Becknet™

Web based development and FTP tools

Christopher Beck — Sun, 13 May 2007 10:13:31 +0000

Workspace is still in ’sandbox’ release but you can still sign up to be notified when it’s ready for prime time. I’ll let you know more when I do.

Workspace is a online development environment that facilitates the
complete management of your Web-based projects. With a syntax
highlighting editor built right in, it provides the ability to edit
text, PHP, JavaScript, HTML, Java, Perl, SQL and other types of files
directly on a remote server. Finding and managing those files is made
easy with a cutting-edge file management utility embedded right in the
app.

Getting connected: Del.icio.us, Twitter, Technorati and more.

admin — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 18:21:15 +0000

Here are the details of my attempt to organize my many online activities.

I’m tired of typing passwords so I’ve gotten an OpenID, and I’ve joined about 15 social networking sites and other places that I think might help me stay connected to my friends.

This attempt at online organization should be in keeping with the best GTD ‘Getting Things Done’ mentality. It also should give me time to do other stuff beside worry about the technology and how to use it.

What do I want? I want to be able to keep in touch with my friends without walking around all day with a cellphone tied to my head, nor do I prefer a bluetooth headset! I want to be able to keep in touch and be current with my friends, my news, my searches, my interests and anything else with which I decide to be involved.

What do I NOT want? I don’t want to sit in front of a computer all day in order to accomplish what I desire. I deserve to have a computer do it for me; to deliver it TO me. It seems I spend the great majority of my day with a keyboard in front of me. A keyboard connected to a PC, to an airplane (long story), or a cellphone.

I’m very tired of attempting organize my digital life, and the online places and services I use and find helpful, while also trying to remember where I put the data for those places or services that I MIGHT have time to decide to check out or read about later. So far, I’ve been able to appease my OCD-like tendencies by organizing my 1000’s of internet links or bookmarks etc, into nice, neat, and descriptive folders, because the list of delineations never seems to end. For example, does my blog belong under the folder TECH or GEEK?

These decisions never seem to end. So, I’m giving up on this style of organization and I’m joining the tagging lifestyle. You can tag your links, your pictures, your children, your collections, your thoughts… just about anything!

I’ll reserve my judgment on this new way to organize information and I’ll slam it or promote it after I decide. For now, you can wait on me or jump in yourself with Del.icio.us What a crappy url!

Twitter

Twitter is nothing more than a web-based Instant Messaging client with the abillity to accept status updates from any computer and broadcast it to the world. This isn’t much different than using Yahoo, AIM, MSN, MEEBO, or ICQ (if anyone remembers the original). I will continue to test the service for something useful since so many netizens find it interesting, but for now I’m still trying to find a real use for it.

Technorati

Technorati has, so far, impressed me. Primarily, I use it to promote and track my blog and watch its popularity rise. Unfortunately, I have had nothing to watch but that will change I’m sure :).

I expect my use of this site to increase as I find time to check out what the blogoshere is finding cool at any one time. The tag clouds or tag lists should prove very useful. Check it out!

Happy Easter and…

Peace, Chris

HubTag - I Missed Web 1.0

admin — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 04:53:19 +0000

HubTag is a concept that will drive me to finally enter the tagging phenomenon. Tagging is the new way of organizing information on your thought processes in the online environment. Like bookmarking, or adding web sites to your browser favorites, labeling your favorite web sites, or content in general and then saving and retrieving your it later by YOUR labels, means that you can find content that has meaning to you again.

Enter HubTag.

What is a HubTag?

A HubTag
is a unique word on the internet used to tag your photos
and videos that you have published on different web 2.0 tools.

You can create a tag, or label, that harnesses the power of tagging and the collaborative web content sites like Flickr, etc, to pool your content under a single themed tag that anyone who knows your unique tag can find via a simple search on Google. The example HubTag gives is a wedding and some photo sharing for the attendees under the tag johnandcindywedding2007 or something like that. (Yes, I know I could have looked it up again to ensure that I got the example tag correct but who cares? You get the point and I have a life… even if it’s a small one, lol.I’ve created the ‘I Missed Web 1.0″ tag which is a little tongue in cheek tag poking fun at my age, geekiness and Web 2.0 in general. Check it out. It’s just a little test designed to drive you to look into this for yourself. I think you’ll like it. I do.BeckNet™

A REAL widget.

