Q.15 This week your assignment is about web personalisation. I want you to take a stand on personalisation – either for it or against it. Then write 250-300 words explaining your position, providing objective evidence to back up your opinion. Ensure that you use your own arguments and thinking. As usual there are extra marks when you illustrate your points with images, and extra marks when you give appropriate examples of what is good or bad about personalisation with links to web sites showing good and/or bad practice.

This is the final assessment in this module, where you post to your blog. Please keep your blog live until July 2010, in case the external examiners need to view it.

Personalisation:

I would have to be for personalisation, after using Facebook and now iGoogle as my homepage. Lets look into more detail, starting by looking at iGoogle personalised for myself on my computer. The image below is the screenshot of my iGoogle:

iGoogle allows personalisation, with themes and gadgets based around your google search box.  This is really only the start of personalisation, as there are many more forms of it used on the web.  Web personalisation is one of the most popular web intelligence techniques used by E-commerce business’ to help them improve a user’s experience and increase the business’ profit margins.  Web personalisation can be known as a way to tailor, the end users experience over the web to suit their needs.  Company like Amazon personalise the end user’s amazon page to illustrate things they might like to buy based on previous purchased items.  I think this is a very effective way of using the facillities open to companies on the web.  I like when purchasing items on amazon that I am shown related products, that sometimes are actually worth while recomendations.  It helps to make the end user of products that are out their, that they may not be aware of, but would purchase if they knew.  Below shows my amazon page, with recomendations after items I have purchased:

Another reason for being all for personalisation on the web is due to sites like Facebook and Twitter.  Facebook allows a user to have multiple friends along with a wall where comments can be placed from friends.  Facebook also allows you to select whose posts you would like and not like to see shown on your live feed.  This is a great example of personalisation, where you can see what you want to see, and hide the rest from sight.   I personally think that this dynamically enchances an end users connection with web technologies.  Why? You might ask?  That was just my opinion but say there was no personalisation to suit your needs, using facebook for illustration, I would have to see friends make status updstes every 10 minutes, that would drive me to get rid of facebook!  That is a key mistake for companies that make such sites, as they will lose an audience and revenue.  I think that shows why I am for personalisation on the web, or it could be because I like things to be personal to me instead of a wide audience.  I feel that it means more and relates better to your situation.

Today I unexpectedly discovered all of the Wall Street Journal’s Twitter lists.

Won’t setting these all up via RSS to be fed into my Google Reader and iGoogle account excite Mr. Murdoch even further?

Scanning all of the Wall Street Journal feeds (and now their listees) in one homogeneous format like an iGoogle page should make identifying the articles I would like to read much easier than trying to visually strip out all of the extraneous information that usually occupies the Wall Street Journal’s homepage.

@WSJ/news Get the latest breaking news headlines from top news organizations on Twitter.	Following: 16 Followers: 111
@WSJ/all-things-digital Twitter list with writers from All Things Digital (ATD).	Following: 3 Followers: 51
@WSJ/economics A collection of tweeters discussing the latest on the economy and its recovery.	Following: 22 Followers: 73
@WSJ/wall-street-journal Get the latest headlines and breaking news alerts from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).	Following: 60 Followers: 36
@WSJ/wsj-economy The Wall Street Journal’s economics reporting team on Twitter.	Following: 9 Followers: 30
@WSJ/wsj-politics The Wall Street Journal’s latest tweets on politics and policy.	Following: 6 Followers: 43
@WSJ/politics A collection of VIP tweeters discussing U.S. politics and policy on Twitter.	Following: 18 Followers: 19
@WSJ/entertainment	Following: 13 Followers: 20
@WSJ/world-news Get the latest headlines on world events from the Wall Street Journal and more.	Following: 11 Followers: 16
@WSJ/wsj-staff A comprehensive list of eporters, editors and columnists from the Wall Street Journal.	Following: 66 Followers: 155
@WSJ/business	Following: 11 Followers: 43
@WSJ/iran-elections Tweeters discussing Iranian elections.	Following: 7 Followers: 6
@WSJ/healthcare Tweets on healthcare, including updates from the Wall Street Journal’s health team.	Following: 7 Followers: 26
@WSJ/investing Tweets on investing. Woot!	Following: 17 Followers: 21
@WSJ/wsj-life-style-staff The Wall Street Journal’s Life & Style reporters, editors and columnists.	Following: 8 Followers: 23
@WSJ/autos	Following: 8 Followers: 5
@WSJ/sports-news The latest tweets in sports. Football. Basketball. Baseball. Hockey. NASCAR. Soccer.	Following: 16 Followers: 8
@WSJ/wsj-news The latest headlines from the Wall Street Journal.	Following: 36 Followers: 19
@WSJ/wsj-blogs The latest from the Wall Street Journal’s blog coverage.	Following: 22 Followers: 22
@WSJ/future-of-news The Wall Street Journal’s Alan Murray and his list of top tweeters discussing the future of news.	Following: 13 Followers: 67

I’ve enjoyed posting interesting things to the blog, and I hope you have enjoyed a few of the things you’ve read here.

If you spend much time at all on the Internet, you know there are temptations just a click away.  And I’m not just talking about sins of the flesh – there is really awful theology in cyberspace, along with dangerous people you can talk to (and with whom you can easily become emotionally attached).

One of the things I’ve done is to try and create some walls that give me enough space to play so I have enough to read but not so much that I get overwhelmed.  The tool I use for this is an iGoogle page.

Google allows you to create a personalized page for free.  You can add content to it, add additional pages, and make it look however you want.

If you notice on my page here, I have the weather on the right side of the page so I can see at a glance how hot/cold it will be today, and I have several locations loaded as well.

