A new CMS system has entered the scene, SiteMagic CMS.. It exists in three versions; one free (with advertisements), one paid without advertisements (cheap) and one paid without advertisements and with mysql support (the two first are file based which is OK for smaller sites but likely not sufficient for large sites with heavy load).
Check it out at;
Are you as annoyed as me in regard to the “first run wizard” thingy that IE8 is displaying the first time it runs?? It’s as annoying as the older IE’s that also launched the Email creation wizard… as if it was not enough that they always start off by launching some stupid intro site..
Anyhow, no reason to get TOO upset, as with most things there are ways around this, so take a look here;
http://digitaljive.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/disable-ie8-%E2%80%9Cset-up-windows-internet-explorer-8%E2%80%9D-wizard/
many lovely ways to get rid of this stupidity.
One of the simplest is this;
Registry:
DWORD : “DisableFirstRunCustomize” set to 1 under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
Want to keep up on what the guys at YouTube is working with/testing currently?
http://www.youtube.com/testtube
Here you can check out some of the possibly to come features of YouTube.
http://www.sparkleshare.org/ is a new project on the Internet inspired by Dropbox (a clever fileshareing/collaboration and file syncronising util that uses cloud based storage), SparkleShares force is that it supposodly will be free/open source and you can thus setup your own servers, sounds like something to make a mantal note of..
The first version will be in Linux but should be followed by a windows version, presently no version is publicly available though (as it’s very early in the program, announced June 10th 2010).
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/06/sparkleshare-aims-to-better-dropbox.html
Just got around to try out the online version of MS Office 2010 http://online.office.com, it’s free all you need is an MSN account/login.
It is however a VERY basic version, eg. I found no way to print the document you are editing (other than the print function in your browser)..
But for very basic needs it works, and it’s free 🙂
Just a quick link if you ever need to implement Microsoft Live Communications Server, here is a script that can assist you in modifying your AD users.
http://www.activedir.org/Articles/tabid/54/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/15/Default.aspx
I have mentioned anti spam methods before (eg. http://www.mailexpire.comand more), these are quite simple methods with witch you can create a forwarding email with a limited lifespan, and thus it does not matter if spammers get hold of the email.
One drawback to this method however has been that you actively need to create this antispam email address in advance or when you need it, with mailexpire.com this requires you to create a new account and validate it before it can be used. This in some cases can be an inconvenience as you just need a ‘quick’ address here and now.
Well now there is a new player on the marked, and this service has a few very nice advantages.
The new service is called;
www.spamgourmet.com
What is cool about this service is that once you have setup your account you can create new aliases on the fly without logging in or other time consuming steps. How you ask, well it’s quite easy actually but requires a bit of explaining.
Here is a brief description of the process;
You create an account with www.spamgourmet.com,
to this effect you choose/create your own private alias – as an example we will choose “LUNAR”. Now you have actually done most of the work and can create new aliases on the fly, this is how;
You visit a site that requires your email to download whatnot software, lets say the site is called www.downloadme.com. Now you need to create a new disposable email on the fly, and you can do so simply by making up a new sub email address in this format;
<SOMETHING>.<YOUR ALIAS>@SPAMGOURMET.COM
in our example where the site is www.downloadme.com and our alias is LUNAR this address could be;
downloadme.lunar@spamgourmet.com
Let’s say that later you goto a new site www.uploadme.com and again you need a new disposable email address. This could be;
uploadme.lunar@spamgourmet.com
As you can see is pretty simple to use once it is setup.
What is even more engenius is that the email account you create on the fly will ‘selfdistruct’, it does so by stopping to work after 3 mails have been received (you can via advanced options set it to a different number, but 3 is the default). Thus if: Downloadme.lunar@spamgourmet.com is suddenly spammed you will receive a maximum of 3 emails, quite clever.
Of cause there are advanced settings, here you can change the default number of emails, setup advanced security and add trusted hosts (plus a lot more), some settings can even be set on the fly aswell – you can thus set the number of mails you want to recieve as part of the email (example. upload.10.lunar@spamgourmet.com will allow 10 emails to be recieved, the maximum number is 20)..
The service appear to be fast and forwards mails within 1-2 minutes, although I have experienced a slight delay from a download page – but this could just as easy be caused by the download site and not spamgourmet.com
Alternatives;
There are numerous alternatives as described in a previous post, I have used MailExpire.com quite a number of times – here you can create accounts with a limited lifespan which you can shorten or extend on the fly.
Spamgourmet.com is however as far as I know the only service that offers dynamically created emails.
Well this is actually not true as such, there exists another type of service eg. Dispose-A-Mail www.disposeamail.com (there are many services similar to this) – DisposeAMail however works quite differently from Spamgourmet.com. To use DisposeAMail.com you simply invent an email when ever you need it eg. I-JUST-INVENTED-THIS-MAIL@disposeamail.com and give this to whomever/whatever site requires your email, then you can goto www.disposeamail.com and enter I-JUST-INVENTED-THIS-MAIL@disposeamail.com (or what ever you decided on) in the “Check inbox” and click go.. You can now see whatever mail is received by “I-JUST-INVENTED-THIS-MAIL@disposeamail.com“… One obvious drawback here is, everyone else can do this too – there is absolutely NO SECURITY if people can guess the email address you invented they can check it – so OBVIOUSLY you should never use a DisposeAMail for something that involves password or private/personal data etc.
Need to ping, tracert or check the srv records of a server, and do you need to do this ‘remotely’ eg. not on the lan?!
This site is one of many that offer a bunch of basic tools online;
http://network-tools.com/
Another useful site to get a quick DNS overview is;
http://www.intodns.com
Are you setting up Outlook anywhere, outlook autodiscover or the like then this web-site may be useful;
https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com
Be sure to use a test account so not to disclose any ‘real/live’ passwords.
My colleague Jesper mentioned a web-site to me a few days ago, and I must admit that this site has been on top of my favorite list for the last few days.
The site is www.grooveshark.com and it’s a free music service.
The cool things about this service are;
1. it’s free (always a good argument)
2. it has a TON of music in all sorts of versions (different artists, mixes and remixes) 5 mill + songs
3. the interface is just excellent, totally intuitive. It lets you ‘browse’ the music library just like you do the web, you will be on a journey through music.
4. you can make playlists which you save online and possibly share with friends.
oh yeah, did I mention it’s free 😉 well it is, and it’s totally cool.
There only seem to be one or two drawbacks;
1. it is streaming only, so you can not download music and put it on your favorite mp3 player for road-duty.
2. legality, So, is this legal? Well, to the best of my knowledge no, but hey I am no expert on international IT copyright 
law. Anyhow the service has existed for some time, and it strikes me as strange that it has not been taken down by a ton of law suits if this was blatantly illegal, my guess would be that it’s in the same gray zone as Youtube etc.
Read more about the story of the site here
This is one of the coolest sites I have discovered for a LONG time… It does by far beat the closest similar service I know of, something called TDC Play (a danish service that require subscription with a specific ISP).