The concept is simple.  You need to update your status or send a quick tweet.  You find an interesting link or article you want to post.  No time to catch up on what is going on in the Twitterverse or the 300 tweets you are behind on.  Just need to post an update.  That’s TweetNow!

TweetNow is a simple WPF application designed to allow for posting quick updates to a Twitter account.  It is currently in development and is actively being tested by our staff of testers.  Well, not really staff.  Just me.  And a few friends.

Initial Release Features

- Secure authentication via oAuth
- Multiple account support
- Automatic URL shortening

Future Release Features

- Minimize to system tray
- Hotkey activation
- Post photos to TwitPic

Elouise Katherine arrived Monday, May 4, 2009 at 6:04 PM.  Here are a few pics of the new addition!

I have installed a plugin for my blog that will allow you to view it on your iPhone with no scrolling or scaling required.  Check out the screenshot:

This is a cool feature that makes the blog very easy to read and navigate from your iPhone.

Some time ago I made the switch to using WordPress as my primary blogging engine.  I hosted it myself and had mySQL and PHP for the infrastructure.

WordPress is a tried and true blogging engine so I was very impressed at its stability and performance.  One thing I didn’t like, which wasn’t really shortfall of the application, was my inability to customize and build my own themes.  The platform was PHP which made it very difficult for me since I really have no background in PHP.  I was “stuck” with off the shelf themes and the inability to customize the engine to my needs.

The other night I came across an open-source app called BlogEngine.net.  This is available for free from CodePlex and is developed by a community of dotnet junkies.  They leverage things like user controls, master pages, and other features of the .NET Framework.  Exactly what I was looking for.

The installation is straight-forward and doesn’t require anything special.  The primary storage for blog pages and posts is in an XML file.  You also have the option to use a SQL database.  In my migration I am just using the default XML option.  It works for what I use it for.

There are a lot of extra capabilities built into the product that I don’t use.  You can read more about those on their website.

I migrated my blog over to this new engine this last week.  The migration from WordPress was difficult since there are a not a lot of tools to do so.  The default tool does an export from either BlogML or RSS.  With RSS you can only export the post contents; this doesn’t get your comments for you.  BlogML is a implementation of RSS that extends the structure to include additional information like comments and categories.

Like I said, I didn’t have very good luck in exporting.  I basically was able to track down a WordPress to BlogML plugin for WordPress that replaces the existing RSS export capabilities.  The big problem I experienced was the export failed to pull all of my categories due to a database error and left all of my posts with no category association.  I spent most of the weekend fixing this.  That wasn’t much fun.

I also worked on porting the theme I was using in WordPress to the new engine.  That was simpler, but there are still a few quirky things with the new engine when it comes to building out a stylesheet for the theme.

BlogEngine.net has have support for the Metaweblog API so you can use most blogging tools like Windows Live Writer.

I can’t believe it myself, but I actually took the plunge the other night.

One of the things that had always appealed to me was the quality and design of Mac hardware.  Who can complain about a 5 hour battery life?  It’s a defining experience compared to the 1.5 hours I get off of my Dell.  Of course with the extended battery (and additional weight), I can boost that up to 3 hours, and it only costs me an extra $200 … but I digress.

Libby, a graphic genius by trade (and close friend) has always had a Mac.  I guess you could say, he was my inspiration for trying a Mac, or maybe it was our inability to share files.

Anyway, I had been watching Apple’s refurbished items website and thought I came across a pretty good deal.  My choice was between the 13″ MacBook and a 15″ MacBook Pro.  Of course, in addition to their display size, they had their differences…One had 4 GB RAM, and the other had 2 GB, but other than those, the specs were fairly similar.  I was easily convinced that the 15″ glossy display was the way to go with the MacBook Pro since if I wanted to upgrade to 4GB RAM at some point it would cost me about $150.  This seemed better since it also meant that I got a newer model, although refurbished.

I am curious to see how the MacBook performs with running Vista via Boot Camp.  I’ll need to also be able to run Windows based apps, so vmWare Fusion looks like another good addition that I will have to add.

