March 2008 Archives
In the past three weeks or so I have tested and then incorporated into my blogging/twitter routine three programs that reside either on the side, in the tool bar or in the background. Each, in a very short time, have become tools of the trade.
The most senior of the three is Jens Muller’s JC&MB Quicknote Ver. 5.4.
There is a few pixels high and wide line sitting on the left side of the screen. When I tap it, a customized note-pad materializes. I write my note and tap outside the box and it disappears. It has a password protected capability as well as almost unlimited room for expansion. It has replaced my bringing up Notepad to take quick notes.
The second in seniority on my system is Read it Later from the Idea Shower. I am a very fast reader. Having to constantly stop and take notes as I scanned the hundreds of feeds in my RSS Reader slowed me considerably. Once I installed Read it Later into Firefox, all I had to do was either tap the toolbar icon or right click and choose Read it later. Then, once the feed has been milked, I can go back and peruse that which I was able to effortlessly glean.
The third and junior of the bunch is Texter. There was another program I had loaded. It was recommended as a must-have program for efficient writing. I was convinced and installed the trial version. It was okay. Not spectacular. In support I went to the home site to register a copy for home use.
The price was OVER $50.00. It is being offered by a man with whom we found much in common. We were ready to fork over payment when an added fee of $3.00 for use of PayPal popped up. In pure emotional reaction, I canceled the order and scraped all vestiges of the program from the system.
Then Texter came to our attention while Twittering. It does all that the other program did for me but is simpler to use. It doesn’t wave itself around constantly reminding us of its existence. It just helps create the script that cuts typing speed in half.
It is a goal for this evening to sweep the Read-it-Later folder of all its content and share those pages worth review with you.
We got a kindle for the winter holiday. It took 70 days after receiving the gift coupon for the real thing to arrive. If you blog down in Belltowernews.com you will see where exasperation was expressed.
On Lifehacker there is this article on "How the Kindle Saves You Time..." it is a almost thorough explanation of Kindle uses for the man on the street. One feature it doesn't mention is the ability to quickly download samples of the books. Most of the samples consist of the prologue/introduction and the first chapter.
Of the five or six samples I've downloaded so far, I have ordered two. The great thing is you get to the last page of the sample and you are offered the book at the discounted Kindle price. It is almost too easy. Impulse can rule. You tap on the button with the rolling wheel mouse-like control and before you can blink, the book is on your Kindle. Uber-browsing.
Though the title of this page on RWW touts only Ten Sites for Finding Wonderful Things if you scroll down into the comments, you will find more that twenty other links of interest. One entry has a list of openculture.com sites of interest including this one on open source audio-books.
The MIT presence on tube can be found at the amazingly uncomplicated http://youtube.com/mit
The other YouTube link for the evening is run by Guardian TV. This is a good place to visit the Cheese Diaries: http://uk.youtube.com/user/GuardianUnlimitedTV
Back to Lifehacker for a link to the Eight Worst Foods in America. Of course I ate the first thing on the list at a highway rest stop on the Massachusetts Turnpike. It looked healthy???
I lust after this item.
This is what we're going to play with after posting this graze. It's called Brief and touts itself as a streamlined feed reader extension for Firefox. We didn't have much luck with the mail reader last night. Wish us luck.
Over the past few days I haven't been posting too many links. This doesn't mean I haven't been saving them. They are sitting in my Read-It-Later link on the Firefox tool bar. Now is the time to scan through them and see if any are worthy of sharing.
It goes without saying that commandN is worth a look. Brother Jeff has a wicked cold. In the comments section @Amber also states one of the other members of the crew is stricken as well.
Google Calendar Sync at Google Agenda (beta) worked quite well for me. Now when I put an entry into my Blackberry, it automatically appears in the Google Calendar. I have the calendar set to send me my daily agenda at 0545. Now that it is synced into my Blackberry, these agendas are more meaningful to me.
If you use Calgoo, it carries over into that, through Google Calendar. Cool.
Make Use Of has a handy-dandy list of sites and programs to make use of the IM format. According to Leo LaPorte, his children no longer use IM in favor of SKS.
