Substitutions

You may have heard that I love the Flock web browser. You may not have heard that Flock has changed the browser their product is based on from Mozilla's (for 2.x) to Google's (for 3.x).
I'm trying to adapt.
In the process of moving from one version of Flock to the other, I have to find Chrome extensions to match those that I used with the 2.x version of Flock, along with the features no longer built into Flock 3.x.
One of the features that keeps me on the Firefox side is the offline blog editor that integrates that version's drag-and-drop clipboard, which does wonders for quickly adding photos to a new post. I just found this new Chrome extension called Scribefire, which is a blog editor of sorts. I'm still looking for some sort of clipboard, but may be completely out of luck.
Onward and upward, if not a slight bit to the left!

This is a test of the emergency FlockCast system

If this were a real emergency, you would not have had a chance to read this bulletin, because at least one of us would have been busy running for our lives.

In case you were wondering was FlockCast does, it allows you to send a link to Facebook for just about anything you are posting somewhere else with Flock.

Sometimes this is extremely handy, but might have a tendency to get very annoying as time goes on.  Please use at your own discretion. 

Blogged with the Flock Browser

A Blatant and Probably Useless Plug

My topic for the day is a subject that may sound a little sticky.  It is called Glue, and it has a plugin for Firefox based browsers (my favorite is Flock) that can connect you to other web surfers in new ways.

At its core, Glue invades your privacy by monitoring your activity on certain websites and allowing you to show your enthusiasm for different noun-based objects (people, places, or things).  That alone is not all that great, and has been most of my experience so far.

What makes it better is the networking capability it has.  You can instantly add other glue users to follow from your Facebook friends and those you follow on Twitter, in addition to following other Glue users that show up in the Glue Bar when you visit a site monitored by Glue.  Once you happen across more people, you can comment on the comments they have left, see what they like or where they have been.

I consider myself lucky to know a few BIG movie buffs, and would love for them to start using Glue to show me which ones they like or dislike by slapping a link to their review of said movie into the "2 cents" Glue comment section.  That might also promote more reading of their reviews. Ha!

I have only done a little bit of this so far, and most of it has been on Yelp, recommending local restaurants.  I look forward to doing more, and seeing what my friends can do to tell me about what they like, whether it is books, movies, movie stars, music, recording artists, gadgets, restaurants, stocks, TV shows, or wine.

Now if only I could motivate them a bit more...

Blogged with the Flock Browser

My latest adventures!

To start with, our new GPS has arrived and now that it has seen a bit of use around town, I can say that it does a fine job.  While our Sony NV-U44 is certainly not the navigation and multimedia powerhouse that some units are, the frugal side of me says "Hey, you got a LOT of features for your $70!!"

And I think it's true. It features Text-to-Speech, lane guidance (as seen in the picture on the left), fast satellite acquisition, and gesture recognition, which allows you to wipe your finger across the screen to activate some features instead of needing to divert your eyes from the road.  There are many features missing from the unit, my favorite of which is traffic updates and internet connected features, but we don't live in an area where we are all that likely to benefit from them either.  Despite being made fun of by my wife, I'm going to continue to use it as we drive around town, just to familiarize myself with it more. 

---

The second event of note is a continuation from my last post, about the resurrected Acer 2010 laptop.  The one remaining weakness the system had was a broken right-side lid hinge, which would pop out of the plastic cover when someone would try to adjust the screen angle.  I was trying to adjust it back to a usable angle and squeezed the screen a bit too hard.  The glass cracked, rendering about 80% of the screen unreadable, but still very colorful.  I set about disassembling the lid, which came apart without too much drama.  The Sony Vaio laptop, whose screen I was hoping to steal, was not giving in so easily.  I was afraid that if I pried too hard I might end up doing similar damage to the one remaining usable part from the Sony. 

