Increasing Your Quality of Life with Tech
The Noteflight Score Editor is a top-notch application that lets you create, edit, print, display, and play back music notation. Not only can you create your own scores, but you can also make them public or submit them to Noteflight’s online library of music.
Visit Black Web 2.0 for the full story….
You missed that recent episode of V or the first episode of CSI’s crossover week. You know they aren’t showing re-runs and you can’t believe you forgot to set the DVR. Maybe you can catch them online, but where? Clicker is a service that will help you answer that exact question: Where are the shows I want to see playing online?
As massive amounts of programming move online, consumers are entering a world of infinite choices, all on-demand. Great! Finding the show you want to watch? Painful. Thousands of episodes from thousands of shows are housed on thousands of different sites, mixed among billions of random clips and videos.
Clicker boasts more than 450,000 episodes, from over 6,000 shows, from over 1,200 networks. They also contain 40,000 movies and 50,000 music videos from 20,000 artists. They refer to themselves as “one part directory, one part search engine, one part wiki, one part entertainment guide, and one part DVR.”
Clicker basically indexes video from various sources across the web. Rather than trying to sift through YouTube, Hulu, or other video sites, Clicker serves as your one-stop shop for locating exactly what you need. When possible, you can even watch your shows right from the Clicker website. Otherwise, it links you to the relevant source.
Even if the content you’re looking for is not free, Clicker will show you where you can buy it. The search features auto-complete and thumbnails of the shows you might be searching for. If you’re not even sure what you’re looking for, you can browse through the extensive selection of categories or visit Trends to see what’s hot.
As you browse through the site, you can add items to playlists for later viewing. This works much like Hulu’s queue, including a history of items you’ve already watched. You can also connect Clicker to your Facebook account to let your friends know what you’re watching and to invite 5 lucky people to join the service. Clicker is in private beta, but it only took me a few days to get my invitation, so go sign up and let us know what you think.
LeapFish is an interesting search portal that creates it’s results by pulling together information from the major search engines. It also includes results from the social web and embeds all types of media directly on the results page. As you type your search, the results are pulled together using their “proprietary hyper-threading technology” in conjunction with the API’s of each service. Basically, LeapFish is a meta search engine.
Today, LeapFish is kicking it into overdrive by adding something me and most of the web is pretty excited about: Realtime. They will combine this with tighter integration with social networking sites and the ability to basically share anything you find instantly to your social networks from LeapFish.com.
Leapfish 2.0 will yield information from every inch of the Internet – breaking news headlines, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. – and will even allow for user ratings to ensure that everyone receives the most important information first.
Leapfish is calling the ever-changing environment that the web has become the new Living Web.
There are other realtime search engines out there, but they haven’t really delivered what they’ve promised as far as I can see. Leapfish, approaching the situation from a different perspective, combining your regular web search with realtime results from the social web, and allowing you to easily share the hottest new stuff, could be one of the most powerful tools we’ve seen in a while.
LeapFish is conducting private demos prior to the highly anticipated launch, if interested please email demo@leapfish.com
Doit.im is an Adobe AIR application that is closely tied to the original Getting Things Done techniques. The goal is to provide one simple interface that will help you hit the main GTD principles: Collect, Process, Organize, Review, Do. It’s a simple to use application with a clean interface and may be exactly what you’re looking for if other productivity solutions turned you off somehow.
When you start Doit.im, you will be prompted to login. If you don’t already have an account, simply click “Sign Up” to create your account. This account is necessary in order for your data to sync with the Doit.im servers. This lets you access your tasks from any other system running the Doit.im client. One very important factor in making sure your productivity system is successful is for it to be accessible from anywhere, so this syncing ability is definitely a step in the right direction. To actually sync your tasks, click the double-arrows at the top of your menu (looks like the refresh button on your web browser).
Your Inbox is where all new tasks will show up. You can create one by clicking the New button at the bottom, or using the input box at the top. This is the area where you will do your brain dump. Just think of all the stuff you need to do, no matter how random or unsubstantial, and add it here. This is not the step to agonize over the importance of things, just get them down.
Now is the first step in making this huge list of random stuff look a little less imposing.
I won’t go too much into detail here about GTD specifically, but you can see how dragging and dropping your tasks makes it simple to get them in the right place and positioned for you to get them knocked off your list. Each task can have a specific Due Date, Tags for finer organization control, Notes to add random details, and you can set a task to Repeat.