On the left side you see my Google bookmarks.  These are links to the web sites I like to visit frequently.  I like to think of these as my walls.  As long as I’m going to these places only, I need not worry so much.  I can add or subtract links whenever I want.

One of the things that I recently discovered is that I can add a box that automatically shows when a new article has been posted on a particular website.  It works the opposite of the links in a sense.  With a link, you click on it to go to a particular web site.  You don’t know if there is anything new there, you just go & see.

With this technology, called RSS, anytime the content changes, you are informed.  The three most recent links are there, by title.

If you want to know more about setting up an iGoogle page or an RSS feed to it, give me a buzz.

If you’re anything like me (and since you’re reading this post, you probably are), you do one of two things upon booting-up your computer: 1) Open your browser, or 2) open your e-mail client – if it’s not your browser.  Being online / networked is pretty much a necessary part of computing.  If you don’t believe me, just unplug your network cable, and turn off your WiFi.  I can assure you the experience won’t be very satisfying.

There’s one company that gets it, and as far as I’m concerned, is leading the movement to Software As A Service (SaaS) for the general internet user: Google.  I’m still really new to using a lot of Google’s services and applications outside of Search, but here’s what I can tell you so far.  These services are easy to setup, they’re pervasive, and they simply work.  You hearing this, Microsoft?  My Google odyssey began with my reading of Six Pixel’s Of Separation by Mitch Joel.  In his book, Mitch writes about personal branding, and being able to leverage Web 2.0 services to grow your personal (and your business’) brand.  The first step to doing this is to be aware of what people are saying about you or your business online.  Here’s what I did…

• Setup a Gmail account: Even if you have an existing e-mail account, or two or three.  The gmail account is the account name that will be employed to utilize many of Google’s services.  Don’t forget to review all your contacts to see if any of them have gmail accounts.  If so, invite them as friends.
• Setup Google Alerts: It’s important to know what people are saying about you and where.  With the Google Alerts service, you can literally have Google notify you (on a frequency you determine), when your name is mentioned… pretty much anywhere on the internet.  You can also setup notifications for other important words or phrases, like the title of your blog, or important events, etc.  You can obviously configure the Alerts to go to your newly created Gmail account.
• Checkout iGoogle: This will replace your typical ‘Classic View’ Google search page.  It has all sorts of applets and widgets that you can configure based on your preferences.  Basically, tailoring the Google page to your own personal preferences.  Note: it may take a little longer to load the page than before, so you will have to judge if it’s worth it.
• Gotta Go Mobile: Google maps is really a more robust application than most other mapping software for your GPS-enabled smartphone.  Also, if you’re building your network of Gmail friends, you can configure Latitude to track whether any of them are in your general area at a given time.  It’s actually kind of cool.
• Register your blog (if you have one): with Google Blog Search, although that’s the one service that I have not gotten to work correctly yet for this blog!  If there’s anyone with suggestions out there, please let me know…

Google obviously dominates internet Search, and has for years, but they are really getting into cloud services surrounding personal productivity.  Even  more recently, hitting enterprise customers with some impressive results.  The best part is that (right now) all these services are free, and they are actively innovating these solutions.  Stay tuned for a post on Google Wave!

From/De: EA

Visceral Games Ignites Social Gaming with Three Little Words: Go to Hell

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Visceral Games, an Electronic Arts studio (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced ‘Go to Hell’, an all-new social application inspired by the upcoming game, Dante’s Inferno™. This application takes the poem’s canonized nine circles of hell, and brings them into everyday life. With the click of a button, anyone can send a friend foe, place, product or brand to one of the nine circles of hell. Angry at your mom for grounding you? Send her to ‘Treachery’. Mad at your ex- for cheating? Send them to ‘Lust’. The free ‘Go to Hell’ app launches today on Facebook® Platform, with consumers able to share data across other online destinations including MySpace, iGoogle and Twitter. Dante’s Inferno releases February 9 on Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and PSP®(PlayStation®Portable).

“This app is awesome! Not only will it be a blast to see who the world sends to hell, but it’s also a great opportunity to take Dante’s notion of the 9 circles of hell and make it current and relevant for people who may not be familiar with the poem,” said executive producer Jonathan Knight. “Let the damning begin.”

The ‘Go to Hell’ app calls on people to damn others to the nine circles of hell: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud or Treachery. From there, users can choose to punish or absolve their victim… and see how the community reacts. The ‘Go to Hell’ app comes complete with a ‘Hell Browser’ that serves up a snapshot of all the activity in hell on a day-to-day basis. In the browser, see who takes top spot as the most deplored evil demon – be they a loudmouthed celebrity, a slimy politician or a hated TV character.

Facebook® users can head over to http://apps.facebook.com/gotohell , while iPhone users will soon be able to access the free app via the Apple AppStore. All other users can follow this link to eternal damnation http://gotohell.dantesinferno.com.

Dante’s Inferno has not yet been rated by the ESRB or PEGI. For more information on Dante’s Inferno, please follow the Dante’s Inferno team at Visceral Games on Twitter at www.twitter.com/danteteam and visit the game’s official web site at www.dantesinferno.com where the team explores a new circle of hell, with new content and updates on the ninth day of every month.

About Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is a leading global interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the Company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, wireless devices and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA™, EA SPORTS™, EA Mobile™ and POGO™. In fiscal 2009, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $4.2 billion and had 31 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA’s homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA’s products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.

