Just Checking In

Hi I'm Adam and I'm a slacker.

It's been far too long since I wrote anything here, or anywhere for that matter. So I thought it about time to sign in and give my web presence a bit of a check up. The Web 2.0 journey continues at a steady pace, however a few other changes in the 'Smoiled Sphere' have made it difficult to motivate myself to blog about it. Since I last wrote, I have built two websites (NEGlass.com.au and IntensitySports.com.au) and begun a couple of other opportunistic endeavours. You can check out the Smoiled Creations website if you can't wait for me to write about them here.

One day soon I will get around to doing a bit more of this. At least that's the plan

The Answers Are Here (Gmail, Google Apps, Google Analytics)

Since I first found and begun using Google Analytics, I have been addicted to watching the visitor stats of the various sites I administer. This blog is no exception and while I haven't really gone out of my way to advertise this Web 2.0 journey of mine, it continues to receive a steady trickle of traffic. The primary source of said traffic being search queries. Of the 80+ keyword combinations use to discover this blog, around 90% relate to Google Apps For Your Domain and more specifically, POP3 mail access. I'm not entirely certain how my earlier entry ended up so popular a result but who am I to argue?

As a result of this constant inquiry, I decided it was only fair that I do a bit of foot work on my own and try to do something useful for the poor souls that wander by. And so with no further ado I present below links to specific support pages on configuring POP3 in GAFYD:

General POP3 Access Information:
http://www.google.com/support/a/users/bin/topic.py?topic=10233

Enabling POP Access:
http://www.google.com/support/a/users/bin/answer.py?answer=13273&topic=10233

The key thing that differentiates GAFYD configuration from a standard Gmail account is that when entering your account name, you would enter yourname@yourdomain.com instead of yourname@gmail.com. Otherwise all the settings seem to be the same.

From my own point of view, since signing up for Google Apps I haven't really used the POP3 access provided. I did spend a couple of weeks syncing my accounts up with my PDA for use during my daily commute, but in the end I realised that I tended to check my e-mail more often from places I already had Internet access. Due to this I have since ditched the syncing and instead use my time offline to power through my daily feeds.

Of course should I someday find myself in need of offline access to my hosted e-mail, POP3 would certainly do the job. I would still prefer to use the glorious Gmail interface with the aid of Google Gears, but I don't think I'll be holding my breath.

Categories: Web2.0, GoogleApps, Gmail, Analytics

Travel 2.0 (Google Gears)

Those of you that read my personal blog should be well aware of my recent trip to Thailand. Although initially I suspected the Internets would be available sporadically throughout the trip, I was somewhat troubled by the prospect of limited or even no connectivity. Being a geek from bones to breath, the loss of permanent online goodness was something I needed to plan for carefully. Offline activity more reliant on a computer; backing up photos, keeping a journal etc, would be available through the laptop I was always taking so the only real problem was with my recent dependence on the world of Web 2.0.

Services such as Gmail, Flickr, and Blogger were all high on my list of essentials at least partially during my 11 days abroad. While I could have waited for my return down-under before sharing the experience with family and friends, I was very keen to keep them as up-to-date as time allowed. Packing a wireless card and network cable were a good start but the consistent access I have come to know was never going to happen no matter how much I prayed. Thus I was left with a choice, forget about it all together or make the most of what access I could get when I could get it.

During the later stages of my vacation planning, Google was thoughtful enough to release a new product that would help me through these troubling times. Google Gears provides a means of taking an online application such as Gmail and saving it locally for use offline. This leads to traditionally online only services being available to users during times when net access is a little hard to come by, such as during a flight or a trip to the Lost island. Currently the service is limited to few services, initially only Google Reader. Lucky for me, Google Reader is one service I use and access to RSS feeds was something I was keen to have while disconnected.

After installation and a hard refresh (Ctrl+F5) following a Firefox restart, I was up and running. My feeds downloaded surprisingly fast and were accessible offline with little to no change. Reverting to an online state synced up any changes made just as smoothly and things were back to normal. Satisfied that Gears would do the job, I performed one last sync before leaving for the airport.

