Jimmy Z

I know I’m a little bit late, but this week is Windows PowerShell Week. Microsoft is doing a new webcast on the PowerShell everyday. They will be posting previous webcasts as well. I’ve had only two days’ journey into PowerShell and I have to say IT IS AWESOME! You can control EVERYTHING on a Windows box with PowerShell.

Linux has something to catch up on with this, because with PowerShell you can pipe objects, not just text. It has very good help tools, and is backed by the entire .NET Framework. In Windows PowerShell, you can instantiate any .NET, COM, or WMI object right at the command prompt. This is way powerful as you can do anything from managing Active Directory to creating Excel Spreadsheet files.

Today I was navigating the web in Internet Explorer right from the shell. I’m not a big fan of IE, but imagine the possibilities of being able to script browser behavior for website testing. Sadly, testing in IE is so important as the majority of the world still uses the blue e for web browsing.

Anyways, Windows PowerShell will replace the cmd.exe in Windows Vista. You can grab the beta and run it on XP or Server 2003 right now. Try it out! It really is cool!

This morning I sent a request to Hostmonster to have SSH access granted. Their only requirement is that you send a scan of some type of government ID. This I did, scanning my drivers license and chopping out my social security number (I have a really old Utah driver’s license). I sent the email, and less than three minutes later I had a reply that all had been taken care of. Wow! That is Why Hostmonster Support Rocks!

Thanks Hostmonster!

I made a big mistake which has killed my Google Page Rank, and consequently my Google traffic. I recently changed my hosting from bluehost to hostmonster and thought I had successfully migrated my site. However, I now realize that I missed something critical.

About six months ago, I migrated my Blogger-powered Tech Blog (http://jimmyzimmerman.com/tech_blog/) to Wordpress, and in the process moved the URL to http://jimmyzimmerman.com/blog/. I just wanted ‘blog’ in the URL because Word Press allows categorizing and I could blog on more than just technology. I successfully redirected all of my ‘tech_blog’ posts to their equivalent ‘blog’ addresses when I made this change. However, when I changed from bluehost to hostmonster, I forgot to migrate the redirects to my new server.

I discovered that the redirects were missing way too late, when my site traffic to a dramatic dive. I quickly checked my Google webmaster tools account, and discovered 404 errors for my old tech_articles. Apparently a lot of my Google juice was generated from incoming links to my tech_blog. Now Google thinks that those are invalid links, and my page rank has taken a dive.

Yesterday, Tag Jungle made the cut to debut in Launch: Silicon Valley! During this past month we’ve received some really “nice” endorsements and feedback from the technology community, and we’ve had exciting breakthroughs with investment companies, but the Launch: Silicon Valley news has topped our excitement meter.

Launch: Silicon Valley is put on by Guy Kawasaki’s Garage Technology Ventures and Microsoft. It is an event geared towards generating buzz and PR for companies that are not already well-funded and well-known. It is not meant to be a pitch for funding event, but I’m sure the buzz it will generate will open up even more opportunities for funding.

If the Tag Jungle Tarzan team seems to disappear for the next two weeks, it’s probably because we’re in Phil’s basement coding like mad while wearing our enhanced vision helmets.

Tag Jungle Beta will be released to the public very soon and we are all very excited about showing off our new blog discovery platform. I have been working on the back-end processing which will be feeding data to the Jungle. Creating the JungleBot has been a really fun puzzle to solve.

The blogosphere is growing at an extremely fast pace, and our goal is to make every blog post appear in the Jungle in as close to real-time as possible. We are coming very close to accomplishing this. As we are putting more and more data into the Tag Jungle database, our results are becoming more and more astounding. Tag Jungle is really going to revolutionize the way people find good, current, and most importantly, relevant blog content.

Sign up to be a part of the private beta release.

I was sitting on a couch the other day at the Wilkinson Center at BYU, and a deaf couple came and sat next to me on the couch. From their facial expressions and bursts of laughter, they were having what appeared to be a very fun conversation.

Later, they both pulled out phones with a querty keypad and started messaging each other. I’ve never seen anyone type so fast with their thumbs. Then it occured to me. Technology is changing the fundamental ways that we communicate with each other. I can only imagine how frustrating it would be to not be able to communicate with the majority of the people around me. Text messaging now breaks down that barrier, and lets these people communicate freely with those that don’t sign. I can only imagine that text messaging will break down more barriers of communication as people will be able to have their messages translated for people who speak other languages.

Exciting news!

My wife and I just made it into the waiting pool of adoptive parents with LDS Family Services! Because LDS Family Services allows the birth-parents to choose who they will be placing their baby with, we have been encouraged to actively seek out those who might be in need of placing their baby for adoption. We’ve heard many stories from adoptive parents who received their baby because they knew someone who knew someone who was looking to place their baby for adoption.

We are actively spreading the word about our adoption status. Therefore, I’m Blogging For a Baby. I haven’t yet heard of anyone receiving a baby because of blogging, but I think a blog is a great way to spread the word. I would appreciate it if any of you who are reading this could help me out and link to this post. Who knows, you might know someone who is needing to place their baby with adoptive parents.

LDS Family Services is a wonderful agency to go through for both adoptive parents and birth parents. They are very sympathetic and sensitive to the needs of birth-parents, and they do everything possible to make sure that they feel good about their decision of who they place their baby with. LDS Family Services also helps birth-parents cover expenses of having the child. Please, if you know someone who is pregnant and their situation will make it difficult to raise a child, kindly encourage adpotion through LDS Family Services.

Our profile will soon be posted online on the Provident Living website. Along with that, I have posted our adoption photo collage so that birth parents could better get to know us.

We are very excited to meet the birth-parent(s) who will help us to become parents. We will be excited to send pictures and letters to the birth-mother, if she so desires, so that she can follow the progress of the baby as it grows up.

Thanks everyone for your help. This means a lot to us. If you have any questions, leave a comment, or feel free to email me: jimmy(dot)zimmerman(at)gmail(dot)com