A family asked me for directions the other day, and I had no idea where the street they wanted was. But I pulled out my phone, which has Google Maps on it, and I did a search for the street they asked for, and wouldn't you know it they were only a few blocks away. I was able to give them directions to get there.
I have a Melways directory in the car. I don't use it so often now that I have Google Maps. And now that I have Google Maps on my mobile phone, I am even less likely to use it.
You can get Google Maps for your phone here. However, be warned that you have to have a data subscription on your phone account and it will use some of that data.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Friday, January 4, 2008
Myspace and Facebook
I have a Facebook account, though I don't think I am the type of person to have one. I'm a fairly private person. Unlike Myspace, however, I like that Facebook's privacy controls at least show that they care about privacy and acknowledge that there are a bunch of issues with people revealing this degree of private information about themselves.
Facebook lets you see what someone is up to without that person ever having to know. If you use Facebook, this is something you have to come to terms with. It's the same as with blogging, Twittering, or publishing anything on the web, except that it contains your real identity and your real name, and lots of personal information. You never know when someone you know is browsing around on your page to see what you are up to, and I don't know about the other punks but for someone like me that can be scary. It also treats all friends as equals, so you can't pick and choose which of your acquaintances will get to see which pictures, videos and notes.
Facebook is still a bit of an experiment for me. I use it because I kind of have to - there are people I know who only contact me through there. But it still makes me feel uneasy, which sucks.
Facebook lets you see what someone is up to without that person ever having to know. If you use Facebook, this is something you have to come to terms with. It's the same as with blogging, Twittering, or publishing anything on the web, except that it contains your real identity and your real name, and lots of personal information. You never know when someone you know is browsing around on your page to see what you are up to, and I don't know about the other punks but for someone like me that can be scary. It also treats all friends as equals, so you can't pick and choose which of your acquaintances will get to see which pictures, videos and notes.
Facebook is still a bit of an experiment for me. I use it because I kind of have to - there are people I know who only contact me through there. But it still makes me feel uneasy, which sucks.
Feed readers
People who use feed readers tend to use them extensively and wonder what they did without them. It helps people stay informed of all types of news from the newspaper headlines right down to small blogs, their friends' blogs, podcasts, what influential people are doing, product reviews, movies, music, TV programmes, and more.
People describe feed readers as replacing email lists, online forums or bulletin boards, and physical newspapers. All have some element of truth but none is completely accurate.
Here is my own explanation of feeds. I have tried to make it as simple as possible.
Without feeds, keeping up with what is new on, say, 50 separate websites is unmanageable. At best you could have 50 bookmarks in your browser and try to remember to visit them all regularly. You certainly couldn't visit all 50 each day.
If those websites provide a feed, however, you can subscribe to them in your feed reader instead. Then, instead of visiting all 50 websites each day, you simply open your feed reader in the morning. All new items from all 50 websites will be there in one place. You have not wasted your time visiting a bunch of websites only to find there is nothing new on them, and you have instant access to whatever is new on those that have updated.
Feeds are well used, but the problem is that all this use is only by a small minority of people who 'get it'. It's an incredibly difficult concept to understand, and there are a number of things which are to blame for this.
Firstly, there are so many different names and so many different (and competing) file formats for feeds. There are two quite separate formats both which are abbreviated to RSS, one standing for 'Really Simple Syndication' and another for 'RDF Site Summary', formerly known as 'Rich Site Summary'. Notice that neither is a particularly user-friendly name, and one even has another abbreviation, 'RDF', inside it, which offers no hope to the uninitiated. There is another format called 'Atom', which is separate again to RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and RSS (RDF Site Summary/Rich Site Summary). To make it difficult, some people refer to them all as 'XML', though technically XML can contain any file format, it has nothing to do specifically with feeds.
Secondly, people providing feeds to the unsuspecting public persist in giving them these inconsistent technical names, some sites describing them as 'RSS', others as 'Atom' and some as 'XML'. They usually provide no explanation of what they are, assuming I guess that the only people that will be using them will know the technical ins and outs already. Assuming that the only people who want to use them will already know about them is like giving up. It's admitting that feeds are unusable by the general public. But they needn't be like this.
Whereever possible, I refer to them as feeds. This is the most generic term I can think of that seems to get kind of close to describing what they do, and seems to used by others as well. I don't call them 'RSS', because that is jargon and specific to a certain technology; feeds need not even be in the RSS format. I don't call them XML, because that is not descriptive and it betrays a misunderstanding of what XML is. It also helps to add to people's confusion about XML in general.
I think one of the best things to happen with feeds sofar is when in 2005/2006, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera all agreed on a single icon to identify a feed. The icon chosen was one originally devised by the Mozilla team, who created Mozilla Firefox. The same icon, except blue instead of orange, has been adopted by the Safari browser for Mac OS.
Browsers now recognise feeds linked to a web page and offer a better way of subscribing to them; usually by clicking the orange button in the address bar or status bar of the browser. You still need a separate feed reader to get the most out of feeds, and web-based feed readers like Google Reader are getting pretty good. But at least the browsers are beginning to integrate at least a little bit of functionality for reading feeds.
