On Sunday I used a site I’ve heard of for a while, Meebo. Meebo is an instant messenger which can run on popular protocols such as Yahoo!, Jabber, AIM/ICQ and MSN. Okay, not quite as many as Trillian, but still quite impressive.
The impressive thing isn’t the selection of protocol’s though, it’s the fact is 100% web-based (with Ajax). There’s plenty of web messengers out their. Both first party and third party. These are generally served with adverts, slow or featureless. Meebo is neither of the three.
Before I used Meebo for online IM I used MSN2Go. This ran through Java, so it was a little buggy and it was also slow. MSN2Go couldn’t support graphic smilies either. I still think MSN2Go is great, but now outdated.
Meebo can load centrally stored contact lists, and make modifications to them. Personally I just use MSN, and it could read profiles etc. On top of that I can send messages, and receive common emoticons like :D, :(, 
and 
. Meebo is also very secure, passwords are 1024 bit encrypted.
Personally, I’m not using Meebo as my primary IM client, just thought it was worth a mention here.
Naturally, due to the fact it is a web page people have made hacks around it. My favourite is integrating it with active desktop (read more?). I imagine a Widget could be made for Mac OS X and Konfabulator.
Well, yesterday I was having major problems with my computer in general. Perhaps I should state what was wrong and what went wrong.
- Trips over USB cable for headphone (only possible cause)
- Plugs it back in. Next restart USB headset is identified as PCTV soundcard
- Attempts to uninstall and update driver. Each matched with a critical error. In safe mode it simply blocked.
- Next reboot no drivers work except hard disk, mouse and keyboard. Even my CD/DVD drives wouldn’t work
- I realise it was pretty bust. Reformat.
- I haven’t ever done a re-format, even being the nerd I am. Sort of pathetic I guess.
- I really struggle reinstalling. Why? I didn’t realise SATA drivers needed drivers for a RAID controller (doh!)
- It goes to plan from there. But remember I reformatted like 50 times over before.
- The above wasted yesterday’s blogging time, and most of my time today reinstalling software and drivers
- explorer.exe is a little buggier than it used to be - but nothing to be worried over
Another point, my site’s Google ad CTR could be improved. What should I do to raise this? Your tips and problems with ads are much appreciated, you might even get a link. I already have a sitemap.
I can do HTML, enough CSS, I can read PHP but can’t write it from scratch. What shall I do next?
I’m tempted to actually read my C# book, but at the moment I’m busy. I have things to write, software to test and, oh yes, a website to redesign.
I’ve never programmed before, so learning a language would be a big step – but one I will have to take. But what should I code in? Is C# a good first language? I think if you learn C# you can learn other C languages easily and J# easily (which in turn teaches you Java).
It would also be useful to script, in Python or Ruby, but that can wait for later!
For a very strange change I’m not going to blog about technology today, but just a quick reminder for all us Brits.
The new series of Little Britain is on at 9pm (today) on BBC 1 is going to have a host of new characters and some of our old favourites, but be warned some of our favourites will be scrapped!
You can watch some clips of the old series, and one of the new series at the BBC it is worth noting that this is a RM, so you’ll need Real. Why don’t the BBC just switch to Flash?
Today I joined Experts Exchange . It’s a site where you like answer questions, and ask you can ask them. You can then get certifications (as in Guru or Wizard 
) and top user charts. Currently, I’ve answered two questions and one has being accepted.
The site isn’t really for petty tech (like my mouse isn’t working, and the answer is: that you need to plug it in) however you get a few like that. It’s a useful resource for programming and databases and more advanced computing.
I imagine this will be useful when I start to get into development more.
Oh, and a good Firefox extension for you, Viamatic foXpose, which shows all your open tabs in a graphical thumbnail view. So cool!
A better post will come soon