EA, EA SPORTS, EA Mobile, POGO, Visceral Games and Dante’s Inferno are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. “PlayStation” and “PSP” are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Microsoft, Xbox, and Xbox 360 are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Als ich noch ganz klein war, war mein Lieblingskuscheltier ein kleiner Frottee-Fuchs mit einer Spieluhr, genannt Fuchsi. Leider hat die Spieluhr eine Runde in der Waschmaschine nicht überlebt, aber Fuchsi blieb trotzdem mein Favorit im Kuschelzoo. Wahrscheinlich liegt es irgendwie daran, daß ich Füchse noch immer süß finde (zumindestens kleine!) und natürlich begrüßte mich tagein, tagaus der kleine Fuchs vom Theme “Tea House” auf meine persönlichen igoogle-Homepage:

Hach, was ist das Fuchsi süß! Und alle paar Stunden erneuert sich das Bild und das Fuchsi macht etwas Neues. Mal füttert es Entis, mal macht es Wäsche, und wenn es den Zikaden genug auf der Gitarre vorgeklimpert hat, geht es in sein Teehäuschen zurück und schläft. Na gut, es macht jeden Tag das Gleiche – aber, hey, wer macht das nicht?!

Seit Neuestem spinnt aber mein igoogle und mein Headerbild wird abgeschnitten – Fazit: Fuchsi ist weg! Ich fand mich zunächst damit ab, daß ich wohl der einzige Mensch auf der Welt bin, der sein Herz derart an einen digitalen Fuchs hängt. Heute war die Sehnsucht aber doch zu groß und es wurde ein bißchen gegoogelt. Ergebnis: Alle lieben Fuchsi! Allein 179 Posts von igoogle-Nutzern, die ihren Fuchs zurückhaben wollen. Ach so, und bei der Gelegenheit vielleicht auch gleich die döschige neue ganz linke Leiste weg.

Wie es aussieht, scheint Google da nicht so wirklich kooperativ zu sein. Aber natürlich gibt es auch dafür eine App, äh, ein Add-on, zumindestens für den Firefox! Einfach hier runterladen und und dann ist erstens die Leiste links weg und zweitens kann das Zuhause von Fuchsi wieder auf die bewährte Größe zurückgezogen werden.

Mein Tag ist gerettet!

Ajattelu ei tapahdu vain pään sisällä. Ajattelun ammattilainen hyödyntää ajatustyössään myös monenlaisia apuvälineitä muistivihkoista miellekarttoihin. Nykyaikana yhä merkittävämpää osaa ajattelutyöstä kannattelevat monenlaiset tietokoneohjelmistot ja nettisivustot. Esittelen tässä seitsemän lyömätöntä ajattelun ammattilaisen digitaalista työkalua.

Nämä ohjelmat ja nettisivustot auttavat sinua muistamaan aivan kaiken, synnyttämään globaalin, kollektiivisen alitajunnan, opiskelemaan huippuyliopistoissa, altistamaan itsesi ennennäkemättömällä tavalla maailman uutisille, keskittymään häiriöttä kirjoittamiseen, pitämään dokumenttisi järjestyksessä ja treenaamaan mielesi kesäkuntoon.

1. Evernote: Lisämuisti mielellesi
www.evernote.com

Ylivoimainen ykkönen kaikista ajattelun softa-avuista on runsas vuosi sitten julkaistu muistiinpano-ohjelmisto Evernote. Evernote vaikuttaa ensi silmäyksellä vaatimattomasti digitaaliselta muistivihkolta. Ensivaikutelma kuitenkin pettää. Evernote ei ole mitään vähempää kuin konkreettinen laajennus omalle muistillesi.

Jos haluat muistaa jonkin asian, on yhdentekevää onko muistosi koodattu hippokampukseesi, vai sijaitseeko se internet-pilvessä. Jos saat palautettua asian samassa ajassa mieleesi, ei sen sijainnilla ole käytännössä merkitystä. Evernote on tietääkseni ensimmäinen ohjelmisto, jolla muistiinpanon haun vasteajat ovat parhaimmillaan biologisen muistamisen tasoa, enimmillään muutamia kymmeniä sekunteja. Tämä johtuu kahdesta seikasta.

Ensinnäkin, Evernoteen pääsee käsiksi kaikkialla. Missä vaan, missä pääset nettiin, pääset Evernoteen. Näin muistosi kulkevat mukanasi vaikkapa älykännykässä. Vielä ketterämmin Evernoteen pääset käsiksi, jos satut omistamaan iPhonen, Blackberryn tai Palm Pre:n. Näille älypuhelimille on julkaistu omat Evernote-ohjelmansa.

Toisekseen, Evernoteen pystyy rakentamaan moniulotteisia muistiinpanomatriiseja. Siinä vaiheessa, kun muistiinpanoja on kertynyt tuhansia, voi yksittäisen muistiinpanon palauttaminen avainsanahaulla olla mahdotonta. Mutta toimivan matriisin avulla pääset sekunneissa käsiksi haluamaasi tietoon.

Kirjoitan paraikaa Evernoten ja nettiteknologian käyttöön liittyvää laajennetun mielen opasta, joka ilmestynee viimeistään alkuvuodesta 2010. Siinä esittelen tarkemmin muun muassa, miten tuhansia muistiinpanoja järjestyksessä pitävän matriisin saa rakennettua Evernoteen käden käänteessä.

2. Twitter: Kollektiivinen alitajunta
www.twitter.com

Myös Twitterin kohdalla ensivaikutelma pettää. Ensi silmäyksellä Twitter vaikuttaa irralliselta Facebookin tilapäivitykseltä, jolla tuntuu olevan käyttöä vain teini-ikäisille kahvitteluseuraa kaipaaville ja Ashton Kutcher -faneille. Tosiasiassa Twitter on kuitenkin yksi hämmästyttävimpiä verkottumistyökaluja, mitä on toistaiseksi keksitty. Oikein säädettynä Twitter toimii fantastisena kollektiivisena alitajuntanasi.

