Have you ever wanted to Tweet more than 140 characters? Do you want to post a random bit of text but don’t have a blog? Want to send a message to friends but make it more private than email?

Check out ShortText.com for a solution.

It allows you to post a block of text and it returns a URL that you can point people to. If you want to make it private then you can add a secret key (which hides it from search engines as well as anyone else who doesn’t have the key).

No signup, no complications. Though it is ad supported. If you want an ad free version (that lets you go back and edit your posting, as well as select the URL that is used for the link) then it’s $2 per year for the URLs.

While I try to keep my tweets short and to the point I particularly like their API and Firefox plugin that let you extend the functionality…

IE7 has been available for a couple of years, and IE8 has just gone into beta. Firefox 2 is getting on nicely with v3 in the wings and even Safari with version3 is looking pretty good on Windows. Some people even like Opera (actually, it’s pretty cool on the Mobile platform).

So why are folks still persisting in using IE6? 31% of internet users in recent reports. That’s almost a third. More than all the non-IE browser population combined.

It’s old, and it’s got some quirks. And those quirks make developers lives a misery (I should know, I spent many happy years wrangling browser incompatibility issues).

If all those folks using a version of any browser older than IE7 could just upgrade, get with the program and do their bit (it’s only a few moments to download and install and it doesn’t even insist on a legal copy of Windows these days!) then developers could concentrate on making great web applications using all the cool Ajax, Silverlight and Javascript features without having to worry about testing a load of different quirky behaviors.

It’s not just old versions of IE that are a problem – if you’re running anything older than the current version of a browser then you’re part of the problem – be it Firefox, Opera, IE, Safari, Maxthon or one of many others. The newer browsers still can’t quite agree on what standards they’re complying with and how they interpret some of the instructions in the standards (and I’ve read some of those documents… they’re not exactly unambiguous in places) but they’re better.

I’m not saying you should run business critical processes on bleeding edge beta versions of IE or the alternatives, but at least upgrade to the latest “released” version – you’ll save a lot of developers a lot of pain.

Please. Save the developers. It’s a great cause and supporting it won’t cost you much more than a few moments of your time.

I usually use a bluetooth connection to my WiFi phone from my laptop when I’m out of range of a WiFi hotspot and need to get online but I do have one laptop that doesn’t have bluetooth (it’s an oldie but really portable) and it doesn’t really help when there’s two of you trying to connect.

The last few days I’ve been playing with WMWiFiRouter – a Windows Mobile app that allows you to set your phone up as a WiFi hotspot (supports WEP) and use your laptop to connect to it just like any other hotspot… and the WMWiFiRouter app routes the connection over your cellular data connection – be it GPRS, EDGE or 3G.

There are similar hardware solutions you can carry around with you (or mount in your car) but they mean you have to carry something extra – this solution uses something you probably already have with you!

The only downside is that it can chew through the phone battery fairly quickly but in an emergency it’s a great solution.

If you try it while it’s still in beta they’re even offering a discount on the final price when it’s released ;)

In my previous post I looked at using WebSlices to expose updates to my blog but Joshua pointed out there’s a much simpler solution in IE8 if you have an existing RSS feed…

Rather than subscribe to a web slice or an RSS feed as you normally would simply drag the URL of the RSS feed to your links bar (or in Favorites add it to your “Favorites Bar” just like any other link) and thanks to the goodness of the underlying RSS platform in Vista you not only get subscribed to the feed but in your links bar you get a notification when a new item arrives (just like for WebSlices) and can even see unread and read items at a glance.

The more I play around with IE8 the more ways I’m impressed with it. Things like standards compliance and improved Javascript and rendering performance are, without a doubt, exciting – but the subtle things that are happening in the chrome itself serve as a reminder than innovation is alive and kicking on the IE team ;)

It's really frustrating at the moment as almost everything I'm working on relates to MIX08 coming March 5-7 in Las Vegas.... and I don't want to spoil any of the surprises!

So all the really cool stuff that's keeping me busy in the office and on the road at the moment has to stay under wraps.

