Websites as graphs is a website with a Java applet will generate a graph of a website. It looks at the tags in the html and creates the graph.
Paul’s Time Sink | Websites as graph.
Pretty slick… here’s mine:
technorati tags:websitesasgraphs
New Flock Rocks!
Google Browser Sync
Google Browser Sync is a new Firefox extension that as you might expect allows you to sync settings across computers. This is a super cool feature if you work on more than a single computer as I do and could be the final push for me to only use Firefox.
I’ve really enjoyed how passwords have been shared from either Safari and Camino through the Apple Keychain and synced via .Mac to my various systems, but this actually takes it up notch by syncing AND encrypting cookies, passwords, Bookmarks History as well as tabs and windows so essentially you can just head to another system on which you’ve installed this extension and keep on going as if you had already been working there.
This could be a killer feature for people who work more in the cloud than locally… for me, it’s just great to know that this (apparently) just works.
Power Restored
We regained power tonight at about 9 pm…
The power company and our electrician think that lightning actually had caused some damage a few weeks ago and only tonight finally flipped out the lines causing the final damage. We had a storm a few weeks back (when I was in London) which blew out the transformer, but tonight the lines fried the rest of the cables and actually blew out the ground as well. Apparently this is pretty bad and something the guys had not actually seen before. Fortunately, nothing caught fire and we’ve got power back without anyone getting hurt in the process.
No Power
We have lost power quite a few times and tonight the lines to our house actually burned through. NYSEG and an electrician arw on the case to restore matters … Hopefully for good this time!
The Return of the Treo
I’ve been using my Treo 650 again the past few days and I have to say I’ve really missed the experience. Overall, the Palm Smartphone experience is the best in my opinion. I’m clearly not a windows guy so there’s a natural bias there, but I have been using several Nokia series 60 devices for the past months and it’s just not even close. The Treo is simple, yet robust and allows me to carry a ton of applications, data and entertainment is a relatively small package.
No of course I’ve got that itch for the 700P – EVDO would only make my experience that much better. 😉
Brutally Slow Work Connection
Not sure what’s up, but man we’ve been suffering with horrible network connections lately… here’s my latest speedtest report:
Download Speed: 114 kbps (14.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 8807 kbps (1100.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Dashcode
Vista – not a magic bullet
AMD: Vista only a tiny step to convergence | CNET News.com
This is a pretty harsh piece on the state of the PC as told by AMD and cofirmed by Bose. Things are clearly too complex, big and loud. Consumers want simple, quiet and reliable.
Back from London
Google ‘s Breakup
Steve Rubel made me aware of a new Google marketing campaign for The Break Up with Jennifer Anniston and Vince Vaughn. The idea is interesting – use the Google Video service to stream the clip (why not scale the preview window to the aspect ratio?) and then enable the viewing community to share their own break-up videos.
I don’t know many people have clips of their breakups, but regardless Google could have worked a bit harder to continue the interface of the promo through the associated clips. The way it works now is that when you choose a clip, you leave the movie promotion and just get the regular Google Video UI to watch through. I can’t see hitting back much if the clips are less than stellar and this seems like it would have been a pretty simple adjustment if they intend to run real promos.
ZeFrank on Travel
I’ve got a trip to London tomorrow and happened to catch this clip from ZeFrank which really just made my day. While heading to new places sounds exciting it’s always a grind no matter how you slice it.
I’m getting picked up at 5:30am for an 8:30 flight and will land at 8:30PM GMT – or British Summer Time as my colleagues across the pond have been calling it. Nice way to fully kill the day AND get jet lag as a bonus door prize. See you on the other side!
MacBook Arrives
The Apple Store (U.S.) – MacBook:
I have to say the MacBook is a helluva compelling machine. I’d take mine in black if I was going for it, though I am quite happy with my Pro version.
If you look at the Comparison chart, you can see tell the differences. You’ll be making a choice either way you go. More battery life on the Book, but more expansion and capabilities on the Pro. I don’t think you can really make a mistake here… all depends on what you need / want.