Twitter on täynnä kohinaa – informaatiota, joka on omien elämänongelmiesi kannalta yhdentekevää. Iso ongelma Twitterin käyttämisessä onkin säätää Twitter-tilisi niin, että sinne ilmaantuu pääasiassa vain sellaista informaatiota, joka on juuri sinulle käyttökelpoista. Twitteriin kirjoittavat tuttaviesi lisäksi nimittäin myös lukemattomat maailman huipputekijät. Olit sitten toimihenkilö, kirjailija, sarjakuvataiteilija, rock-muusikko, IT-asiantuntija tai poliitikko, on todennäköistä, että koko joukko hengissä olevia idoleitasi kirjoittaa ajatuksiaan Twitteriin. Tämä tarkoittaa huikeaa jatkuvasti päivittyvää intellektuaalista pääomaa. Eliminoimalla Twitter-kohinan kykenet synnyttämään häikäisevän kollektiivisen alitajunnan, josta saat jatkuvasti uusia ideoita maailman huipputekijöiltä.

Twitter-kohinan eliminointi tarkoittaa sitä, että seuraat ainoastaan sellaisia Twitter-kirjoittajia eli twiittaajia, jotka kirjoittavat jatkuvasti itsellesi aidosti mielenkiintoisista aiheista. Jos siis joku täyttää Twitter-kanavasi turhanaikaisella säpätyksellä, pudota hänet pois tililtäsi. Etsi Twitterin hakutyökalulla omia idoleitasi ja alasi vaikuttajia ja katso, mitä he twiittaavat. Jos informaatio on sinulle hyödyllistä, lisää nämä henkilöt tiliisi. Voit myös selailla netistä löytyviä teemojen mukaan järjestettyjä Twitter-palstoja ja löytää kokonaan uusia itseäsi kiinnostavia Twitter-tuttavuuksia. Aloittaa voit esimerkiksi Twellow-sivustolta. Ajattelun ammattilaisen Twitter-syötteen voit tilata klikkaamalla tästä.

Kannattaa myös kurkata, keitä itseäsi kiinnostavat ihmiset seuraavat – monesti myös he ovat kannaltasi kiinnostavia. Kun keräät tilillesi muutamia tusinoita itseäsi kiinnostavia, aktiivisia twiittaajia, synnytät kollektiivisen alitajunnan, josta saat jatkuvasti uutta, itsellesi ajankohtaista ja merkittävää informaatiota. Tuloksena on häikäisevä virta oivalluksia, linkkejä ja ajankohtaisia uutisia, jotka muut kuulevat vasta kuukausien päästä!

3. iTunes U: Huippuyliopisto kotikatsomossa
www.apple.com/education/mobile-learning/

Applen iTunes University on fantastinen tiedon aarreaitta. iTunes U:sta voit ladata koneellesi kokonaisia lukuvuoden pituisia luentosarjoja maailman huippuyliopistoista. Vielä kolmisen vuotta sitten tähän oppiin pääsi käsiksi vain pulittamalla satojen tuhansien taalojen lukuvuosimaksut. Tarjolla on luentoja Yalesta, Cambridgesta, UC Berkeleystä, Stanfordista… Filosofiaa, psykologiaa, fysiikkaa, biologiaa, historiaa, taloustiedettä… Luennoitsijat ovat sekä tietotaitonsa että esiintymiskykynsä puolesta huippuluokkaa, ja isolta näytöltä katsottuna videoidut luennot pääsevät hyvin lähelle aitoa oppimistilannetta. Ääniluennot voit puolestasi ladata MP3-soittimeesi vaikkapa juoksulenkille. Kysymyksiä ei virtuaaliyliopistoissa voi tietenkään esittää – mutta kenties voit metsästää mielenkiintoisen luennoitsijan Twitter-tiliisi ja esittää kysymyksesi siellä!

4. iGoogle: Maailman uutiset yhdellä silmäyksellä
www.igoogle.com

Alan Mooren klassikkosarjakuvassa Watchmen maailman fiksuimmaksi mieheksi tituleerattu Ozymandias vietti mielellään aikaa televisioilla peitetyn seinän edessä. Televisiot näyttivät ohjelmaa muutamia sekunteja kerrallaan, ja näin Ozymandias kykeni muodostamaan nopeasti kattavan intuitiivisen käsityksen siitä, mitä maailmalla tapahtuu. Tiettävästi myös Spede Pasanen harrasti samanlaista monen television tuijottelua. Vaikka kymmenien televisiokanavien yhtäaikainen seuraaminen voikin olla ahdistava kokemus, on itse ajatus uutisoinnin kattavasta seuraamisesta kiehtova.

iGoogle on Googlen personalisoitava etusivu. iGoogleen voi asentaa kaikenlaisia härpäkkeitä peleistä Gmail-tiliisi. Erityisen käytännöllinen sivustosta tulee, kun lataat siihen monipuolisesti erilaisia uutispalveluita: Hesari, BBC, CNN, New York Times, Le Monde, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera, Fox News, Dagens nyheter… Tällöin näet yhdellä silmäyksellä, mitä maailmalla puhutaan. Silmäiltyäsi otsikot voit lukea tarkemmin itseäsi kiinnostavat jutut. Parhaassa tapauksessa voit seurata uutisointia itseäsi kiinnostavasta aiheesta aina tieteellisiin alkuperäisjulkaisuihin asti. Uutiset kirjoitetaan aina jostakin näkökulmasta; seuraamalla erilaisista lähtökohdista kirjoitettua uutisointia syntyy maailman tapahtumista rikkaampi ja todellisempi kuva kuin vain yhtä valtamediaa seuraamalla.

