Archive for the 'web' Category

Keyboard Shortcuts & Newsfire

Keyboard shortcuts
make the whole world go ’round. I would be 10 times less efficient if it were not for easy-to-remember, useful keyboard shortcuts. They’ve been a staple in regular computer programs since time immemorial, but they’re now starting to be utilized in ajax-y web applications like Google Documents/Mail/Reader, rememberthemilk, and the beautiful 37Signals applications.

Newsfire
NewsFire is not a web program, per se, in that it’s not run via some scripting language inside your web browser. But it is most definitely a program for the web. It’s an RSS newsreader for MacOSX and it is beautiful. It’s fast, intuitive, and just slick overall. If you’ve got a Mac, are interested in increasing the quality and quantity of your knowledge of the world around you, it’s highly recommended. (N.B.: It, too, has excellent keyboard shortcuts.) ;) Don’t know what RSS is? This introductory article in CNET might help you on your way.

del.icio.us and Firefox

Despite the dearth of posts here, I have been generally fulfilling my self-imposed obligation to write every day and share the results with you. I just haven’t been sharing the results with you. ;) The deal is, most of the stuff I’ve been writing has been just too long to be posted to del.icio.us, where I do, arguably, the bulk of what can be considered my blogging.  (You could be forgiven for not knowing that, but now I think I’ve now hooked it up so that every day a script will automatically post my daily activity as a blog entry here on the main page along with commentary and tags.)  As it was just too short to get onto del.icio.us in some way, most of it didn’t seem long enough to warrant a full blog post.  As you can tell, looking downscreen or into the archives, my posts tend to be a bit long.  The more I went over what I was writing, though, the thoughts got more substantial and now, I think, it’s time to publish.  So there ya go.

del.icio.us
Speaking of del.icio.us, it’s bloody amazing and you need to get an account. It’s incredibly useful, portable and easy to use. It’s changing the way the web is catalogued, referenced, cross-referenced and enriched. What is it? To wit, for those not in the know:

“del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website — the primary use of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too. On del.icio.us, you can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders.” It’s bloody amazing. Sign up now.

Once you get your account up and running, add me to your network. And Amy. Once you’ve done that, and you feel cool because you’re linked up to me and my awesome sister, get the Firefox extension. It’ll save you a lot of time and, after a while, incentivizes posting your links. It’s just easy and intuitive, like most things del.icio.us and Firefox-related.
Firefox
If you’re not running Firefox or one of its family members as your primary, sole web browser in favor of any flavor of Internet Explorer, then you’re not living in this century, you’re putting yourself and your family at risk, and you’re contributing to the destabilization of global security. Just get it. Now.