Category client

Micro-blogging with MoodBlast

With MoodBlast I am rethinking micro-blogs. This application allows the user to post to four micro-blogging services and can change the status in 3 IM-networks (and Facebook). I was already able to this partly with my Applescript.

MoodBlast also has some support for creating the message as well. Thus one can add information on music that is playing in iTunes, the weather, the latest favorite video on YouTube. It also supports some specifics of individual services, such as the location in Jaiku, video-links in Tumblr.

The app can also grab url’s from browsers and add them to a message. And this also results in a structured post in Pownce, very neat.

All in all this can very well be my main application. I only miss the possibility to upload to my own micro-blog. This is however solved with the introduction of applescript support. So now I can use MoodBlast in conjunction with Quicksilver.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client
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A look at Pownce

Thanks to some other services, I happened upon Pownce again. I already signed up, but I never had a deeper look at it.

At first it just looks like another micro-blog. The structure of an Item consist of just one field: the title. And I use Pownce in this way, as I post to 4 micro-blog services simultaneously. An Item (called a note) has a corresponding permalink, where one can also see the comment thread.

However Pownce is not limited to a micro-blog structure, it is possible to add more fields to a pst/item. The ‘link’ structure adds a field for a URL.

The ‘file’ structure allows you to add any file. If I add an image it will be shown in the note. A file can only be posted to friends.

And finally one can create an event. This structure consists of a title, a place, date/time and a real note. There is a corresponding ics-file for easy importing. Interestingly you can reply to such a post to indicate you will attend.

I get the impression that I can not edit a note. I already needed that feature a few times. I am also annoyed that I can not edit the recipients. I already made several errors due to that. I miss a RSS-feed, at least I do not see it.

Pownce is a bit more a communication service, as one can send a note to just a single friend, all friends or the public. I like the approach of Pownce to struture.: if you want more, just add a field. It is much more like wild MicroContent.

I do not think that I will use Pownce though. I only view MicroContent through feeds in NetNewsWire. Although I will continue publishing to Pownce. My usage will depend on the feeds and integration with my desktop;

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • service • type • blog • bookmark ,

pownce

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Friendfeed

I am trying to figure out the friendfeed service. The service allows you to follow MicroContent posts from friends, yourself and the world. However it is limited to those that subscribed and added their personal feeds to friendfeed.

When a user subscribes he can indicate the services that must be combined. The service supports twitter, amazon wishlist, delicious, last.fm, stumbleupon, flickr, etc (28 services at the moment). The service makes it very easy to add an rss-feed, you just have to specify your username. As they do not check the password of the corresponding service, you can just mix and match whatever you want. And in addition one can just add any other rss-feed, by typing the corresponding URL.

This makes it just a personal rss-aggregator just like Yahoo Pipes. Only the functionality is more limited, but much easier to use.

What the service makes interesting is that you can also find aggregated feeds of other users. And you can make imaginary friends for feeds of those that did not subscribe yet to friendfeed. I like this feature as you not have to do the aggregation of your friendfeed’s yourself. And this is an easy place to find them. Often I am not able to find all the feeds of someone as they are not readily published somewhere.

Naturally the problem is that you are already subscribed to a lot of information of your friends, so this only will double your information overload.

By the way, friendfeed republishes everything again as feeds, so you do not have to go to the site again.

Now I have to wait until all my friends subscribe, so I can aggregate their stuff. ANd in the mean time I create new subscriptions and new feeds for new services.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • service • mashing
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eBay and MicroContent

Lately , I started playing with eBay. Can you imagine that I never did anything with. In the mean time I already bought my first item. Naturally as I am not very fond of heavy web-pages, I started looking for clients that can support me in following auctions. I found GarageBuy and JBidWatcher. The first is a real MacOSX application and the latter is a Java app that has been ported.

First of all we have to look where we can find the MicroContent in auctions. The MicroContent Item is the auction itself, with the auction ID, current price, auction closing time, Item title, seller-namer and seller-location. And there are probably some other fields as well. Each auction has a permalink at eBay, such as this one. I wonder how long these permalinks stay around.

The information on the auctioned Item is a MicroContent type in itself. I get the impression that eBay does not offer to much structure for this, but I have look a bit more into that, when I use a sell client, such as GarageSale or iSale. These two MicroContent Types (auction and auction-Item) are a bit merged. I am not sure whether this a good or bad thing and whether we have in fact two different MicroContent types. In contrast to normal shops, where the Item refers to a product-category, in the case of an auction one points to a single product, with all its defects.

Interestingly an auction MicroContent Item, is dynamic as buyings can place bis on Items and thus influencing one of the fields on that Item. In fact each bid can be seen as a MicroContent Item itself. The clients I looked at have no support for following bids and one has to refer to the corresponding web-page.

JBidWatcher presents a single window with a single pane. This pane (Items-pane) contains a list of all auctions that are followed in table format. The table contains fields such as auction number, auction title, seller-name, etc. It is not possible to add or remove fields.

GarageBuy is a bit more complex with a three pane setup. This reminds a lot of a standard MicroContent Client. There is View-pane with information on the auctioned Item (details-view). This contains either a description of the Item or the corresponding web-page at eBay. The Items-pane shows either a set of auctions or the details of a single auction. And finally there is a Lists-pane showing categories of auctions based on searches. Or auctions that are followed. One can sort these auctions into folders.