Doit.im pretty much handles your organization step for you during the Processing stage. One thing you have to watch out for are projects masquerading as tasks. Any task that can be broken down into steps is actually a Project. Create a new project in Doit.im and add the individual steps there as tasks using your nifty drag-n-drop abilities.
Periodically, you need to review your tasks to make sure everything still makes sense and is relevant. The primary places you’ll need to pay attention to are Next and Scheduled. At the end of your day, you might find it useful to drag a few tasks over to Tomorrow so that they will be in your view the next day. On a weekly basis, take a look at Someday to see if you can make these seemingly far away items a present reality.
This is the area many of us fail at. You have to actually complete your tasks to get anywhere in life. Those Someday/Maybe tasks will never be feasible if you don’t handle your immediately actionable items. Another problem we run into is getting sidetracked or distracted. If it’s not on your list, you probably shouldn’t be doing it. Drag your tasks to Completed once you’ve done them, or check them off and click Complete.
Microsoft project has come a long way since 1987. From primarily desktop-oriented scheduling software, to a more diverse set of PC and web-based tools for groups, teams, and companies. Microsoft Project 2010 is being touted as the biggest release of Project in a decade. There are 4 basic areas that have been enhanced to provide a better user experience and to make Microsoft Project 2010 a more useful solution.
Microsoft Project 2010 builds on the Microsoft Office Project 2007 foundation with flexible work management solutions and the right collaboration tools for occasional and professional project managers, and includes a pathway to more advanced project and portfolio management capabilities as business needs evolve.
The project management market is still growing despite the recession. Microsoft Project 2010 seems to be coming at the right time, many people will be able to download cheap Microsoft office. Project management software can help an organization become more profitable by giving them an idea of where they might be wasting resources. It’s also easier to see what areas are lagging and serves to increase individual productivity. With it’s enhanced user interface and tight integration with other Microsoft products, it will be interesting to see what effect this new release will have on existing web-based project management solutions.
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I’ve been procrastinating. I’ve known about this opportunity for a while, but neglected to blog about it. Funny how deadlines sneak up on you when you’re not paying attention. British Airways is running a contest where you can win a Business Opportunity Grant. There is space for more than 1 winner as British Airways is giving away 100 of these grants. The problem is that there is only a short time left to enter (13 hours from the writing of this post), so you’ll have to hurry!
The grant consists of a year of Business Class travel and a suite of valuable business services to help increase face-to-face meetings and exponentially grow your business. Networking online with potential customers and other businesses is all fine and good, but it limits your growth. If you take a look at the social media community, it’s easy to see who ends up on top. It’s those who not only build a following online, but who also take things offline and meet people face-to-face. This is how you make quality connections.
To enter the contest, simply apply by telling BA about your company and answering a few short questions about your objectives for 2010. Make sure you explain how a grant would help grow your business. If your company wins, you will have all of 2010 to turn your grant into new business opportunities. Whether you’re a small business, innovator, or an entrepreneur, this is definitely a contest worth entering.
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A few days ago on Black Web 2.0, I covered the reasons why you should be using Foursquare for your business and briefly touched on the specific strategies involved. In addition to reading that post (linked below), you should take a look at this awesome slideshare presentation by Chris Breikss (President of 6S Marketing Inc.) I’ve embedded it below.
The key to leveraging Foursquare for your business lies in the way it promotes and advertises your business. A user visiting your venue on a regular basis can earn a Mayor badge for visiting more than other users. This is where the competition comes in and is only one example of the types of badges available. Not only is the user’s location broadcast on Foursquare, but users can link up both Twitter and Facebook. This increases the visibility of your business across the web.
via Why Should Your Business Be Using Foursquare? | Black Web 2.0 .
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Just caught wind of this new Twitter DM attack via @iluvblackwomen. Seems to be a phishing scam. Absolutely do not click that link if you receive this DM.
@jessestay from @socialtoo said on FriendFeed that they’re working on something for such attacks. For now, just be mindful of whose junk you’re clicking.
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There is one feature that I’ve always expected to see on Hulu, but finally figured out that it didn’t exist. Let’s say you want to watch Naruto Shippunden, but you don’t want to just watch a couple of episodes. You want to watch all of it. From episode 1 season 1 to episode 126 season 4. You had to add each individual episode to your queue in order. That’s 126 clicks! More if you count scrolling through episodes and seasons. I’m no UI expert, but I’m pretty sure that’s bad design. Where is the “Select All” button at?!