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 07:05:32 +0000

Here’s a parting example of what a real programmer’s widget looks like

Personalization, Mobilization,Widgets and Content Delivery

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 04:39:34 +0000

That’s what I think about when I hear about Web 2.0. Of course, as I’ve said, I’m a slow early adopter.

Today, yes, I know it’s been a couple of days since my last post, I’ll start with Widgets! They’re giving me the most fits and fun at the present.A widget is a small item, displayed in a web browser from an internet page, that will take input and provide content to you real time. You can have a widget display whatever it’s designed to display like, the Weather, Movie listings from Fandango, or just about anything that could be found in stand-alone static web pages prior to this new ‘Web 2.0′ concept. Widgets act like a small application in that manner and can be terrific time savers. They take data from a web source and deliver it to you the way you want. You can customize the widget’s displayed information to your preferences, amount, location and more.In an attempt to learn how to program widgets myself, I’ll provide my learning attempts, mistakes and all, to you as an example, I’m making the first Beckhouse™ Widget. I’m using the Netvibes Universal Widget API to build it. I’m also attempting to use their RSS feed reader as the starting point. If that last sentence didn’t make any sense, IGNORE IT! It is just a bunch of geek talk anyway. :). Keep in mind that while I might slam on Geeks, I are one and I’m proud of it. I’m just smart enough to know that not everyone needs to be a techie just to have the wonderful technology of today enhance their life.

So, take a look at my attempt. I only spent about an hour on it so it’s not even close to finished. Also, I still have to work a normal job tomorrow to pay for my toys, my ex-wife and my children (not necessarily in that order.) So I’m going to bed.

Check it out. Ask me questions. Post something? Who’ll be first? Am I talking to myself here?

Probably…

Getting started with your own domain

Christopher Beck — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 19:00:00 +0000

Hi everyone. I’ve just went through the process of starting a new online presence so I’ll cover it and try to make it easy for you. I won’t try to cover this topic like a book, so what I’ll do is relate the steps that I went through so you can copy them until you get a better idea of how you want to do it.

Step 1. Buy the domain. This is the name LABEL, for a set of numbers called and IP (Internet Protocol) address, that represents your server computer’s address to the rest of the internet. For example, Google.com is a domain. Amazon.com is a domain. and so on. There are many ‘registrar’s’ of domain names. I chose GoDaddy.com to register mine. Why? because I heard the owner talk on CNBC and I liked what he had to say so I’ll support his company. It only costs about $10/year or so so we’re not talking about breaking the bank.

Step 2. Find a host, which is the owner of a server, connected to the internet, on which you will place your web pages which will ‘answer’ any calls to your domain. GoDaddy.com will host your site for free until you outgrow it. I recommend this.

Step 3. Build your first web page. There are many resource online that will help you. Some are serious and detailed and some are more fun. I’ll give you two.

w3schools.com - This is the standards organization for the www and therefore a good place from which to learn.
Lissa Explains It All - A young girl who’s making a splash with basic web tutorials on HTML, CSS and more. I like her site’s content and attitude although the colors kill me!…more to follow. ~Chris

Welcome to BeckNet™!

admin — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 06:14:55 +0000

Hey everyone! I’ve finally jumped into Web 2.0 and here’s the place to be. I’ll be building this site into something that is hopefully useful to many of you.

I’ve been told that I have a real knack for breaking things down to ‘easy’ and I’ve been quite the computer geek, in the good connotation, since the middle 80’s. Yes, I did have that hair.

Since this is my first blog post on one that I’m hosting myself, I’ll keep it short. What I plan to do here is cover my current interests in a way that any of you, who share an interest with me, will be able to follow my lead regardless of how much, or how little, that you know about the topic.

I believe no one should be restricted in doing what you want by the tools available or the lack of ‘easy’ instructions.

That should do it for now. Welcome everyone, let’s get started! -Chris