jeff gibson

What do you do for a living?

How would you like to be a professional tweeter?

Just send me $49.99 and I'll tell you how!

Okay, just kidding.  The Associated Press reported on Alecia Dantico who is a professional tweeter for Garrett Popcorn.  She mans the social media desk for the company.  Read the article here.

Now follow me on Twitter so I can get paid!

The Windows 7 Taskbar

I've been using the Windows 7 beta, and one of the features I like the best is the Windows 7 taskbar. 

It has your quick launch programs, plus shows you which programs you have open.  When you mouse over a program that has multiple windows open, it will show you thumbnails of the open windows.  When you mouse over a thumbnail, it will show you the window that is open as well as make the other windows transparent.  Very cool!!!!

To read more about it, go here.

Facebook Wants To Make Money Off of You

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg talks about how the social networking site could be used to poll certain groups of users and how to turn that information into money.  The Taipei Times tells more.

Great Twitter tips

Hey tweets!

If you don't know what that means, then you are a person who does not use Twitter!  But if you do, then here's some great tips on twittering that I saw on triiibes.com.  To see the article by Ellyn Angelotti and posted by Becky Blanton you have to be a member of triiibes, and membership is by invitation only (yes, nose is in the air and chest is puffed out).  I'll reprint the best parts here:

JournoTweeting
1. Get a Twitter account. ( http://www.twitter.com ) Amy Gahran offers step-by-step instructions on configuring your account.

2. Follow other twitters. Try using the "Find People" tool, or for additional help try Twubble (http://www.crazybob.org/twubble/ )

3. Direct message other tweeters. Tweet "d @username" and the message is sent only to that user (it is unbroadcasted). When you tweet @username, your message is broadcasted to everyone, and it alerts the tweeter that you're talking to them (like yelling across the bar to someone). NOTE: You can only direct message Twitter users who are already following you. And only the people you are following can diect message you

4. Create a virtual Twitter hub. ( http://grouptweet.com/ )
Here you can create a small group that you can communicate with without broadcasting your tweets to everyone who follows you.

5. Create your Twitterwire by following a few news sources.

Find a bunch of news orgs on Twitter here (http://red66.com/2008/02/a-list-of-news-organizations-using-twitter/ ) and here ( http://graphicdesignr.net/blog/2008/09/03/newspapers-that-twitter-a... )

6. Search for news and hot topics -- the Twitter rumor mill. Case in point: Moms mad about Motrin ( http://search.twitter.com )

That's more than you need to know, but here's the most important part.  Join twitter and then follow me:  http://www.twitter.com/jeffreygibson

Then let me know and I'll follow you!

Ubuntu Update

So I've been trying to do all my work over the past two days with the Ubuntu flavor of Linux.  For you Linux newbies, this is a free downloadable operating system that takes the place of Windows.  I've been playing with it off and on for about 10 years now, ever since Red Hat 5.1 came out.  It fit on 3 floppies back then, if I remember right.

The big advantage to Linux is that it is very stable.  It is a Unix type operating system for PCs.  When Apple developed OSX, they built it Unix as well, because of the stability.  So while an individual program might hang up, the operating system itself rarely crashes.

Advantage two is that it can be free.  Yes, you could pay for it, but what you are paying for is the additions and modifications that a company has invested time and money into it, or for ongoing support.  But by and large, everything the normal user needs is free.  This is the case with Ubuntu.  You download a CD image, burn it, reboot the computer and begin the install.  You don't have to download drivers, or wonder what you did with the install CD's of all the programs you have on Windows.  You can add software to it by using Add/Remove Programs and it will find it, download and install it for you.

The downside is that there is a learning curve getting used to a whole new set of programs; who does what and what exactly do they do.  In my case, this is what I used the past couple of days:

• Evolution:  The email client that takes the place of Outlook.  It connects with Exchange server, providing you with your email, calendar, contacts and tasks.  It can be a little slow keeping folders updated, but all in all, it works.  Grade: B.
• Firefox:  This is my browser of choice no matter whether I'm using Windows, a Mac or Linux.  But I still am having sound issues and it's ticking me off!!!!  Grade:  A-
• Open Office:  I was able to open and edit Word and Excel docs seemlessly.  Sure, it doesn't have all the collaboration features, but who really uses those?  Grade: A
• Samba:  They don't call it that anymore, but it's the protocol that lets you connect to a Windows network share.  In my case, I could connect to my documents on the server and the shared folders as well.  It was quick and worked perfectly.
• Database:  Using Firefox again because our church management system is web based.  Works perfectly!  Grade: A.  However...we're still using Shelby financials and that's going to be an issue.
• GIMP image editor:  Lets me do everything I would do in Photoshop, which is nothing complicated.  For a graphic artist, I sense it might not cut it.  But for me, Grade: A.
• Rhythmbox Music Player:  Played Mannheim Steamroller's Christmas Extraordinaire CD and my mp3's.  You can pay for a plugin to play your mp4's from iTunes.  I won't. 

All in all, it's working. Except the sound thing in Firefox!!!!

To All My Mac Friends

I think that little thing that's been going around for 15 minutes now means that I just lost hours of work.

Sure glad that Macs don't crash.

Ooooo...smell the sarcasm?

I'm LinkedIn!

While reading a blog I wanted to find out more about the author so I clicked on his profile and it took me to a site called LinkedIn.  I saw that you could search for people on  it.

So I searched for me.  And I found me.  A lot of mes.  And I hold down lots of cool jobs.  I'm the Director of Human Resources at Dell Computers.  I'm an Integration Solutions Architect, a managing consultant and a Vice President of International Training & Operation. 

I rock.

Find me here.