Well, it looks like Hulu was aware of this flaw and has recently fixed it. Continuous play makes it simple to watch sequential episodes of any show on Hulu. No need to add each episode to your queue. Just find the show you like and click turn Continuous Play on. You can click “Show Playlist” so see what episodes are included, hover “Next Video to see what’s coming next, and (when the credits start rolling) click “Next Video” to skip to the next video.
Now on every video player on our site, you’ll see a new Continuous Play bar under the video player. On the far right is a dropdown that shows what playlist of videos Continuous Play is working from. For now, there are three primary types of playlists. One is Your Queue, mentioned earlier. The next class is Collections, which have always been part of our site, but which now play continuously. The last type of playlist is more of whichever title you’re watching. If you’re watching a bit from Saturday Night Live, the playlist will be “Saturday Night Live” and will play more sketches from SNL in sequential order. If you’re watching an episode of 30 Rock, Continuous Play will play more episodes of 30 Rock in sequential order.
This feature will make it even easier to waste hours of your life. You click play once and disappear for as long as you like.
What do you think about Continuous Play? Were you craving it as much as I was? Leave a comment.
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Personal development is the key to getting the things you want out of life. You will never reach your goals if you have emotional baggage dragging you backwards. You can’t learn to shrug off that baggage until you enrich your mind and learn how to think differently. To that end, I recommend these two books as a start (or an addition) to your library. They helped me understand and change a lot regarding my interactions with others and taught me how to recognize when I was wrong, even though I was right.
It seems that all these Twitter security holes and exploits revolve around the Twitter.com website itself. Some relatively intelligent programmer inserts some code somewhere and, by visiting the compromised profile, you get infected. The ultimate solution? Don’t visit Twitter.com. It seems to make perfect sense to me as I can see no reason you actually need to go to the site. Sure, you’ll miss those gaudy profile backgrounds, but you’ll get over it.
Other reasons for using an alternative web interface include:
You may wonder why I don’t recommend a desktop client, but I don’t like any of them. They are resource hogs and the UI’s are just not pleasing for me. Also, I can use a web client and get the same experience no matter what computer I’m at. So, here is a list of alternative sites you can use that will also put some powerful tools in your hands in managing your Twitter experience.
iTweet.net is one of the first alternatives to the actual Twitter website that I ever used. Although I’ve moved on, it’s still an excellent site to use. The layout is similar to Twitter.com, but there are many advanced features under the hood if you so choose to use them. This is probably the simplest interface and good for those who don’t need a lot of bells and whistles.
This one is still a preview release, which I assume means it’s not even in the alpha/beta stages. It’s pretty simple right now, but those used to the Seesmic Desktop may find the interface familiar. Check it out at Seesmic.com.
Sobees Web also sprouted from an existing desktop client of the same name. The interface is based on Silverlight and, I have to say, is quite nice to look at. It’s very flexible in letting you choose a layout and you can also connect it to Facebook. One issue I have with Sobees is the huge and unnecessary banner across the top that invites you to download the desktop client, as you can see in the screenshot.
Tweetvisor is one of my favorite Twitter interfaces and also one of the most advanced. It packs a bunch of features that make Twitter so much easier to manage. It also embeds videos and photos right in the interface so you don’t have to click a bunch of links to see embedded media. It boasts a couple of different interfaces and also includes groups, which helps you keep up and categorize those you follow. Tweetvisor makes Twitter nicer.
PeopleBrowsr also comes in as one of the most advanced Twitter interfaces. It also connects to pretty much all of your other social networks, including: MySpace, Facebook, Identica, and FriendFeed. It also includes advanced enterprise tools for managing your online brand. This is the interface I use currently. For the full breakdown, check out my post on getting started with PeopleBrowsr. There are a few reasons why I’ve settled on it, but the main ones are:
Do you use any of these services? How do they work for you? What web interfaces for Twitter have you come across that I’ve missed? Inquiring minds want to know.
Being an avid FriendFeed user, I’ve had hours and hours of experience in figuring out what items will get attention there. One thing that most users will agree on is the fact that images will usually catch a viewer’s eye. Even before FriendFeed really opened the fire hose and made realtime the default, items with image thumbnails always seemed to get the most attention. Feed-buster is a web application that ensures your feeds are at their best. When you import a Feed-buster feed into FriendFeed, you’ll get all the images and video properly formatted and embedded. Check out this image to see what I mean. Which feed would you find more interesting?