Lisäksi voit ladata erillisille sivuille itseäsi kiinnostavia blogeja ja uutisportaaleja. Näin pysyt jatkuvasti ajan tasalla siitä, mitä alallasi tapahtuu. Voit tehdä helposti uuden välilehden valitsemalla aihealueen, esimerkiksi “Art”, “Psychology”, “Physics” jne. iGoogle ehdottaa tällöin joukkoa aihepiiriin sopivia gadgettejä. Voit myös toki poistaa tai lisätä gadgettejä mielesi mukaan.

5. Writeroom: Keskity kirjoittamiseesi
www.hogbaysoftware.com

Kirjoittaminen on sitä miellyttävämpää, mitä paremmin pystyt keskittymään itse kirjoittamiseen. Writeroom keskittyy olennaiseen: tekstiin ruudulla. Kyseessä on koko ruudun varaava tekstinkäsittelyohjelma, jossa ei ole juuri muita ominaisuuksia. Voit siis keskittyä kirjoittaessasi itse sanomaan ilman, että ruudulle levinneet ikonit ja avoimet ohjelmat varaisivat jatkuvasti huomiokanaviasi, tai ilman että innostuisit leikkimään kirjasimilla tai kikkailemaan muotoiluilla. PC-käyttäjien iloksi ohjelmasta on hiljattain ilmestynyt klooni nimeltä Darkroom. Sen voi ladata täältä.

6. Yep: Artikkelit aina käsillä
www.ironicsoftware.com

Vaikka Applen tietokoneet ovatkin merkittävä stressiä vähentävä tekijä tietotekniikkaa päivittäin käyttäville, pyrin tässä katsauksessa keskittymään ohjelmistoihin, jotka ovat saatavilla sekä Macille että PC:lle. En kuitenkaan ole toistaiseksi törmännyt Yep:in toiminnallisuuteen PC:llä, ja koska kyseessä on niin loistava ohjelmisto kenelle tahansa lukutoukalle, päätin sen tässä nostaa esille.

Yep on PDF-tiedostojen lajitteluohjelma. Se mahdollistaa PDF-tiedostojen seurannan tietokoneella ja monipuolisten tägimatriisien luomisen tiedostoille. Yep:in nerokas tapa käyttää tägejä sopii PDF-tiedostoille kuin nenä päähän: valittuasi kansion, Yep tarjoaa vain niitä tägejä, joita on valitsemassasi kansiossa olevilla tiedostoilla. Näin löydät tuhansien artikkelien, e-kirjojen ja lehtijuttujen joukosta hetkessä haluamasi. PC-käyttäjien onneksi Evernotella pääsee nykyään hyvin lähelle Yep:in toiminnallisuutta, jos kohta aivan yhtä elegantti Evernote ei PDF-tiedostojen käytössä olekaan.

7. Lumosity: Jumppaa aivosi kesäkuntoon
www.lumosity.com

Lumosity on Stanfordin yliopistossa kehitetty erinomainen aivojumppasivusto. Monipuolisesti erilaisia ajatustoimintoja harjoittavat pelit auttavat harjaantumaan esimerkiksi keskittymisessä, muistamisessa ja tilanhahmottamisessa. Sivusto on kuukausimaksullinen, mutta sitä voi kokeilla maksutta. Sivuilla on myös usein täysin maksuttomia yksittäisiä pelejä.

Aivojumppaa kritisoidaan usein siitä, että aivojumppa harjoittaa itse asiassa taitavammaksi vain itse harjoitteessa. Näin lieneekin karkeasti ottaen asian laita. Mutta jos harjoittelet riittävän monipuolisesti, kuten on mahdollista Lumosityn pelien kanssa, on harjoittelusta todennäköisesti hyötyä myös käytännön ajattelutyössä.

Search Engine Watch, a blog covering search engine news, recently reported on LeapFish’s recent real-time and social search engine launch. The post by Frank Watson notes that “LeapFish offers a start page for web users where they can watch their Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as set up feeds for news, entertainment, sports and other services”

Excerpt from the Article:

“The site offers some very interesting possibilities. It has some similarities to iGoogle but has managed to integrate social media faster than the search giant ”

Click here to read the entire Search Engine Watch Article:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/091112-224356

iGoogle allows users to create landing pages for just about anything Google has created an app for and more.  One of the things I use it for is to quickly monitor news about competitors and clients.  And because this is Google, it’s all free.

Basic how-to:

Go to the iGoogle page and if this is your first visit to iGoogle you will see a big button that says, “Look for new stuff to add” which will take you to page full of gadgets you can easily insert into your iGoogle page.  There is also a search button that allows you to find things to add to your page.

Next, search on “alerts” and this will bring up a Google news box that you can customize and add to your page. 

Now you face a question: do you want to load all these news alerts to your one iGoogle tab or create specific tabs for specific activities?  I chose the latter approach and have created a tab called, “Top ten clients.”   To create a tab you open the down arrow to the right of your “Home” label and click on last pull down item, “add a tab.”

A box will come up and you can give this tab any name you want.  It will then save it as a link below your iGoogle home tab.  You can open this tab and start setting up custom Google news searches on your top clients.  The results will display on this page under a label for each client (you create the label) and Google news will stream its most recent news for these clients.  You can display anywhere from 1 to 9 items.  It defaults at three and I chose to see five.  I find it a lot easier to monitor news at a glance rather than have alerts come to my email where I have to open them up individually and scan through them.

Tip:  don’t just follow these instructions.  Play around with iGoogle yourself and I’ll bet you quickly will find uses that work better for you or can improve this approach.  iGoogle is not only very powerful but also lots of fun.