After sharing my work laptop with my sister for a week and a half, Allison said she wanted to give it a try last night, and while she did crack the bezel around the screen a little bit, it really wasn't anything to worry about.  I was very happy that the two laptops we had gotten for her were so similar that they could share so many parts.  The new screen went in, and I got it all put back together without the misbehaving hinge.  Now it works the same, but we can close the lid again (woohoo!!!), and it has a glossier and brighter screen. 

Now Allie can get back to her Ubuntu lessons.  Maybe she'll want to work on importing some of her old blog posts to our new blog, as well.

---

The next bit came as a bit of a surprise to me last week, as I received an email at work indicating that I am scheduled to get my laptop replaced at the end of THIS WEEK!!!!  I'm pretty stoked, as it will be my first laptop that wasn't WAY outdated by the time it got to me.  The one I'm using now, is the third shell replacement and second hard drive image of the IBM T42 I received new a few years ago. While it is a well-built machine, and not too heavy to carry around, I have longed for a wider screen for some time (especially now that I use Flock).

My new system will be an HP Compaq 8510p, which has a high resolution screen, updated processor and chipset (Centrino Pro, even), and a SATA hard drive!  I'm looking forward to burying Windows on another machine. 

Blogged with the Flock Browser

e-Tools Quick Take...

Just a quick update, here:

I found a work-around for Blogger's inability to keep completed tasks from showing up in my "Blogs to Be" sidebar gadget. This was coming from a Remember The Milk task list, and has probably only been read three or four times in the correct manner. I found out how to change the feed from Atom (default) to RSS, and now it works! At least there is a workaround for Blogger's ineptitude.

Since my favorite browser, Flock, has now integrated the photo sharing services of Tinypic into its Media Bar, I have signed up as well. Another member of my household has been a longtime user of this service, for stuffing her blogs full of pictures, so I have some catching up to do.

I've added a Digg feed to the sidebar, but unlike the gadgets referencing the most popular articles on Digg, these are just my own most recent diggs. You're here (all 2.5 of you) to read my spewage, so you deserve to see the "garbage-in" side of me as well. Look for "What the heck is kEnny reading?" on the right.

...

On a somewhat unrelated note, something funny happened between last night and this morning. On a whim I decided to look up the ShamWOW guy, Vince Clortho Offer. I found his Wikipedia page and used twitter to make note of it. This morning I got an email from twitter announcing that _VINCEOFFER_ was following me on twitter! How very interesting!!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

I'm Totally Digging Flock!!!

What blatant advertisement right? Well, I'm doing it for a reason: I like to keep certain people informed of what I'm up to, to the point that I can send a some people (mostly one) up to 20 links in a day. Why should i be cloggin up their email if I can make it available to them on the interwebs? I don't know!!

I've been watching Digg for some time, and I became a member once Flock included them as one of the social networks to integrate in their browser, but I had never actually done anything with it before today. I've added Digg buttons to my blog templates, and started doing some Digging of my own. I have a Digg gadget on my iGoogle page, and the best part of course, is using Digg with Flock.

Flock makes it SO EASY to see the articles you and your Digg friends have dug, by displaying them in Flock's Media Bar! No hassle, no muss, no fuss. You know what else? It's all free, and works great!

So please consider trying out Flock and Digg together, just so I don't have to be filling your email inbox with links!!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

E-Tools that have me hexed, and some that don't.

This is more of a feedback entry than introducing anything new, and for that I apologize. There are a number of my regular tools whose usage has changed and their operation (or lack of) should be noted.

Where to begin... Twitter has been all over the place, functionally speaking. I've recommended it's use to a number of people, both as an organizational aide and for fun, and for about half of those instances there has been something bad going on over at Twitter. I'm happy to say that overall, they seem to have gotten it together, but it hasn't been without some loss of functionality elsewhere. One of those losses has been my twitter sidebar gadget (formerly on the right). Since the gadget doesn't work at the moment, and I don't seem to be able to capture the RSS feed, I decided to remove it for now. I'm keeping it on my mobile blog, if only for the link it still provides.

