In addition to trying some of the new features in WordPress 3.2.x, I’ve decided to switch themes and play around with a different look, a change of wardrobe if you will. The theme header uses an image I snapped late last year of an agave plant, as well as a light-on-dark scheme instead of the traditional dark-on-light. If only I could somehow get the Google +1 button integration to function, I’d be satisfied. For some reason, it just errors out constantly.
I despise Facebook, deleted my account about three years ago, and have never looked back. So it was with some curiosity and excitement that I asked for, and got, an invite to start using the anti-Facebook, Google+. Now I realize that Google has many of the same problems as Facebook from a user perspective, and I also realize that it’s early days yet. But already, after using it for a few days, I definitely like it. I sincerely hope that this service becomes a serious competitor to Facebook and that it takes them down a notch or two or three.
Oh and by the way, I added Google’s +1 button functionality to this site so that anyone who thinks a post or page here is worthwhile can click it as a sort of approval rating. I have no intention of ever implementing the silly Facebook “Like” button.
Thanks to a coworker, I recently jumped into the pool that is Google Wave. (I couldn’t resist the water analogy.) While I find many of its features exciting and innovative, like many other people, I am still kind of struggling with it. The best thing I think it could do for me at the moment is to facilitate real-time collaboration. However, I don’t have anything right now — or anyone — that I need to collaborate with!
Just for kicks, I decided to start a public wave on the topic of UIUC GSLIS. With it in place, will anyone come? It’s too early to know for sure.
After about two weeks of dabbling, I can say that this service is very interesting but the beta label definitely applies. Stability isn’t its strong suit, yet. Neither is performance.
I’ve been saying “goodbye” — figuratively speaking, of course — to a lot of things I’ve used in the past. For instance, I recently said “goodbye” to using Firefox in favor of Google Chrome. Now I am saying goodbye to Flickr, a service I’ve used for many years.
Instead of Flickr, I plan to use Google’s Picasa Web Albums (PWA) for uploading and sharing my photos from now on (in addition to sharing them here on this blog.) The reason for this switch is simple: Google recently dropped the storage prices to ridiculously low levels. I’m able to pay $5 per year for 20 Gb of storage. Compare that to paying nearly $25 per year for Flickr. I realize that with Flickr, storage at the Pro account level is unlimited, but 20 Gb of storage on Google is way more than enough for all of my online photo albums.
I also realize that Flickr will remain a favorite of photography cognoscenti, and that my switch to PWA won’t hurt Flickr in any way. But there are several other reasons I made the switch besides the cost factor. Since it was first released, I have used Google’s free desktop photo application, Picasa. It is head and shoulders above just about every other similar software application out there, particularly with the latest release. I’ve tried a lot of other similar applications, including iPhoto, and I’ve decided that Picasa is the best for my needs. There is tight integration between Picasa and PWA, so this tilts the balance in favor of switching to PWA in my mind. In comparison, Flickr has all kinds of third-party plugins for uploading and downloading files and other stuff, and I’ve tried them all. Picasa is way ahead in this area and Flickr is at a significant disadvantage.
Also, because Picasa is available on Windows and Mac, I am able to interact with my photos no matter what computer I am using. This is critical. I can download photos from my cameras onto any of the computers I use, load them into Picasa, and then sync with PWA. I can then download them or sync them from PWA to Picasa on any other computer. I can do all this on my iPhone as well (for this, I use Pixelpipe).
Picasa Web Albums lacks many of the nice features that Flickr has, I’ll admit. For example, PWA only recently began to track number of views for each photo, as well as number of times a photo is “favorited.” This was built into Flickr and is much better executed. In PWA, for example, I can’t see a summary of this data. Instead I am only able to see it on an individual photo by photo basis. However, over the years I have become a bit frustrated with Flickr’s overall capabilities as well. Google’s Picasa has excellent face recognition, for instance. Flickr does not. Flickr’s overall interface is bland and somewhat stagnant (my opinion). Picasa Web Albums features much better geolocation capabilities. PWA also has tight integration with Google Contacts and Flickr doesn’t have anything to compare to this.
I’ve actually used both services for years. The only substantive thing holding me back from making the switch was the cost of storage on PWA. Now that it is set at a reasonable price, the decision was a no-brainer. (And did I mention that the extra storage I purchased for PWA can be used for all kinds of other stuff, not just for photos?)
Yesterday I quit using Firefox and switched completely to the dev channel for Google Chrome. The main reason for switching is that I got tired of waiting for Firefox to start up. I realize that it can be slow due to the number of extensions I have installed but the wait time is still ridiculous. This, after having heavily tweaked Firefox to get maximum speed.