The IHT has a review, and short biography. It is about Lush Life and its author, Richard Price. If you have never read any of his work, or seen it in movies, and you have an interest in things New York, (gritty) you may want to read this article and then go ahead and get the book.
The next RIL, (short for Read-It-Later) was an article on Laughing Squid about the visit to the Colbert Report by Mark Frauenfelder. (See SXSW twitters). That link is of much less interest than this one of photos taken at the set of the CR, while waiting from Mark.
Hulu has come out of beta. I have been using it for the past few weeks. The public interface is a lot more on the WOW side than the one with which the beta testers were presented. I suppose they were of the opinion that beta testers require no sales pitch. If you haven't visited yet, and love TV, it's is certainly worth the effort.
The old Barney Millers ware a blast from the past.
I have no idea why I saved this Stumbleupon link. Feel free to comment and tell me why.
Lindsay Lohan made a bit of a wave emulating Marilyn Monroe's final sitting. This link takes you to a gallery online selling the actual of photos of MM for that sitting. It is sad to see these photos for those of us who remember the day she died.
On My Newton's Blog is this recommendation of the Nikon Camera I have been using since our trip to the Inside Passage.
Lifehacker has this article on FriendFeed. If you read the Twitter's displayed on the right column of Belltowernews.com you will see that we just revised our FaceBook and MyPlace pages and added a FriendFeed page this morning.
I am not sure why Lexisum is useful, but for those who like summaries, instead of the full boat, this interface to Wikipedia may be of some small use. Personally I am an information junkie who would not want to leave the summarizing to this page's discretion.
There was a link at Firefox Mastery regarding a list of configuration changes you can make to Firefox. In one of the comments to the list a user asks why this list was copied over from gHacks. You can find the tips in their pristine status at the gHacks Firefox Tips page.
Prophylactic is how the word is spelled. This "social media aggregator/lifestreaming service" spells it Profilactic. I wonder if that was on purpose or for URL availability. As usual, when we find places like this, we try it.
Arthur C. Clark's NYT Obit. RIP
While putting together this nightly, somewhat, grade, I am listening on lone to Stephen Fry's Podcast. The point he is trying to make is a verification of the River Phoenix line regarding classical music. "You can't dance to Beethoven."
Mentioned in one of the Twitter messages from SxSW is this link to 20 Websites That Made Me a Better Web Developer at Six Revisions. There are many comments that go along with this list.
Another, entirely scientific, by British standards is this list of the 50 most influential blogs. Be aware this list was compiled by the British website for the Guardian Newspaper. I used to get the Manchester Guardian delivered to my door when Malcolm Muggeridge wrote for them.
Wanting a desktop feature to cover Twitter, now that I am addicted to it, I found Thwirl. It says it simultaneously put your Tweets into Pownce and Jaiku. I set up the information into it, but haven't seen the reproduction into each of these other miniblog online.
Not being fond of Outlook or its mother ship, I was pleased to find this link that syncs the Google Calendar to the Blackberry. It took no brain energy to set it up. It now works very well. Less work for mother.
Now for one more cute link before toddling off to bed.
This is a Boing-Boing link displaying a Corning Glass Museum piece about the Prince Rupert Drop. I don't know why I found this so fascinating, but I did.
Why do they have to steal the hour from the Weekend!!?? The law should be changed to take the hour off of Wednesday and, with the next change, add one hour to the weekend. Think of how happy that would make everyone, except those who work the graveyard shift...then...there is always the overtime.
The first Graze of the evening is for my novel-writing friend. This is a list of the 50 Tools to help you write. The obvious question to me: while you are reading all of these lists, you're not writing, are you? Therapy? Works for me!
We have another time warning. The Urban Dictionary, where we went to look up Intertubes.
It is one of those sites where, if you start clicking on links, you will fall down into the rabbit hole and not be seen again for days. Consider yourself warned. Being wide open to words on the Internet, there are also some silly naughty bits here. Second warning.
We tried to sign up for Plaxo using our OpenID.
All looked well, filled in the forms, got the confirming ID, but, after hitting the link, it said we didn't provide the proper information...no, wait! On refresh it loaded!!! Be back in a few moments...
Whoo! In the last hour I installed Plaxo and Pownce AIR. It was the hour of the I'M tools beginning with P.