Technorati Tags: Apple, MacBook, MacBook Pro
Movielink and CinemaNow: Hardly Worth the Effort
If you must obtain a movie in the next few hours but can’t leave your house or have anybody else pick up the flick, these two Windows-only stores might work. Otherwise, it’s unclear who would bother with them: They stock far too few movies, charge too much for them, offer them at a quality inferior to any DVD and grossly restrict your use of these purchases. [Movielink and Washington Post]
Not exactly a solid endorsement…
MacBook Pro!
Wow! I received a MacBook Pro from the office yesterday and it’s absolutely amazing. After using a Powerbook for so long the overall responsiveness of the systems is a quantum leap! Apps I was used to just having to wait on, just work. I can’t detect any issues with Rosetta and actually in my case Entourage is running like it was just installed for the first time instead of continuing to read my store of Gigabytes of email. NetNewsWire is humming and browsing through Camino, Safari and Firefox (had to try them all) is super quick!
My two issues are I know I no longer can get power on an Airplane with my iGo (yet) and I can’t use my card reader for SD or CF Cards — so back to USB and Bluetooth for those.
Technorati Tags: Apple, MacBook Pro
I’m Back
I’ve recently had the opportunity to take a few weeks from the office and it’s been an amazing mental experience. My first week was a family vacation – noted in the previous post – and as part of this trip I did a complete disconnect – no phone and no email. I had my phone with me and “damn you” T-Mobile, the two times I turned it on, I received a call within a few minutes! Week two was a business trip to Dublin Ireland for a leadership and management training which was a great experience. I work for in a major world wide agency and actually on a globally managed piece of business, but I had not yet had the opportunity to really understand what else was going on within the companies around me – at least from people who don’t also work on my account.
The most interesting thing I’ve taken away from the time is a sense of perspective and the relative importance of matters at hand. A simple difference in where I am today, vs. even a few months back.
When I took some time back in January, I remained connected and it only took until Tuesday for the calls to start. Once engaged, my vacation became more of a remote working environment. I worked far less than normal, and actually found the deluge of email to be crushing. I had hundreds of unread email and was never able to catch up reading them all – in many ways I really did not want to try and deal with it all, but still I felt the pressure.
During this last round of time out of the office, it finally occurred to me that it’s not only impossible to read eery single email, it’s not required. There are currently 314 unread emails in my archived inbox (5522 total still to be filed) and 133 unread messages in my online inbox (677 total waiting for action, filing or delete). This might freak a few people out – actually it does still make me uncomfortable, but there’s little I can do to prevent the daily deluge. What I can do is manage my time, focus and deal with prioritized pieces on various projects that require my attention. If it’s really that important people follow-up. Otherwise, it’s a search away when you are looking for something.
I am committed to working smarter, maintaining a perspective on the job at hand and most importantly sharing this with the people with whom I work. We’ve spent a great deal of time this past year (my time off corresponded nicely with my 1 year anniversary) running and reacting, rather than being able to stop, focus and plan.
Almost there
Just a few hours at the office…. I am already there.
I am set to check out completely for the first time in a long time. I’ve worked the past year through most weekends and holidays and am ready for a complete shutdown. I think my brain and body seriously need to recharge.
Technorati Tags: Vacation
Sesame Street Flashback
This was a total highlight on Sesame Street for me as a kid, but it rarely runs today even though plenty of other bits are still in circulation… Added to my permanent iPod video collection!
Technorati Tags: You Tube, Sesame Street, TV
From the interesting rumors department
Numbers 2,6,11 and 17 are of particular interest…
This would be a massively significant update and would blow the doors off of Vista. We can certainly hope…
Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with Apple precludes me from revealing proprietary detail, but because most, if not all, of this is posted elsewhere and is commonly available, I have no problems with confirming the following. Still, please don’t quote me.
1. Leopard supports OS 9.x, as is done with Tiger, but OS 8 and earlier will not be officially supported. Legacy apps may still work, but Apple just won’t support them.
2. During the Leopard install, you are given the option to create specific partitioning to accommodate M$ Vista and Linux. Reformatting your HD is not required. Depending on your processor and RAM, all OS’s can run simultaneously & independently. A (minimum) 150 GB HD is required (250 GB is recommended), and 2 GB RAM (minimum) should you wish to run more than one OS. Dual processors are required for optimum performance, though this may change in 10.5.1 or 10.5.2.