Chrome has always been faster but it has not been my default choice before now because of its limited options for extensions that I really rely on such as IE View, AdBlocker, etc. Without support for those sorts of things, Chrome was compelling but not up to snuff. Now, things have changed.
My number one beef with browsers is load speed. Chrome addresses that, but it now does more. Support for extensions in the dev version, and the availability of key, useful extensions to use, make Chrome into my new default browser. It even has the ability now to have an IE view for any webpage, which is a must since many of the sites I use for work are built for IE (a really annoying practice, btw). Plus, I have an ad blocker, a nice Gmail notifier, a great Google Reader notifier, and even a built in Twitter reader/monitor. All of this comes with little to no performance hit.
Goodbye, Firefox.
There is so much buzz and hype surrounding the iPhone that it is rare for me to hear specifics about how useful it is in day to day tasks for other people.
Here is a list of the main features I use on my iPhone:
– a cell phone (duh)
– calendar (this is absolutely essential)
– password manager
– Internet browser
– camera
– note taking
– financial manager
– social network stuff like Twitter and Facebook
– keeping up to date via mobile version of Google Reader.
Not terribly exciting or innovative stuff, I know. But these features have become essential to me every day. Note that using the device as an iPod isn’t mentioned. I like having iPod capabilities but it turns out that I don’t use them that often.
Someone is spelling challenged here…I had a good laugh when I read the for sale item pictured in this screenshot taken from reading Craiglist in Google Reader this afternoon!
Recently I added a widget on the lower righthand side of FML for Google Friend Connect. Honestly I am not sure of how useful this feature will be but if you are interested please add yourself to my list of friends there.
Monday afternoon I accepted an offer to take a job in a different group within the library where I work. Basically what I’ll be doing is leading efforts to implement and expand search and taxonomy company-wide. A lot of work has already been done so I’ll need to get up to speed quickly on that. Also it is important to note that there is a whole team of people with whom I will be working on this large set of responsibilities. I have always felt it was a huge plus that the library group in my large, global company has been given the responsibility for search and taxonomy. That means that just about everywhere there is a search box on a page within our intranet or on external Internet sites, that is set up and maintained by the library.
This will probably be the most “un-library-like” job I have ever held. But I am ready for a new job and a new direction. I will still be working within the library but the scope of the job is much broader than that. One of the new things I’ll be doing is a lot of client development and managing client relationships as well as relationships with a new set of vendors. There is much more to it and frankly I don’t understand it all just yet. My official start date will by September 29 but I am already easing into the role and out of my existing one. This means that the next several weeks will probably be pretty crazy.
Why the change? Well, there are many reasons. Mainly, I have been looking for a way to get to another level of responsibility and this provides that. I have long wanted to try new things, to have a new set of challenges and learning opportunities. There is no question in my mind that libraries and information centers of all stripes need to have a great awareness of and involvement in search, especially in this Google era when everyone thinks search should be as easy to use as Google and just about everyone uses Google many times a day.
It seems to me that a lot of people in my company aren’t happy with search as it currently is established, so I hope that along with many others, I can help to improve that.
One of my work responsibilities is to maintain the Voyager integrated library system from Ex Libris. A new release (7.0) is now available and one of the features that is getting the most publicity is the new web interface to the catalog. It features dramatic architectural and feature improvements from its predecessor, as well as adding new features that weren’t possible before. The Voyager product manager and folks from Ex Libris customer support have posted several enthusiastic reports on new features to come on the Voyager discussion list (closed to customers only), and I think they are doing a fairly good job of trying to build excitement. Except that all that I’ve heard and seen so far leaves me cold.
Why? Well, although I definitely agree that there is much to like about the new interface, it’s not really that new. During my last stint at what was then Endeavor Information Systems three years ago, I participated in user studies at some existing Voyager customer sites that were based this same interface. The functionality and changes I see in the Voyager 7.0 web interface (a.k.a. WebVoyage) were all designed and finalized, as far as I can tell, three years ago. That’s light years in technology time.
Worse still, the things that are so “exciting” about this new interface (persistent URLs! WHoooHeee! — different “skins”! Oh my! — a truly simple, Google-like basic search! Isn’t that original!) are features that have been available and taken for granted in other systems for years. And they are ones that in some cases have been implemented better than what I have seen so far in Ex Libris’s Voyager offering.
Sorry, but this is just a new flavor of lipstick applied to an old pig. It would take a lot more than this to get me excited about this particular product again.