My Personal Infocloud
So
Safarilicious is a nifty little utility that allows you to export your Safari bookmarks to del.icio.us. It also allows you to only upload bookmarks that do not already exist on del.icio.us after your initial push takes place. Initial tagging of the uploaded bookmarks is driven from the folder structure of your Safari bookmarks.
So
Google has introduced a new Firefox extension that displays Blogger Web Comments for the site that you are currently viewing. This reminds me of an IE plugin from around 1996 that allowed you to view post-it note type annotations that were placed on websites and viewable through the plugin. It wasn't long before this became abused and if I recall correctly, the company went out of business. This approach seems to have only slightly more accountability in that it ties back to a blog. Then again, Blogger blogs have been notorious of late for their splog activity.
Google has also recently introduced some functionality to make it a bit easier to search for music on the Internet. According to the Google Blog, the search works only for well know artists by name and primarily for US based artists (though I did get results for David Sylvian, oddly enough). The results include links to reviews, lyrics and online stores to purchase some releases. Not surprisingly, I didn't see any purchase links to Amazon (though there were links to the iTunes store). It will be interesting to see how this evolves.
technorati tags: google, firefox, musicsearch, blogger
So
A very insightful post from David Leeson on how the emergence of High Definition Video (HDV)cameras may become a 'threat' to some photojournalist. David's stance is that frame grabs from HDV are of a quality that is perfectly acceptable for print use. An obvious advantage that video has is that you have a frame rate approaching 30 frames per minute, so if you are shooting action you stand a better chance of getting just the right moment.
He also delves into the attitude of some fellow photojournalists, that using frame grabs is 'cheating'. These sorts of comments can be traced back to any sea change in photography and concludes that HDV frame grabs are probably just the next step in the evolution of how images are captured and communicated.
Hat tip to Doug Alcorn for the link.
technorati tags: photography, hdv, journalism
So
Google has added some new content and options to their personalized home page. In addition to drag and drop screen layout, probably the biggest news is the creation of an API to allow for developers to create their own widgets and content. It's no netvibes, but it is getting better.
First Apple introduces widgets behind the desktop with Dashboard, Yahoo recently provided widgets on the desktop (as well as on newer Tivo DVRs), Opera is pushing widgets on mobile devices and now Google (not surprisingly) is pushing widgets in the browser (or on the web, if you will).
I believe that there is room for all of them; consumers will decide where and how they want their functionality and information delivered to them.
So
I found this piece on The Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.us Users to be a handy reference to some features that I have yet to discover/explore on del.icio.us. I just recently starting using the for: tag to push bookmarks that would be of interest out to other del.icio.us users that I know.
The inbox functionality sounds interesting:
The inbox is a mystery for many folks, but it's a powerful tool. Your del.icio.us inbox allows you to track what's been added to particular tags and to track what particular users have bookmarked. There are a couple of ways to begin using your inbox. You can click the 'inbox' link at the top of any page when you're logged in and then click the 'edit inbox' link on the right side. Or you can just click the 'settings' link (top right corner) and then click the 'inbox labels' link under the 'experimental' section. Either way will get you to the same page where you'll see a couple of text entry boxes. One is for adding USERNAMES and the other is for adding tags. If you know the del.icio.us USERNAME of someone you want to track, enter it in the 'user' field and hit the subscribe button. If you have a particular tag you want to keep tabs on, enter it in the 'tag' field and hit subscribe. Once you get the hang of this, you'll fill up your inbox in no time.
So
OpinMind is an interesting take on blog search engines in that it attempts to categorize the blog content as either positive or negative. I would guess that it somehow uses the surrounding text to make the determination.
You can also do comparison searches by putting a 'vs' between two terms. Just for fun, I tried a few, with mixed results: Peace (91%) beat out War (42%), but then again Life (50%) lost out to Death (65%). It probably has all the statistical relevance of Magic Eight Ball, but can be kind of fun to see the results (like the perennial favorite 'Ginger vs MaryAnn').
technorati tags: blogsearch, search, opinmind
So
The ShareiPod application will allow you to share the music on your iPod with having to upload your music to a computer. Remember to place this app in your startup items so you can share your tunes whenever you connect your iPod.
technorati tags: ipod, apple, musicsharing
So
The Guardian note that Doctors issue warning on iPod finger, the latest hi-tech ailment. Not surprisingly, you can develop a repetative stress injury from most anything, including your favorite MP3 player, the Apple iPod.
“Handheld music machines are extremely popular and users are constantly using small, difficult buttons with the same finger in a repetitive motion,” said Carl Irwin from the British Chiropractic Association. “The nature of modern technology means that these devices are only going to be getting smaller, and I would not be surprised if hand and finger related injuries become one of the most common repetitive strain injuries that chiropractors treat.”
technorati tags: ipod, apple, ipodfinger
So
nonstopmac has a detailed description of how you can use DynDNS to obtain a free hostname for your Mac.
Why would you ever want to do this? Well, its one way to make it easier to connect to your home computer when you are away from home. As the Internet is a wild place, you also need to take adequate precautions regarding what you expose and how. From the nonstopmac writeup:
For those who are still wondering what am I talking about, DynDNS can be used for giving your IP address a good-looking hostname. This is especially useful in situations where you are using dial-up access or ADSL connections with dynamic IP addresses. By using the DynDNS service with a combination of their software installed on your computer, you can be always available through the same host name. You can use this setup when you are hosting a web server on your local computer or when you want to use service like Virtual Network Computer (VNC) to access your desktop from a far away location. In both of these scenarios, you will need a static address, so the DynDNS service comes quite handy.
technorati tags: dns, mac, remoteaccess
So
The Register have an amusing commentary on Johnathan Schwartz of Sun making the somewhat questionable statement in his blog that Sun is going to become the dot in Web 2.0 .
As for the badgers, well, you just have to read the Register's writeup.