If you haven’t checked out BlogJet yet, you should.  It’s a great blog posting app by Dmitry Chestnykh.  The biggest benefit to me is that it manages the insertion of graphics into my post – including uploading them on my behalf to my FTP server.  It’s a very slick application.

http://blogjet.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2004/12/6/197763.html

The new beta of BlogJet 1.2 build 31 has been uploaded. This build is primarily the bug-fix release.

BlogJet 1.2 build 31 BETA Release Notes

FEATURES

• Added caption to Generate Excerpt button.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed keyboard shortcuts bug.
• Fixed: BlogJet uploads only first picture of post.
• Fixed: pictures inserted from the Web (http://) have zero sizes.
• Fixed: errors with converting local file names of pictures.
• Fixed: BlogJet fails to delete and edit LiveJournal posts.
• Fixed: Generate Excerpt button is enabled for services, which don’t support excerpts.
• Fixed: spell checker doesn’t treat typographic apostrophe (’) as apostrophe.
• Minor fixes.

Download BlogJet 1.2.0.31 beta from Download section (second link).

Ryan Farley.  I doubt he’s willing to give it up, but you can still go to the site and check it out.  Quite a nice piece of CSS magic.  I’m especially impressed with the header graphic.  Ryan claims he did it all himself…

And you get the added bonus of getting to see what the life of a Storm Trooper is like in the process.  I’m sure it’s not all glitz and glamour as depicted in the photos.  We all have our challenges and we all put our “Imperial Tighty Whities” on one leg at a time…

I posted before about my friend, Neil, who recently dropped the cash for some Imperial Tighty Whities (hehe). His post about our trip to Wal Mart has received numerous posts so we talked about the need for a separate blog to document his life as a Storm Trooper. I cranked out a custom .Text skin for the site and it's up and running at KungFooTrooper.com. He's also taking requests for pic ideas. That should be interesting. Maybe someday I'll have to drive him to Nogales Mexico to take a pic of him riding a Burro ;-)

Take a look at KungFoo Trooper

Good Apple-related blogs are hard to find it seems.  Here are a couple to round out your OPML…thanks to Philip Lindsay for the links!

http://www.xlab.co.uk/macosx/weblog/250  |  Comments

A couple of new(ish) Apple-related sites that I’ve stumbled across recently that may interest you :

Mac Specialist

Adam (formerly of Useful Mac and also of Cranium Oxide) has setup a new site for all things Apple-related. There’s only a few posts just now but keep an eye on it for some good product reviews and commentary.

The Apple Blog

A nicely designed collaborative blog about Apple-related news. Although it’s fairly new (only 2 months old) there’s plenty of content and seems to get updated on a regular basis (unlike other collaborative Apple weblogs I could mention, ahem…)

Any other good Apple-related sites that have appeared on your radar recently?

Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 Release Candidate is available for download.  With the standard disclaimer of course – “This version of the software is intended only for installation in a test environment.  We advise against installing and evaluating beta software on any production computers.”  Here’s the 411 on the bits and info:

• Windows Server 2003 SP1 RC Product Overview – http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/downloads/servicepacks/sp1/overview.mspx
• Top 10 Reasons to Install Windows Server 2003 SP1 RC – http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/downloads/servicepacks/sp1/top10reasons.mspx
• Windows Server 2003 SP1 RC FAQs – http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/downloads/servicepacks/sp1/sp1faq.mspx
• Download the bits for Windows Server 2003 SP1 – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=AE20C29D-5C71-49CE-9091-3AEDC9E5979F

I just saw this in the latest edition of the Windows Platform Newsletter.  You should check it out if you’re interested in getting interesting bits of information in your inbox.  Windows Update Services is really v2 of our freely available patching technology.  Software Update Services, the previous version, was a nice tool for small and midmarket companies, but really lacked some of the things that larger enterprises need in a patch management tool.  This was really by design – it is a free tool afterall. 

The product team, though, is starting to shrink the gap between WUS (yes, an unfortunate acronym…I know) and its big brother SMS.  It adds many much-needed pieces of functionality like targeting, rollback and better reporting.  You can signup to download the beta at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/wus/default.mspx.