Sea Change

I used to have grand plans to really get into blogging. Now I find that there's just too much to do in life... So the blog posts will be few and far between.

Still, occasionally I like to tinker and experiment with the online tools I use and how I configure my desktop. So when I do that, I'll write about it....

If I feel like it.

Testing with Google Docs

I'm experimenting with publishing blog entries from Google Docs.

Cool:

• I can publish directly from document editing.
• I can even delete the post.

Not so cool:

• I can't title my document until I save it. When I save it, it automatically picks the first phrase of the document, without asking me if this is what I want to do.
• If I rename the title of my document before I publish it, the new title should be the title of my post. But evidently Docs sends the made-up (first phrase) title to Blogger. This is definitely not cool.
  
• It would be nice if I could tie document labels to blog tags. I can't seem to label (tag) the document until I get back to the main Google Docs screen.

So to sum up, it could be better....

New layout for my blog

I've upgraded to the beta version of Blogger, and I've changed the layout to give my blog a new look. I'm really glad they've added labels to the feature set.

More when I have time....

BlinkList

Last April and again in June, I wrote about Yahoo My Web 2.0. At the time, there were 3 things I liked about My Web 2.0:

1. It could automatically save my searches,
2. I had a choice of making each saved page (bookmark) private or shared, and
3. I could organize via tags as opposed to folders (this was a change from My Web 1.0 which I suggested to them).

I now no longer actively use My Web 2.0. After a brief time with Yahoo as my default search engine, I went back to Google, which also allows me to automatically save searches. Ever since I moved to Gmail, I've been interested in using Google services, and Google's search history is one of them.

For bookmarks (links), I now use BlinkList. Here's what I like about it:

1. It's AJAX, as are most of the web services I'm interested in nowadays. Nice human interface. :-)
2. Bookmarks are organized by tags.
   
3. Bookmarks can be private or public. This is essential for me.
4. The main 'my list' screen is well-done. On the right-hand side, I see most recent bookmarks. On the left-hand side are four tabs for looking at tags: Favorite, Popular, Recent, and My Cloud.
5. You can star tags to put them in your Favorites list (note that stars work the same in BlinkList as they do in Gmail), and then star bookmarks to put them at the top of the list of the tag.
   
6. Bookmarking is accomplished most easily by adding the 'Blink It' button to your toolbar. Then when you want to bookmark the site, you're viewing, just blink it. You'll get prompted for tags, and whether you want it private or public; then you'll be returned to the site you were on. As an aside, it's interesting that my browser bookmarks toolbar as turned into a place for bookmarklets (like the 'Blink It' one) and for Firefox live bookmarks.
7. An even simpler way to bookmark is to use the 'Quick Blink' button. There's no info to type in; it automatically assigns the special private Quick Blinks tag. Then you can go back later and re-tag. I starred Quick Blinks so that it shows up in my Favorites list.
   
8. The best part is the new QuickStart page. This creates a neat, tidy page of links you've starred. My QuickStart page has become my new home page. The cool thing is that it dynamically changes to what I currently consider my most important bookmarks.
9. Another important feature is the ability to subscribe to an RSS feed for any of your tags (or one for all your bookmarks). Combined with the Live Bookmarks feature in Firefox, this is a good way to have your most recent bookmarks at your fingertips, right on your toolbar.
   

I've probably left a lot of things out, so if you're interested in having bookmarks easily accessible from any computer, check out BlinkList. Also, if you're interested in sharing bookmarks, BlinkList has many features for this that I haven't gone into. So if you're a friend, let me know.

Categories: bookmarks, tags, search, yahoo

Del.icio.us Tagrolls

It's been quite a while since I've posted to this blog. I've been busy. At the time of my last post, I was dealing with the stress of a job that didn't suit me well. Now I'm a month into a job in the open source community, and glad I made the switch. More on that later.

Anyhow, check out the Categories list on the right-hand side of my blog. Many folks use del.icio.us as I do: to categorize blog entries. Now the folks at del.icio.us have made it easy to put a 'tagroll' on your blog. It's easy to do. Check it out.

Categories: tags

Yahoo MyWeb 2.0

Yahoo today announced MyWeb 2.0, it's personal search engine. The first version had encouraged users to import all their bookmarks into MyWeb, but MyWeb 1.0 only had 1 level of folders. So importing my hierarchy of bookmark folders wasn't too appealing.

MyWeb 2.0 does away with the folders, and instead offers - you guessed it - tags. A few weeks ago I accepted an offer to be interviewed about my use of MyWeb, and I mentioned that being able to assign tags would be a big help. It seems that they followed my suggestion, though I'm sure I wasn't the only one to mention it.

With tags, MyWeb is much closer to del.icio.us, except for two important features:

First, MyWeb allows you to save a copy of the page. While I don't personally consider this an essential feature, it is useful when a site goes away or completely changes, and you just want to view it as it was when you saved it.

Second, del.icio.us assumes you want to share what you've found with everyone. This precludes it being used for collaboration behind a company firewall. MyWeb allows you, on a page-by-page basis, to define who can access the page. You have three choices: private (just you), community (your coworkers, maybe?) or everyone.