I have been a little "mixed bag" about Flock's most recent beta (you know, probably because it is a beta!). One of it's downfalls for me has been the (hopefully temporary) loss of keystroke access to the blog editor. The new security features inherited from Firefox have been a pain to deal with, but I can see their necessity.

One good note is that where I had previously been unable to use Flock's blog editor without trouble from the Flock Blog Plus add-on, I'm not having that problem any more.

Google's Send to Phone add-on for Firefox has been retired. I've come up with a substitute of sorts, by borrowing from the clues left by Flock when sharing a link via webmail. I now have a bookmark to open Gmail's Compose Message page, with the To: address filled in with my phone's SMS address. This works almost as good, as Send to Phone did.

***

In my last big post, discussing event organizing, somebody left a comment saying how great their product was. I thought I'd try it out. After reading up on it a little, I made an account for myself and attempted to login, but it didn't work. To make matters worse, there was no password recovery/reset tool either. So much for being able to recommend it.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

This is a test...

This is a test blog post using my favorite browser, Flock. For some time now, the insertion of tags has not worked. I will be inserting the following tags: self-depriciationisticism, portable mushroom milkers, finaglisms, and fontopian scratches.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

E-Tools evolved: Flock 2.0 Beta after Firefox 3

This is my first blog entry after installing Flock 2.0 Beta almost a week ago. It has been very interesting. There are good and bad parts. Most of the bad parts have to do with added security that was part of Firefox 3. I have many useful add-ons installed, but because many did not have secure updates they were disabled. I really hope the capable folks who put these extensions together can make the necessary changes to allow me to continue using their products. Some keyboard shortcuts are not working properly yet. Ctrl-Shift-B should open the blog editor, but instead opens the Bookmark manager.

The good news is that Flock is now much faster to load, even on my laptop (hmmm... is that because my add-ons were too bloaty?). It also benefits from Firefox 3's revamped address bar.

As my usage of facebook has continued, I've become even more greatful for Flock's People Bar (not exactly new). I can see all of my friends' updates on twitter and facebook at once from the sidebar. It really is rather convenient.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

E-Tools that don't Cinco el Buque

(I've been trying for so hard to find the name for part 5. Please forgive my lingual mutilation)

This time I'm going to discuss some specifics in using Twitter and Remember The Milk. They seem to be the services that my friends and family have the most problems with. I'm going to start with Remember The Milk, as it is more immediately useful to those who might feel a little daunted by the two at first glance. I seem to be most successful when I can demonstrate the cool stuff first, then encourage the newbs to try it out for themselves.

Remember The Milk is all about lists and how to access and add to them. Checking off items can be useful as well, depending on what you are using the lists for. Lists, or any items within them, can be made public or shared with people that have been added to your RTM Contacts (they have to be RTM users as well. I keep finding new things to make lists of, things that are genuinely useful! The kicker here is that you can access your lists via SMS (with the help of Twitter), mobile web browser, your desktop computer's browser, and even news feeds.

My big thrill for friends and family is Birthday Lists. Everybody is trying to figure out at the last minute what to get somebody for their birthday. We can near-completely solve this by simply populating a list and publishing it. Any lists you have published can be seen by anyone on the web, and has it's own news feed as well. I have shared such a list here. You can see that it is pretty sparse right now, but hopefully you get the point. Now you know what I want for my Birthday!!

An example of using news feeds can be seen in the sidebar. Look for "kEnny's Tasks - Blogs To Be" on the right. This is my list of reminders for things I want to write about. The list is hosted by RTM, but now you can see it from my blog.

How about your favorite books, or books you want to read? Make a new list for the ones you haven't read yet, populate the list with books you want to read, then check them off as you finish them. You have just made a new list of recently read books, that can be added to your blog. it gets updated automatically as you add them and mark others complete. You can move the best ones to a "Favorite Books" list and add that to your blog as well!