This brings me to my experience with my Posterous blog. The reason Posterous has become so important in my workflow is that it allows me to simply forward interesting emails I get directly to my blog (@woodchuckonbass is one of my primary sources in that regard). Not only that, but Posterous automatically posts to all my social networks for me. Check out myPosterous getting started guide for more information.
The problem is that, whether you import your feed from Posterous or set up Posterous to post directly to FriendFeed, you can never ensure that all your images and videos will actually show up in FriendFeed. Feed-buster changes all that and should help with any other feeds that don’t seem to do what you want them to.
Feed-buster has definitely solved a huge problem for me, so maybe it can help enrich your online experience as well. Tell what you think in the comments.
Entrecard was recently aquired by LA based Ziprunner and it looks like they’ve started to make some changes. The image above shows the link to their new video that helps to explain what the point of Entrecard really is. According to an email from Graham Langdon, founder of Entrecard, he will become more of an advisor and has started a new blog at Ontrapranore.com:
ZipRunner Inc. was chosen out of a number of potential suitors because
of the resources they can dedicate to the project, their exciting
vision for the company’s future, and their understanding of social
media and the blogosphere.
In all honesty, I haven’t been that deep into the Entrecard community, but I have been somewhat active there and I’m hoping their purchase will make the service more useful to more people. Many may think that Entrecard will simply increase your bounce rate and won’t bring you any quality visitors, but this is definitely false. I have made many connections via Entrecard and I don’t plan to stop using it any time soon. It’s just another tool to use to find little known bloggers who post stuff I might like. I also appeciate the fact that other bloggers, most of them serious, are taking the time to take a look at my blog.
If you have an Entrecard account, don’t forget to drop a card here and add me to your favorites. I know I’ve been slacking on my dropping, but I’m working on it and having some fresh blogs in my Entrecard inbox would definitely help.
Learn.com calls themselves a leader in on-demand workforce development and productivity so, when I came across their website, I absolutely had to dig a little deeper. They are a pioneer in Elearning and “the first company in history to provide a single, integrated platform for those seeking skill improvement for a particular job profile and those seeking to hire skilled, “job ready” workers.”
Personally, my dream job is one in which I can earn a living enriching the lives of others. It sounds really corny when you say it out loud, but it’s still the truth. Many know me as somewhat of a renaissance man. I’m a writer and blogger, specifically covering technology and productivity. I’m also a musician, releasing such esoteric but lyrically charged diddies as Social Media Mogul and Before I Lose It. My interest in my personal health and fitness has transformed my life physically and mentally and I want to help others strive towards their health goals as well.
While my interests are somewhat random, there are some threads that run through them all. Those include sales, marketing, finance, and customer service. These are all basic courses that I could take at Learn.com. Some might even be free. There are also courses on how to operate a home business, which is exactly what I’ve been doing up to this point. Once you’ve selected a job profile on Learn.com, you’ll be assessed a Skill Score that reflects your skill and knowledge as it relates to that job profile.
“We believe the Skill Score will become as important as a credit score within the next few years,” said Learn.com President and CEO Jim Riley. He continued, “This new tool not only gives job seekers an important edge in today’s economy, it also helps employers make better decisions about whom they hire.”
It seems that Learn.com could not only help you figure out where you stand in relation to the skills required for your dream job, but it could also help employers easily pick out the right person for a job. Check out the site, take a free course or two, and tell me what you think.
This post is in response to a Skribit suggestion that I write about how I learned about coding and design and how long it took me. It has been a life-long journey, which explains the word count of this post, but hopefully you will find it interesting.
I think I am. I mean, I don’t think the majority of kids had a computer back in 1986. What was I? 7? 8? My mom alleges that I asked for a computer, so she bought what she could afford at the time. She would also use it to type papers and such while getting her first degree at Borough of Manhattan Community College. I recall no such request. If this is true, my story is even weirder than I thought. What the heck would a 7yr old be doing asking for a computer back in 1986?
Now that I think about it, had access to computers in school. PS 198 in Brooklyn. I was in the Eagle Program for high achievers or something like that. We had access to Appl IIe computers where we learned how to program using LogoWriter. I think it was LogoWriter II. I always remember the computer lab being kind of dark and there were a bunch of older computers on the floor on one side. They must have been older models, but they were a lot shinier and cooler looking.