Twitter still seems simpler.
Back to Grazing... Torchwood Spoiler: Dead Man Walking
There is a lot of chatter, twitter entries and blog photos of interactive beer parties all over the Internet today. This graphic by Sunni Brown seems to sum it all up.
If you are a fan of Cali Lewis, her Flickr page may be of some interest. If you aren't a fan, on what planet do you reside??
I just went through 55 Boing-Boing RSS feeds and found nothing worth linking to this evening.
This applies, oddly enough to Lifehacker as well.
There was a piece saying the product Airborne Cold prevent-er was really crap. I knew that already, but wasn't sure on the veracity of the reports source, so, no link.
Twitter in Plain English somewhat explains the way Twitter works. I just haven't figured out how to add URL's to it yet. Give me time, I will. I know I can post a URL naked, but I want to make it as a link, the way we do on this blog. I looked into the hash mark (#) linking, but that's not what I want right now.
Windows Fanatics has a message about the Top 5 Music Web Sites. I have been to each of the sites listed. My favorite is AccuRadio . LastFM starts when I start MediaMonkey. Pandora puts you on a Junk Mail List and is very annoying for that reason alone.
There is a lot of traffic about the Google Calendar synch with Outlook. But the Robert Scoble is asking why aren't you using Plaxo?
Switched from AccuRadio to Net@Night.
Here's a surprise: Ziff Davis applies for bankruptcy. (New York Times)
If you use Picasa here are 10 tips to improve your photos.
The conversation on Net@Nite is covering a site called DropIO. I just set up an account there. I think this will be of great us to us.
I thought I would listen to the latest net and night with Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte. I expected geek talk.
Amber mentioned a YouTube video with Jimmy Kimmel and Ben Afflect declaring their love for each other. It is genuinely funny. The Sara Silverman video that lead to the creation of this video is not as funny, more vulgar.
Though we're not sure we'll use it much, we installed Pidgin after reading this Lifehacker page.
It is very hard to go read my RSS pages while listening to Leo and Amber because they are going over and over about this and that link. I need to pause the show to get his page finished. DISTRACTION!!!
This Lifehacker page listing 157 of PC Magazines favorite something or other is not worth going to for the link to PC Magazine, but to read the ranting of the commentary trashing PC Magazine. Whoa! I thought most of this sort of ranting was preserved for Microsoft and the Royal Family.
If you haven't read Neil Gaiman's American Gods, this is the last time I am putting up this link because the free on-line version will not be up that much longer. I love this book and have three copies of it. One to keep and two to lend out to friends.
I thought I would post the page on Speedwords, but found it boring. Google it if your are interested.
If this article was available to me months ago it would have been easier for me to settle down to the two blog writers I use most, Scribefire and Windows Live Writer.
Again, as with most pages like this, read the comments. w::bloggar is mentioned. I think that was my first blog writer.
Quick Links before bed.
Those Inexplicable Traffic Jams
Free Starter Kit Give Away from Seventh Generation
Say Goodnight Gracie!
As I sit here listening to the Tech Guy from 2-24-08 cover on-line addiction, I have added Twitter Remarks to the sidebar of Belltowernews.com. I still don't quite get Twitter, but I feel I will use it more now that it is on Belltowernews. The same additions are made with the Google Reader link right above the Twitter Remarks.
Matt Richtel spoke to Leo About his book Hooked. I went to Kindle on Amazon.com and downloaded the sample. I have feeling I might buy the entire book. This is the good feature of the Kindle. You can download the introduction and first chapter and then decide if you want to buy the entire book. I consider it virtual browsing.
The first item on the graze list is the Lifehacker article on synching the workflow twixt Picasa and Flickr.
Lifehack.org, not to be confused with Lifehacker.com had an article on how to find anyone on-line. It isn't about searching for a particular person but about finding someone of the type with whom you may want to communicate.
A second link to Lifehack.org has to tips about the most effective way to use email. You may think you are savvy about email, but reading this short article may surprise you.
Here is a good one. A person who had may job two holders ago saved a lot of files in the wps format. To open them I went to an older compute with MS Works installed. Here is a link to the eHow site on the easy way to convert the .wps file to .doc files.