It must be said that Gears delivers on it's promise of bringing Web 2.0 to the desktop. For a first release of a dramatically new and useful product, both the speed and reliability match that we've come to expect from the modern web. During my flights and free time I was able to whittle away at the 2000 or so new articles my Reader account had downloaded and when I could get online I was able to update the list. The only problems I had with the Gears were that embedded content such as images were not available when offline and accessing content via https (essential when logging in through public hotspots) was not synced with the default http service.

These petty issues aside, Google Gears provides a promising example of things to come. Of course I was still stuck with little access to the rest of my online life, but beggars can't be choosers. For anyone expecting some disconnected time away I can definitely recommend giving Gears a try. It's not exactly well supported yet, but hopefully this will change soon enough.

Categories: Web2.0, Travel, GoogleGears

Keeping It In The Family (Geni)

So I've left this whole blogging thing on the back burner for way too long. There's no excuse for it beyond laziness, but in case you're interested here's what I've been up to.

Another year begins and the world according to geeks continues to move. Instead of coping out again and writing another update post, I decided to just get on with it and talk about something new. So last week I signed up for a brand spanking new Web 2.0 service called Geni. Geni takes something everyone is introduced to during Primary school, the family tree, and puts a social network spin on it. The idea is fairly simple; you sign up and enter some details for your relations, adding e-mail addresses of these people invites them to join, ideally incorporating any additional details they may know, rinse and repeat. The idea of gathering information in this fashion intrigued me and after reading reports of an almost viral growth once the ball was rolling, I was keen to see how my family would get involved

The first thing that struck me about the site was how simple it was to start. I simply started adding my family members and in the background Geni created my account and e-mailed me the login details. It wasn't until I went to save what I had done that I realised it had already happened. Continuing on I entered in e-mail addresses for a my mum and a couple of sisters and sat back to see what would happen. It took a couple of days but eventually one of my sisters logged in and joined in the fun.

In the meantime I pondered on what more I should do. I had toyed with the idea of getting my partner involved, but the only option Geni had for this was to add her as a wife. Not being married I was fairly hesitant to add her in this way, but eventually curiosity got the better of me and I 'took my vows'. While members of my family shared my reluctance in further adding relations, my new 'wife' had no such qualms. The day following her invitation, the 'in laws' tree stretched to 60+ members with still more being added by her aunty. I can definitely see how Geni trees could quickly grow to immense sizes.

Unfortunately, as with most other Web 2.0 services Geni is still only a Beta and as many of its users have noted, there currently exist a number of limitations and 'related' issues. The previously mentioned wife issue has been raised by a number of sin living couples, limitations on 'tree merging' (or what I like to think of as inbreeding), adoption, exporting / printing, deletion and removal, have all been identified on the Geni blog. Of course to anyone familiar with cutting edge web apps this is all par for the course, but for everyone else (including my mother and sisters) it makes it difficult to trust in and want to spread the word about an otherwise awesome idea. Coupled with problems handling the massive influx in traffic and some magically disappearing images, and my chances of tracking down a rich long lost uncle getting on in the years are flailing fast.

Geni definitely talks the talk and looks the goods, but in its current beta state remains tough to sell. This of course completely undermines the ultimate viral goal of the service. I'll continue to try and get some more relatives involved, and maybe even make some time to add details myself, but until at least some of the issues are resolved I don't have high expectations of expanding my tree beyond those I already know.


Categories: Web2.0, Geni, Family, FamilyTree

Thanks For The Add!! (MySpace)

Long ago, in a place far, far away, a young man was hired by a bunch of spammers and asked to pimp their latest online service. That site was MySpace, and long have I dreaded this day.

MySpace has been around for a while now and up until recently I have avoided it like the plague. Partly because of the the reputation it has as being a hangout for teenagers and people who like to hang out with teenagers, but also because every time I stumble across someone's profile the overwhelming ugliness drives me away. I guess its safe to say then that I did not hold MySpace in very high standing. Unfortunately a number of my friends didn't share my distaste for the uglier side of the Internet and begun setting up profiles of their own. As a result I was left with a decision; ignore this and become an outcast to my closest friends or swallow my pride and join in. Using this project as an excuse I took the plunge and created an account.