I also remember the computer lab instructor. Don’t remember his name, but he was tall and lanky with glasses. He had medium length hair and always wore tight jeans and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I didn’t know it then, but this guy was a geek.
It seems that access to this computer lab prompted me to want a computer in my home. The Adam computer didn’t have the same software (ie. LogoWriter II), but it did have a similar program where you controlled a turtle. I remember that same program having some method to compose simple music.
As I approached 5th grade, we had to decide where I would be continuing my education. I had older cousins who all had nothing positive to say about the schools in our area. They were plagued by violence at the time. A couple of my aunts had just recently moved to Georgia and they made it sound real nice, so we decided to join them in the dirty south.
The Adam computer didn’t make the trip and I was left without a computer for about a year. On the positive side, I was enrolled into the Computer Science and Technology Magnet here in GA. This meant that I had a computer on my desk in class at all times. I believe these were IBM ps/2 models. I also had access to my old friend LogoWriter II on these systems and it was, again, part of our curriculum.
I’ll never forget the first day of class. A room full of new computers, one for each student. I hadn’t been anywhere near a computer in over a year and the excitement was electric. As I took a seat, I noticed a fellow student fidgeting in the row ahead of me. Eventually, he leaned back and looked at me with wide eyes and asked, “Do these computers stay in here …on our desks…like, all the time?!”
I didn’t know it then, but this guy was going to be my partner in crime when it came to learning a whole bunch of stuff about computers and networking that the school probably didn’t intend. Not only did we become experts at LogoWriter II, but we began to branch out. These computers ran DOS, which included the Advanced Basic interpreter. I also learned about coding in machine language, Pascal, Turbo Assembler, and eventually got my hands on Borland C++.
By this time, I had already conned mom and grandma into getting me another home computer for xmas. It was a 286 and ran DOS. I eventually obtained a copy of LogoWriter II for it. Having completed her degree back in NY and being the type to never throw away a book, I found myself with access to all types of information on programming languages and concepts. This accelerated my self-education into that area.
Over time, I tried to stay abreast of current computing trends. On xmas and birthdays I always asked for something computer or tech related. Eventually, I got a computer with a modem. This opened up a world of BBS’s and online games. I learned about hacking, cracking, phreaking, warez, and even some legal things that I can’t recall at the moment. Mom was going for her degree in CIS by this time, so we had access to a shell account at Georgia State University. This is how I gained access to the Internet.
Once I was really online, the floodgates opened up. I somehow learned about Linux and the Open Source movement. Win 3.1 had become tiresome anyway, so I installed Linux (after a brief stint with FreeBSD) and didn’t look back. Linux is easy to install these days, but I recall spending hours downloading and installing Slackware. I think it took about 100 3.5″ floppies (ok, probably exaggerating there).
Long story short, I was an early adopter for high-speed internet, voice chat, video chat, and just about any other emerging technology you can think of. I attempted college at Georgia Tech, but I just couldn’t get interested in the courses that weren’t computer science. I worked at The Linux General Store. Now I’m a blogger, social media addict, and rapper/singer. If you want this kind of job, it is essential to take English courses to enhance your communication and writing skill. You can enroll at Burlington Test PREP, the Israel’s leading school for overseas studies. They can assist you in speech, writing, listening comprehension and reading comprehension.
I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I have an extensive knowledge of technology and programming that some envy me for. Even when I’m unfamiliar with a certain language or platform, I figure things out quickly. I can only blame my upbringing and the slight advantages and interests I had at a young age. I’m that guy you call when turning it off and back on doesn’t work. You can’t learn this stuff with fancy schooling alone. This isn’t even limited to computers.
If you’ve been skimming this post, here is where you should plug back in. I share my back story with you to illustrate that my upbringing was somewhat uncommon. Not only that, but it seems I had a passion for computers and programming from a very young age. Technology is just something that comes natural to me. All this newfangled social media stuff? Not as new to me as it is to some of you. Much of what I learned early on came from interacting with people smarter than me on IRC, forums, and via instant messaging.
So that explains me, but what about you? In hindsight, it’s easier to look back and see what specific things were different about your life than others. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it, but now that I’m older it’s obvious. What made you who you are today? What has given you your special talents? (and don’t claim to have none because everyone can do something very well)
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