When I logged into Gmail this morning, I noticed a new block on the left underneath my labels. Now, I have 50 Gmail invites and a convenient way to send them. I wonder if this means that Gmail is ramping up to let people sign up without invites. So, if you are reading this and you want a Gmail account, just leave a comment and I’ll send you one.
8 comments February 6th, 2005
I was looking up a word in Google today, and noticed that they changed the link that shows up in the upper right the definitions of the words you searched for. The links used to go to Dictionary.com, but now they go to Answers.com. There are no press releases from Google nor GuruNet (owns Answers.com), but I did a news search and found TONS of people reporting about it from as early as Jan 20th. I usually get my tech news from Slashdot, so I did a search on their site and nothing references answers.com, which is very suprising. Maybe I’ll make a submission and this will be the first one to get accepted! Anyway, the change is good because Answers.com doesn’t just give you the definition, but also serves up the thesaurus, lexicons, legal definitions, sign language, other topics the word is mentioned in, etc. So, kudos to Google and GuruNet for making me even lazier!
Add comment January 31st, 2005
I had recently been interested in getting more traffic to my blog since I have been putting more posts in at regular interval. Obviously, I would like some sort of return on my investment or some feedback so that it doesn’t seem completely pointless. So, I started looking at how to add my blog to blog directories or online RSS aggregators. At first, I figured I would never use an online aggregator if I could have one installed at work and home that would alert me whenever a new post came up on a feed. But, I visited a site called Kinja which is starting to make me think that I may want to supplement my Windows aggregator.
I started out by exporting my RSS Bandit feed list to an OPML file and tried importing it into my Kinja account by doing an upload, but it didn’t take. The only other option was to point it to a url of an OPML file. So, I tried importing the file into my Bloglines account and it worked. There was a little organization that had to be done, but after that, I made my Bloglines feed public so I could get a url for my OPML file. I copied it and pasted it into the field to import it into Kinja and it worked. Then, I went ahead and imported that OPML url into my Blogrolling account and my Feedster account with not problems.
Kinja was by far the best looking of them all, and they even give you a list of Editor’s Feeds like Showcase, Technology, News, Politics, Music, etc. that are handpicked feeds for those subjects. The Showcase feed is their “best of the web”, I guess. But the only problem with Kinja is that it only shows you the latest posts from your feeds and doesn’t mark if you read them or not. Bloglines handles this feature very well and makes the feeds pretty easy to read, but doesn’t look near as good as Kinja. Feedster just doesn’t look very good and I keep having problems with bugs on the site, so I think I’ll stay away until they do an overhaul. I also tried the web edition of NewsGator, but couldn’t get the OPML to import. If I get it to work and if it impresses me, I’ll post it.
My friend, Trey, just sent me a link to Lektora, which is an aggregator you use in your browser. The nice thing is that it supports IE and Firefox, but it only works on Windows. It looks really good, so I’ll probably try it out, but that’s a whole different review that should include others like Pluck.
Add comment January 28th, 2005
I have been doing a LOT of blog claims in the past couple hours. I want to get as much traffic as humanly possible because…well…because I just want to. So, here’s a link Feedster requires me to have:
No Need to Click Here - I’m just claiming my feed at Feedster
Add comment January 21st, 2005
Ever since I found out about the Kubrick theme and visited Binary Bonsai to download it, I’ve been determined to implement many of the features of that site. First, I downloaded the Kubrick theme and installed it. Then, I saw how he used the index.php as a template to create other pages on his blog that provide other useful information. For example, he took the archives list of the side and devoted an entire page to it that makes it much easier to navigate. Eventually, I found all of the plugins that he uses and now I’m trying to see which ones will be useful for me. I plan on adding a nice image background to my header instead of the default blue color, and I also plan on adding useful pages like Michael does. I would really like to shorten the list of Sharepoint blogs by only showing the last 10 updated ones, but I don’t know how easy that’s going to be. It might be more dependent on those blogs pinging a particular blog directory when they posts, and I doubt they all do that.
Add comment January 21st, 2005
I have been a Netflix subscriber for more than a year straight now and have been very pleased with the service, but was a little ticked when they raised the price on me last year. Now that they have some serious competition with Blockbuster, and soon Amazon, they dropped the price and increased the level and quality of service that they provide. Ever since, they have been constantly adding tiny to large enhancements to the web site. The 2 newest of which are a Friends list (which I’ve suggested to them before) and a way to create multiple profiles on one account.