The initial sign up process was much as I have come to expect, enter an email address, choose a password, tick a few check boxes and you're in. From this moment onwards you are drawn into a dangerous world of never ending information requests; What is your height /weight / address / favorite movie / blood type? It doesn't seem to end. Its a concern that there are people out there more than willing to upload this kind of information without thinking about who can access it, but more disheartening is that there are others actively seeking out this kind of information for there own twisted purposes. Once through the personal info minefield I was able to start customising my profile.

I uploaded an avatar image, entered some more personal information and figured I was about done. Checking out the profile though, everything looked very bland and there didn't seem to be anywhere to make it look all pretty like everyone else's. No problems, I just clicked on the out of place looking animation on anyone's profile page advertising where they got their custom layout from. It soon became apparent that all this styling resulted from some shifty CSS coding, so armed with a friends example I set out to make my own. After an hour or so of style sheet hacking and looking around Flickr for a usable image, I had something I was fairly content with. To say the process was easy would be a lie.

MySpace seems to have something against anyone from within the online development community, which seems explains the resentment commonly express. Sure you can link to external image or flash source, but try and include some javascripting and you are shot down. Similarly if you want to include a custom style sheet on your page, there is obvious area to add your code you simply have to append it to the bottom of an existing information area. And don't even get me started on the horrendous table based layout and how difficult it makes any CSS changes.

Working with other online services is also somewhat of a taboo as I am yet to discover any way to export anything entered and a MySpace account is needed to view things such as pictures. Understandable as user generated content is their bread and butter, but annoying to anyone that may wish to move there photos, blog entries or movies to another service; something you would definitely want to do as additional features such as video uploads and blogging can't compare to those offered by more specialised Web 2.0 services.

So why the hell is MySpace so popular? The one thing I've found that MySpace does well is Social Networking. I haven't spent much time Socially Networking, but its hard to fault the MySpace friends system. Find your friends via name, e-mail or user name, ask to be added to their friends list and wait for a response. Simple and effective, a nice change from pretty much everything else MySpace offers and certainly something many find addictive.

On the whole, MySpace has turned out to be pretty much what I expected, a bloated and ungainly yet sadly popular social networking service. The one thing that will continue to bring me back though is the same thing that got me involved in the first place, my friends. I just hope they stop embedding auto playing music.


Categories: Web2.0, MySpace

They're All Against Me!

A number of friends have been unknowingly compelling me to join a 'Web 2.0' scene I am none too keen on. I will post on this shortly but in the meantime check this out to see what I'm up against and how I feel.

Categories: Personal, MySpace

The New Black (Google)

The superstars of Web 2.0; Flickr, Digg, Blogger et al, have made their way into the hearts of millions on the back of the 2.0 phenomenon. There is one player that continues to draw me however; Google. Looking back over the 20 or so posts I have made, Google continues to pop up and although I try to avoid the big G, it is becoming increasingly difficult. It seems that almost every week something new released as to beta and improvements on existing products have not slowed. The last couple of weeks in particular have brought with it a number of Google orientated announcements, some of which I will attempt to cover here.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets::

Micro$oft Office has had a strangle hold on the office application arena for what seems like forever. More recently there have been a number of Web 2.0 ventures attempting to change this by releasing free online alternatives. Courtesy of the purchase of Writely, Google has thrown its hat into the ring and come up with Docs & Spreadsheets. Not the most inventive of names, but it certainly does what you would expect. Signing in with a Google account you can create or upload any number of documents and spreadsheets, editable from within any modern browser. It is impossible not to compare Google Docs & Spreadsheets with M$ Office but whether or not this is a fair fight is up for debate. What Google's efforts lacks in features it makes up for in online elements. One of the biggest draw cards of Docs & Spreadsheets are the collaboration tools. I was initially skeptical as to how useful this would be, but after a couple of weeks of experimentation, the ability to share a document between work mates, the missus etc, has been useful more than once. This service is yet to prove itself fully, a number of common M$ Office features are yet to make an appearance, and it will take some time for users to get used to doing these type of activities in a browser, but for some it may be an effective an cheap solution. Particularly if collaboration with others across the wider web-o-verse is something they would use.

