Adam Gaffin, who publishes Network World Fusion’s Compendium (RSS feed here: ), has announced that Network World’s weekly interviews are now available a la Podcast – as a RSS 2.0 feed with enclosures.

So, point your feed reader or podcast client over to the  podcast feed at http://www.nwfusion.com/podcasts/radio.xml and partake of the quality content – these are quite good interviews and recordings, especially for IT pro’s and people who want to learn more about IT in the home and office.

Here is a point of view I tend to agree with, with regard to business and blogging… It’s not just what you say at work that can get you fired, and companies can employ (or not) based on a number of aspects of a person’s life. If you’re a blogger, these thoughts over at the Blog Your Way weblog are worth reading and taking into account:

Blog Your Way » My thoughts on being fired for blogging

There have been a lot of posts lately about being dooced (fired for blogging). Dooce (Heather) was the first to be fired almost three years ago and thousands have been fired since then. It seems that many more will follow. What was the common denominator in the majority of them? Discretion…and not thinking about the possible reaction to their posts.

From MS MVP Jerry Bryant comes news about the new malicious software combat tools that will launch on Tuesday this week from Microsoft:

Announcement of Upcoming Release of Malicious Software Removal Tools

Starting from January 11th, 2005, Microsoft will provide Windows customers with Malicious Software Removal Tools. New versions of these tools will be available monthly (second Tuesday of every month on the same schedule that Microsoft already delivers other security updates) or more frequently if necessary…

…Microsoft will provide new versions of this tool updated to remove malicious software that is found to be prevalent for that month. The first version of the tool available in January will be able to remove Blaster, Sasser, MyDoom, DoomJuice, Zindos, Berweb (also known as Download.Ject), Gailbot and Nachi viruses / worms.

These removal tools will be made available to customers through the following delivery vehicles:

• As a download through the Microsoft Download Center
• As a critical update through Windows Update and through Auto Update for those customers who have Auto Update turned on
• As an ActiveX control also available at www.microsoft.com/malwareremove

To make creating weblog entries simple, fast and easy, I use a tool called BlogJet. Dmitri (the author) has just released v1.5 of the program:

BlogJet 1.5 Final Release

Great news – BlogJet 1.5 is available now. It’s a huge improvement over previous versions – it has slightly better user interface, more features, support for more blog services and CMS and it’s more stable.

BlogJet 1.5 is the free update for registered users.

Download it now!

Full release notes are here.

My gnome friend Brandon Watts jumped on the proverbial horse and rode straight out the barn on his first PodCast earlier today. And all in all, he did a fine job.

If you have not heard about Brandon before, here's a little info:

• He wrote his own programming language for beginners, called Leopard, a couple years ago.
• He's 18 years old now.
• He's wicked smart.
• He writes for Lockergnome and has had his writing featured in a variety of print and online media.
• He has a pretty darn good radio voice.
• He has a blog.

Check out his podacst (for the uninitiated, podcasting's this new thing that all the kids are doing with MP3 files and easy-to-use-and-distribute audio shows). Let him know what you think.

Chris Pirillo is a well-known geek and all around goofy (and smart and good) guy. He founded Lockergnome and did a show for TechTV back before that network went straight to crap.

He’s starting his new weekly audio broadcast today, two-and-a-half hours of live talk from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). His show’s new website is online and the live broadcast starts at 11:30am Pacific Time, but the stream is already running so jump in now. Replays available if you miss(ed) the live show, and RSS feeds are on the site for subscribing – I did.

http://www.thechrispirilloshow.com/

I am working form home today, and so I will be listening to it in the background whilst editing papers and organizing stuff. Good to see you back on the air, friend!

The other day I was discussing the differences between geeks and nerds with someone. I said that I thought I was probably more of a geek than a nerd, and had to try to explain why there’s a difference and what those differences are.

I started to wonder if I was wrong, that maybe they’re the same, but today I think I can safely say that’s simply not true.

Hypothesis: I am a fairly prolific geek. I am not much of a nerd.

I just took this online test because Mark Orchant (theofficeweblog) was surprised at his results. He’s obviously a smart person, and came out with a pretty darn nerdy score and I was wondering what mine would be.

This test is very nerd specific – meaning it addresses things like Star Trek, graphing calculators, the periodic table, pictures of really old guys nerds would know about, and stuff like that. On a scale of 1–100, I scored 31. Click the graphic to find your score…

So there you have it – Greg is not nerdy.

What about the Geek Factor? Exactly one year ago today (hmmmm that’s kinda weird, isn’t it?), I took another online test – the “Digital IQ” test at MSNBC. I scored way off the top of the scale on that one. I also took it again this morning to refresh my memory of the questions and to see if my score had changed – it was exactly the same. In this one they use the word “nerd” in their description of “digital ace,” but I think it’s misplaced based on the questions they ask. Geek would be a better term, IMO. It’s still available online – click the image below to find out your score there.

