Wu Wei

Plaxo error messages

I just got this message when I tried to click through to a comment:

Oops!

There seems to be a problem. I'll tell you what... let us fix it and this can be our little secret. Please wait 30 seconds and try again.

Whilst it's nice not to get a computer-speak message, I'm not really sure about the "our little secret" bit. 

Technorati Tags: Plaxo, error message, our little secret

Cuil: all media hype and a long way to go

The search engine Cuil seems to have been launched with quite a lot of hype see here for example, claiming it searches more pages than Google and that its indexing of the content of the page rather than just serving up the popular pages like Google makes it more useful.

I can't say I found that on a test this morning.

It looks pretty and was easy to use. The results displayed in columns was easier to use. The use of more colour and images made the lists easier to scan and select.

The FAQs explained mostly what I wanted to know, and how it might help me.

OK, it seemed to have found my blog, but not directly. It pulled pages from a bookmarking program I use and from the counter on the blog.

In the interest of research I entered two of my regular searches for obscure names from genealogy research but it had nothing to offer there. It did pull up quite unrelated pages for pornography (so much for Safe Search being on) and a used car webpage. Again Google managed many more pages.

I then gave it a search for "Energy Community Treaty" for which there should be a lot of results. OK it knew that this was an EU Treaty but it couldn't actually find the text or a webpage that refered to the Treaty. So not a lot of use really, compared with Google which picks up the text, the latest news and the portal for the Treaty Secretariat.

So not much use in the areas it claims to be better than Google.

Technorati Tags: SEO, search engine, cuil

Monitoring what we do

I got this week's Economist (meaning June 7-13th) on time ie the Wednesday afterwards, which is not bad for Tbilisi when sometimes it doesn't come at all. It came with the previous week's edition so it has taken me some time to catch up. I faced a difficult decision: whether to read the Technology Quarterly (one of my favourites) first or the EU Enlargement section in the earlier week's edition. In the end chronology won out and I read the Technology section with a leisurely Saturday lie-in and breakfast.

Some inconsistency in the content!

The first page begins with a review of controversial ad-targeting systems which monitor information about your browsing habits without asking you. This is a serious issue, not least because one of the noisiest proponents (no I don't see why I should give you free publicity) has a rather squalid history in its earlier life, whatever it says now.

Later on we find a review of new internet products to help with navigation on the web. I will name this one, because of what I found. It's called Hyperwords, comes free, and seems to be a sort of research project by a Norwegian computer scientist, though the agreement you have to sign before using it looked American and they have an office in London.

Before I downloaded the software (it only works with Firefox at the moment) I read the reviews on Firefox and found I had stumbled on another of these products that send information about what you are doing online. The balance of the reviews seems to be favourable so I downloaded it. Seems to work OK, looking up links instantly on a right-click. It's a bit like Snapshot, but set by you not the author of the page, so you can choose anything on the page and click, not just the hyperlinks built in.

It seems the Economist reviewer did not read other reviews or think it worth to mention that the software is also monitoring what you are doing. On the Firefox Download page, there are 57 reviews including:

Hyperwords says this:

Please note that we only track commands and not your words or websites. So do not worry. If you have any queries please Skype me: fleurski

fleur,
The Hyperwords Company

A recent (enthusiastic) user says this:

Ehh... so it phones home anonymous usage information. You use google right? Well.. there ya go. If you google, you're also phoning home usage information. -- I still don't figure why this is a big concern for most people as this information (for the most part) is used to better how information is provided to our browsing experience in the "Grand Scheme" of things... blah!

Another user said:

I got suspicious when I noticed the url that results from a Google search. I was wondering if this url was tracking a referral from Hyperwords. When I tried to delete the standard Google search that comes with this add-on and create my own custom Google search, I got a message saying I can only use the standard Google search. So, I am convinced that Hyperwords has a relationship with at least some of the sites that come standard with this add-on and perhaps gets some financial reimbursement based on the number of referrals. I avoid add-ons that I believe have built-in financial incentives to the authors to send me to a particular site. I know that many web pages make money from referrals and that is a big part of business on the web, but I don't want my browser itself to be commercialized in that way.

Otherwise the reviews are rather enthusiastic (meaning rave).

