TR Out Loud - October 23, 2009

Sonja Thompson: What do hot discussions, cool members, and frozen bananas all have in common? This week's TR Out Loud on Video, of course!

 

I'm Sonja Thompson, a senior editor for TechRepublic, and this is TROLOV for October 23rd, 2009.

 

Sonja Thompson: We're going to kick off this week's top five discussions of the week with Jason Hiner, TechRepublic's Editor in Chief, because Jason was the master mind behind the #1 discussion, which the title was: "Windows 7 report card: The hits and misses." Jason, since Window 7 has officially launched, can you give us some of the highs and lows of the new OS?

Jason Hiner: Yeah, so the highs are it's smaller, it runs a little faster, it fits on smaller hardware like netbooks, it's more power-efficient. The lows are it's got this new taskbar, which some people love -- I think a lot of people are going to be confused by it, sort of like the Ribbon in Office 2007 -- also, in IT, I think they could have gone a little further in the IT tools -- especially for imaging, which IT uses to deploy lots of machines. So, all-in-all, I think it's respectable, I think it will sort of displace Windows XP as the most popular business version of Windows in the world, ultimately.

 

Sonja Thompson: Ok, and some of it will be, we'll just have to wait and see, right?

 

Jason Hiner: As always. Once everybody starts hammering on it and users get a hold of it... like Vista, at this point everybody thought that Vista probably wasn't too bad, and we know what happened there.

 

Sonja Thompson: Alright, Jason. Thanks for the great post.

 

Jason Hiner: You got it.

 

Sonja Thompson: #2: "Crimeware: Solutions, anyone?" And this was written by Michael Kassner in the IT Security blog. In this post, Michael offered some solutions on how to fight crimeware, but he said our collective goal should be to get financial institutions and online merchants to start implementing them. There's lots of good information in this post, and I highly recommend that people check it out, if you haven't already. As always, I'll link to this and the other top discussions of the week in the blog notes.

 

#3: "Ubuntu 9.10 makes a serious charge toward the enterprise level." In this Linux and Open Source post, Jack Wallen highlighted some of the latest features and enhancements in Ubuntu 9.10, which he predicted will open up the corporate world to the Linux OS. Do you agree? Chime in this discussion thread with your opinion.

 

#4: "Video: Five must-have Firefox add-ons." And this one was from Bill Detwiler's TR Dojo video series. With the growing popularity of Firefox, it's no wonder that this post made the top five hot discussions of the week. Bill also included a poll at the bottom of his post, and at the time of this recording, over 2000 members had taken the poll, with the majority selecting "Adblock Plus" as their favorite Firefox add-on.

 

And #5: "Video: Top five movie gadgets." Senior Editor Mary Weilage is responsible for this Geekend post (Go, Mary! Go, Mary!), and it was based on a CNET video by Executive Editor Tom Merritt. Tom listed his top 5 movie gadgets, and Mary opened it up to the TR community. Which gadgets would you add to the list?  

 

Now, about those cool members that I mentioned at the beginning of the show. Here are the folks who received the most Thumbs Up for posting answers in the Questions forum:

 

#5: Breezer85 (2)

#4: ---TK--- (3)

#3: CG IT (7)

#2: OH Smeg (8)

And #1: Jacky Howe (10)

 

And here are the members who have posted the most total comments on the site in the past seven days.

 

#5: Oz_Media (84)

#4: CG IT (88)

#3: OldER Mycroft (89)

#2: Deadly Ernest (90)

And #1: jck: (129)

 

TR's moderator, Tammy Cavadias, is back again with another weekly Spam Busters report. Here's Tammy!

 

Tammy Cavadias: Hi, everyone! Hi, Sonja! Well, we're back this week with the weekly Spam Buster report, and I thought I'd try out my new Halloween costume so I can be prepared for next week when I get all the little kiddies that come to visit me.

 

Well, first up we got "How to write a compelling product review." Well, let's look at a small list. Does your spam create excitement? Are you presenting an unbias view? Do you sound like a spammer and have no life? Are you creating any additional value?

 

Well, last week we had someone begging for friends. I don't know if they actually made any, but this week we have the Web site begger, who's just begging folks to come visit his Web site that he promises will be very entertaining. Did you click on it?

 

So, who needs palm readers, tea leaves, and all that other good stuff to see into your and other peoples future when you got Tomorrow's Murals!

 

Now, welcome to Tammy's "Are you smarter than a first grader?" The question is: Can you spell few? Is it spelled fef, fwe or few. Let us know!

 

Well, that will do it for me this week, and I'll see you all next week. Bye!

 

Sonja Thompson: Since Halloween is only a week away, I'm going to shine another light on jdclyde's discussion thread, where he asked for your help coming up with a new costume idea this year. Be sure to take photos so that I can include them in the TR Member costume pics gallery, which I ll link to in the blog notes. I also want to wish a speedy recovery to ThingTwo (and ThingOne) -- get better so you can get in that costume!

 

Last week's photo caption contest was a picture of TR blogger Justin James at the South Carolina State Fair in 2008. Here are the entries:

 

• "It's made out of WHAT?" by BFilmFan
• "OMG, Marge, did you see that man's tongue!!!???" by Snowless1
• "Of course it's healthy. It has a banana in it." by NickNielsen
• "My tongue feels a little furry." by oxfordpauluk
• And "Evolved primates freeze their bananas and cover them with chocolate and nuts." by yours truly.

 

I'm going to put a poll in the blog notes, so be sure to vote for your favorite! The winning caption will be announced on next week's TROLOV.

 

Last week's Question of the Week was sent in by TR member wthimmes. He asked, "With online chat, web 2.0, simulation training, and virtual worlds, is classroom training dead?" 

 

According to Hal 9000: "Put simply, no, I don't think so, despite what some may claim. I've found that people still want to interact with a teacher in a real-time environment. The other methods of training are ok for the small, unimportant things, but for important training courses, I and the people I know, prefer to go to a classroom type environment."

 

NickNeilsen agreed that "For certain subjects, there's no substitute for the classroom environment. The interchange between students and teacher, the immediate feedback, and access to lab facilities make formal training essential for some subjects. Which subjects is another question entirely." 

 

And since Windows 7 officially launched this week, I thought it would be appropriate to have our Question of the Week be centered around this event. "What new feature or features in Windows 7 do you find most impressive?" I know that quite a few folks haven't had a chance to actually take it for a spin yet, but we've been posting quite a bit of Windows 7 content on TechRepublic, so hopefully you've read about some of these new features. Please send your answers to trol@techrepublic.com.

 

And the TR Pet of the Week is Murff who was miffed last week because he'd been out-swagged by a CAT! GG, be sure to tell Murff that he's the only pet that's been featured twice as TR's Pet of the Week. Oh, and he will be receiving swag, because he's such a good boy!

 

Many thanks to BFilmFan, Snowless1, NickNeilsen, oxfordpauluk, and Hal 9000 for participating in the show. These folks will receive some free TechRepublic swag -- and all they have to do is send me their mailing address and swag item of choice.

 

I'd love to see more TR folks participate in upcoming episodes of TROLOV -- you can send in a comment about the show, a Question of the Week, an answer to the Question of the Week, a photo (like a costume photo), or even a small original video clip to trol@techrepublic.com.

 

I'm Sonja Thompson, and this is TR Out Loud.