I love movies, and I love seeing them in well equipped, modern theaters. Ever since the early nineties, I have avidly watched previews to find the next movie I need to see, then kept the lists to remind me of what I wanted to see later on. I first used PDAs of various sorts for this. I stopped being quite so much of a geek (I mean by whipping out a PDA and typing or writing on it during movie previews, the rest is kinda hard to wash off) when I found a companion to enjoy movies with. Now that I have RTM and Twitter, I am doing it again with my cell phone, which isn't nearly so out of place. At home, I can go through the list of movies and use IMDB to add opening dates, websites, and any other details. Weeks later, RTM sends me a reminder for the movies opening that day. It shows up on my cell phone as an SMS message, courtesy of Twitter, and my email inbox. If I miss a movie and it isn't in the theaters any more, I move it to my movies-to-see-at-home list, and the due date is removed. Now I can watch for it to be available on TV or DVD. I would like to eventually connect that one to a TiVo Wishlist or Netflix Queue. That would be sweet! WAIT! I'm going to add that to my to-do list right now!

I also love music. I've spent a lot of money on music over the course of my years as a bachelor, but in acquiring extra mouths in my household I have come to realize that the same money is better spent elsewhere. I'm very lucky that the popularity of MP3s popped in not long before my first household companion showed up. The good part about having other ears in the house is that I get exposure to music I might not otherwise ever come across. The bad part is that I don't have anywhere near as much spare time for uninterrupted tune-browsing as I used to. Now I can make a note right away for music I need to look for. At my computer is where I can sort the list contents. In my spare time I can see where those songs or artists lead me. Music ID services and HD radio data are also very informative sources for artist and song information, and I'm looking forward to using those to automatically populate my music list in the future.

I'm moving next month, so I started a list of all the big stuff we have to ensure we have the proper facilities to transfer them to the new house. I shared the list with Allison so we both know what we have in front of us.

When I've got a bill or other important matter to attend to in the near future, I send it to RTM, so I don't forget. It only takes a minute to make the note, and I don't ever have to worry about misplacing it.

Does it get better? Yes. Using tags and locations (RTM integrates Google Maps), you can connect items from multiple lists. There's a multitude of ways to manipulate data in RTM. Sign up now, then go here for help setting it up. You won't regret it.

Next?

This is where Twitter comes in. At its core, Twitter is known as a micro-blog. You can send short messages to update your status, and you can "follow" your friends' updates at the same time. Many services (like RTM, duh!) use Twitter as the glue between you and their operations. This population is what gets me excited about using it, because Twitter is so connectible to begin with. You can send and receive updates (and therefore message to the other services) from the mobile devices via text message, email, IM, and their web page, to name only the direct methods. There are scores of other desktop gadgets and programs that can do it as well. My favorite-est browser, , has Twitter functionality built into the sidebar. Between my phone and Flock, I get all the Twitter love I need.

Twitter is smart, too! If you set it up for multiple interfaces (IM, SMS, and Web), it can figure out the best place to contact you. When you have a message coming in, and you aren't logged into your IM service, it can go to your phone. If you designate hours when you don't want Twitter sending Tweets to your phone, it only leaves them in your log on the web for you to check on later. You can also selectively enable alerts from certain folks and services so that you are not totally inundated with incoming Tweets all the time. That was the part that took me a while to catch on to. Every time I added a new entity to follow, I also had to enable their alerts to come to my phone. After that it all works great!

I'm only following one actual person on Twitter: one of my sisters, whom I have suckered into trying it out. I follow 2 services: RTM and Xpen$er (which I haven't done a whole lot with yet). I have also set up two accounts to post to, using Twittermail, that I follow. Twittermail allows you to send an email to post to your Twitter account, and is great for coordinating activities for large groups of people. Anyone who knows the correct address can post comments or directions to everyone following that account. One recent example of such coordination was protesters trying to get face-time with the Olympic torch. I have set one up for use during a week-long family reunion this summer, and another to help coordinate resources at work. You can follow updates from your favorite political candidate, and many other entertaining and informative people.