Remember:  I will be speaking about competitive intelligence for law firms in San Francisco tomorrow.

Its not always easy to blog everyday.  I wake up, look at the newspaper, drink my coffee and my mind doesn’t always  generate great blog ideas.  I need help.  So  thank god for iGoogle.

iGoogle allows me to create as many pages as I want and to label them so that I can track and monitor different things.  For example, I stream about a dozen blogs that focus on legal marketing and social networking.  This is where I go to see who else is saying about my blogging themes.

I might really agree or disagree with something one of these bloggers say, so that’s a blog post.  Sometimes what they say triggers an idea in my occasionally sluggish brain, that’s a blog post.

As on TGIF, cheers to iGoogle!

SharePoint 2007 does not provide this experience OOB. You will have to customize this requirement via programming.

I found a similar post on ASP.NET forum, you might be interested in: http://forums.asp.net/p/838714/838714.aspx

 Among the replies, Fredrik Normén(MVP) provides the general idea on how to implement this feature in SharePoint: override CatalogPartChrome, CatalogZone and WebPartZone.

Basically, you’ll have to override most of the web part base classes. For more information on these classes, please visit: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.webcontrols.webparts.aspx

O Google lançou um novo site onde cada internauta pode conferir um sumário de todas as suas informações pessoais armazenadas pelo gigante da web. O “Dashboard” (Painel, em inglês), revelado nesta quinta-feira, reúne todos os dados que são pescados pelos computadores do Google sempre que nos logamos em alguma conta da empresa.

Diferente do iGoogle, o Dashboard não pretende ser uma página inicial do usuário, um “portal de entrada” na internet. A função dele é oferecer um resumo de todos os serviços do Google que aquele internauta utiliza, com links para que ele possa facilmente modificar as configurações de cada um desses serviços.

Isso inclui resumos dos emails recebidos pela pessoa, solicitações de pesquisa, documentos abertos no Docs, contatos, datas marcadas no calendário, posição no Latitude, atualizações no Orkut, notícias lidas no Reader, hábitos de visualização no YouTube, entre outros. Antes, era preciso visitar vários sites diferentes para ter acesso a todas essas informações. O instantâneo não inclui qualquer atividade ocorrida enquanto o internauta não está registrado em algum serviço do Google.

O Dashboard é a mais recente tentativa do Google de dar aos usuários mais controle sobre suas informações pessoais e apaziguar os ativistas que defendem a privacidade online. A empresa tem sido frequentemente criticada por acumular grandes quantidades de dados pessoais e agora está dando aos usuários uma maneira fácil de saber quais informações estão armazenadas em suas contas.

Para acessar o Dashboard, basta digitar https://www.google.com/dashboard/ no navegador ou, a partir de qualquer serviço do Google, clicar em “Minha conta”, no canto superior esquerdo. Em configurações pessoais haverá uma opção “Dashboard”, onde o usuário poderá ver os dados armazenados naquela conta.

Fonte: O Globo Digital.

Devido a questionamentos dos alunos, foi realizada uma revisão dos serviços do Google, com destaque ao Google Reader. Nessas aulas, os alunos ainda investigaram o iGoogle, o Google Maps e o Google Earth.

Para acessar o conteúdo da aula, clique na imagem abaixo:

In order to help keep your email clean, we are going to stop sending email updates (unless requested).  Here is a process in which to add our rss feed to your iGoogle homepage.

1. If you don’t already use iGoogle, it is a great way to customize your home page. Click here to make it your homepage.
2. Make sure you are logged in to your iGoogle account.
3. Click the “RSS – Posts” link in the side bar of this page.
4. At the top of the next page, choose Google to subscribe to this feed. Click Subscribe now.
5. Next click Add to Google homepage.
6. You’re done!

You should see a little box with our blog name and posts in it.  Now every time you open up a browser, you can check to see if we have posted to our blog.  You can use Google reader as well.  In step 5, click add to Google Reader. 

This is not just a great way to keep up with our blog, but other blogs and news sources as well.  If you have any questions, please feel free to email me. 

PS I realize that not everyone will want to make iGoogle their homepage so we will continue our emails to those who request it.  To request emails, please click the link labeled “Subscribe to The Life of Kao’s by Email”  in the sidebar.

Okay, sorry for the Rocky Horror Picture Show reference, but the song lyric comes to mind when I think of Google labs. Those folks always have something cooking. According to the site, “Google Labs is a playground where our more adventurous users can play around with prototypes of some of our wild and crazy ideas and offer feedback directly to the engineers who developed them. Please note that Labs is the first phase in a lengthy product development process and none of this stuff is guaranteed to make it onto Google.com. While some of our crazy ideas might grow into the next Gmail or iGoogle, others might turn out to be, well, just plain crazy.” I love this stuff.

One of my favorites is Fast Flip.  You can get overviews of headline pages from top newspapers all in one place. You can also search by section like Travel or Sci/Tech. Something else that seems to be gaining attention from students is Google Squared. “Google Squared is an experimental tool that takes a category (like US presidents, roller coasters, or digital cameras) and attempts to create a starter “square” of information, automatically fetching and organizing facts from across the web.” After you get your results, you can tweak the search by adding or deleting rows and columns.

If you have a Gmail account, there is a lab section for that, too. It has handy email based features that can be enabled like “Forgotten Attachment Detector” or “Message Translation.“

Come up to the lab and experiment a little. You never know what you might find.

Technology ~ it takes you there

~ Janet ~

Well i guess Halloween was yesterday but if we count the night to Sunday it sure was a bloody Sunday.
Even i took a trip dressed up as a viking to the more central parts of Lincoln to enjoy all the happy dressed up people that just like me was there to celebrate Halloween.
Met a lot of friends and had a lot of fun.