The friends list is created by inviting friends that you know are probably Netflix members by an e-mail. They get the email with a link to accept the invitation and then they are added to your Friends tab, whic is at the top of every Netflix page. The friends page will show you the last 4 movies they rated and what the rating is. There is also much more to the Friends page, such as movies your friends liked that you haven’t seen, unique movies your friends like, movies that are your friends favorites, and movies your friends hated. Also, when you are looking at a particular movie, it will show you each of your friends rating, and it also gives you a chance to write a quick, one line review of the movie to share with your friends. The friend feature adds an entire new dimension to Netflix.
The other feature, the ability to have multiple profiles on one account, is a welcome feature to older movie-watching families. It gives everyone a chance to have their own login and queue, but also gives parents the ability to lock down movies based on the MPAA rating. There seems to be a good amount of control to it, but I’ll be interested to try it out for myself and my wife. I know she isn’t always happy with the choices of movies I get, so it would be nice to allow her to have a queue so she can get movies she wants as well.
I’m proud to say I’m a Netflix member and it is going to take a lot of convincing to make me swith, especially to a giant like Blockbuster, Amazon, or Wal-Mart. Netflix was on the scene first and now they are proving that they know what customers want and can deliver.
Add comment January 10th, 2005
My main reason for researching RSS readers was because I am currently in the beginning stages of deploying Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 for our company’s Intranet, and the only good information out there resides on people’s blogs. So, the best way to keep informed on new blog posts is by using an RSS reader to view all your blogs in one place. The following are my reviews of Thunderbird, RSS Bandit, Feedreader, RSSOwl, and SharpReader.
Continue Reading 3 comments January 6th, 2005
Well, I haven’t had much time to write some movie reviews or really do all that much on the site. The only cool thing I’ve done on the site is install AWStats, a web stats generator. Since my last post, I saw quite a few movies and I hope to review at least one. Since Dec 3, I’ve seen Raising Helen, Elf, Calendar Girls, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Alamo, and The Terminal. I’m just looking at my recent Netflix returns and there are a few that I should write about - especially Under the Tuscan Sun (blech!).
Anyway, I also want to put my recent returns in and also my delicious bookmarks somewhere on the sidebar. I also need to come up with a better wordpress style/theme. I checked out Kubrick, but it might be too much work for me. For now, the tricolumn style will have to do.
Out.
Add comment December 13th, 2004
The Mozilla foundation released the latest version of their Firefox web browser last night. Since I’ve been using 0.8 for quite some time now, I immediately downloaded it last night. Aside from changing the default theme it comes with, most of the changes are slight. They seperated the extension manager from the Options menu, gave the option to close the download manager when all downloads are complete, and changed the theme/extensions installer. Overall, it seems like an improvement. The only problems I had were with getting my mouse guestures and googlebar extensions working properly.
There was a big hubub about the new default theme, and I see what they were talking about. The new theme - dubbed “Winstripe” - doesn’t even compare to the Qute theme. I don’t know exactly what they were looking to gain from the new theme, but I hope they either improve the look or go back to Qute.
Add comment June 16th, 2004
Well, I had my first group hunt in Star Wars Galaxies last night, and that is going to make it so much harder to not buy the game. I was on Tatooine (a common starter planet) in Mos Eisley (a common starter city) and I was about to leave the city when I heard someone shouting for people to join their hunting group. I jumped on the chance because I just read earlier that day that group hunting is the best and easiest way to get lots of experience points (XP) and credits. I joined and found out they all had vehicles for long trips. So, I just used my vehicle rental ticket to rent a swoop bike - and boy, was that awesome. We got some high paying missions from a missions terminal and set out to the North of the city. It was like being in a Star Wars movie. We were all following each other on our vehicles (2 swoops and 2 speeders) over the Tatooine desert at sunset. Anyway, I learned a lot on how to attack in groups and at range with my rifle. I would set up a camp for everyone when we were all badly hurt and we would talk around the campfire - literally.
It is going to be very hard to stop focusing so much on this game.
Add comment June 15th, 2004
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