Not all websites have adopted the standardised method for linking to a feed, and many continue instead to provide their own various 'XML', 'RSS' or 'Atom' buttons to identify feeds. This means that you can't simply click the browser's feed icon to subscribe to some feeds. In addition to this, a huge number of people still use Internet Explorer 6, which does not recognise linked feeds at all, making the subscription process more difficult.
I use my feed reader almost daily, and have subscribed to over a hundred feeds. In fact, I have subscribed to all of the feeds from people's 23 Things blogs as a way of keeping up to date with them, thus demonstrating how useful they can be. I have a handful of feed categories, including one category named 'Uninteresting', where I keep subscriptions from websites that don't really interest me, but I might look at if I have time to kill.
People describe feed readers as replacing email lists, online forums or bulletin boards, and physical newspapers. All have some element of truth but none is completely accurate.
Here is my own explanation of feeds. I have tried to make it as simple as possible.
Without feeds, keeping up with what is new on, say, 50 separate websites is unmanageable. At best you could have 50 bookmarks in your browser and try to remember to visit them all regularly. You certainly couldn't visit all 50 each day.
If those websites provide a feed, however, you can subscribe to them in your feed reader instead. Then, instead of visiting all 50 websites each day, you simply open your feed reader in the morning. All new items from all 50 websites will be there in one place. You have not wasted your time visiting a bunch of websites only to find there is nothing new on them, and you have instant access to whatever is new on those that have updated.
Feeds are well used, but the problem is that all this use is only by a small minority of people who 'get it'. It's an incredibly difficult concept to understand, and there are a number of things which are to blame for this.
Firstly, there are so many different names and so many different (and competing) file formats for feeds. There are two quite separate formats both which are abbreviated to RSS, one standing for 'Really Simple Syndication' and another for 'RDF Site Summary', formerly known as 'Rich Site Summary'. Notice that neither is a particularly user-friendly name, and one even has another abbreviation, 'RDF', inside it, which offers no hope to the uninitiated. There is another format called 'Atom', which is separate again to RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and RSS (RDF Site Summary/Rich Site Summary). To make it difficult, some people refer to them all as 'XML', though technically XML can contain any file format, it has nothing to do specifically with feeds.
Secondly, people providing feeds to the unsuspecting public persist in giving them these inconsistent technical names, some sites describing them as 'RSS', others as 'Atom' and some as 'XML'. They usually provide no explanation of what they are, assuming I guess that the only people that will be using them will know the technical ins and outs already. Assuming that the only people who want to use them will already know about them is like giving up. It's admitting that feeds are unusable by the general public. But they needn't be like this.
Whereever possible, I refer to them as feeds. This is the most generic term I can think of that seems to get kind of close to describing what they do, and seems to used by others as well. I don't call them 'RSS', because that is jargon and specific to a certain technology; feeds need not even be in the RSS format. I don't call them XML, because that is not descriptive and it betrays a misunderstanding of what XML is. It also helps to add to people's confusion about XML in general.
I think one of the best things to happen with feeds sofar is when in 2005/2006, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera all agreed on a single icon to identify a feed. The icon chosen was one originally devised by the Mozilla team, who created Mozilla Firefox. The same icon, except blue instead of orange, has been adopted by the Safari browser for Mac OS.
Browsers now recognise feeds linked to a web page and offer a better way of subscribing to them; usually by clicking the orange button in the address bar or status bar of the browser. You still need a separate feed reader to get the most out of feeds, and web-based feed readers like Google Reader are getting pretty good. But at least the browsers are beginning to integrate at least a little bit of functionality for reading feeds.
Not all websites have adopted the standardised method for linking to a feed, and many continue instead to provide their own various 'XML', 'RSS' or 'Atom' buttons to identify feeds. This means that you can't simply click the browser's feed icon to subscribe to some feeds. In addition to this, a huge number of people still use Internet Explorer 6, which does not recognise linked feeds at all, making the subscription process more difficult.
I use my feed reader almost daily, and have subscribed to over a hundred feeds. In fact, I have subscribed to all of the feeds from people's 23 Things blogs as a way of keeping up to date with them, thus demonstrating how useful they can be. I have a handful of feed categories, including one category named 'Uninteresting', where I keep subscriptions from websites that don't really interest me, but I might look at if I have time to kill.
LibraryThing
I was at the Innovative Ideas forum in Canberra and I saw Abby Blachly speak about LibraryThing.
I think the idea of social cataloguing is a good one and LibraryThing is obviously popular and well used, but I was skeptical about the ways it was trying to market itself to libraries. It offers an API which libraries can use to integrate a tag-based browsing feature or recommendations into a Library catalogue's web interface using small 'widgets'. However, it seems so walled-in and inflexible; a marketing exercise for LibraryThing intended to gain itself a reputation in the library community as being 'library-worthy', rather than a no-strings-attached offering to improve the experience of library web users throughout the world, which it appears to market itself as.