Google Analytics::

Its one thing to setup and run a website, blog or other online outlet, but actual getting something useful out of it all is a completely separate dilemma. One tool that every good web developer needs is some way of gathering statistics on visitors. Most web servers include tools for this but analysing the potentially massive amounts of data for any purpose remains difficult at best. Recently stepping up to the plate is Google Analytics, providing an all in one tool for... wait for it... analysing statistics. As with most free online statistic tools you simply have to create an account and add some javascript into your page source to start the collection process. Once the data starts to come in, Analytics starts to get its groove on.
Using Flash based widgets, a number of graphs surmising visitor information is quickly displayed. Interaction and beauty makes the service extremely attractive to even the most hard-core site owner. This is just the start though. Google Analytics takes site stats to the next level, providing a level of reporting detail unheard of in a free service. There are a bunch of awesome features here, but one that really stand out to me is 'Conversion Goals'. Conversion goals allow for specific user activities to be tracked, e.g. a certain page being reached. This is particularly designed for marketing purposes but in its simplest form it provides a powerful way of seeing how your site is used or could be improved.
Any size site could benefit from the power of Google Analytics. Although the service is free, I am yet to see any alternative, free or otherwise, that provides anywhere near the depth and customisation.

GooTube::

YouTube hit the Web 2.0 radar and just would not stop. It would be completely redundant of me to write too much on its evolution from zip to the most bandwidth hungry site on the net, so I won't. Instead I would like to share a few thoughts on Google's multi-billon dollar acquisition of the service. For months the blogosphere was full of the feeling that YouTube had grown too big for anyone to consider buying. Google sure showed them, but at what cost? The risk of legal boffins deciding to chase a piece of the Google pie in copyright infringements is way too big to ignore. The fact that they already possessed a highly popular video service competing directly must make inter-company politics a little uncomfortable. All in all it is hard to see the point to Google's purchase of YouTube, but who am I to argue. All I can say is, congratulations Chad, Steve and Jawed, I take my hat of to you and hope your baby doesn't go too far down the GoogleTube road.

Acquisitions and continual product releases have helped Google remain headline news through out the online community. Some, including a co-founder, believe the rapid expansion and evolution of the company is detrimental, but the truth is that it continues to keep the interest of geeks across the world and thus far nothing has suffered as a result. Provided the forward momentum doesn't begin to impact on existing products I will close watch on and try out Google's ever growing list of services. I wonder though, is it better to spend $1.65 billion on an existing product or spend $1.65 billion on developing something yourself. When I have that kind of cash to burn I'll let you know.

Categories: Web2.0, Google, Docs&Spreadsheets, Analytics, YouTube

So Close.. Yet No Where Near

Isn't it always the way, you get to the last hurdle and fall flat on your face. I managed to post 6 days in a row, but today it just didn't happen. 6 out of 7 isn't too bad but a Heptagon with 6 sides is just a lame old Hexagon. Oh well, guess I'll just have to do an extra post next week.

Categories: Personal, Blogging

A Newspaper Every Second (RSS)

I first started hearing about RSS (Really Simple Syndication / Insert Acronym Of Choice) during my final years of uni. Back then it was a new technology, under trial by a select few as a means of providing and accessing online content without having to go directly to the source. Having far too many more important things on my mind (thesis, girlfriend & beer) I took little notice thinking it looked too complicated for something an elite few would use. Fast forward to the here and now and I find myself surrounded by RSS feeds from everywhere imaginable. How wrong was I?

Whereby once I would have opened a dozen or more IE windows to read the news from my favourite sites, now I simply fire up an RSS reader and peruse them in one consistently formatted location. Although I have been taking advantage of this new technology for a while now, more recently it has begun to dominate my personal online time. There are now at least 3 ways in which I directly access RSS feeds on a day to day basis: my PDA, Google Reader and via live bookmarks in Firefox.