From the right-click on ANY group of words on a page you can search, find a reference on Wikipedia, translate (into a rather limited set of languages for my purposes), convert currencies (ditto), blog (ditto). However I can see lots of times I could use it, just to find information "inpage" or "inmenu" like Snapshots without leaving the page you are on.

For example the right-click blog menu allows you to blog the selection, search for blog posts about it on a range of sites like Technorati, and subscribe to RSS through several RSS newsreaders, including Netvibes, which is not always included. The right-clicking seems to be not always compatible with other Firefox add-ons like ScribeFire which I am using now, but it works fine on other pages I have tried.

So see what you think.

More books

Haven't had much time for book cataloguing recently. My books are in Oxford, I'm in Tbilisi. Too much of a backlog to allow for buying new books. Not much time even to read them.

But today I managed to add a few to my list on Librarything, which is a wonderful online cataloguing system for books. I first found it on Stepping Stones blog (though it's gone now) and I quickly became addicted as it is so easy, and you can even get an ISBN scanner. What's more it has just got a lot better and easier. They are busy adding library catalogues from across the world, as well as linking to Amazon etc. That means that most of your books are already on there complete with the covers, so all you have to do is type in the title and author (or scan the ISBN) and there is your book, complete with links to reviews by other Librarythingers.

There are 25 million books in the catalogue with coming up to half a million members. Plus there is all the social networking stuff and opportunities to look at other people's libraries, including famous (live and dead) people.

The largest private library to date is 40,000 books. In my humble way I was pleased to see that our family total (around 1750) makes me number 1765 in size of library. There's a widget on the side of my blog showing a random selection of the books. It constantly surprises me about books I have forgotten I have got.

It also comes in several languages, encouraging people to add books from several national libraries in Europe.



Technorati Tags: Librarything, books, online library, online catalogue

Not so fatal error?

Some websites have better error messages than others.

This from Librarything in which I catalogue my books.

Error: Rampaging elephant error. Hide the peanuts and try again later.

And there was me thinking it was just a slow connection.

Technorati Tags: error messages

Are you on Facebook?

Testing the feed to Facebook

Doesn't seem to appear on Facebook very quickly, if at all

Wireless in the bathroom

This post comes to you courtesy of the bathroom in my hotel room.  In Belgrade there were days when I could only connect to the wireless by putting my laptop on the fridge.  Here in Nicosia (or Lefkosia as we seem to call it this side of the Green Line) the internet and wireless work fine in the morning on my desk in the middle of the room, but by the evening to get a good signal, I have to retreat to my bathroom which has the advantage of a basin set in a worktop which makes a fine substitute desk.  Please explain why, some techie reading this.

I also  get an ear on the next door's conversation through the ventilation grille, but since it is in Turkish, I am not really entertained.

While we are on technical subjects could someone explain why an optical mouse won't work on a cream stone worktop?  I can understand why it doesn't work on glass, but stone?

More random facts about life in North Cyprus:

like the rest of Cyprus they have those UK 3 pin plugs, which is really inconvenient for us continental types (even at home I use an adapter and a continental extension lead so I don't forget and leave an essential bit behind);

please don't write about Cyprus, or your blog will be blocked like Megan Case.  Trying to read her blog I got this big notice:

Bu siteye erişim mahkeme kararıyla engellenmiştir.

T.C. Fatih 2.Asliye Hukuk Mahkemesi 2007/195 Nolu Kararı gereği bu siteye erişim engellenmiştir.

Access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/195 of T.C. Fatih 2.Civil Court of First Instance.

Somehow I don't think it would be worth appealing, though it is kind of them to quote that it is only the Court of First Instance.

Technorati tags: North Cyprus, blog censorship, wireless

Dopplr

Just found some great software called Dopplr. It's for frequent travellers and intended as a social network but also to enable you to find where your friends are travelling when so you can actually meet them on the way.

I once spotted ViolainVilnius on the front row of a concert in Kiev when neither of us knew we were working in Kiev. Ever since then I have been wishing there was someway to keep in touch. Some people tell you on Skype or Facebook, but that's usually too late for planning journeys to meet in airports.

Anyway Dopplr looks like it might do the trick. At the moment it's in beta and you need an invite to get to use it. But now I'm subscribed I can hand out any number of invites to my friends. Not much to see on the website until you get an invite.

Send me an email if you want to try it.

