About jim’s tips
and JIm, too!
Who is Jim?
I’m Jim Barr, and this is one of my little corners of the Internet, my sandbox and playground for all things tech. I’m a technology geek, and I love riding on the bleeding edge of technology. I love exploring new gadgets, services, Web sites, programs, and anything technically interesting! I also develop and managed several small client Web sites, so if you are interested in discussing a small project, let me know!
What is Jim’s Tips?
Jim’s Tips is a collection of posts and articles that I wrote over the years to explain, enlighten, and exposit about several topics, most technical, and some personal, that interest me.
How it all began
Conceived informally in 2000 and officially launched in 2003, Jim’s Tips was a labor of love of the Palm Pilot PDA. At that time, the Palm Pilot was a thriving “Personal Digital Assistant” device that put amazing computing power in the palm of your hand. This was long before the advent of the smart phones we enjoy today. While certainly not the first PDA. since 1996, Palm Pilot models took the market by storm, and evolved into sleek. powerful devices.
Jim’s Tips focused on providing tips and tricks on how to use and get the most out of using the various Palm Pilot models. Eventually, I focused mostly on the Sony Clie NX70V Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) due to its depth of features.
Eventually, I added topics covering succeeding PDAs from other companies, and other tech topics that interested me, in particular, the ReplayTV Digital Video Recorder. This groundbreaking device was the “silent competitor” to Tivo, and like Sony Betamax, it had a devout following, yet never took a solid foothold into the DVR market.
The technical stuff
Jim’s Tips started as a hand-coded HTML site. Coding HTML using a simple text editor, while challenging, was freeing and so educational. I eventually migrated to more “canned” platforms including PHP Nuke, Joomla, and finally for many years now, it is published using WordPress.
Enter Gmail
In 2004, Google launched a beta release of their then groundbreaking Gmail platform. I secured a beta invitation, and dove head first into everything Gmail as I provided countless tips, tricks, and articles helping the Gmail community to push it to its limit. Almost 20 years later, Gmail remains the leading email service. I monetized the site, registered a new domain called GmailTips.com that focused on Gmail-only tips, and in 2006, PC Magazine listed my site as one of the 99 up and coming sites of the year.
Where I will go from here
Since its launch, I’ve branched out to many diverse topics, most tech-related but some personal. Then life hit. My personal time required to maintain Jim’s Tips waned, so it hasn’t been updated in a long time. At some point, I may create some new topics and keep writing, but until then, let Jim’s Tips simply serve as a glimpse at some of the tech that was popular just after the turn of the 21st Century.