I can’t stand reading reviews of Windows 7 all over the web without being able to fairly weigh in and produce my own conclusions. I am pretty biased to my MacBook Pro (he’s a rockstar) and OS X. I love Apple products and software and have one PC that is running a Microsoft operating system outside of my office job –and it has Vista! I’ve had my home PC for about 6 months and have only used it a handful of times. I don’t like Vista. I don’t like the way it looks, how seemingly slow it is (I have an AMD quad-core processor and 8GB of ram and it’s sluggish), and the multimedia capabilities.

BUT, I’m all about technology and I am super curious about Windows 7. As I’m sure everyone else has, I’ve read quite a bit of positive views on 7. Depending on how the download/installation/testing goes, I could possibly be a dual-OS user again –but only if Microsoft offers it as a free upgrade :)

As social networking sites have increased in number, their capabilities have become more robust and resourceful. For example, no longer is a simple MySpace bulletin only used to break up with your boyfriend of 2 months. You can relay more important information and solidly link to friends and followers across many social outlets like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and your own personal blog.

Not that a failed long-term relationship is unimportant… But, sites like Twitter have made available new ways to communicate and learn. I learn quite a bit every day by scrolling through the tweets of my fellow Twits (is that right?). From Chris Pirillo’s plethora of tweets linking to his often-updated technology blog to Ariel Walden’s daily observations, which, by the way, are quite interesting. Sure, I’ve never actually met these people, but I feel like I’ve established a pretty good idea of who they are by what they share with the iWorld.

Because of its ease of use and the communication possibilities Twitter has, it would be a fantastic tool to be utilized in a classroom setting. No, not for first-graders. Middle-school students and up, all the way to college grad-school students can benefit greatly from the service. Instructors/Teachers would be taking a more progressive, catered approach to learning in a way that is relevant to today’s wide-spread technologically inclined population. Can you imagine a discussion on Sylvia Plath’s,  The Bell Jar taking place on your mobile phone while you are out with friends grabbing a cup of coffee?

Silverlight is a fairly new plugin for your favorite browser (IE, Safari, Firefox, Opera) that displays animations, vector graphics, MP3 & WMA audio, and WMV video.  What’s cool about Silverlight:

• It’s quick
• Embedded text is searchable
• Works in conjunction with many programming languages
• Has a superior streaming video quality

As we make progress with Merchannex I will definitely consider utilizing Silverlight as a means of sharing content. The most beneficial feature that I see is that it makes your content searchable and indexable. Because my primary focus as of the present is SEO, this feature directly ties in and improves visibility on the web, if only a little. Every bit counts, right?