The community feature could certainly be used at the enterprise level behind a firewall. The only problem Yahoo faces with this is convincing people, either at the corporate or individual level, to come into the Yahoo fold.

MyWeb 2.0 is still obviously a beta product. For example, importing Yahoo bookmarks assigns the same tag to all: imported_bookmarks. If the user has defined a whole lot of folders, why not use the folder names as tags? Still, I think they're on the right track.

Categories: search, bookmarks, yahoo, tags

Searching versus Filing

How do you get back to web sites you've visited on the internet? Do you just search for the site again, via your favorite search engine (Google, Yahoo, etc.)? Or do you tend to bookmark everything, filing it away so that you know where it is?

Google and Yahoo are betting that you re-search. Yahoo's new My Web claims to be 'better than bookmarks', encouraging people to import their bookmarks and then forget about them. I'm not quite sure I want to completely forego my bookmarks for My Web, though.

Nevertheless, I am quite impressed with Yahoo's My Web. I've set up a few folders to put stuff in, but I've found an unexpected use for the default Saved folder. I use it as sort of to-do list, web sites that I need to get back soon. It's kind of an object-oriented to-do list - I don't have to make a list of what I'm going to do on the site - just seeing the name of the site reminds me what I'm going to do there, whether it be listen to music, read an article, search for a job, or whatever.

Back to searching versus filing. Obviously Google and Yahoo are in the searching camp. On the other hand, Microsoft is making inroads on the organizing front. In a recent Computerworld article, Scarlet Pruitt interviewed Brad Goldberg, general manager of the Windows Client Business Group:

Goldberg said he believes that the way people gather information will change and users will spend less time searching the Web. Instead, they will use tools like RSS (really simple syndication) feeds and XML to have information they want pushed to them, he said. With that in mind, Microsoft has been working on making data stored on PCs easier to find by offering Longhorn features such as virtual folders and keywords, Goldberg said.

I love the concept of a virtual folder. Suppose I have something I want to file from a musician friend named Phil. Do I file it under 'Friends' or 'Musicians'? The answer I want to give is both. Virtuals folders allow you to do this. I'm telling my computer to make it so that when I look in 'Friends', it's there. When I look in 'Musicians', it's there. No. don't make a copy of it. Just make it work.

Several email clients now have this capability. Microsoft Outlook calls it 'search folders'. Evolution calls it virtual folders. Thunderbird calls it saved search folders.

Meanwhile, a hot topic in the blogging community is tagging or folksonomy. The basic idea is to categorize things (blog entries, web sites, whatever) by assigning one or more tags. I tag this blog using both Del.icio.us and Technorati. The neat thing is that using multiple tags is basically the same concept as virtual folders.

When filing web pages in my folders in My Web, I can achieve the same effect of virtual folders by using the Notes field to record my multiple tags, thus allowing easy access by searching for the tag I'm interested in.

So which is better, organizing things carefully, or making things easy to search for? As with most things, the answer is both.

Categories: search, tags, bookmarks, yahoo

Yahoo's new MyWeb

Yahoo has introduced a powerful new personalized web search service called MyWeb. It is fully integrated into Yahoo Search and Yahoo toolbar. It allows a Yahoo user to save copies of web pages with the click of a button. In other words, you can think of it as a personalized web search cache.

Your saved pages can be organized into folders. Folders can be either be kept private or shared with other users via RSS feeds, email, IM, or (soon) via Yahoo 360, Yahoo's new blogging service.

Now the one feature that really sold me on it was the automatic search history. If you turn this feature on, whenever you do a Yahoo search and look at a page, it's automatically put in your search history, which of course is there whenever and whereever you're logged into your Yahoo account. As Loren Baker pointed out, Yahoo has a big advantage over Goggle, because Yahoo users do log in, whereas most Google users don't (they don't even have a Google account).

Now I've been a fan of web-based services for a long time. My email (Yahoo) and my feed reader (Bloglines) are both web-based, and I really like being able to access both from any computer. So I like the idea of keeping my web search history on the web as well.

I've used Yahoo for years. I use or have used Yahoo's Mail, Address Book, Calendar, Notes, Briefcase, Maps, Local, Yellow Pages, Bookmarks, Groups, Movies, News, Messenger, Hot Jobs, Games, Reference, Alerts, Toolbar, and 360 services. And yes, at home, my home page is My Yahoo. So naturally I like more Yahoo services. However, most of my friends and family are not into Yahoo the way I am. So there's the rub. All these services are great if you're into Yahoo anyway. The real question will be, will new features like My Web win new users over to Yahoo? It'll be interesting to see. I'm particularly interested in the planned integration between Yahoo Search / My Web and Yahoo 360. I was a little disappointed with 360, but then again, I don't have many Yahoo friends... So if you do use Yahoo 360, check out my page.

Happy Searching!

Categories: yahoo, search

Google Maps, meet Craigslist real estate | News.blog | CNET News.com

Google Maps, meet Craigslist real estate | News.blog | CNET News.com
This is a really great example of how services can be integrated into Google maps. I tried it out and found it quite easy to use. Being more into Yahoo than Google, I was happy to see that once I zeroed in on a property to look at, I could bring up the Google map or Yahoo map. Nice!

Categories: maps