3. DiskWarrior (in lieu of TechTool) will be bundled with 10.5 if one chooses Apple Care or extends their current Apple Care contract. I don’t know the pricing or specific details, though Apple Care for older machines will increase significantly with the machine’s age. Machines over 6 years old (from date of mfgr.) are not eligible.
4. Safari will include editable Helpers. Safari Tabs can be assigned colors. Safari will be about 37% faster (YMMV). The default for Safari bookmarks will now be alphabetical by folder. Safari will include configurable parental controls (for those who want configured parents). Safari will now import Firefox and Camino bookmarks. Also, there are 12 new Safari “skinsâ€.
5. The Dock will be much different. One new feature is that as icons are added, they will automatically migrate/expand around the screen as needed (or, you can reduce the size of the icons as presently done). Also, multiple docks are an option as is the amount of “bounce†desired in those dock apps launching or needing your attention. There is an accompanying bounce sound, a boing-boing sort of thing.
6. Hooks are built-in to support an Apple PDA, but I can say no more.
7. All Metadata will be editable.
8. You can have 3 ‘Finder’ windows open simultaneously, much like having 3 displays, all running different applications or OS’s. If networked, any 3 computers can be displayed. Depending on the function/application, you can even Drag & Drop between displays. Password or Admin. privileges are required. (see #2 above).
9. Widgets can run on any or all of your open windows, similar to the way Stickies can be placed anywhere.
10. Terminal has balloons that will appear with alerts/warning notes should you wish to do something that you will (later) wish you hadn’t.
11. Mail, Address Book, iCal, iSight, and iChat will become one integrated application, much like Entourage (but better). Included is a customizable Auto Responder and voice activated dialing via numbers or Address Book names. You will be able to automatically send email & initiate iSight meetings, etc. that are linked/pegged to specific calendar events. This feature is called AutoPilot (see #6 above).
12. Voice recognition/security has returned as an option (see #6 above). Note: Use with caution. I am still not certain this will make the final release (it’s still a bit buggy); perhaps delayed until 10.5.1.
13. An across the board speed increase of 35 – 40%. YMMV.
14. Font, Printer, and User Preference (.plist) repair routines are built-in and are schedulable.
15. Sherlock has been eliminated (use Widgets instead).
16. When Repairing Permissions, the “We are using special permissions…†will no longer be displayed. Finally!
17. Airport (Extreme only) will notify you via the airport icon flashing in the menu bar if your signal is being hijacked or used by anyone other than you authorized.
18. Startups, Restarts, & User Switching will be exactly as the User left the machine; open apps, window positions, network connections, etc. will all be reestablished.
19. Bundled with Leopard is a small app called “TrashBackâ€, a program to recover deleted files. Of course, the sooner one uses it after trashing the better.
20. Numerous (other) bug fixes, including a totally rewritten Spotlight.
Leopard will be previewed in June at the WWDC and released in early November
Technorati Tags: Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Virtualization
Know your tools
I was just catching up on some email with Chappelle Show on in the background and caught a Wyclef Jean performance I had actually seen previously and really liked. He sings an acoustic version of President, which is a heavily political song as the name implies.
If I was president / I’d be elected Friday / Assassinated on Saturday / Buried on Sunday / Get the truth back on Monday
Wanting to snag a copy, my first instinct was to hit iTunes. There’s an EP there, but not with the version I wanted. (I actually just went back and picked up the Reggae version for .99) Next stop Google… even with an advanced search, I could not find the track in a form I wanted. I did find a low-res live acoustic version (MP3) from a John Kerry rally, but the quality was actually pretty bad. Then I thought about You Tube! Search on Wyclef and voilá! The exact clip I had just seen was there… though only in flash. A quick stop to Keepvid.com with a paste from Youtube and I was able to download an FLV of the show. FLV is not really the most ideal format, but one more stop to iSquint and a few minutes of conversion and my song in video format was waiting in iTunes ready to sync.
While this seems complicated, it’s actually not bad and really did not take very long once I realized where to look for the file.