Twitter seems to be the rage lately.. popping up in blogs and tech posts everywhere. What is it you ask? Well, it took me a bit to grasp it, which is why I just signed up this morning. Twitter is basically a way of letting people know what you’re up to at any moment. I kind of thought of this as a “younger persons social network tool” - which, it is I suppose, but I figured what the heck, i’ll try it out. I signed up, and posted my first twitter, letting the world know I was still trying to wake up, and brewing up some starbucks. I adjusted my settings to allow me to post to my twitter from my iChat (aol), and from my cell phone (text msg). When I returned from my morning run, I posted another from my iChat, and also added a block to my other blog. Cool? I guess so, but am I really THAT cool, that people will be stalking my every move - and for that matter, do I want everyone knowing my every move?! Maybe I’m missing something, I’ll keep twittering and see how it goes.

CozmoTV is a really slick website that makes watching videos online more like channel surfing. Type in a topic you’re interested in, and Cozmo finds a bunch of related videos and immediately starts playing the top search. Sure, you could probably do this within YouTube - CozmoTV just gives you a much cleaner look, and easier search.

I wonder if it would be easier to blog after work, if I didn’t work on a computer a majority of the day. I find my best blog times are on weekend mornings with a cup of coffee. I’ll work on it.. but for now, here are some links I’ve been banking up for future posts. Enjoy.

Top Secret Recipes - is a pretty neat site where you can find a bunch of good restaurant recipes. Some are free, others are .79 cents to purchase. I now know how to make a 7-11 slurpee!! Mmm.. food talk makes me want to visit my favorite food blog.. :)  I suppose while I’m on food - I may as well mention the top RSS’d food blog I read about yesterday - Simply Recipes.

Simple Weather - A weather website that cuts out all of the extras. Very clean, and straight from the weather channel. Personally, I’ve been loving my new Firefox Add-on - Forecast Fox.

Schedule wake-up calls, joke of the day, weather forecasts and more. I tried this out, setting a wake-up call for 7 a.m., but it called me at 7:10 a.m. So, don’t blame me if you show up late for work… I think they still have some bugs to work out.

Listening to words - Find, listen, and discuss free lectures from around the world.

Our Stage - Judge, Vote, Win. Check out up and coming artists music and videos, vote on the best and check out the highest ranked winners.

Daily Comedy - your source for everything funny!

If I don’t find time tomorrow evening to blog - have a good weekend everyone!

I have been using a program called CheckBook by Splasm Software, for quite sometime. A macintosh program that cost me $20 for the download. I researched the heck out of checkbook software, and I’d say, for a computer based program, it’s got to be the best available. I even tried out Quicken for a short time, and was a little confused with all of the features it offers.

Welcome ClearCheckbook.com - a browser based checkbook program. I registered for this, and within minutes, I imported my qif file that I exported from my program, and was managing my checkbook online. This program does a little bit more than my basic checkbook program. It has spending charts, that show the incoming/outgoing money, which is a pretty neat thing to see. You also can add a monthly spending limit amount to various accounts.

But, by far, the coolest feature this program offers - is CheckBot. I swear I rambled this exact idea off one evening to my friends, and of course, like most of my ideas, they rolled their eyes and said “sure rob, sure..” With CheckBot, you can enter your checkbook debits/credits or view balances for individual accounts from your cell phone - via text messaging!! Tell me that isn’t awesome!! You can also do the same thing via aol/icq.

I’m sold. Other features like bill pay reminder, scratch pad and import/export make this FREE browser based checkbook a real deal.

One of the cool features in OSX was the introduction of Apple iChat. The program is a pretty basic instant messaging system that works with .Mac and AOL users. I would like to see some things eventually improved (interaction with msn/yahoo might be cool), but for now - the two programs below do quite a bit to spice up iChat.

Chax: This program does so many things, it’s hard to list all of them. I mainly picked it up about a year ago, so I could tab my chat windows.  Chax offers other features like; disable the smiley button in text input lines, send away auto-reply only once per conversation, option to auto-accept file transfers, automatically reconnect when disconnected and a ton of other features.   Chax has most everything iChat is missing.

iChat Borderless:  This is a simple program that gives iChat a smoother look, similar to iTunes. Very nice looking.

Any other suggestions?

I was bored with my voice mail message on my cell phone, and thought I’d see if the internet could help me out.   I googled “funny phone messages” and found this site:   Funny Audio Files.   I found the one I wanted, downloaded it, cranked up the volume on my computer and left this message as my voice mail.

Speaking of cell phones, I read last week that the new “thing” with cell phones will be a ring tone push feature.  This means, someone can call me and decide what ringtone will ring on my phone.  Sounds a little crazy to me.

The weirdest game ever. Though somehow I got sucked right into it..

As you probably know , I like to try out every new Web 2.0 site out there. Usually, I sign up, find out the site isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and never look back. I tried out Jott just for kicks, and I actually think they have something here. Here’s what it does:

After registering, call the toll free number and leave a voice message. The message can be sent to a persons phone (text message) or email. I was impressed at how well it transcribed the voice to text.

I can see myself using this to leave myself notes in my gmail, or jotting friends while I’m driving (so I don’t need to type a text message!).. So sign up, let’s jott!

Postful:  Pure genius or pure laziness?   Maybe lazy, but I love it.   Imagine, being out of ink in your printer, no stamps but you really want to send a letter to a buddy that has no computer access.    Fire a letter off, pay the .99 cents and you’re done!     The site is still in beta - so you’ll need to email them to get added to the beta list.  I’ll post my results once I get the email and can test it out.    My next question:  who’s getting these letters, printing them, stuffing them in an envelope - then walking down to the post office to mail them?   In a way, that might be a fun job. 

Today is the 111th Boston Marathon. To non-runners, that’s 26.2 miles through the city streets of Boston. This marathon is one of the more popular races, and probably the most prestigious to run. But of course, this race would not be possible, without,.. yes, you guessed it - computer geeks!

Each runner receives a chip (Champion Chip) that they zip tie onto their shoes. This tiny device keeps track of your time from start to finish.

For The Boston Marathon (as other marathons may also do), you can log in on the website to view a racers results as they run. Tell me that isn’t a cool feature?! I just so happen to know two individuals running the marathon this year. The race for the common folk (non-Kenyans), start’s at 10:30 a.m. If you get a chane, log in and root for these guys.

Athlete Tracking = click here

Ron Finley - Monroe, MI = 11229

Steve Walker - Oxford, MA = 23627