too religiously now that I'm looking back. :) I've also taken this chance to update some of my software to newer versions, which has been exciting too.
One of the programs that I updated was Trillian (yes, I too like everyone else still have to use one of the "Big 4" to keep in touch with everyone) to Version 3. I hate to say it, but that's a very nice program! Doesn't seem to have a whiteboard or the super-spiffy encryption, but everything else about it seems spot-on. I also like the new iTunes, though I suppose moving to iTunes as my media player is more just anticipation of my upcoming new Mac. :) Cover flow is pretty cool, too.
Some folks have been asking about any updates on the open source front. I will be meeting with one of the partners in February and will talk about it and hopefully come to a firm conclusion either to proceed in the near future or put it on the table semi-permanently. So, look for an update on that sometime next month.
Lastly, something to generate some discussion: are there any web sites out there for genuine newbies on the computer/Internet? I'm talking about really basic stuff like how to use email, basic word processing, etc. I'd be curious if anyone knows any sites like this -- good or bad. Thanks in advance!
All the time on TV there are commercials for this guy who makes tutorial CDs that teach you to use Windows, Office, IE, etc. They're probably a great place to start looking if you need to teach someone how to use a computer: telling them to put in a CD is easier than explaining how to get to a web site or something.
Well, I found a few. The first one looks good for information about the web.
http://www.learnthenet.com/english/index.html
Then there is the Word
http://www.compusmart.ab.ca/alummis/beginnerword/