So, can I make the switch to Mac and still like it?  We’ll have to wait and see…

I’ve had an XM subscription for quite some time now.  One thing that they started a little while back was the ability to listen to most of their stations via the Internet.  If you have a monthly XM account for a receiver, then you automatically get access to XM Radio Online.

From their website, you can login to XM Radio Online.  It opens a new window with their player interface.  The problem with this is that it’s another browser window and if IE crashes for some odd reason (and it happens), then you lose your session…Plus things get cluttered.

Tonight I discovered that in Windows Media Player 11 (and I believe version 10 does this as well), that you can to the “Online Stores” inside media player.  XM Radio is there, and you can login from within Media Player and consume the same XM Radio Online experience, but through Media Player instead.  No dependencies on the browser, and you minimize media player to the tray and still get the information about what is playing.  That’s cool.

I’d personally like to see a Windows Vista gadget that would allow you to listen to XM Radio Online.  I’ll have to look into that.

Business 2.0, a publication of CNN has a list of the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business which detail the year’s biggest boors, buffoons, and blunderers.

A few of my favorites:

#14 – Vonage

This is a painful one considering they lost a patent lawsuit to Sprint this week which is going to cost them somewhere in the ballpark of $70 million. 

#61 – Microsoft Employees Prefer Google

An independent study indicates that every 2 out of 3 Microsoft employees actually use Google instead of MSN or Live Search when searching the Internet.

#101 – Hasbro Pussycat Dolls Release

To compete with Bratz dolls, Hasbro decides that only the only answer to a doll that could complete are replicas of the music group, Pussycat Dolls.  Parent complaints; Hasbro thinks twice on the idea.

You can find the full list here.

Tonight I was catching up on a few things and decided that I would try to update my Rhapsody client.  The good news is that there was actually an update, but it still didn’t fix any of my problems.

Since upgrading to Windows Vista, starting Rhapsody became painful.  Every time I would start the application, I would get this dialog box:

Now I have no idea what this means, all I know is it pops up every time I run the application.  How annoying!

If anyone knows how to fix this, let me know.

I saw Scoble mention this earlier on his blog today.

Don’t get all worked up.  It’s not as bad as it sounds.  It’s not a medical condition, or something funny you do that keeps people staring directly at you.

A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing? Answer on your phone, IM, or right here on the web!

It’s a pretty simple concept.  You can check out Twitter.com to see what people all around the world are doing at this exact moment.  Things like “trying to look busy at the office” are commonplace.  You can submit your answer via phone, IM or their website.

So, join the network, add some friends and Twitter away.

How does that sound for a cool job title?  I was reading Jeff Sandquist’s blog yesterday and found his entry about Michael Garternberg joining Microsoft and the Channel 10 team as a Enthusiast Evangelist.

I got to thinking … When I was working for Microsoft, I remember all kinds of different titles like developer evangelist, technical evangelist, etc. I never once recall hearing anything about an enthusiast evangelist.  No offense to my old colleagues, but Technical Account Manager or TAM, doesn’t have the same ring to it as Evangelist.

What does an Enthusiast Evangelist do? Michael explains in his blog entry:

“Our job is to find, engage and work with enthusiasts and other influencers and show them all the cool stuff that Microsoft is doing. In short, it’s our job to act as the bridge between Microsoft and end users.”

Sounds pretty fun.  Sounds like a good opportunity to potentially make an impact with the user community.

The funny part of Michael’s announcement is all of the comments to his post.  A few good, but a lot of “Boos” about him making the switch to Microsoft.  You can read the comments below his entry here.

About the time I was reading through the comments, my RSS feeds updated, and into my Outlook popped an entry from the blog of Michael Garternberg.  The title of his latest entry is “And Back To Analyst…“  Funny enough, Michael has decided to resign from Microsoft and return to Jupiter Research as an analyst.  Maybe the ribbing from colleagues and subscribers alike was too much?