These are my links for June 15th through June 19th:
I’ve upgraded this blog to the latest version of WordPress (2.0) as well as changed the template used to generate the look and feel of it. I’m still not sure whether I like the new look and feel and I know that there are some things from the old template that need to be added in, such as an About Me section in the sidebar. The main enhancements with the new version of WordPress come in the administrative side of things, and I like what I see there so far. I particularly like the implementation of AJAX to make common task easier for the blog author.
I was excited to get an invitation late last week to download a preview (developer’s) release of the Flock web browser. (If you want an invitation so as to be able to download it, drop me an email at s t o b e r g [ a t ] o b e r g s . n e t.) Built on the same codebase as Mozilla Firefox, Flock differentiates itself by attempting to make all of the social web functionality (tagging, blogging, the so-called Web 2.0 sort of stuff etc.) more seamlessly integrated into the interface. I’ve been using Flock for about three days as my primary web browser at work. Here are some initial impressions:
Overall, I am positively impressed with this new, highly touted web browser. However, it [did not] elicit as much of a whiz-bang, gee-that-is-totally-awesome kind of experience for me as I had thought. I’ll keep using it and seeing how it develops and improves over time.
Much to my surprise, I noticed tonight that Bloglines has just introduced (apparently) some AJAX functionality of their own. You can now use hotkeys, e.g. ‘j’ for next article, and ‘k’ for previous article; ‘s’ for next subscription, and ‘f’ for next folder. This is cool! I had just mentioned yesterday that the AJAX functionality built into Google Reader was one of the main reasons I might switch from Bloglines. Now, here it is in Bloglines! Hmmm, maybe someone was listening somewhere….
I was excited to try out Google’s latest beta product, called Google Reader, announced just last Friday. Google Reader is a web-based news aggregator similar to Bloglines. I prefer Bloglines but I find the interface clunky at times and not very appealing. I would like to be able to customize it a bit more to use different “skins” for example. It is also quite difficult to export all subscriptions (including those marked as private).
In contrast, Google Reader incorporates the same kind of AJAX functionality that I have come to love when using Gmail. I particularly love using familiar keystrokes (e.g. j, k to move back and forth between postings). I like the clean interface and the ease with which I am able to import subscriptions from elsewhere. I don’t like the somewhat odd, almost hesitant way in which Google Reader refreshes my subscriptions to show me what is newly posted. Hopefully the performance will improve. If it does, I will seriously consider switching away from Bloglines altogether.