waveneyavenue » AJAX

Google Reader takes the RSS crown

dave — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 01:48:24 +0000

Up until now I have been using Sage an extension of firefox and thunderbird’s built in RSS functionality. My main frustration was having to add feeds to different RSS readers and while all allow for OPML import and export it still can be a pain keeping multiple readers in sync. I loved the idea that sage was there when i was using Firefox and Thunderbird RSS Account when I was checking email and that both where cross platform. However I was still not totally happy with my set up so when Google Labs recently anounced the Google Reader, I thought I’d give it a try. Here is what I found.

Some great keyboard shortcuts to take advantage of for power users, but equally well driven using the mouse only. It is great to see software that is so obviously led by the usability issues rather than the programming logic. It is clear that it has been designed around how people actually use RSS feeds. I particularly like the list view which has just enough information to assist my decision as to whether I want to read anymore, keyboard shortcuts then allow me to toggle open and close the item, open it in a new tab, add tags, star it for future reference. I can mark all items read in a particular folder. Simply holding down the shift key allows me to navigate at a folder level rather than an item level. Its all powered by AJAX and uses common like yellow fade technique and some modal windows. Another great advantage is simply being able to access one list from any location and any machine. Just like social bookmarking like ma.gnolia and del.icio.us have made favourites and browser bookmarks archaic, google online hosted RSS reader has done the same thing for RSS readers.

I think some transparent messages (as seen on website URL) rather than the text message that appear currently would be a nice touch.To make it even better I would like to see drag and drop functionality for sorting and categorising your subscriptions.

Its integration with firefox as one of the options for manging RSS subscriptions seals the deal and Google Reader as far as I’m concerned takes the RSS Crown.

Web 2.0 No excuses for the title

dave — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 05:13:12 +0000

Part of the reason I posted this was to try and get some traffic. I make no apologies for this, heck I need to get this thing moving or I am destined to spend the year talking to myself!

Never really though much of personality tests, but I must applaud the superb UI of personaldna by attap who have put together some lovely web apps. I approve of their philosophy and outlook for the web. (They can all rest easier now!)

I think a short list of web 2.0 apps is in order, with or without a critique, depending on if anyone wishes to contribute. Before I start, for all the geeks out there, yes I will be mentioning all the usual stuff, but for some of you this may be new and exciting and worth a visit. Have a look anyway, see for yourself and be your own judge.

The ones I use regularly at home

Flickr - no list would be complete without it, for all your photography sharing needs
Gmail – the new hotmail
Delicious – online bookmarking, tagging app
Measuremap – fabulous tracking stats for blogs
rollyo – custom build search engines
netvibes – loving this combines loads of the others

The ones I use regularly at work

Basecamp – project management
Delicious – online bookmarks

The ones I have used but not returned to

web2.0validator – a bit of fun
writely – an alternative to 37signals writeboards
odeo – all things media
backpackit – little brother to basecamp, good for lists and organising
shutterbook – alternative to flickr
digg – social news aggregator
rememberthemilk – another tada type list maker. Nelly take note!
Rojo – online RSS reader and sharing app

The ones I will be using regularly when the necessity arises

Anything by attap – keeping my eye on these guys, great stuff
script.aculo.us – special effect javascript library
linkedin – networking tool

The ones I have yet to try

Measure Map problems

dave — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 23:40:14 +0000

I’ve been experimenting with integrating Measuremap (which is excellent) into a custom built CMS which uses ASP(cringe). It has successfully recorded 3 out of 5 or now 6 posts but the other 2 fail to show up for some reason. All other reporting seems to be fine. From what I can deduce the code is being correctly generated onto the pages where it should be.

Has anyone any idea what the problem might be? i can’t find reference to it on the support forums.