As the World Turns – Social Median, Cuil, Knol

~ rbonini

Its quite interesting that the Internet continues to spawn new incarnations of social networks and search engines.

One question: Why?

I think is got to do with the fact that we all perceive things differently. Twitter and FreindFeed is the perfect example of this. I’m on FriendFeed (excuse the extra hype) but not on Twitter. This is because FreindFeed is the kind of social network I can use. Twitters central axiom of “What are you Doing?” is very different to FreindFeed’s approach whereby we share things. I’m more comfortable with the thought of having something more concrete to talk about and comment on.

In like manner, there are a Billion people on the Internet today and there is not going to be a one size fits all solution to the way people want to interact with each other. There might as well be as many social networks as there are people. Consider that Flikr and  SmugMug are social networks in themselves, yet they use photographs as a catalyst for conversation. So this illustrates my points about different approaches to the social interaction that people crave.

This weeks entry into the Social network race was SocialMedian. I have not tried it myself anad reviews seems to be mixed. We will see what happens.

Search is another area that people use based on how comfortable. I’m a Google user at the moment. yet there is Windows Live Search, Yahoo and now Cuil, a new take on the search engine by former Googlers. Its presentation of results in a magazine format is instantly recognizable to readers of print publications. Its presentation of possibly related information- for example I searched for myself and got my blog posts as a expected, but also a list of Italian football players – is very well done as well.

So my point is that even for something as simple as search, people have different perceptions and there will always be ways to improve to better meet users expectations.

Google Knol, and I’m mentioning it in passing is an attempt to upset Wikipedia’s cup. A Knol is supposed to be a unit of knowledge. And I’m sure you can see where this is going. And remember that not everything Google comes up with is an instant hit. It will probably be in perpetual beta for a while. So don’t write it off just yet.

Will there be an end to this? Its possible that some form of consolidation will take place if these startups, and others, take off. After all, the big players will continue to want to improve their offerings and some of the radical ideas now days come out of the startups rather than the established companies.

iPods, Touch Screens and the Future

~ rbonini

With the release of the 2.0 software update for the Touch, Apple has made a mockery of every smartphone on the market as well as the DS and the PSP.

Short of an iPhone, it is quite simply the indispensable gadget to have on you at all times.

I have no Exchange servers to connect to and haven’t tried MobileMe. But I have been in the App Store. And boy, have been buying.

I’m a Crash Bandicoot fan from the dark old days of the PS1, so the first game I got was Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart Racing 3D. And it does not disappoint. The tilt controllers make it a compelling game, as well as a challenging one. And one you will strive to master. Just play it standing still as the tilt sensors are sensitive. 

iPint is hilarious. For a free app its brilliant. I’ve been generating laughs with it all weekend.

I installed DutchTab as well. Thought I’d get a chance to use it over the weekend, but it didn’t present itself. Calculating how to split the tab is difficult so I usually don’t bother, just leave an unusually large tip. This should change that.

However, not all the applications in App Store are iTouch compatible. GPS and Camera apps naturally will only work on an iPhone.

This makes the iPhone 3G a really compelling device to get.

There has been lots of discussion over on FriendFeed about how this changes the nature of personal computing ( see here, here and here for a selection). The basic idea is that it changes personal computing in a big way.

I’d also say that the idea of ubiquitous computing comes closer as well. With a device like the iPod Touch and the iPhone, we take computing power where ever we need it – it seamlessly integrates with our lives. We take the web with us as well, fulfilling the dream of constantly connected devices. Push email is not  a new idea – Blackberry owners have had it for years. But Apple had taken it to a whole new level. Using the touch screen, ur interactions with our devices become so much more natural and compelling. A keyboard and mouse reminds you of what you are using, a touch screen uses the human mediums of touch, feel and gestures to communicate.

This is where computing is going in the next few years. I prefer using my Touch for web browsing because of the touch screen – its feels more natural. Windows & will have touch screen built in, and Microsoft Surface is already capitalising on the naturalness of the touch screen to re-definite the way we interact with computers – and redefine computers themselves.

As science fiction writer William Gibson said:

The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet

WHS Add-In: WHS2SmugMug – Update

~ rbonini

I’ve neglected this project for a while mainly due to me being so busy with other stuff.

The hiatus has actually done the project good as feature creep was threatening to de-rail the thing the last time I had a look at it.

So I’ve cleaned up the requirements for the data to be stored locally. I’ve eliminated just about everything I can pull from SmugMug leaving me with a nice, clean object model to work with.

I was also struck by the fragmenting of the project into three – scheduled, service and WHS Console Add-in.

While this seems logical, it is a bit over the top. So I’m dropping the scheduled uploader and having uploads handled by the service.

Work is progressing nicely and I hope to have a working  service app soon ( if not a console add-in).

I’m now using the SmugMugAPIWrapper from Codeplex. Its MIT Licenced so WHS2SugMug will have to be too. This library is one that I can actually use without looking at the source as its built to use the current SmugMug API, so no worries there.

As with my Windows Live Writer add-in, I’ll host the project on Codeplex as soon as there is a release-ready codebase.

iTunes is Acting Up

~ rbonini

image

Only a fraction of my music shows up as being music?????

I didn’t have any photos ( though 2 video podcasts from TWIP) on there at all.

Same on my iPod Touch.

I belive this happened on holiday when I downloaded a few podcasts and synced them. My music library is stored at home so I didn’t have the full library with me when I synced on holiday.

Is this some sort of bug???

I’ve no idea what has happened?? Syncing it does not work!!!

Should I try a restore??

FriendFeed gets my posts, Twice

~ rbonini

I’ve noticed that there is a lag between my post being published and it showing up in FF (From Michel Arrington’s stream):

 

image

I’ve actually noticed that this is becoming the exception rather than the norm slowly but surely:

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Nevertheless I wrote a plugin for Windows Live Writer that automatically posts a link to FriendFeed every time I publish a post. In fact the link in the above picture ws posted using this plugin

Since I’ve never written a WLW plugin I used the Twitter Notify plugin that is included as part of the SDK as a springboard. You might notice that there is very little code left of the original.

Since it uses the new SDK feature unavailable in WLW 2.0, you’ll need the WLW 3.0 CTP for this plugin to work.

You can get it from Codeplex here.

It will ask you for your FriendFeed username and Remote Key as well as a preamble to accompany the posted link. This is set, by default, to “Blog Post”. As you can see mine is set to “New Blog Post”. All these settings can be changed from the Plugins page of WLW options.

Suggestions are welcome as are bug fixes, etc.

The plugin is working well for me and I’ve encountered no issues, other than WLW taking slightly longer to start up ( this could be a CTP issue).

I currently thinking of:

  • Putting a link to the discussion on FF in the post( as far as I can tell this would require a re-write)
  • Linking to FF when you Update the post

Anyone else got any ideas?