Another recommendation from the Tech Guy podcast is the program Audacity for recording single microphone podcasts.
An add aside: I am not sure what combination of keys I just hit, but for some reason Dreamweaver just started up and loaded downloading.php. How Odd!
The last link for the evening is to this photo of Babe Ruth in a Boston Red Sox Uniform taken in 1919, before the curse of the Bambino.
Good Night!
The first link listed by a newly added feed, Laughing Squid in San Francisco is about San Francisco Liberation Radio. I thought it might be insightful, interesting or at the very least funny. It was self important, attention getting and raided by a government agency. What fun. -S-
Laughing Squid has been sited by several of the more sophisticated on-line commentators. We won't give it the hook just yet. Tick-tick
The DownloadSquad displayed a systems utility to transform the PrntScrn button to actually print the screen rather than copying the screen to the clipboard.
In the comments section of the program's page, there is a comment touting another program called Gadwin System. I have never heard of it but its home page is open and will look deeper into it later.
I saved a few news pieces to read about the coming war in South America. It would appear we have a few macho men just itching for a fight. Sound familiar? I won't bother posting links because this is an ongoing situation and the content will be ever changing.
Freeware Files displayed a 1.3 version of Able RAWer. This is a graphic handler for RAW files to be downloaded directly from the camera. I currently use Picasa for this. The interesting thing is there was an ad for Picasa running on this page.
I am not sure why I saved the link to WordPress, but it was on my list, so, go start yourself a blog. Enjoy!
If you're interested in the show on BBC called Torchwood, this article from TV Squad will tell you more than you want to know prior to seeing the show. If you have seen it, reading this article may give you insight into the motivation for this episode's creation. This does rate a SPOILER ALERT!!
IMAP pros and cons from downloadsquad.
Daily Blog Tips is an interesting page if you blog.
The last link was to a song called Cake. Unfortunately my script blocker on Firefox displayed a half dozen blocked scripts that would have to be activated to hear the song. One, maybe as many as three scripts I can understand. When the number gets higher than that, the page writer is up to something.
That's the evening graze. If we stay up late, which we rarely do on a Sunday night, we may post one more today.
From MakeUseOf.com is this link to an entry on Windows screen Docks. It is a very thorough listing. I am not a fan of screen docks because I make most use of the Quick Launch tool bar in Windows XP. But for those who like bells and whistles, docks are good.
If you're looking for some interesting feeds to add to the feed-reader you use, the downloadsquad site as a huge number of RSS tags on a broad set of platforms and on-line applications.
I picked three of the hundreds of available feeds. I know this will bite me if we abandon the reader for a day or two.
We've been mystified by Twitter for quite a while. Perhaps this link to Webware's article Newbie's Guide to Twitter will help.
This Shorpy.com photograph of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh taken in 1929, four months after they were married, is a marvel in the detail of their features as well as the airplane in front of which they are standing. The blurb below is worth reading as well.
The Ultimate Guide to GMail Collection of over 80 Tips.
The next link was to intense debate.com. This site has been mentioned in other blogs and podcasts. We tool the comments add-on and installed it on Belltowernews.com.
Just another added feature.
And finally, just for fun, if you live and work in Cambridge, The Periodic Table on steroids...
There have been times where there were close to a thousand entries in our Google Reader. Today, not so much.
There was a link on Hulu for a preview for the TV show Niew Amsterdam; another immortal show coming up on March 10th on a network near you. Like most cop/fantasy shows, the male is brooding and the woman partner a knock out who talks tough.
Not sure if we'll give this one a chance.
Next was the AskTheGeek.com link to Adobe AIR.
On this page AIR struts its stuff and allows you to download it for free. How long the freeness of this lasts is yet to be seen. Adobe is not know for its charitable nature.
We will run it and get back to you later on its end-usability.
The most charming of the bits in the feed this afternoon was this page on Neil Gaiman's blog. The first part is about the hives in his woods and the garage-bucket-cheesecloth method of harvesting honey.
The second part is about the evolution of his newest book. I have found it fascinating to read the ruminations of a published best selling author as he creates and gestates what I hope will soon be his next best selling tome.
That's the afternoon report from the Google reader.
