Soft Tech Reviews

With so many social networks available, it’s very hard to pick just one. Some of your friends and family choose one, others choose a different one, and then maybe a couple picked another. You either get invites from them or they tell you about it and you feel obligated to create an account. I’ve been there, but refused to do it again when family and friends started in with their MySpace pages.

I was slow grabbing a Twitter account and started off with Pownce. I like the ability to share pictures, videos and music. I eventually signed up to Twitter and started using it. I can see the difference between Pownce and Twitter and don’t mind using them for two different things. I haven’t even once wanted to post to both with the same message. Why? The people who follow me on Twitter are different from the people who read my posts on Pownce. If anyone wanted to read what I have to say/share on either one, they would add me.

Everyone keeps comparing Pownce and Twitter, but really, they are two different services. One offers several features, the other offers mostly just 140 characters. In my opinion, Pownce is more like StumbleUpon than it is like Twitter in the sharing aspect of it (images, videos..). Twitter is like having a chatroom open and reading what people have to say with the occasional link to read more.

I’m not telling you to stop cross-posting to both Pownce and Twitter, but try to consider the people who are following you. Are they going to be interested in reading what you have to say on Pownce with an @reply to someone on Twitter? What about the people who follow you on both Twitter and Pownce? Do they want to read duplicate posts? How do they know which one they should reply to that will get a response back? It wastes time. You may be saving time by posting the same message to both, but you are wasting other people’s time. Also, think about the replies. People on Pownce won’t see any of the Twitter replies, and vice versa, so they may be missing the whole conversation.

If you used IM the same way, wouldn’t you be annoyed if someone sent the same message to you with all of their IM accounts at the same time? (Yahoo!, MSN, AIM, Google, etc.)

There may come a time when you want to hear what both Pownce and Twitter people have to say, because maybe you’re asking for help or for an opinion or getting an idea for a new blog post. But cross-posting to both all the time could become annoying to some.

Suggestions

• Pownce allows you to group your friends. Maybe you could create a group that wants to receive your Twitter posts on Pownce. This may or may not work depending on the client, if it allows you to select a group.
• Prefix your posts with Twitter/Pownce so if someone is interested, they can follow up on either.
• Use Twitter and Pownce as two separate services, as they were designed.

As I said, I’m not telling you to stop, but just keep your friends in mind the next time you cross-post. If anyone else has a suggestion or reason why Pownce and Twitter posts should (or shouldn’t) remain separate, please comment.

I felt like one of the last people to start using Twitter, even though I know there are so many people who still don’t know about it. Most of my friends and family have a MySpace account though. I don’t have a MySpace account and they don’t have a Twitter account, because they don’t really know about Twitter (or don’t understand it) and I don’t really care for MySpace.

Since I’ve had a Twitter account, I started to understand what it can be used for. I don’t have a lot of followers, but I don’t feel that I need a lot of followers. Although, that may say “Hey! I’m popular!”, but that’s not why I use Twitter.

I first started to use Twitter to see what all the buzz was about and then realized I could follow the same people who blog that I subscribe to in my RSS reader. Then, I found out I could also use Twitter to update whenever I published a new post on my blog, possibly grabbing more interested readers. (I don’t get a lot of traffic through Twitter this way, but it’s still worth a try.)

Twitter is also a great way to get help for anything like WordPress, computer problems, etc. I kind of think Twitter could possibly take the place of RSS feeds, because you can also hear about things in the news and a lot of bloggers use it to announce when they’ve published a new post on their blog.

Check out this video that explains what Twitter is. Video by leelefever.

I think Twitter is what you want it to be.

Now it’s your turn. Why do you use Twitter and has it helped you in anyway?

Remote Desktop Connection is one of my favorite tools in Windows, because it allows me to connect to my desktop computer from my laptop when I don’t want to sit at my desk. But, if I wanted to be away from home, there just isn’t a way for me to access my home computer, unless I set it up differently.

Remote access is needed sometimes. This becomes easier when you don’t have to download any software and can do it directly from the browser.

RemotePC makes it easy to setup the host computer and the local computer. There are two separate Remote Access Host installs, one for Vista and one for other versions. I used the one for Vista. On the local computer, installing the Remote Access Viewer is also easy.

With RemotePC, you can invite a guest to access your host computer by sending an e-mail via RemotePC, which will send the guest a license to connect. This license will expire depending on what you choose. The license can be set to never expire as well. I like that, because if I knew I was going to be away from my computer for a long while, this would be a great way to give myself access without worrying that it would expire after a few hours.

On the local computer, you can access the host computer through Remote Access or a web browser. To do this, all you have to do is login to your RemotePC account on the website and it will list the available hosts for you to access. Before connecting, you need to know the host key that you initially created when setting up the host.

After the guest has disconnected, you can delete the license and invite another guest if you choose. If the license is going to expire, you can just let it expire or manually delete it by right clicking on the RemotePC icon in the system tray.

When you aren’t using RemotePC, disable it by right clicking on the icon in the system tray and a little x will appear over the icon. Nice way of knowing when RemotePC is enabled or disabled.

The RemotePC Viewer was a little slow on my laptop. I had to manually disable Aero, because RemotePC did not do this for me, it only disabled the wallpaper. Even after disabling Aero though, it was still a little slow with refreshing.

If you have files that you need to transfer between the host and local computers, RemotePC allows you to do this. This was very easy to do once I realized that Vista prevents me from saving in certain locations, so I just saved to an external hard drive. The file transfer didn’t popup any warning about the file not being transferred, because it had said it completed, even though it hadn’t.

Another product, Remote Meeting, looks like something the company I work for should have. It would be great for meetings with the employees who can’t make it into the office because they are sick or working from home. It includes some really nice features, such as showing/hiding the screen to/from select people. It also allows up to 10 people to share one desktop.

For me, if RemotePC was somewhat faster, it would be a favorite of mine. I’m always looking for ways to access my computer away from home.

Has anyone else used RemotePC and noticed it being slow? I’m curious if something I was running caused this slowness.

Sponsored by RemotePC

For my job, I have to learn Flash and ActionScript. I’m slowly learning on my own. To do this, though, I had to watch videos and read books, which I’m not finished with yet. A couple of the books I have focus on animation/interactivity.

If you’re wanting to purchase Flash and ActionScript books, try to go with used books. If you look on Amazon, there are lots of used books being sold, some in really great condition. All of the used books I bought look almost brand new, excluding one which really was brand new at a used price!

Some of the books also come with a CD, so if you want the CD when purchasing new, be sure to read all of the sellers’ comments before buying.

There are some great resources available for learning Flash and ActionScript, online and offline. I thought I would share what books I purchased from Amazon and where to find videos and tutorials for learning.

Books

• Macromedia Flash MX Creative Web Animation and Interactivity
• Macromedia Flash MX ActionScripting: Advanced Training from the Source
• Foundation ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move!

Look for more Flash and ActionScript books on Amazon.

Videos

• Lynda
• LearnFlash
• CartoonSmart
• gotoandlearn
• TechVideos

Text Tutorials

• W3Schools
• Tutorialized
• LukaMaras

Please leave a comment if you know of some other really good videos, books or tutorials.

Disclosure: This post includes Amazon affiliate links.

I’m not really a huge fan of Torchwood as I am Doctor Who, but I thought I would still look around for some wallpaper. Unfortunately, this is a lot harder because there isn’t a lot available.

Here are a few that I was able to find, along with where you can look for more. Enjoy!

Click on one to go to the download page where it’s located.

There are more available at deviantART, The Torchwood Archives and on Google Image Search.