For those of you who are either luddites or live under a rock there is a new phenomenon in the online social networking world called Plurk.

What pre-tell, you ask, is Plurk? Well it’s along the same line as Twitter where you can post short “status” like updates that are 140 characters. Some people refer to this type of service as microblogging but unlike Twitter, Plurk groups the threads together ,thus making it extremely easy to read and follow. The other great feature is the time line which scrolls from left to right rather than reads up and down like Twitter.

I could talk all day about the cool features of Plurk but what you need to know is that it’s cool, fun, and there are lots of good people there. Here are some examples of some really great folks on Plurk: miketempleton, ruggsymuggs, bikeman, nethead, MikeonTV. I know I missed some excellent people but these are the ones fresh in my head as I have been chatting with them over the past few minutes.

One thing that Plurk has taught me is how to express myself in very short messages. Sure you can keep posting replies to your own Plurks (that’s what a post is called in the Plurktionary) but that looks pretty silly. I know that, if I were to meet these Plurkers in real life, I would be friends with them as most Plurkville residents I’ve met share common interests and a similar sense of humour.

If you are new to Plurk and/or want someone to help you get started, feel free to add me (TheNerd) as one of your friends. I’ll make sure you get well acquainted with the Plurk Universe (Pluniverse, Plurkville, Plurktown, etc).

Cheers!
~TheNerd

For those of you who do not know, Lotus Symphony is a new, freely available, office suite from IBM. It is based on the OpenOffice.org project but has been re-branded to lotus and has been extended and modified. You can get it at symphony.lotus.com.

My test machine is Windows Vista running in a virtual machine (VMware) with 1GB of RAM. I know this isn’t much of a system but most applications that I test should run fine in such a machine. If this is not sufficient for an application then I may question whether or not I would use it.

The installation was a breeze. I was asked where to put the program files and whether or not I wanted to associate Open Office 2 and 1.1 documents with Symphony. All in all the whole installation took about 7 minutes on my Window Vista test machine (which is in VMware). This does not include the time it took to download the 192mb file from IBM’s website. I have never been fond of downloading things from IBM because they have the proprietary, Java based, download manager that never seems to work quite right. The good part is that if you wish you can download the file directly via HTTP, which actually went considerably faster.

When you first open the program you are presented with a landing page with three big icons in the middle. From left to right they read: Create a new Document, Create a New Presentation, and Create a new Spreadsheet. Below these icons you will see some text with links to the support forums, Lotus website, and plug-ins page. If you don’t want to use these huge icons you can click the “new” button near the top left corner and select your next move from there.

One of the first things I noticed, aside from the intrusion of icons, is that when you click on New > Web Browser you are presented with a built in browser window that brings you to the Lotus Symphony page. I checked the browser version, www.whatsmybrowser.com, and it shows that it’s using the IE 7 rendering engine (-1). I’ve never seen the point to build a browser into an application such as this because I will never use it (maybe I’m the only one?). I would rather it simply open an instance of my favorite browser (i.e Firefox).

One more little annoyance I noticed right off the bat is that, at a resolution 1024×768, there is still a scrollbar present for the main pane of the program. I can’t see why a program suck as this needs more resolution than 1024×768 to be displayed without a scrollbar.

I was dissapointed that the default installation of Lotus Symphony does not include any templates. The option exists to create a new document from a template (New > From Template > Document) but when choosen this produces an error saying that the program can’t find any templates. You must download and install these seperately.

One feature I am actually quite fond of is the tabs created when you have multiple windows open in the program. They are lined up very nicely at the top just to the right of the New button. This makes it easy to switch between documents, unlike MS Office where you have a new instance of the program open and you have to switch between documents by either using ALT + TAB or clicking the program on the Taskbar.

The Preferences screen is located un the File menu which seems a bit odd to me as it normally appears under the Edit or Options menu but once you find it it’s not hard to remember where it is. The preferences screen itself is a little gross looking. The left column is white and the font isn’t the greatest. I absolutely hate the little plus signs you have to click to expand the various sections. I would prefer a straight down list of items.

All in all, from the little time I’ve played with Symphony, it appears to be a half decent application. Most of the standard office suite functions appear to be there such as formatting, revision tracking, document protection, etc. One advantage that this product has over most others (at least I think so) is the ability to re-brand and customize the look to your liking. There are instructions on the Lotus Symphony on how to use a plug-in to change the logo, colors, and other branded items to your own. I think that is pretty neat.

In the end, I would have to say that I doubt that I would ever use it on a regular basis as I already have my needs satisfied with OpenOffice.org and, frankly, there’s nothing I see here that provides anything better than what I already have. If you don’t beleive me that’s ok, just download and try it for yourself, you might like it.

TheNerd

I’ve been plugging away at my business plan over the past few days and have made some decent progress. I’ve been trying to write it as professionally as possible so it’s taking a some extra time to make sure I have all the wording all nice and pretty.

The worst part about the whole thing is the market research.  It’s hard enough to find decent numbers for places like Toronto and Vancouver never mind Halifax or maybe even a smaller town where I grew up. I guess it might not be that the numbers are hard to find, it might just be hard to find for a non-numbers person such as myself. Regardless it will come eventually.

Aside from that I am working with someone (sort of) on a new project that hopes to be launched into beta  sometime in the not too distant future. I don’t want to say much about it right now because I am not sure what exactly my involvement in this project will be and the details aren’t all worked out as to what the final product is actually going to look like.

I am also working on an eComStation related website project that, as soon as some bugs are worked out, will be launched. I hope that will happen within the next week or two before I return to my regular day job but I am not 100% sure yet.

~TheNerd

I wanted to throw out some advice that I wish someone would have given me what I first entered the IT universe.

If you happen to be one of those people who loves new and exciting things, you might just want to stay away from the big corporations and government organizations. On the other hand, if you are a person who values are most towards having a stable job with many benefits, then you might want to go for one of those places.

It is my experience in the corporate world that has shown me that most corporations like to create a homogeneous and stable environment that does not promote the use of cutting edge technologies but rather promotes the use of technologies that have been proven over time. While this is a good thing for the organization it might not be what all technicians are looking for.

If you want to play with new technologies and have a chance to live on the cutting edge you might want to op in to a job at a smaller, private company. If you really want to live on the edge you might want to even look for a job at a Web 2.0 start up. Then you would really have the chance to play with new stuff.

Anyway I though I would share that with you :).

~TheNerd