I’ve been working with Google Buzz for a couple of days now since it was released, and I have to say I interact with it more than I ever have with twitter.

So far things I like about it are:

• Easily integrates with my gmail for notifying me of new buzzes (is that a word?)
• No new account to deal with
• Location aware messaging
• Less noise so far than twitter

Have you tried Google Buzz yet? And if so, what do you think of it?

Boxee announced yesterday that they are releasing in January a beta version of their software and soon with the help of D-Link an actual device to run Boxee. I’m excited to see this project growing and to see what comes of it.

You can read a full write on Mashable’s website: http://mashable.com/2009/12/07/boxee-box-dlink/

Today was the first time I had been able to make it out to a Chicago Graphic Design Meetup! (And I’m the organizer now)

We had a great meetup over lunch that was informal but allowed me to meet lots of new people. For those who have possible never heard of www.meetup.com, it’s a site where you can connect offline (in person) by finding people with common interests to meet with on the website.

I’m looking forward to planning the next meetup, and I’m hoping it goes as well! We had 14 people come out this time!

I recently became the organizer of the Chicago Graphic Design meetup group on www.meetup.com

http://graphicdesign.meetup.com/71/

It’s a large group with just under 800 members, and I’ve never been able to make it out to one of the meetups before, so right now I’m figuring out how it works.
I’ve got lots of ideas on how I think it could work, and I’ve been trying to recruit the help of a few people I know in the graphic design area, who could give ideas, input, and help with the process.

If you have ever worked with meetup.com as an organizer and would like to share so of your thoughts on the processs and role, please feel free to email me at dquigley [at] dqsupport [dot] com!

I don’t know if any of you have ever purchased a netbook, but it’s a becoming a more and more popular type of computer to buy lately. I purchased the Dell Vostro A90, which is a small, but well spec’ed computer that is working well for us so far.

I’ve also recently updated my iPhone to the MMS capability. So far I haven’t found a lot of uses for it, because I mostly upload photos to Facebook or email them to people, but it’s nice to be able to get them from my family members who sometimes send them. Anyone else made the update and what kind of success did you have?

I haven’t kept up on my iPhone development book that I purchased and I need to buckle down and plow through some more of the material so I can get a better handle on the concepts. Hopefully over the next few weeks.

At the end of the day yesterday I was able to get the iPhone SDK 3.0 to finally download and install on my Mac! So I started to test out how it was working with the interface builder, and while it was easy to drag and drop a few items on to a window, I’m seeing the complexity of designing an app quickly appearing. I’m really hoping this book I’ve got will be sufficient and useful enough.

Right now I’ve got the book dropped off at the copy center at my job where they are cutting off the binding (it’s a big paperback-style binding on 600 pages). They going to replace it with a spiral binding for $5.50 which will let me set the book flat which will be awesome!!!

After seeing how much it costs, I’m tempted to do it to a few other books I’ve got and use frequently.

Anyway, I’m not looking to develope any kind of crazy big iphone app or mac app. I’d just like to expand my skill set in these areas enough to be useful, and mildly knowledgable, with the possibility of giving me more opportunities in the future.

Anyone else casually learning Objective-C out there?

I just picked up Programming in Objective-C 2.0 – A complete introduction to the Objective-C language for Mac OS X and iPhone development by Stephen Kochan.
So far I’ve made it through the first 2.5 chapters. I took classes in C, C++, and Java about 5-8 years ago, but it’s been a while, and I’m having to relearn a lot.

I’ve got two goals with this learning process.

1. Rebuilding my computer programming knowledge, in order to stay semi-current with software design and development ideas.
2. Gain a better technical knowledge of the Mac OS X and iPhone OS so that i can better support both and write a few small programs for each.
3. Bonus: I know many people who have learned the Microsoft programming languages, but not as many in the Mac world. So maybe I could get  ahead of the curve with learning to program here?

Hopefully I’ll be able to keep pushing through and learning this content.

Currently I’ve installed XTools and I’ve had a great deal of trouble with the iPhone SDK. I’m currently email back and forth with Apple about this, so hopefully I can get it working soon. I’ve written a few programs and feel like I’m learning some exciting new things again.
Anyone else have experience with the Mac OS X programming (objective-c) and such?

Since January, I’ve been working on www.dqsupport.com and learning about how to optimize it for Google and other Search Engine Optimization (SEO) items. I’ve been learning a lot, and since beginning this process, I’ve landed on the first page of the google search results for “chicago computer training”,  “chicago computer trainer”, and “chicago computer repair”. Now the last keyword or phrase is proving to be the most difficult. I getting onto the first page, and then falling in the rankings. I’m not sure what the reasoning for this is, but I’m continuing to work on the site, improving and creating new content to support it, and will hopefully be able to start ranking for other keywords as well. My next goal is to rank for more specific locations such as Wicker Park, Bucktown, Logan Square, and Avondale, the neighborhoods I live in or near in Chicago. SEO work is an ongoing process, and a learning experience.

I just found an interesting tutorial on how to create a good looking screenshot using Photoshop of a website. Unfortunately I don’t have photoshop so I can’t try it but for those that do, check it out!

Link here

If you’re like me, you like the idea of forums and bulletin boards, but they too often get way to crowded and clutter, and they look awful most of the time. Now I’ve found two alternatives that look good.

1. Vanilla

Vanilla is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the web. Anyone who has web-space that meets the requirements can download and use Vanilla for free! via http://getvanilla.com/

2. bbPress

bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress.

Have you ever been frustrated with forum or bulletin board software that was slow, bloated and always got your server hacked?

bbPress is focused on web standards, ease of use, ease of integration, and speed. We’re focused on keeping things as small and light as possible while still allowing for great add on features through our extensive plugin system. via http://bbpress.org/