Google Maps

Here is a not very interesting mapof where my next trips will be. It's really an attempt to play with Google Maps which now has tools for embedding maps in webpages. It would be nice to be able to set the scale properly, but I can't seem to work out how yet.

View Larger Map

All you need to know about RSS

Or perhaps this should be called "all I know about RSS".

You don't need to know anything about RSS if

• you don't have a computer
• are quite happy keeping in touch with your friends by email or snail mail
• read a newspaper or watch television to get any news you are interested in
• don't know about blogs and don't want to read them
• you are quite happy rooting around with google to find things

This is not to imply you are in some way Luddite, just that your dynamics are different to those people who use RSS.

So here are the RSS FAQs.  (Lost already?  No hope for you, then.)

1.  What does RSS stand for? "Really simple syndication".  Now that really helped, didn't it?  Try here, then.  If it's good enough for the BBC, then it's good enough for me.

2.  What does syndication mean, and why do I want it?  Syndication is just another word for broadcasting or spreading stuff throughout the internet.  If you have a blog you want stuff to go to your readers automatically, and you want new readers to find your blog easily.  If you want news you want it to come to you automatically, not to have to search on google for it.

3. What is a (news) feed?  It's the way the news gets to you, as soon as it is published by a website eg on the BBC, or on a blog.  It's like a wire that the news travels down directly to you. 

4. What do I need to read a feed?  The really essential part is a computer connected to the internet.  If you only have dial-up internet, then you will only get updates when you connect, just like for email.  However there's not much point really is there?  If you really want the news NOW, then you have to have broadband and have your computer on all day to get the updates.  Now you can see that it's not for everyone.

The other thing you need is some free software called a feed reader (or news aggregator).  You can use Yahoo, or Google or MSN (even) or Newsgator.  I use Netvibes because I have it as my desktop.  I can do lots of other things with it as well, like have a page of work news separate from my fun blogs, so I don't read the wrong stuff all day.

5. What does a feed look like?  If it's from your blog, then it looks like your blog.  Well it has the titles of the latest posts and you can click on each and see the rest of the post.  Some feedreaders like Netvibes allow you to see the website, so each post looks just like on the website.

If it is the news, then it looks like a list of news headlines that you can skim and just read the ones you are really interested in.

As an example, I have given my friend Beate a free plug by putting her feed in the sidebar  of my blog.  So you can read her blog, while reading mine.  So go find Music and Life Everywhere on the side bar. It's just above the big orange button.  

Actually Typepad doesn't do a very good job in displaying the feed, there are only headlines and no box round it.  Boo to Typepad.  I'm really not good enough at HTML and CSS to fix that up.

6.  Do I have to do anything to set up a feed for my blog?  No, most blog platforms do it automatically.  But there are several different types of feed with names like Atom, RSS 2.0, XML, so they can blind you with science.  Stick an orange RSS button on your blog and all is solved.  

7. And where do you get the orange button from?  The simplest is the best.  Go to Feedburner (costs nothing, but you need an account) and get some bling for your blog.  Follow the instructions to find your feed, then choose the "publicise" tab to put stuff on your blog to make it easier for people to connect to their own feedreader.  That's where I got this stuff:

8.  How do I find the feed on a blog?  Are you blind?  It's in the orange button.  Most feedreaders allow you to put the blog URL in a search box and it will find the feed itself, without you even going to the blog. 

9.  How do I find a news feed as opposed to a blog feed?   Well, how many do you want and how difficult is it to choose?  Go here and the BBC will give you a start with 26 different sets of news.  Now do you think you will really have time to read them all? 

So what's the fuss all about?  Wouldn't you like this on your computer?  All my "fun" feeds and a few news feeds as well, all in one place, easy to see what's new.  Because Netvibes has tabs (did I mention I like Netvibes?) I have a tab for techie feeds (for when I'm really bored),  a tab for Bosnian feeds (because I'm working there), a tab for Lebanon feeds (because I might be working there and need to know more what it's like), and a tab for Russian feeds because all human life is there. 

As you can see, all the feeds are in boxes which you can expand to read the headlines. Then you can read the actual post, which expands to fill the page.  It's all so easy.

And now I must go to check it out again.  Anything's better than working.

Technorati tags: RSS, feed readers, news aggregators, blogs, BBC, news feeds, blog feeds, Netvibes, Feedburner