—

Got some tips for all you who seek to make life easier:
iGoogle, this personalized front page of google is a great tool for collecting useful gadgets that you want keep track of every day.
Some of the gadgets i have:
Weather
How-To- of the day
Expenses manager
Notes
Wikipedia search
And on anoher tab i have collected all my favorite news sites to stay up to date with whats going on in the world including science and IT news.

Another useful tool is Google Calendar, with its built in SMS reminder you will never miss a meeting again! (Only works in a few countries so far).

Do you have any useful websites or tools to share? Post a comment!

Smoothwall. What do you know about Smoothwall? It seems to be a kind of site blocker. Smoothwall has been installed at our school. The horror. No, really.

Let me explain. Here’s the picture before Smoothwall…

“A kid Named Yoshio Naru* skips merrily along the path to the local school. Grinning to himself, he thinks of all the fun he is going to have at the public library. And the school library. You see, his town is so small, it’s school and public library are one. Soon, Yoshio will be chatting with his pals on Facebook, looking at cool pictures on Flickr, or even playing the latest RPG’s (Role Playing Games). Yes, the town library was a place filled with adventure, drama, instant messages, e-mails, and, of course, the odd book stuffed in the back. Upon reaching the library, our chum Yoshio Naru is pleased to see that he is not disappointed. Things are still the same, and it would never change. It couldn’t. Why, even the thought of it changing was unthinkable!”

*Yoshio Naru was just the first name that came to mind.

**Excerpt from www.fuzzyglove.wordpress.com

Now, lets take a look at the scene, a few months later, just when Smoothwall had been installed. Actually, it was on that exact day…

“Hearing the bell that marked the end of class, Yoshio Naru quickly left the classroom and ran down to the library, where he went everyday to check on his e-mail. He did this, because his house didn’t have very good internet access. The school library was the only place his family (and many others), could safely use the internet without fear of a sudden connection loss. Quickly logging in to his blog, he finished typing the blog post that he needed for school, and pressed save. Suddenly, he heard a cry of anguish from the computer around the corner. It was the school librarian. She was helping her daughter log in to her favorite site: WebKinz. “A message just popped up! It says that “This site has been blocked because the content has been deemed unsuitable by the administrator! It says that it’s reason is that the site is categorized under ‘Games!’ ‘

Quickly saving and logging out of his blog, Yoshio quickly went to his favorite game sites: blocked. Facebook: blocked. Flickr, YouTube, Addictinggames, G-mail, Hotmail, MSN, Google Images, Google Docs, even Mariowiki. All blocked. In shock, Yoshio quickly went back to his blog write a post on it, and that was blocked too. Stumbling out of the room, Yoshio Naru walked home in a daze. He never set foot in the library ever again.”

See what I mean? Smoothwall is an unnecessary evil. Our school already had a site blocker! Now we have this one. What you fail to see is that my town has a lot of contractors and people away from home in it. Most of those people are just renting rooms with no computers. Their only connection with the people they love is the internet in most cases. Some people still have the telephone, but not all. Now that Smoothwall has invaded, their last connection with their beloved family has been severed on the jagged rocks of the wall that is smooth. Smoothwall isn’t so smooth after all. But there is hope.

Our classroom work is mostly on the internet. We do 60% of our work on Google Docs. Our G-mail accounts are our life line. Now that that’s gone, what do we do? Our teacher talked to our principle for a very very long time. In the end, he made a list of sites that he needed unblocked immediately.  That included Google images, YouTube, Flickr, our blogs, G-mail, etc.

The good news is that almost everything on the list that our teacher made got unblocked. The bad news is that they would not unblock any web-mail. That is really bad news. Almost everyone in town comes to the library to check their mail. Some chinks are opening in the Smoothwall Defense System, but there is still a long long ways to go.

The decision is unmistakeable: SMOOTHWALL HAS TO GO!

Is there anything Google can’t do these days? My admiration for the company’s products is tinged by just a hint of conspiracy paranoia that it’s all a prelude to a world takeover.

But seriously, is there anything Google can’t do? It’s already, amongst other things, improved immeasurably the way the world searches the internet, changed the way we use maps, begun digitising the world’s creative resources, forced every website to go 2.0 with the release of sidewiki and is now, apparently, about to kill email with Google Wave.

Looking at language there are plenty of very clever things the company is doing. Although my interest is what these allow you to do in Bengali, for which most require the right fonts, they apply to many other languages as well.

Google’s online Bengali dictionary

First up is Google Dictionary, which as well as allowing you to look up the meaning of words also facilitates their translation from English to 27 other languages and from those languages back to English. It provides definitions and translations of single words, and some phrases, in 28 languages, including Bengali and Hindi, as well as a number of European and other Asian languages.

Looking up a word gives its definition, how it sounds through an embeded audio function and then translates its into your chosen language.

For example, using the Google Dictionary to translate “smile” gives হাসা (hasa), and then two related phrases: “smile at”  উপহাস করা (ipōhas kōra) and “smile from ear to ear” 1. বত্রিশপাটি বের করে হাসা  (bōtrisōpati ber kōre hasa) 2. কান এঁটো করে হাসা (kan aeto kōre hasa). Note, however, that  words are only given in Bengali script – the transliterations in brackets I added.

Google’s online Bengali transliteration

On the subject of transliteration, there’s a Google tool for this too. Google’s easy to use Indic Transliteration allows words to be typed in roman script and then automatically converts them to one of 11 Indian language scripts. The languages thus supported are Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Punjabi, Tamil, Telegu and Urdu.

