Today, myself and Devon went for lunch at Primi Piatti in Rivonia. Like true geeks we whipped out our laptops, because we need to be constantly connected. We had a few urgent emails to respond to and of course had to catch up on Facebook.
We went to Primi because it offers free Wifi, which is really cool and because we like the venue itself. Unfortunately they were having problems with their Wifi. No problem, we did the geek thing. Devon had a LAN cable in his laptop bag and I had my phone cable in mine. Since we both use SonyEricsson, he quickly plugged in his phone and connected. He shared his 3G connection and we were connected. Mine was slow and barely usable, but it was decent enough to check my email.
I decided to record the little moment and you can view the video below. I also snapped a few pictures which you can view over here. Excuse the video and audio quality, I was using a cellphone.
I have been using Windows Vista for the last week and I must say I am really impressed. I must admit, I didn’t buy the Dell laptop that I said I was going to. A few family members use HP, so I went with an HP laptop.
When I bought the laptop, which came with Vista, my immediate reaction was to install Windows XP. I have been working on XP for a few years now and I am extremely used to it and everything I needed worked wonderfully on it. The reason I wanted to purchase a Mac was because of the shear beauty of its operating system. However, Vista loaded and I was presented with a very clean and fresh interface. I decided to play around with it for a day or two and now I am 100% migrated to Vista with hardly any hassles.
The Interface
I love logging into Vista each and every morning. The new interface simply inspires me to work creatively, it’s amazing what a difference a well designed interface can make you do. I like all the shadows and glassy effects, it is so much more easier on the eye and better than boring old XP.
Navigation around the operating system is really simple and hasn’t changed much. I like new start menu which allows me to type in the name of what I am looking for and it will find it pretty quick and I can run it. However, I do wish the menu expanded out like previous version of XP, I don’t want to switch to the classic menu.
Application Compatibility
Pretty much everything I was running on XP is now running Vista. I did have a few issues with Apache and MySQL, the two most important environments for my development, but that was due to my stupidity and they work fine now. One of my biggest hassles was getting MPowerPlayer to run MXit, however after doing some searching I found a fix.
Another application that didn’t install was the software for my SonyEricsson, but a quick software upgrade on their site fixed that as well. I never used to use Windows Media Player but I have ditched Winamp for it and use VLC for my videos. Firefox seems lightning fast now and runs a lot better than XP, Internet Explorer is still as useless ever.
Conclusion
I am happy with Windows Vista. I am not the biggest Microsoft fan, as some people know, but this is really an awesome product. Vista inspires my creativity and my productivity, it does irritate me with Defender sometimes, but I can live with that. I whole heartedly recommend it.
Side Note:
I found the video below today via Twitter. I must admit Apple’s advertising is really clever, but alas it didn’t sell me. I think Vista is great, however I won’t deny that I think Leopard and Tiger look equally great, but Vista works for me.
Over the last few months I have been developing on the Facebook’sDevelopment Platform and it has been a really fun experience. Facebook development is something we’ve really been pushing at Younique, so Devon and myself have really been going all out on the platform with some of our own in house applications.
We have developed our first outward facing Facebook application called MXit Me. Essentially the purpose of the application is a simple one. It serves as a tool for users on Facebook to display their MXit number on their profile so that their Facebook friends can invite them on MXit.
We officially launched the application on the 19th of August this year and relied only on word of mouth, links in the profile widget and an invitation system to spread the application through Facebook. We have been seeing amazing growth for the application, however October has been the worst month as the application went through a lot of down time while we were rewriting it and making changes.
MXit Me Statistics:
At time of writing MXit Me had just over 12 000 users using the application.
August 18th – 31st: 972 users.
Septermber: 6 757 users.
October 1st – 24th (12pm): 3 999 users.
Today we officially completed our first major update of the application. We plan on rolling out new features as we finish developing them. Our two biggest features in the new release are:
Friend Search
We built a little search box onto the canvas page which allows users to search through their Facebook friends and find their MXit number. We plan on expanding on this search engine functionality and will launch the updated feature set in due time.
Facebook Mobile
We have successfully been able to integrate MXit Me onto users’ mobile Facebook profiles. However, MXit Me will not show up on the users mobile profile unless it is enabled in their mobile settings on Facebook Mobile. Applications on Facebook Mobile are still rather new, so we will be playing around with the functionality and see how we can improve the application on the mobile platform.
We use the MXit Me application as our playground on the Facebook Platform in order to keep up to date with the changes that are constantly made on to the platform. As MXit Addicts we enjoy working on this application. It has helped us understand the complexities of the Facebook Platform as well as realise the power it has to reach thousands, if not millions, of people.
Disclaimer: The MXit Me application was created out of the love for the product, MXit. We were not approached by MXit or any of its employees to build the application. We strongly suggest users read MXit’s online safety guide. MXit is a registered trademark of MXit Lifestyle (Pty) Ltd.
About Tyler
A Young Entrepreneur & Speaker. I am the CEO and Founder of Aduity. I use this blog to share my journey as a young entrepreneur and thoughts on business, marketing and technology. More about me.
