John Pope’s

Do you like small laptops? Do you like cheap laptops? Till this year you couldn’t find one, but ASUS did it and launched the Eee PC. Basically, we have a very small notebook (7 inch screen) made from old components (conceived some years ago, not build the same time).

For around 400 $ you get the following specs [source]:

• Processor: Intel Celeron M ULV 900MHz
• Storage: 4GB of Flash based storage (SSD)
• Memory: 512MB of RAM
• OS: Linux (Asus customized)
• Screen: 7-inch screen with 800 x 480 resolution
• Ports: 3 USB, 1 monitor, headphone jack, microphone input, SD card reader (SDHC compatible), Kensington lock slot, Ethernet 10/100
• Webcam (0.3 MP)
• Battery: 4-cell 5200 mA (rated at 3.5 hours)
• Wireless: 802.11b/g Atheros
• Input: Keyboard and Touchpad

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Can you remember the last day when you haven’t used your computer? Or the last week when you didn’t touch the keyboard? I’m pretty sure you can’t, as computers entered our lives fast and we are now used to use them every day.

All this sounds ok, but I’m guessing you don’t know what health problems we are exposed to if we use computers too much. A few weeks ago I’ve came across a short list of health problems caused by a geek lifestyle, but I didn’t had time to tell you about them, till today.

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Here, in this part of Europe, Yahoo Messenger is the most common instant messaging program, well over Windows Live Messenger and Skype. Today Yahoo released a beta version, which brings some cosmetic changes without the Vista interface we are all waiting for some time.

Nonetheless Messenger 9 Beta is a worthy upgrade, as it seems a lot more responsive and seems to consume less memory than it’s predecessor. The new version can be downloaded from here.

The list of actual changes is pretty small but let’s see them:

• more friendly look, teenagers oriented
• new emoticons
• flickr integration for sharing photos
• youtube link recognition (it plays in the chat window)
• skins that can be applied from the main window (but you cant’ add shadows in Vista)
• Windows + Y shortcut brings the main window and places cursor in search contact box
• emoticons in status

Below there’s a short video that highlights what has changed, or has been added.  [A full review of Yahoo Messenger 9 in Romanian, if you understand it].

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I’ve been thinking for some time about what to focus on JohnPope’s. I knew it has to be something related to Internet and computers, but I just couldn’t find the topic.

That was till two days ago, when I realized I should write about what I do and I’ll be doing at work in the near future. I haven’t told you yet, and also didn’t wrote on the About page (hopefully this will change soon), I work in Romania at one of the biggest online publishers, MediaPRO Interactiv (official website isn’t online yet, so you have to believe me we’re big).

Here I’m managing Romania’s first gadgets and lifestyle website, go4it.ro. So I’m always connected to computers, Internet, SEO, web development, management and a little bit of marketing (you can’t promote your website if you don’t know how). I’m also working on finishing some other websites, but that’s not my main occupation.

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In every blog’s life there’s a time when you switch to Feedburner, a highly useful RSS management and monitoring service. After it was bought by Google they’ve offered advanced statistics, in the PRO package for free, so not you have an even better reason to switch your old www.myblog.com/feed URL to them.

Some weblogs, like JohnPope’s did that from start, but that didn’t happen with all my weblogs. That’s when you realize that it would be nice to have a plugin that automatically redirects your old feed to the current Feedburner one.

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There’s word on the Internet that Google is doing some tests with IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) access for Gmail. Some users can find the option and a comprehensive tutorial on their Settings -> Forwarding and POP page on Gmail.

If you don’t know what IMAP is check the Wikipedia page. In short is a protocol that allows you to view, read, delete mail from a regular desktop email client. The difference from POP is that any change is reflected on server, so if you move from work to home, and change computers, the changes perpetuate.

Unfortunately for me, I don’t have the IMAP option for my account yet, so I’m still speculating.

The next clip is pretty much self explanatory. It’s a collection of login/boot screens and startup sounds of Windows operating systems from first edition to Vista.  Source

You are a young photographer and would like to earn some money with your pictures. As always, the Internet is a great resource to earn money, no matter what you’re selling.

If you are an amateur thing are pretty easy, you have to get your photos on a stock photography website. Here you create a photographer account and start upload your pictures, which may or may not be approved.

Currently I don’t know any stock photography website that doesn’t check what you’re posting. Now let’s see the ups and downs of selling your photos on the web.

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You want to be more than a occasional blogger. What you have to do is set up your own blog on a dedicated host. The best free blogging platform is Wordpress. The next post shows you in small steps how to do such a thing.

First let’s see the requirements:

• A host which provides the storage space, an Apache with PHP support server and MySQL databases (I use Dreamhost but the connection is pretty slow as I’m located in Romania, not USA, where the host is)
• The latest Wordpress version. (currently 2.3, which can be downloaded here).
• A text editor (you need to modify some files). Use something that doesn’t inserts spaces and other junk chars (don’t use Notepad, I use Dreamweaver).
• A FTP client. You need it to upload the Wordpress files
• A domain name. Usually the host allows you to buy one, but you can use a registrar like GoDaddy.

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You might not now, but the company that owns Wordpress and Akismet is called Automattic. If that’s not important for you what’s matters most is that it acquired Gravatar, the website that hosts your picture and links it to a specific email address.

If you comment on a blog that has a Gravatar plugin, when you mention your email it will be automatically linked to the image you’ve uploaded on Gravatar.com.

Now my educated guess is that the next big Wordpress version, probably 2.4, will incorporate gravatars by default. That’s not nearly as impressive as Tags, the biggest addition to Wordpress 2.3 but it might be a good step in the socialization direction, bringing commenters closer to blog owners.