Transliteration is different from translation.Translation converts a word’s meaning from one language to another; transliteration converts a word’s presentation from one script to another (e.g. the Roman script English is written in to Bengali script).

So, if you use Google’s Indic Transliteration for “am” the Bengali word for mango, it turns “am” into “আম”, but if you type “mango” you get “মান্য” (literally mango, not a translation of it).

There are a couple of tools that can be used with Indic Transliteration. If you have an iGoogle homepage via a Google account then Indic Transliteration can also be added as one of the featured modules there.

You can also use a Google bookmarklet to use Indic Transliteration on any website. For example to search Google Bangla, for mango pickle (আম আচার) recipes.

But that’s quite enough cheerleading for Mountain View for one day.

En casa tengo tres ordenadores: un sobremesa que empleo para edición de vídeo y fotografías, un portil Toshiba un poco antiguo pero que uso para todo en general y mi pequeño Asus EeePC 701 que me sirve para escribir sentado cómodamente en el sofá del salón o ver las noticias mientras desayuno.

Sin embargo había un pequeño problema: realizar ciertas tareas era un verdadero descontrol, pues empleo los tres ordenadores más o menos regularmente y mantenerlo todo sincronizado conseguía que estuviera mandándome cosas de un lado a otro por la red de casa o directamente en pendrives.

El ejemplo más claro es el correo electrónico: lo miraba siempre en el sobremesa, pues en él tenía instalado Mozilla Thunderbird, que a su vez también era mi lector de RSS. Sin embargo, no siempre estaba delante de ese ordenador, por lo que si miraba la cuenta de Gmail a través de la web en otro ordenador ocurría que luego al abrir el Thunderbird me volvían a aparecer como no leídos los correo que había leído online. No sé si he sabido explicar bien el problema, pero creo que he podido transmitiros en parte el galimatías que esto supone en el día a día.

Otro ejemplo (tal vez más claro) sea el redactar documentos. Más de una vez he comenzado a redactar algo en Open Office en un ordenador y me lo he tenido que mandar por e-mail para continuarlo, por ejemplo, en el EeePC 701 más tarde. Podría haber trabajado en red, dejando el documento en una carpeta compartida del ordenador y editándolo desde cualquiera de los otro dos, pero eso me obligaría a tener el ordenador que haría de servidor permanentemente encendido, lo que no deja de ser un despilfarro energético que no estoy dispuesto a realizar.

Pues bien, al final di con una solución bastante simple: emplear iGoogle para todas esas tareas cotidianas que os comento y alguna que otra más. Es cierto que el fin último de Google es dominar el mundo al igual que pretende Microsoft, pero no sé por qué, del mismo modo que Steve Ballmer y compañía se han ganado una antipatía generalizada con el paso de los años, la gente de Google suele tener una imagen bastante más positiva. Cosas del marketing, supongo…

Pero bueno, vamos a lo que quería contaros, que no es otra cosa que el uso que le doy a este interesante servicio. iGoogle consiste en la “centralización” de los diversos servicios online que ofrece google en una página de inicio encabezada por el conocido buscador como podéis ver en la siguiente captura.

A través de una interface basada en pestañas podremos personalizar cada una de ellas con diversos elementos como lector de RSS (Google Reader), suite ofimática online (Google Docs), lector de correo (Gmail), marcadores de Internet, titulares de diferentes diarios, previsiones meteorológicas, calendarios con recordatorios, mapas…

Seguro que más de uno ha empleado estos servicios por separado más de una vez. No hay en iGoogle nada nuevo ni especialmente revolucionario; pero es que el potencial que posee consiste en que lo tenemos todo en la misma pantalla del navegador, por lo que definiendo a iGoogle como nuestra página de inicio, de un simple vistazo podemos estar al día de la información que consideramos relevante y a un click de cualquier página que visitemos con frecuencia.

En mi caso particular empleo iGoogle como página de inicio en todos mis ordenadores con una configuración de tres pestañas:

- Principal: Gmail, Google Reader, titulares de El País, previsión meteorológica, Google Docs y post-it para recordatorios.

- Consulta: Google Maps, diccionario RAE, traductor Google y búsqueda en Wikipedia

- Chat: el chat de Google (Gtalk)

Esto es lo que yo suelo emplear habitualmente, pero las diversas pestañas (se pueden crear tantas como se desee) se pueden personalizar como al usuario le venga en gana; tanto en la distribución como en el contenido. De hecho, hay cientos de complementos diseñados incluso por los propios usuarios y que van desde “el chiste del día” hasta una calculadoras o conversores de divisas.

A mí me ha parecido una aplicación más que interesante que me ha facilitado mucho esas pequeñas cosas que hacemos cada día. Por ejemplo, ahora las reviews para ultimONivel las escribo en Google Docs y así puedo continuar escribiéndolas desde cualquier ordenador sabiendo que con grabar los cambios puedo seguir mi trabajo en cualquier momento y lugar sin preocuparme de más.

Ah, claro, se me olvidaba comentar que para emplear iGoogle hay que tener un perfil en algún servicio de Google, pues ya sabréis que la misma cuenta de Gmail o sirve para cualquier servicio asociado con la empresa (Youtube incluído). Es algo completamente gratuito que podéis activar o desactivar a voluntad en cualquier momento mediante el enlace que aparece en la parte superior derecha de la pantalla.

En definitiva, un modo de trabajar en Internet con comodidad y que me ha facilitado algunas tareas. Si tenéis una cuenta en Google os sugiero que lo probéis porque para dar marcha atrás siempre hay tiempo, pero yo creo que lo más seguro es que os acabe gustando tanto como a mí.