del.icio.us Review

https://delicious.com/sherrydelicious

del.icio.us was annoying for me. It kept to sign up with Google+, but every time I tried, it would fill the email address field with a string numbers and yet not let me submit without an @ sign in the email. I ended up signing up manually with my blogger's specially created Google+ account. Aside from that, very easy, and I like the way it suggests tags that you can use. :) I've never used del.icio.us before so it was a learning experience, but I don't see what its use truly is when you have bookmarks available to you. Not really my style I guess. 

Flickr Review

https://www.flickr.com/photos/132799260@N03/?

An issue I had with Flickr was that I had to give information I didn't want to give in order to sign up for a fake/class account I'll never use. I didn't like that I had to submit my mobile number in order to sign up for Flickr. I ended up making a fake one and hoped I'd remember my password. :P Oh well, other than that it was so fast and simple: Upload, change the tags and titles and other info right there, and bam. Done. 

GIMP Open Source Review & Comparison

I have used GIMP in the past but have now become a consistent Photoshop user. I user Adobe programs for all sorts of things, mostly because I do a ton of photography and retouching, digital illustration, lineart, logo design, and some print design. One huge thing for me is that Photoshop offers swatches for Pantone colors, which are pretty standardized in print especially. Photoshop has a wonderful streamlined interface, the ability to customize interfaces depending on your current tasks, and offers very very powerful functionality for heavy users such as myself.

However, Gimp as an open-source free program is awesome, don't get me wrong. GIMP takes up way less space than Photoshop does and for someone who doesn't use a lot of the really specialized tools in Photoshop, it's not even necessary to eat up so much space and processing power. GIMP is free and if one doesn't NEED all the features Photoshop provides, it is an excellent option with a vast amount of tools I haven't seen in any other free image editing software out there. Unless one has worked their way up to some of the more complicated and powerful features Photoshop has to offer, I would say GIMP is outstanding alternative for anyone needing an image editing program.

Eclipse Open Source Review & Comparison

I have both Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA on my computer. Both have served my purposes, and Eclipse was great for school work. I didn't find the need for any more than Eclipse offered me, but I did end up getting IntelliJ merely because I had a free year to play around with it as a student.

IntelliJ does have some nifty features that make it seem more streamlined. IntelliJ offers far better and more streamlined options for autocomplete and suggestions on how to improve your code, or where it could be going wrong. Eclipse may offer these things, but not in as unobtrusive a way as IntelliJ does. Additionally, IntelliJ offers features like refactoring, which I've found work really well, especially in instances of renaming classes or methods.

Lastly, IntelliJ's autocomplete is just so much better for not only Java, but also for HTML and JavaSCript. You can search for particular methods all throughout your project and it has a better debugger.

However, I will be the first to say that my life was just fine without IntelliJ. Despite its nice features, as someone who hasn't gotten into Java development extensively, Eclipse served me just fine. It has a great interface and gets the job done. Given that I had absolutely no problems and wanted for nothing when using Eclipse, I would say it is an amazing success in terms of the open source movement. I would definitely recommend Eclipse to anyone getting into Java development.

Chrome Open Source Review & Comparison

Chrome is my go-to browser option, although I use Firefox fairly often as well. I have grown accustomed to both and very much prefer them to Internet Explorer.

As for differences, Firefox does have an excellent level of customization. It is also my understanding that Firefox has much better privacy simply because, unlike Google, it doesn't have a million and one ways to make extra cash off of all the user data it collects (at least not as much as Google does). Still, I use extensions on Google to prevent ads, scripts, and trackers, although I do allow ads on sites that don't use them obtrusively and that I want to support.

Chrome, seems to make my life as a web developer a lot easier, allowing me to play around with source code really easily with some awesome visual aids while I'm at it. It also syncs up really well with other computers and mobile devices through connection to my Google+ account.

Web 2.0 Video

Web 2.0 Image

Mashable Summary

Mashable seems to provide news and information to the generation of people who use technology in their every day world. Mashable appears to want to inspire people to innovate and be empowered through technology and the Web.

TechCrunch Summary

TechCrunch seems focused on providing articles pertaining to information technology companies. While I have heard about TechCrunch, I have never actually kept up with it before. Now that I am more familiar with what its topics revolve around, I will certainly be taking a lot at it more often.

GigaOM Summary

GigaOM appears to be a blog that focuses on new technologies. It goes over general news, events, and performs research on various emerging tech. It seems as though GigaOM would like to humanize technology and help to make it a more integrated part of our world.