Come March 10th though you'll have read all about it on VisitMIX and all I'll need to do it link to it ;)

As well as my stuff (which of course I'm excited by!) I'm looking forward to dropping in on Franks panel - "Web 2.0 and beyond - what is the business reality" and some other sessions.

If you're coming to MIX look me up.... but not until day 2 when all my stuff has been presented ;)

There is much said about standards compliance and IE in it's history. On occasion I've had some frustrations getting things to work in IE only to find it fail in Firefox or Safari.

Well, the good news is that IE is moving forwards in that direction.

Dean has just posted the details on the IE teams blog.

Over the weekend I got a glimpse just how serious Google is about tracking everything on the web.

On Friday night I registered a new domain, and on Sunday hosting and holding page were ready and so it went live.

By Monday morning all three pages had received a visit from the Googlebot.

While it's impressive it also makes me wonder how they found it... I've not linked to the site from anywhere (because it's not really ready for visitors) which leaves the domain registry or the hosting provider as sources of the information...

I wait with baited breath the arrival of the Live Search and Yahoo! crawlers along with others (and will of course be adding Project Honeypot to the site to confound spammers from day #1)

In the past I've used SyncToy to keep files on a couple of computers and my iPod in sync so I was pleased to discover a new version that's even smarter is now available in beta for us to play with.

So, what's new? Lots that what....

• Dynamic Drive Letter Assignment: Drive letter reassignment will now be detected and updated in the folder pair definition
• True Folder Sync: Folder creates, renames and deletes are now synchronized for all SyncToy actions
• Exclusion Filtering Based on Name: File exclusion based on name with exact or fuzzy matching
• Filtering Based on File Attributes: The ability to exclude files based on one or more file attributes (Read-Only, System, Hidden)
• Unattended Folder Pair Execution: Addressed issues related to running scheduled folder pairs while logged off
• Folder Pairs With Shared Endpoints: Ability for folder pairs associated with the same or different instances of SyncToy to share end-points
• Command line enhancements: Added the ability to manage folder pairs via the command line interface
• The SyncToy engine has been rearchitected to provide scalability and the ability to add significant enhancements in future releases
• Sync engine is also more robust insomuch that many single, file level errors are skipped without affecting the entire sync operation
• Sync Encrypted Files: Sync of Encrypted files works when local folder and files are encrypted, which addresses the common scenario involving sync between local, encrypted laptop PC folder and remote, unencrypted desktop PC folder
• 64-bit compatibility
• Folder pair rename
• Sub-folder Exclusion Enhancements: Descendents created under excluded sub-folders are automatically excluded
• Folder Pair Metadata Moved: Folder pair metadata removed from My Documents to resolve any issues with server-based folder pair re-direction setup
• Removed combine and subscribe actions

So, stop reading and go and have a look.

If you just want to keep machines in sync automatically over the internet then check out FolderShare - a Windows Live service currently in Beta to keep files in sync and allow web access (secured of course) to any files you designate. Not to be confused with SkyDrive of course - that's a cloud storage space for you to dump files in manually... no synchronization, just convenience!

Looks like I was right when I said that I guessed it was just an unintended consequence when Facebook implemented the beacon that accidental data leakage count occur.

The process has now been tweaked and looks like it's working just how I'd expect it to - keeping me in control of my personal information.

Good on you Facebook for listening and doing the right thing.

As I've mentioned before I'm a fan of Pandora and I've been following some of the issues around the SoundExchange Royalty Rate battle.

Initially I thought that the only option was for Federal Govt to rein in SoundExchange to ensure any increase was fair and equitable but thanks to a strong proponent of Objectivism I'm finding out that there's more to the story and more ways to solve this problem.

I suspect the answer lies somewhere between the two extremes, but I certainly feel some form of facilitator is needed simply to ensure the process can scale. How the facilitator would be funded and overseen... that's a whole new can of worms!

Thanks to Darren for the perspective, and thanks to AppScout for pointing me his way.