I'll start with my PDA. The only chance I get to really sit down and read through the latest news is first thing in the morning; over breakfast and during the train ride to work. Using an RSS reader installed on my PDA I download a number of feeds via my home wireless network and read them while offline and on the move. As I don’t have all day to read news feeds, I try and limit the number of items I download to around 100 (Unfortunatly this is rearly the case). I have tried a couple of different Pocket PC based readers in the past, but currently I am using pRSSreader and have found it reliable and well featured.

Once at work the first thing I do is load up Firefox. As mentioned earlier this week, my homepage includes the Google Labs Reader module. I could quite easily load in an excessive number of feeds, however in the interest of productivity (read: avoiding work all day) I have only added two feeds here; Digg for general geek announcements and Techeblog for geeky pretties. The major benefit of using the Google Reader is that I am presented with a updated feeds everytime I open my homepage.

Lastly, Firefox (and most other recent browsers) provides an inbuilt feature known as live bookmarking. By saving a feed as a live bookmark, Firefox is able to display the latest content from each site as it's own link. For my purposes, this means that I can add as many feeds as I want to the browser I am using, and quickly check the latest headlines whenever I get a free moment. I tend not to check these feeds terribly often, but it provides a nice way to catch up with news when those rare free moments arise.

RSS has revolutionised the way in which many net savy folks, including myself, access online content. From a user point of view it makes keeping up with the latest news and information infinently easier and further developments in this technology are inevitable. Personally, I would struggle to return to a life without RSS and feel the pinch evertime I leave my PDA at home. Once I stop this whole post a day caper I will post an OPML list of the feeds I subscribe to, and if in the meantime you have any suggestions for more, feel free to mention them in the comments.

Categories: Web2.0, RSS, News

There Must Be A Bloody Big Hole Somewhere (Digg)

A while back Digg.com under went an overhaul moving to what they have dubbed Digg v3. Although this is old news now, and every geek worth his salt has taken stock of the spiffy AJAX enhanced features, my experience may have been a little different for I am one of 'the cursed freeloaders'. No news to anyone that has read my past entries, but after the accusations made during the lead up to Digg v3 I thought it was important to get my position out there.

I have been reading user submitted news sites such as Slashdot for many a year now, and recently added Digg to my ever expanding list of 'pre-work coffee fueled reading'. Initially I treated Digg much the same as Slashdot; checking headlines once a day and reading the remaining posts as time permitted. It quickly became apparent though that Digg was a different kind of beast and as such my approach slowly evolved to something a little more frantic, checking the top stories numerous times a day just in case I missed a vital tid-bit. Eventually I worked Digg into my new homepage, but due to the shear mass of news pumping through every day I still cant help checking it more often then I should.

What sets Digg apart from more traditional news sites is its reliance on community input. All stories on Digg are posted by users and are promoted depending of the response of the rest of the community. Ultimately this makes Digg self sustaining and governing that never stagnates. Of course, if all the users or top users were to stop submitting and 'Digging' the whole thing would fall apart. Luckily this doesn't look like it will be happening anytime soon as Digg continues to go from strength to strength, rocketing Kevin Rose (one of the founders) to superstar status. As the community is dominated by geeks, the stories tend to be closer to 'news for nerds' than 'stuff that matters', but this doesn't really bother me as it is what my life revolves around. As part of the version 3 update attempts were made to broaden the news coverage, but short of the announcement of Steve Irwin's death, the top stories remain technology oriented (often including Digg itself).

There are an ever increasing number of Digg clones (the most well known being Netscape's blatant rip-off) being released, but new tools, awesome styling and the overwhelming support of its users has left the best on top. Even in the face of criticism, Digg has never faltered and remains a top source for up to the minute news. I have tried contributing to the community as much as possible since creating my account, but when faced with a seemingly insurmountable wall of news, signing in and digging the stories I read does not always happen. I'm far from shirking my freeloader nature, but I have hopes that one day I will come to grips with my fears and maybe even post a story or two of my own.

Categories: Web2.0, Digg, News