I read on the IxDA list about how WordPress has more functionality over other Blogging applications. I was wondering why I wasn’t getting it, and then I realized perhaps it was because I’ve been using the online version. So I accessed my web hosting company to see about installing the WordPress app onto my hosting server, and I got a message that it was not compatible with my web hosting plan. Apparently you have to have Linux hosting to use most of the applications that are available with my hosting provider. My website uses ASP includes that run with FrontPage extensions, so I went with the IIS hosting instead.

Also, I finally caught up on 700 emails from the IxDA over the past few days. I have no idea how people have time to keep up with that mailing list. I insisted that I read every post because oftentimes threads are referred to further down in the list, and if you miss the first post, then all of the subsequent messages do not make sense. I enjoy keeping up with this list because I always get a ton of links for applications and websites to check out. I also like to know what other people in the industry are doing.

As a result of the list, I tried out Cuil for the first time. Of course I searched my name (I almost typed Googled), and it returned with no search results that were relative to me. I looked for my name, my URL and my blog URL. I consider myself to have quite a bit of content online, and the search engine did not find any of it. I mean there’s Myspace, Facebook, Linkedin, Flickr, my website, my Blog and nothing came up at all. That does not seem like a very useful search engine. I thought the UI was so-so. the look and feel was okay, but the text seemed hard to scan to me.

Something else I learned on IxDA today was the term “gorilla arm” and how it relates to touch screens. From my experience with touchscreens I never liked them because of the glare and the fingerprints. You can read the definition of gorilla arm in the hacker’s dictionary.

I also read a very surprizing review about irise. I guess I always assumed that because the software package was so expensive that it would be awesome. The review I read said it was very hard to use. I guess I’ll stick with learning Serena Prototype Composer since it’s FREE!

I also went to the Microsoft Silverlight website, and interestingly enough the demo did not play properly. I could hear the audio but I could not see the video. Then I installed the plug-in (blech) to view HardRock Memorabelia and it never played properly. That’s it for today. I’m looking forward to eating some sushi for lunch!