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Awhile back I wrote an article about our Office 2.0, in which I essentially explain many of the web services we use instead of desktop alternatives.

But tis the season for geeks to help relatives fix their computers, uninstall virii, install applications, and hook up gadgets. So here’s what I use.

Applications I Use - Desktop Version

Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate

Browser: Firefox, simply the best

Media: Windows Media Player and iTunes

CD / DVD Authoring: Nero

Home Entertainment: Media Center / XBOX 360 Media Center Extender

Office / Productivity: 90% of productivity software I use are web services (Google Docs & Spreadsheets) , but when I have to I use OpenOffice 2.0

PDF: Foxit Reader (Doesn’t take six minutes to load like Adobe)

Bit Torrent Client: Azureus

Instant Messaging / VOIP: Google Talk - abrudtkuhl[at]gmail.com

Digital Imagery: Picasa

Email Client: Again I use web services (GMail) but I use Thunderbird for archival purposes

DVD Re-Authoring / Burning: DVD Shrink

Blogging: BlogDesk (Doesn’t work on Vista) - Thinking about going to Live Writer

AntiVirus: AVG Pro

Web Development: Visual Studio 2005

Graphics: Macromedia Fireworks (not for long)

Text Editor: Textpad

Audio Production: Audacity

Video Production: Adobe Premiere

WiFi Locator: NetStumbler

FTP: SmartFTP

Zip: WinRar

Virtualization: VMWare Server (now free)

System Information: Aida32

Screencast: Camtasia Studio

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions let me know in the comments!

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By now you may have read the Washington Post piece involving Gannett’s self-professed move to embrace the web and, “…redirecting their newsrooms to focus on the Web first, paper second.” This is a bold move by the traditional media powerhouse who owns USA Today, among others including the Des Moines Register. Although obvious for some time outside the walls of traditional media, Gannett finally figured it out - the internet is a good thing. They call it a, “Great Experiment”.

“Myron and his colleagues are part of a great experiment being conducted by their corporate parent, McLean-based newspaper giant Gannett, which is trying to remake the very definition of a newspaper. Losing readers and revenue to the Internet and other media, newspapers are struggling to stay relevant and even afloat. Gannett’s answer is radical.

The chain’s papers are redirecting their newsrooms to focus on the Web first, paper second. Papers are slashing national and foreign coverage and beefing up “hyper-local,” street-by-street news. They are creating reader-searchable databases on traffic flows and school class sizes. Web sites are fed with reader-generated content, such as pictures of their kids with Santa. In short, Gannett — at its 90 papers, including USA Today — is trying everything it can think of to create Web sites that will attract more readers.”

It appears they also want to implement Crowd Sourcing - another term we’ve come to learn outside the traditional media world. Essentially they want to use their community to create content. Why that’s a grand idea.

“The News-Press and other Gannett papers also are building searchable online databases on as many topics as they can think of, in part to “enable people to do digging themselves and maybe find conclusions we won’t,” said Michael Maness, Gannett’s vice president of strategic planning. “It’s having thousands of investigative reporters instead of three.”

But why all the sudden? Well, because that model of traditional media bundled with advertising is dead. The web has differentiated old media enough to bring it to a breaking point. A great quote from a recent Slate article provides further analysis:

” …[G]iven a choice, and the economic means to make a choice, many buyers prefer to make an unbundled purchase. Unbundling the news they want from the news they don’t want is what the Web allows readers to do now.”

So in order to sidestep the inevitable downfall and demise of its empire Gannett has take a step by not only recognizing, but embracing new media and internet ideologies. The question then arises as to Gannett’s motives. Why have they finally decided to implement was has been obvious to the web community for over a decade? Do they want to enhance the user experience by adding value? Or is a it all a matter of the bottom line? Tim O’Reilly on the subject:

“But for the most part, businesses introduce new consumer benefits not just for the benefit of the consumer, but because they expect that benefit to redound to themselves as well.”

Social, Design, Usability, and Feature Analysis of my local Gannett website - The Des Moines Register - after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

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Microsoft has been dabbling in this area for some with some of it’s expression betas but their goals have never really been layed on the table regarding the future of this product line. Until now.

On Monday Microsoft announced they are shipping Expression Web, a new product called Expressoin Blend, and a suite called Expression Studio.

I for one welcome the competition to this space where Adobe / Macromedia have dominated since, well, I became a web developer. I’m not saying Adobe lacks innovation or Microsoft has it all right - but Microsoft’s entrance as competition will help drive the market in new directions.

From the press release:

Expression Studio comprises Expression Web for creating standards-based Web sites; Expression Blend (formally Interactive Designer) for designing rich interactive experiences for Windows®; Expression Design (formally Graphic Designer) for the design of visual elements for Web and Windows experiences; and a new tool, Expression Media, which provides digital asset management and unifies team workflow across the suite. Expression Web is shipping today, and the full Expression Studio is planned for delivery in the second quarter of 2007.

So designers, will you give Microsoft a shot? I know I will because I’ve never really like using Photoshop or Flash. Plus I’m a Microsoft junkie.

Tags: Microsoft, “Expression Studio”, Design

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