Miscellaneous Items

I’ve been upgrading my Dell Optiplex 620, (this of the noisy fan and the overheating case which always needs to have the top left off. ) from Windows XP to Windows 7. I used an image downloaded from the Microsoft licensing web site, and, I think this must be original version of Windows 7 that came out in 2009 or whenever, because it has applied over 150 updates, to the newly installed version, which has taken over four hours to have ready to use. Cripes, haven’t they even heard of version control, or Git?

After casting around for a cloud-based web hosting company,  I’m leaning toward Linode. To start with, their documentation is terrific.

And, speaking of Git if you are trying to get your head around it, here is a great beginner tutorial that describes the theory of Git and doesn’t just give another rundown of all the commands.

Visual Inspiration at Urban Sketchers.

Trello is an uncomplicated way to manage projects. There is an e-Book about Trello, Trello Dojo published by Daniel Root and published by Leanpub

As a professional nerd, occasionally I’ll run into a website, utility, or service that has potential to help the day-to-day lives of people not only the IT field, but in about any line of work. Or, perhaps even people in no line of work. Trello is just that sort of service. Their website describes it: “In one glance, Trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in a process.” Being free, easy to use, and constantly updated, giving Trello a try in your next project or process is a no brainer. You have almost no risk and a lot to gain.

The book comes with pointers to more than a dozen Trello templates; projects that are already set up. There is also discussion of feeding a Trello board with inputs from other sources, such as an RSS feed or eMail. An example of such an application is the Poor Man’s Customer Service tracker, which takes eMails sent to your customer support web address, and automatically creates a Trello card for each issue.