Maybe There Is Hope For MySpace…
April 20th, 2008
Just when I pretty much abandon the platform completely, I read about this. My biggest beef with MySpace (besides the fact that it’s buggy, not secure, and doesn’t play well with Macs) has always been the closed architecture and refusal to accept what the Web 2.0 community wants: control. But here Tom goes surprising me by actually opening some of his stuff up to developers.
First, it was the ability to edit my status with the service hellotxt (which is awesome, btw). That disappeared for a bit, only to start working again a few days later. Not enough to keep MySpace as my primary social network, mind you, but a step in the right direction. Now what MySpace needs is the ability to post blogs from external editors (and preferrably, be able to export that content later…as I’ve recently learned, copy/paste is not the most efficient nor fun way to move your blog from one place to another), and then on to the dream of every social networking netizen out there: be able to sync up items like favorite movies and relationship status from a centralized manager. Update once, and it spits the info out to facebook, MySpace, Hi5, etc. One can only dream.
So then I read this article that explains how my new favorite web browser, Flock, will be adding MySpace compatibility sometime within the near future. This is awesome, because as I type this, I’m doing so using the built in blogging tool on Flock after which I can choose to send this to various locations. In fact, I’ll be posting this to notbadbutgood, my personal blog, and for the first post in a long, long time, xanga. Crossing my fingers, there is the possibility that the MySpace compatibility the article speaks of may include blogging. I can then blog on MySpace again! Write once, post everywhere has been my dream since I started doing this blogging stuff.
Of course that means that the several days it took me to copy/paste my entire MySpace blog to blogger were kind of a waste of time. Although, I did get pretty speedy with the “command-c, command-v” keyboard combos. So there is a purpose to everything danial san. Wax on, wax off.
Tags: myspace, hellotxt, notbadbutgood, blogging, xanga, blogger, flock, open source, centralized profile management, identity management, social networking
Filed under: news, notbadbutgood, web | 1 Comment »
now testing flock, now testing flock…come in flock
April 18th, 2008
This’ll be a shorty. Not in the cool rapper way, like “shawty”, but in the traditional way like, um, short.
I’m trying out a bunch of new web services and apps, and Flock is one of the new kids on the block down in Browserville. This isn’t really a review because I’ve only been using Flock for nigh unto 30 minutes orMaybe that’ll show up once I click publish?
If I can select multiple locations, that would be rad. Especially if this ever adds MySpace Support, because I could then upload to Blogger, Xanga, and MySpace simultaneously. Bye bye painful choice of where to blog, hello user preferred blog in multiple places easily.
Since I’m not reviewing, and I did promise this would be short after all, I’ll quit here. I’ll let ya’ll know how Flock is! Maybe you’ll want to try it out to.
(if you’d like to try it out before I give my opinion…check it out here)
(if you’d like to read up on various browsers available on the mac and which are cool…check that out here)
Tags: flock, browser, browsers, web apps, blogging, mac
Filed under: web | No Comments »
my first foray into macjournal…and hellotxt
April 8th, 2008
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh…
That?s the sound of relief. After SO many hours of manually exporting blogs from my MySpace, I’ve finally done it. I’ve separated my blogging universe into three separate blogs: notbadbutgood (this one, in case you haven?t noticed), Red House (my film blog, and incidentally, my film production site), and a blogger one for friends and family (if you want that one, just ask me for it).
It just so happens that I’m typing this post on some fancy new desktop software called MacJournal. Well, it’s new to me…and I don’t technically own it yet. I’ve been wanting a good offline editor for some time to work on my posts and keep them organized, and this here is my first test. So stick around if you care as each of these posts will probably be kind of like a review as well. Maybe if the gumption hits me, I’ll blog about which one I chose and why later on.
But this post isn?t about that really. No, this post is to let you know about hellotxt. This fun tool is awesome if you?re like me and you?re trying to maintain several social networks at once. Specifically, it updates the ?status? thing that twitter so wonderfully pioneered and has since been replicated by nearly everyone else. Feels good to be the first, don?t it twitter?
So it’s a web-based microblogging tool that spits out whatever you put in there to tons of different sites. MySpace, facebook, twitter, Pownce…if you can think of it, it’s probably there. Saves TONS of time. What I don’t get is why twitter and hellotxt don?t merge. I mean seriously, if I could twitter and it gets spit out like hellotxt style? Dang.
The only downsides that I’ve found with hellotxt is that yes, it’s truly web based. No widgets or ability to post from other devices like IM. There is a mobile browser version that is semi-reliable on my BlackBerry, though admittedly I haven’t tested it on other phones/devices. It keeps giving me http errors, so I’m guessing it has to do with the fact that I’m using a WAP dealio. Or maybe I’m full of it and it has nothing to do with that.
Bottom line…hellotxt rocks the house dope if you need to update your status across several of your social networks.
Best part? Yeah, it’s free.
Filed under: notbadbutgood, web | No Comments »
Apple’s iWork ‘08 a MS Office Replacement?
August 23rd, 2007
No. iWork is not a replacement for MS Office…for most people who use Office. That being professionals and really anyone who regularly trades documents back and forth between other users of Office (read: Windows Users), which is 90% of the computer-using world.
BUT, for some of us – for the select few – iWork will be all we need and more.
Filed under: web, work, writing | No Comments »
Social Networking Tips
August 20th, 2007
You can’t deny that online social networking is the rage right now. In fact, it’s been the rage for so long, it’s probably peaked. Every day, I feel like I read another post about the need for a shared data pool or at least an aggregate site that can keep all of the various social networking sites’ information in one neat and tidy place. Go ahead and have a MySpace, Facebook, Xanga, and LinkedIn. The suggestions are that they all share the same data from a database that you manage, or they all provide API’s to third party pepes so that they can make software that lets you manage them all in one place. Sounds great, right?
Filed under: web, work | 1 Comment »
Google SMS
August 9th, 2007
OK, OK. So I’ve been a little…um…bad about posting regularly. Though I deserve to be flogged and to spend some time in the stocks, I humbly ask for all of your forgiveness and ask that instead, you give comments on my posts. YES, I realize that’s REWARDING me for my naughtiness, but c’mon…be naughty back. It feels good.
I just wanted to drop a quick note about something that I find incredibly useful for looking up information on the fly…Google SMS. Assuming you have an unlimited or nearly unlimited SMS plan for your phone, this is a free service (currently in beta) offered by Google. The concept is simple: you text a question to Google, and it texts you back with the answer.
Filed under: gadgets, web | 1 Comment »