IE 7.0

Internet Explorere 7.0 Beta 3 is out, with some new and improved features. One that I like, right off, is the ability to choose the screen size as a percentage. I'm choosing 90% as a default, and then moving it, with a single click, to 100% when I need it. The benefit? Faster loads! IE 7 also has the tabed pages feature that Firefox invented, and improved security. Finally, when you visit a site that has RSS feeds, like this one, a RSS icon will light up, and you can click it to add the page to your RSS Feeds.

You can download IE 7 here: http://www.microsoft.com

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Yahoo 1ups Google Maps

Google Maps, since its updated version has appeared, has been the undisputed king of online maping. Quite simply, it has been light years ahead of mapquest, yahoo, et al. Well, that was, until now - Yahoo Maps has just antied up and raised Google to become the new killer map application on the web - and I mean KILLER.

Go to http://maps.yahoo.com to see for yourself. Besides a lot of small enhancements to Google's maping, Yahoo sports a LIVE TRAFFIC feature - turn it on, and Yahoo will map any accidents, the flow of traffic on specific highways, and any closed roads, courtesy of the Texas Dept. of Transportation.

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Be like Hicks

Man, I'd love to wheel and deal at this guys level - what a facinating business life he has. Forget Trump, Tom Hicks, take me in as your Apprentice!

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_26/b3990073.htm

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RSS Feed

Are you familiar with RSS Feed? RSS Feed is essentailly "blog email." You'll find this on blogs, and on regular websites as well, so, I guess its not just "blog email", but that's an easier way to describe it. Lets say you go to the Fox News website to stay abrest of important news in the day. You also like to see the new postings on Christian Entrepreneur Exchange. You get a newsreader, like MS Exchange, or NewsGator or GoogleNews, and then add RSS Feed URL's, like these for Fox News:

FOXNews.com offers feeds for the following sections:

Latest Headlines (all sections) - http://www.foxnews.com/xmlfeed/rss/0,4313,0,00.rss
National - http://www.foxnews.com/xmlfeed/rss/0,4313,80,00.rss
World - http://www.foxnews.com/xmlfeed/rss/0,4313,81,00.rss
Politics - http://www.foxnews.com/xmlfeed/rss/0,4313,2,00.rss
Business - http://www.foxnews.com/xmlfeed/rss/0,4313,3,00.rss
Technology - http://www.foxnews.com/xmlfeed/rss/0,4313,73,00.rss
Science - http://www.foxnews.com/xmlfeed/rss/0,4313,72,00.rss
Health - http://www.foxnews.com/xmlfeed/rss/0,4313,69,00.rss
Fox Life - http://www.foxnews.com/xmlfeed/rss/0,4313,4,00.rss
Views - http://www.foxnews.com/xmlfeed/rss/0,4313,5,00.rss
FOX Blogs - http://www.foxnews.com/xmlfeed/blogs/0,4333,,00.rss

Every time something is posted to one of the RSS Feeds you subscribe to, it is sent to your newsreader, and you can read them all together, say, every morning or evening. This is also helpful for getting just what you want. For instance, maybe you don't really care about the Health articles on the FoxNews site, but you DO care about Business news - just sign up for the Business RSS Feed, and then you don't have to sort through the rest of the webpage.

Anyway, here is the Christian Entrepreneur Exchange RSS Feed:

http://christianentrepreneur.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Just enter it in your newsreader, and you'll receive everyone's post through it.

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Great Tool

I ignored it for a long time, but I have been really amazed at this little tool that has saved me a LOT of time, and cost nothing. I'm referring to Google Desktop, the Google search engine for your computer. Once you install the software, Google indexes everything on your computer - files, emails, webpages, you name it (unless you don't want it to, then you can tell it not to), and constantly indexes anything that comes in. Then, whenever you're trying to find ANYTHING, its a TWO SECOND search.

Google Desktop

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Audio Blogger - way too cool

This is this Blog's first Audio Blogger - listen to the audio, and then let me know if you can think of any other applications for this technology.
* It's FREE

* You can call in from any phone, any where, at any time and record a comment that is automatically posted to this blog, or a blog you make.

* Here's an application I'm considering - adding a blog to my website..I place a link on my main page to my Real Estate Blog - it points to a blog I create on Blogger.com and opens in a new window. So, I'm driving down the road, and I see a sign for a new development in Frisco. I call Audio blogger on my cell, and tell the listeners all about what I'm seeing, and how it may affect the price of homes in the area, and a little while later, wa la, an audio blog of my observations is on my website.

* I'm out at a new listing and want to make notes about the features, sizes of rooms, etc. I call Audio Blog on my cell and use up to 5 minutes (per blog post) to note it all. My assistant checks the blog, dictates my notes (or uses speech recognition to do so) and before I return all the details are in our database, and synched to my PDA/Cell phone.

* By the way, I just pulled up this blog on my Treo 650 - it came up fast, and I was able to download the audio file and play it back on my Treo in just a few seconds. I'm sure there must be some applications here as well, other than what you can already do through voice mail.

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The key insight here is "social networking, one of the hottest areas of audience growth online. "

"But despite owning one of the largest customer bases on the Internet, with about 85 million members, it has not fully exploited advertising sales opportunities at the unit, Chernin said. "We've just scratched the surface of how to monetize it."

MySpace has become a focus of investor attention for News Corp.'s media empire, which spans the Fox television and cable news networks as well as the New York Post newspaper, even though it remains a tiny part of the company's operations.

The division is being viewed as a testing ground for new media opportunities, particularly efforts to reap advertising dollars from social networking, one of the hottest areas of audience growth online. "

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