LibraryThing has a business model closely modelled on Flickr. It makes its money from users paying for yearly subscriptions, while offering users a reduced-functionality account, with a limit of 200 items among other things, for free. Like Flickr, it offers sharing, not of photos but of book collections: which books you have in your virtual 'library'. It collects information about books such as the tags various users have given the book, ratings and comments. It compiles some useful information. For example, LibraryThing is able to figure out recommendations for a certain book based on which other books the people who have given that book a high rating also liked.
I guess the thing that irks me is the way in which it markets itself to libraries, but is not flexible enough to provide something that will be really useful for library customers. It speaks about offering the usefulness of tag-based search to library catalogues, but the tags that appear link back to LibraryThing's website. In order to add a tag to a book, the end user needs to do so at LibraryThing's website, and have a LibraryThing account. Integration into library catalogues the world over will give LibraryThing a lot of new customers, and yet deliver a feature of dubious worth to the library catalogues themselves. If libraries want tag based browsing, they would be better off finding a system that will integrate into their own catalogue, rather than LibraryThing's, allowing their own users to define the tags and allowing the browsing to be better integrated into the user experience of the catalogue, rather than as a small widget that pops up a small separate LibraryThing-provided window.
As a social networking site I think it's pretty good, though I don't intend to use it. I already use other social sites which I am happy with, and I am not keen on paying money for an account if I were to get serious about cataloguing my books. I have more than 200 books, and am not really gripped by the idea of cataloguing them for the world to peruse.
I think the idea of social cataloguing is a good one and LibraryThing is obviously popular and well used, but I was skeptical about the ways it was trying to market itself to libraries. It offers an API which libraries can use to integrate a tag-based browsing feature or recommendations into a Library catalogue's web interface using small 'widgets'. However, it seems so walled-in and inflexible; a marketing exercise for LibraryThing intended to gain itself a reputation in the library community as being 'library-worthy', rather than a no-strings-attached offering to improve the experience of library web users throughout the world, which it appears to market itself as.
LibraryThing has a business model closely modelled on Flickr. It makes its money from users paying for yearly subscriptions, while offering users a reduced-functionality account, with a limit of 200 items among other things, for free. Like Flickr, it offers sharing, not of photos but of book collections: which books you have in your virtual 'library'. It collects information about books such as the tags various users have given the book, ratings and comments. It compiles some useful information. For example, LibraryThing is able to figure out recommendations for a certain book based on which other books the people who have given that book a high rating also liked.
I guess the thing that irks me is the way in which it markets itself to libraries, but is not flexible enough to provide something that will be really useful for library customers. It speaks about offering the usefulness of tag-based search to library catalogues, but the tags that appear link back to LibraryThing's website. In order to add a tag to a book, the end user needs to do so at LibraryThing's website, and have a LibraryThing account. Integration into library catalogues the world over will give LibraryThing a lot of new customers, and yet deliver a feature of dubious worth to the library catalogues themselves. If libraries want tag based browsing, they would be better off finding a system that will integrate into their own catalogue, rather than LibraryThing's, allowing their own users to define the tags and allowing the browsing to be better integrated into the user experience of the catalogue, rather than as a small widget that pops up a small separate LibraryThing-provided window.
As a social networking site I think it's pretty good, though I don't intend to use it. I already use other social sites which I am happy with, and I am not keen on paying money for an account if I were to get serious about cataloguing my books. I have more than 200 books, and am not really gripped by the idea of cataloguing them for the world to peruse.
Commenting on blogs
During the 23 Things I have added comments to a few people's blog posts, but it was sort of in my capacity as the guy who reads everyone's posts. I like to think that I've offered a little bit of encouragement. Of all the tasks in the 23 Things one of those I am most proud of is number 4, the one that requires people to comment on each others' blogs.
I have spoken before about why I think that's been a good idea.
When you are blogging, your cannot see your audience. You don't know if you are doing it all in vain, because most people will view your blog and not add a comment. You don't know how people are reacting to what you are writing. If you receive no comments, you may presume that nobody is interested, when in reality this could be far from the truth.
When running a blog, getting comments can be very difficult and this can be discouraging.
Getting comments on your blog makes blogging rewarding, by showing that at least someone is reading what you're writing. For someone that is new to blogging, I think this is a good head start. It shows what blogging can be like if people are commenting on your blog and helping to contribute and share.
I have spoken before about why I think that's been a good idea.
When you are blogging, your cannot see your audience. You don't know if you are doing it all in vain, because most people will view your blog and not add a comment. You don't know how people are reacting to what you are writing. If you receive no comments, you may presume that nobody is interested, when in reality this could be far from the truth.
When running a blog, getting comments can be very difficult and this can be discouraging.
Getting comments on your blog makes blogging rewarding, by showing that at least someone is reading what you're writing. For someone that is new to blogging, I think this is a good head start. It shows what blogging can be like if people are commenting on your blog and helping to contribute and share.
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