I’m personally a little surprised I’ve yet to see the following tools discussed anywhere but the software site dedicated to providing a handful of time-saving Outlook utilities, TechHit, are offering two completely free plugins to help bring social networking to Outlook.

The first, FBLook, provides you with a toolbar which allows you to easily update your Facebook status as well as keep track of your friends’ statuses. You can also check out any requests, messages, notifications, etc. that might be waiting for you online.

The second utility, OutTwit, provides you with alot of the same functionality (and then some) but is instead aimed at the Twitter network.  Here’s a full list of features you’ll find in OutTwit:

• Update your Twitter status directly from Outlook.
• Receive your friend updates as Outlook messages.
• Archive, manage and search your tweets the same way you manage your email.
• Track keywords. OutTwit will automatically download ALL tweets matching the keywords you specify, even if you are not following the tweet sender. This feature is perfect for keeping up to date with the the Twitter buzz on your name, brand, interests, etc.
• Assign custom folder and categories to new messages.
• Automatically sort new tweets into per-sender folders.
• Shorten URLs with tinyurl.
• See graphs of your Twitter usage statistics.
• Tweets sent to you (@replies and direct) are marked with high importance, so you can see them at a glance.

Both utilities, which appear to be actively developed, feature quick and clean installations and are completely free.  Next up, the company plans to offer a brand new utility, dubbed OpenLook, which will allow you to monitor and engage with ALL of your favorite social networks right inside Outlook:

“If you are an Outlook user, you probably have it open all the time. Now you can interact with all your social networks without leaving Outlook. OpenLook seamlessly integrates Social Network experience into Outlook using the power of Open Social APIs.”

I, for one, am looking forward to that one.  So, if you’re a frequent Outlook user (be it by choice or not,) being able to keep tabs on your two favorite social networks listed above without having to worry about a separate, 3rd-party product like Digsby (which we’ve covered before,) might be something worth checking into.

The Flock team has finally released the first official beta of the “social browser” - available for download at Flock.com.  Flock, for those of you who don’t know, is a new browser based on the Mozilla Firefox browsing engine…but with a few twists.  Flock allows you to blog, share photos, share favorites, read feeds (RSS, Atom) all from within one window and all from the initial install. Read the official announcement here.

Firefox is the best browser out there, in my opinion, because of its’ extensibility.  So many various extensions allow for so many various things and I ditched all of it months ago so I could have one feature that won’t even be available in Firefox 2.0: search-as-you-type of the Web, your favorites (del.icio.us or Shadows), and your browsing history.  Fortunately for me, many more extensions are now available alongside the new beta release and, before too long, I’ll be able to officially (as opposed to un-officially) convert Firefox extensions for use in the Flock browser.

Give it a spin.  I highly encourage it.  Perhaps, if enough people moan and groan with me, Firefox will bring “Places” back into the Firefox 2.0 release.

Oh, and I must mention that, without Flock, I may not have ever gotten around to my first post here at WordPress.  You see, when WordPress.com first launched, the only way you could get an account (with the exception of a very rare invite) was by downloading Flock.  I don’t regret that download one bit.  I found my browser and blogging software of choice that day. 

(Although…I’m in perfect health and I have a beautiful wife, wonderful family, and a loving God who cares for my well being so there’s plenty more to be excited about than just Flock…that’s for sure.  Just something to keep in mind as you hit the Blogosphere head on tomorrow.  Yep, I said “blogosphere.”  Nerd out.)

Blogged with Flock

Something that was recently introduced to WordPress.com bloggers is the statistics function. With it, you’re able to view who’s reading which entry, who’s coming from which site, and more. There’s even a nifty little Flash chart which shows traffic from day-to-day. I have to say that I’m truly addicted now. It’s like a very condensed version of Google’s latest release, Google Analytics. There’s a “stats” tab in your WP dashboard in case you’re wondering where you can find it.

The open-source, PHP/MySQL-based blogging software we’ve all come to love has officially released the next part of the “Strayhorn” series of releases: the loooooong-awaited 2.0. With the new release comes a re-designed Web site as well. Check out both at http://www.wordpress.org.

Once I get my hosting together, I’ll be moving Fans of Tech BACK over to my own domain (www.fansoftech.com) and I will be working with this new release of WordPress to get it up and running.

My move to WordPress.com came about for two reasons. First, I had an immediate desire to switch over from the Nucleus blogging platform. No complaints, really, as it had a plethora of cool features but I guess I just wasn’t impressed with the interface - at all. Second, I was DYING to give the invitation-only WordPress.com a try. I figured that I could do a temporary switch and then I could move FoT back to my own home once I got settled in with a custom install of WordPress after I got my own hosting situation worked out and after WP released 2.0.