“Meet Your Computer’s New Bodyguards” is one of the taglines you’ll see when installing the new Microsoft AntiSpyware beta software. Microsoft today launched its public beta of the software, which is available to download from the company’s web site.

A lot has been said recently about Microsoft’s acquisition of Giant, a company that makes anti-spyware software used to protect computers from prying eyes and privacy leaches.

After installing it and running it, it’s interesting that its flagging things that AdAware and SpyBot S&D don’t alert on. That’s good. In my case, it didn’t hit on anything I wanted to change or remove (I have a few tools on my computer that it sees as potentially problematic, if someone else had put them there, for example.

The UI is nice and clean, and I like the automatic updates (already working). It’s pretty darn IO intensive, so don’t plan to do any disk-related work while it’s performing a check. By default it schedules a scan to happen at 2am each day (you can change this) and it sets up a real-time protection service that works a lot like an anti-virus program does, watching for known spyware and prompting the user for certain types of system changes as they happen.

I really have only one complaint. If I am running a scan and click on any menu item or button in the user interface to to go to another page, my current scan aborts without warning. This is really very frustrating and will likely cause many people to skip completing a full scan because they’d just killed a scan after 10 minutes and would have to start over again.

Overall, great start and I already like the interface and approach better than the other options out there today. Look out, here comes Microsoft – again. This is one area they’ll have to get right, for sure.

(found via NeoWin) 

Nick Bradbury has just made a donation of $8044.80 to the American Red Cross’ International Response Fund using the proceeds from all sales of his FeedDemon and TopStyle software during the last week of December.

Talk about awesome – This is terrific!

This always seems to happens to me. It’s part of being an early adopter, I guess:

From Engadget: Vonage is partnering with VTech on the next best thing: a cordless phone that comes with Vonage’s broadband Voice over IP service built-in. The has a VoIP gateway chipset built right into its base station, which you just connect right up to your router. Besides letting us toss out that bulky analog telephone adapter we’re still using, the ip8100-2 also operates on the 5.8GHz frequency, which means it won’t interfere with our WiFi.

Well, darn it… I bought a set of identical phones just a couple weeks ago, only without the Vonage service built in. I got them because my old 2.4GHz phone was worn out ad was messing up my WiFi big time. The phones look a little weird in pictures, but they have a really decent speakerphone built in, ringers that don't sound like an 80's alarm clock, and generally work very well. And these are the *same* phones, which I brought home and – get this – plugged straight into my Vonage IP phone adapter device. Argh.

I also saw a combination unit this weekend at a big big big gadget warehouse store that was a combination of the Linksys 802.11G router and a Vonage IP phone adapter. Again - I have both already. I am tempted to buy that one though, because simplifying the voice QOS configuration and compatibility there would certainly improve my call quality at times. My current setup gets glitchy at times.

Scoble on blogging at Microsoft and assumptions that might be made by people on the outside:

“… They think someone has "spun" Bill Gates into believing blogging is good for Microsoft.

“Please, if you're gonna say something like that, warn me not to be drinking water when it comes online.

“I wish I could tell you why that made me laugh. Let's just say the skepticism is misplaced. You don't get 1300 to 1500 people doing ANYTHING at a company without some very explicit decisions made at the very top of the company. Think about that one for a while.”

I serve on the board of directors for a non-profit called Cops on Top. It’s an organization that performs mountain climbing expeditions to the world’s biggest and most respected mountains in memory of police officers who have been killed in the line of duty. The organization and its efforts are funded 100% by sponsorship donations.

Cops on Top is undertaking a memorial expedition to Kilimanjaro in Africa in just a couple of weeks, and is in need of a donated Pocket PC device, preferably an HP model, which the team intends to attempt to use in order to transfer data and images from the mountain via satellite telephone to the organizations weblog.

If you or someone you know is able to quickly donate the Pocket PC or funds needed to buy one, please contact me by commenting here or by sending me an email at greg@greghughes.net. I can also be reached by calling 503–970–1753. Donations are tax-deductible and we would gladly recognize the donation on the Cops on Top web site should the donor wish.

Thanks – Hopefully someone out there will be able to help!

In The Seattle Times Pacific Northwest Magazine, Richard Seven writes – quite eloquently and well – about a professor at the University of Washington and his study of the connection between the information age, overload and extreme stress… Those of us caught in this world would do well to read it. I can definitely relate. I just spent a week in pretty extreme pain and without a Blackberry. I think if I can talk my boss into it, I may trade it for another device, one that’s maybe still cool and connected but less in-my-face. Besides, there are a few new ones that we need to test, so…

From the PNW Mag article:

“…Some are concerned that the need for speed is shrinking our attention spans, prompting our search for answers to take the mile-wide-but-inch-deep route and settling us into a rhythm of constant interruption in which deadlines are relentless and tasks are never quite finished.

“Scientists call this phenomenon ‘cognitive overload,’ and say it encompasses the modern-day angst of stress, multitasking, distraction and data flurries…”

(via Jason deFillippo)

Comment here if you want them, I now have ONE more to give away.

Sorry - all gone! :)

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