Author: Stan Shinn

Want an open-source, free CMS? Low-end CMS's like WordPress are proliferating; high-end CMS's like Alfresco are also available. What about the middle?

Content Management Systems (CMS) aren't the most sexiest applications in the world. When you think CMS, you probably think Vignette, Interwoven or a similar enterprise-level product. Those systems are usually bulky and difficult to use. At the other end of the spectrum are blogging platforms, such as Movable Type or WordPress, which are renown for being fairly lightweight and easy to use - but often they lack the high-end functionality required in a CMS (content approval process, version control, reporting, etc).

In the middle of this spectrum (Enterprise CMS -- Blog Platform) lies SilverStripe, an open source CMS system developed by a small company out of Wellington, New Zealand. It has a simple web interface and was built using PHP5, an alternative developer framework to the more hyped web 2.0 framework Ruby on Rails. SilverStripe was recently named as one of 5 finalists in the Most Promising Open Source CMS Award, part of the 2007 Open Source CMS Awards held by Packt Publishing. Source

Google's Algorithm now includes more than 200 components to its "secret sauce":

Mr. Singhal has developed a far more elaborate system for ranking pages, which involves more than 200 types of information, or what Google calls “signals.” PageRank is but one signal. Some signals are on Web pages — like words, links, images and so on. Some are drawn from the history of how pages have changed over time. Some signals are data patterns uncovered in the trillions of searches that Google has handled over the years.

“The data we have is pushing the state of the art,” Mr. Singhal says. “We see all the links going to a page, how the content is changing on the page over time.”

Read full article at the New York Times

This was not intuitive unless you consulted the documentation. Here's how you do it...

Activate Bluetooth®:
1. Starting with the phone, click with the trackwheel to bring up the menu.
2. Scroll to and select "Options."
3. Select "Bluetooth."
4. Look in the top left hand corner of the screen and if it reads, "Bluetooth: Enabled," skip to step 6. If it reads "Bluetooth: Disabled," proceed to step 5.
5. To enable Bluetooth, click the trackwheel. A drop down menu will appear, and select "Enable Bluetooth."

Putting the Headset into Pairing Mode:
6. Put down the phone and pick up the headset. Starting with the headset powered off, hold down the Call button for 6 to 10 seconds until the light stays lit. (Initially, the light will flash a few times before staying lit.) If the light is flashing, or if the light starts flashing anytime during steps 7 through 12, the headset is not in pairing mode, and this step (step 6) needs to be repeated, beginning with the headset powered off.

Select the HS820 Headset:
7. Go back to the phone, and click with the trackwheel.
8. On the drop down menu, select "Add Device." The phone will start searching for Bluetooth enabled devices.
9. On the screen, a list of one or more devices will appear. Once the phone is finished searching, select "Motorola HS820."
10. A screen will pop up asking for the passkey. Enter the passkey 0000, and click using the trackwheel. A screen will appear confirming that the pairing is complete. Since pairing is complete, the light on the device will be flashing.
11. To be able to use the device after pairing is complete, underneath the screen heading "Paired Devices," select "Motorola HS820."
12. On the drop down menu, select "Connect." Now the devices are paired and connected.

Recently got a Blackberry 8703e and it rocks! New to a Blackberry? Here's one thing you'll want to change. If your deleted messages don't sync up with Exchange, do this:

In 'messages', select:
Messages Options > Email Reconciliation > Delete On > Change Option > Mailbox & Handheld

Here are some other shortcut keys you'll want to know:

Phone

• To call a speed dial number, hold an assigned letter key.
• To dial the last number that you typed, press the Space key and press the Enter key.
• To assign speed dial to a letter, hold a letter key. Type a number.
• To call your voice mail access number, hold 1.
• To change the volume during a call, roll the trackwheel.

Reset

• To reset your handheld, press the Alt key and the Shift key and the Backspace key.

Google recently added new shortcuts to Gmail:

m - Mute

Archives the conversation, and all future messages skip the Inbox unless sent or cc’d directly to you. Learn more.

u - Return to conversation list

Refreshes your page and returns you to the inbox, or list of conversations.

y then o - Archive and next

Archive your conversation and move to the next one.

People are always asking me if it is safe to use your credit card on the Internet. Finally a stat that shows where the REAL security threat resides:

The most common place for credit card information to be stolen is at a restaurant, according to Visa.

The credit card company, which constantly monitors cardholder transactions and data for fraud, has determined that 40 percent of all credit card theft occurs at dining locations — more than at any other type of merchant. source