That's what I've got for now. Tune in later to see what title I come up with for the next installment.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Flockin' A, man!

I was really excited to see that Flock's latest version supports Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, and Picasa Web Albums, but when it came down to using them, it really isn't happening much yet.

I like having my Picasa hosted pictures in Flock's Media Bar, but I don't really need the photo uploading capabilities because, oddly enough, I use Picasa's software locally on my computers to manage my photo albums.

The method for logging in and checking for unread email seems a little buggy still, so I removed the email button from the toolbar and stashed the icon for the Gmail Manager firefox extension there instead. Previews are better, and I can do more with it.

The one email related feature that does work now is the Share this Link button. Enough said.

Blogged with Flock

Tricked out with Flock and keyboard shortcuts...

The last thing I didn't like about Flock has a work-around:



The "Share this link via email" button hasn't worked the way I would like it to, because it uses your system's default email client to send an email, and I hadn't figured out how to make Windows use a website as an email client. I found out that Google Talk has such an option, which will make this button open a new tab to compose a message in Gmail. I have also read that Flock will address this disparity in the near future.

I just thought I'd spread some more Flock lovin' around. :^)


I have also been sending a little more time on my desktop system. You know the one with the ergonomic keyboard? Last night I Googlefied (I'm sure that's a word!!) the software for it to use the shortcut keys to open new tabs for various google products in my favorite browser. Here they are from Left to Right:

1. Web/Home: iGoogle
2. Search: New Gmail Message
3. Mail: Gmail Inbox
4. Favorite 1: Google Calendar
5. Favorite 2: Google Docs
6. Favorite 3: Picasa Web Albums (more Google)
7. Favorite 4: Google Maps
8. Favorite 5: Object Edit
   

I really like this setup. I'll save the Object Edit explanation for another post. For now I'll just say that if you have never heard of Stardock or Object Desktop, you need to check them out NOW!!!!

Blogged with Flock

kEnny's Favorite E-Tools- thReevisited!!

I've got a couple more Flock-specific add-ins to write about.

The first I'm using as this very moment. It is called Flock Blog Plus, and it is really slick. It integrates a whole bunch of extra features to Flock's already-more-than-handy blog editor. The features I am appreciating most right now are the lower-pane editor window and the extra link functions.

The second is called geoFlock. I like playing with maps from time to time, on both a computer and on my phone, so this is a nice tool to add to the arsenal. Maybe for the next caving trip I take?

Next visitation: More fun on your phone!

kEnny's Favorite E-Tools... Part Deux!!

For this post, we'll focus on my favorite Firefox extensions, and which ones you can use with Flock. Extensions make Firefox fun! I use a variety of extensions, depending on the computer I am using. Here they are in no particular order:

• Adsense Notifier: It's really funny that I use this extension, as I don't seem to give any of the advertisers on this blog much in the way of business. It gives you a quick, unobtrusive look at how much Google is going to pay you for all your hard work. I don't know if it works on Flock. I haven't had any reason to try it yet. :^(
• del.ico.us Bookmarks: I got turned on to del.ico.us through using Flock. After running my favorites in the same manner for quite some time, I was looking for a new way to work them. While I don't use it over built-in favorites, I also don't leave it out.
• Download Manager Tweak: This one adds extra options to Firefox's Download Manager.
  
• Download Sort: I used to be a great fan of this extension, but numerous security updates have hobbled it to the point of being nearly useless. Being a big collector of skins for various forms of software (Winamp, WindowBlinds, etc.), this tool was indispensable for filtering different file types into separate folders.
• Gmail Manager: I used to use Gmail Notifier, but the added functionality of inbox previews, and support for multiple Gmail accounts made me switch. Unfortunately, the mail count functionality doesn't work in Flock! I hope one or the other gets fixed soon.
• GMarks: This one takes Google Bookmarks and makes it part of your built-in bookmarks as well. If I'm ever out of contact with one of my own computers, I can still get to my regularly visited sites this way, and synchronize my bookmarks across multiple computers.
• Google Calendar Notifier: This is the next most convenient item to your cell phone with text messaging for keeping up with appointments on your Google Calendar(s). It provides you with quick mouse-over access to upcoming events, and provides pop up alerts as well. You can color code each calendar to make them easy to tell apart.
  
