As I wrote earlier, CompuLab was kind enough to send me a Fit-PC2, so I could find out if this tiny little PC is as great as it sounds on paper. The first unit I received failed before I could properly test it, but it was quickly replaced and I’ve been putting the replacement one through its paces all day today.

On paper

The Fit-PC2 is the world’s smallest fully functional desktop PC. It’s about 1/4 the volume of a Mac Mini, and it still has all the necessary connections and features to be used as a home or office computer. It’s also the most energy efficient PC I know of, using only six watt when idle and eight when playing full resolution HD video (1080p). Yes, it does that. But more about that later.
More Fit-PC2 review: The world’s smallest desktop PC

Not too long ago, a whole bunch of Twitter users made their avatar images green to show support for the Iranian people after the recent elections there. I’m not sure it had any effect, but it did (to my knowledge) introduce the concept of using a profile image overlay to communicate a message to your followers.

Recent startup Avartize picks up on this principle, and allows you to not only pick a predefined overlay (there are a whole bunch available already), but also allows your to create your own. Now everyone can start a campaign like the #iranelection one. All you have to do is become an ‘avartizer’.
More Avartize: Easily add overlays to your Twitter Avatar

It’s taken a little longer than expected for EC Council to go throught the entries and pick a winner, but I’m pleased to announce that the complete Certified Ethical Hacking package goes to Jonathan Carr who commented on my blog post. Jonathan, If you haven’t already you’ll be contacted shortly. Congrats.

But I guess everyone’s a winner here, because I also received word that everyone who emails eric.lopez@eccouncil.org will get a 50% discount. That’s nearly $1500 dollars off the course’s regular price. Not too shabby. So, why are you still here then? Just tell Eric I sent you.

Twitter by it’s very nature is a very limited service. That’s what’s fun about it. Some people manage to be really clever and witty in 140 characters. But there’s only so much you can express in a tweet. The other main way to express your personality on Twitter is through your avatar image (or ‘profile picture’ as Twitter calls them).

Many of the people I follow have carefully designed avatars that they don’t change very often. But what if you could have your avatar be as current as your tweets. Showing you exactly the way you look today, doing what you’re doing right now? That’s where Snapatar comes in.
More Introducing Snapatar: Update your Twitter avatar from your webcam

I guess it was about time I updated my Tagnetic Poetry plugin. WP-Cumulus’ lesser known brother now has shortcode support, as well as several other improvements. It’s not as mature as Cumulus, but it’s definitely stable enough to deserve a 1.0 version number.

The Flash movie now has support for the ‘xmlpath’ flashvar that WP-Cumulus has supported for a while now. This affects you only if you’re attempting to use it outside of the context of WordPress, but is very handy if you do. Putting more than one instance of the plugin on a page should also no longer cause issues, and several other little issues were fixed.
More Tagnetic Poetry 1.0 adds shortcode support

It seems like almost every gadget announced or introduced these days comes with the assurance that it ‘does’ HD video. Even if it has a tiny little lower-than-standard-definition screen and isn’t likely to be used by anyone to watch movies in high quality. I get the feeling that hardware manufacturers think they need a 1080p sticker on the box to sell gadgets, even if it means cheating a little. I say cheating because with many of these devices, HD video is the only thing they’re really good at.
More The (non)sense of using HD video as a benchmark