• Google Send to Phone: This isn't real complicated, but can be incredibly handy. High lite any text on a web page, then with just a couple more clicks you can send it to your cell phone via SMS.
  
• ForecastFox: Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I've been a fan of the weather for many years. And you never know if the forecast is really going to be right of not. ForecastFox gives you upcoming forecasts as well as radar data, so you have quick access to local weather information from Accuweather.
  
• FoxyTunes: Foxy Tunes brings the fun to web browsing, after all that productive crap I already mentioned. FoxyTunes acts as an unobtrusive remote control for your favorite media player.

Do you have any favorites firefox extensions not listed here? Tell me what you like and how you use it. If I like it, I'll add it to the list!

Blogged with Flock

This is a test...

...of the Flock blog posting system. This is only a test. If this were a real blog post, this message would be accompanied by emergency reading instructions. There may also be a picture to make the reading more interesting for folks less inclined to read.

This message has been posted as part of the process I am following to see if version 0.9 of Flock will be worth my messing with. So far it is going well. I may do more with it than simply go back to using Firefox!

Blogged with Flock

Time to Try New Tools

This entry is again dedicated to the topic of alternative means of working with my blog. I just recently installed Flock, which is a web-community oriented browser based on Firefox that includes built-in support for posting to various blog, batch uploading pictures to your the web, sharing bookmarks, and other forms of on-line collaboration. -I just ran the spell checker and noticed that it didn't recognize the word "blog". How funny!

I've had a bit of a revelation of late. In working to understand all of the features of my new mobile phone, a Sony Ericsson K790a, I have been playing with both this blog and my new mobile blog quite a bit more. I've noticed that there are a lot more resources on the web for earning money by making your own words and pictures available for publishing. I had run across similar ideas in the past, particularly from my father, and had not been very impressed.

My dad is staring down the barrel of retirement, and wondering what he can do to ensure (maybe even grow?) his income once his career as a city employee is over. He has been looking to the Internet for inspiration and ran across a business & advertising scheme called Affiliated Websites. I use the word scheme because I think the purveyors of these prebuilt websites are taking advantage of the common netizen by stealing their money for services that aren't that hard to perform for yourself. For a 3-figure annual fee they set up a domain (which they own), let you choose from a number of content templates to fill in the blanks (including your testimonial as to how effectively it makes money for you), then they sell ads and prominently link to specific businesses selling products related to the main topic of the website (those are the affiliates).

I was initially quite shocked when Dad introduced me to this idea. I wasn't very impressed with the so-called content of these websites. There was a lot of fluff, and not much meat. My impression was that these sites were just search engine traps optimized for funneling eyeballs toward on line vendors, rather than providing any real information about the topic highlighted by the site. I explained my objections to him and tried my best not to sound like a jealous snob. Was I doing anything to try to make money using the Internet? Somewhat, and in a rather lame & half-hearted way. Did I have any better idea? Not really. My only strong objections were that there wasn't much this affiliated business plan did that you couldn't do yourself for a handful of dollars, and that there was nothing to keep people coming back for more after they tripped across the site and made (or didn't make) a purchase at the featured store.

My dad is a great guy, and took my criticism of this plan very well. He still plans to set up a website to attract folks with interests similar to his own, primarily motor homes. He took an HTML course at the local college and is now much better equipped to not only help himself, but he can sell his services to other people wanting to set up a website.

I'm going to try to turn the increased opportunities to be published to my advantage by writing more often, and taking more pictures that can be applied to more than just my own personal use. I'm looking forward to being able to use new tools and features included in products like Flock to make this easier than ever before. I'll be using this forum to let you know how it goes.

Blogged with Flock