Unfortunately the mixing of searches and individual auctions breaks the logic a bit. I would have preferred to have a fourth pane for all the details.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application
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iPhoto Events

The latest version of iPhoto (version 7.1.1) has a new organising principle for images: events. It took me a while to get my head around it, but I think I got it now. I like it, however I do not like the implementation.

A big advantage is the the amount of management a user has to do, is much smaller. In the Event View one can drag an event thumbnail and drop it on another one, thus merging the two events. Clicking on the event title allows one to change it. Thus one organises tens to hundreds of images in one go.

A drawback is that changing the contents of an event also changes the folder structure. I do not know why did not leave the folder structure (based on date) alone. Might be for speed. And what is one supposed to do with the miscellaneous images? Create a special event for these?

In any case events greatly reduce the amount of organisational burden for the user. And that is a great advantage in this time of exponential digital asset growth.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client , iphoto
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iRemember story line support

I just came across this application, which works with photos as well. This is a application for scrapbooking. This implies that emphasis lies on the things around the photos, although these form the basic content. The application supports a large library of clip art, with which one can embellish the album pages. There is no integration with iPhoto, apart from the drag&drop function.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application , macosx, iremember
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RapidWeaver storyline support

Another web-site development client on the Mac is RapidWeaver. It offers the same story line capabilities as Sandvox. However the integration with iPhoto is better. By selecting an album within iPhoto, one can import all associated images. And thus populate all required web-pages. The application uses the captions of the images to create the context. The ordering of the map in iPhoto is used as storyline for the web-pages.

RapidWeaver also allows the possibility to create a flash-based slideshow.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application , rapidweaver
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Sandvox storyline support

The support in Sandvox for creating story lines with photos is rudimentary. One can either create a Photo Album or a Photo Blog. Both are collections of Image web-pages. The Image web-page contains the photo, a text taken(!) from the photo and a title (not taken from the photo). The photo album page contains a list of thumbnails with the photos on a rectangular grid. One has also other presentation possibilities.

The difference between the Photo Album and Photo Blog seems to be the ordering of the photos. In a Photo Album the user choses his own ordering. And in the case of a Photo Blog the ordering is defined by the creation dates of the web-pages with the most recent at the top.

A change of theme does not change the way one peruse images, all themes follow the same model.

In comparison with iWeb this application misses the fancy stuff.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application , sandvox
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iWeb story line support

iWeb is Apple's application for creating web-sites. It is not an application that I use, I am a Sandvox user. I had a look at it, to see how they support story lines in photos. Using iPhoto one has the possibility to export a set of photos to iWeb, where the photos turn up as photo album.

As usual in web publishing applications the photo album in iWeb is pretty straightforward. The main web-page shows all the thumbnails in an album. Clicking on a photo opens a new page with that photo and optionally a thumbnail list of the next ten photos in the album. The user has then the possibility to click on the next (or previous) button for the next photo. Or he can click on a thumbnail to go to another photo.

The story line is that of the original sequence of imported photos. The user can re-arrange photos on the album page in order to adjust the story line.

The context of the album comes from the titles of the original photos and from text that a user can add to each web-page.

It is also possible to view the album as a slideshow. The photos are then show in turn for a short time. Each photo is shown with the title. The viewer has the ability to stop the show, select another photo or go to the next photo. This is a quite neat web implementation.

It might be possible that other web-sites themes offer other story line possibilities. I just checked the

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application • mashing
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iPhoto story line support

The first application to look at, is the image/photo management application by Apple. The selection of suitable photos can be done in two ways. First the user can create a hand-picked photo album. Then the user has drag&drop each (or set of) photo onto the album icon. Secondly can create a smart album and define a rule to have photos added to that album. Such a rule can be based on the existence of a certain keyword. Drawback is that the user has to assign that keyword to each photo that needs to be included. Unfortunately there is no way to set keywords to multiple photos'.

Next the user must think about the order of the photos. In a smart album the user can not fiddle with the order of the photos. In a normal album he can. What can be done depends on the format. This implies that a smart album is no use in creating story lines.

The slideshow format is the premier way of viewing photos in iPhoto. Each photo will be shown sequentially in full screen mode. Optionally the photo title can be shown as context. It is possible to randomise the presentation on photos. An underlying audio track can be added for additional context or just atmosphere. Due to a lack of context, the slideshow does not provide much story line possibilities. A slideshow can be based on selected items in a normal and smart album. The slideshow options allows for changing the order of the photos. There are many possibilities to adapt the presentation of and transitions between photos in the show itself.

The book format within iPhoto allows the user to create a classic photo album. This looks very much like a classic photo album. How much context one can add depends on the album theme. Not all page layouts offer the possibility to add text. Unfortunately the information entered for each photo can not be used as context for the album pages.

iPhoto also has the possibility to create a calendar. This format is a pretty standard monthly flip over calendar, with on one page the monthly calendar and on the other page 1-3 photos. It does not seem possible to add context through text in all themes. however the monthly calendar does add some context. This monthly calendar can be filled through events from iCal (nice for birthdays).

There also exists a Web Gallery format, where a set of images are exported to the web. Unfortunately that requires a .Mac account, which I do not have at the moment.

iPhoto also has the possibility to export to other applications, such as iDVD and iWeb. The story line creation must be done in those applications.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application
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Photo Album Storylines

Inspired by Memory Miner I started thinking about story lines in Photo Albums. How are story lines created in Photo Albums. How do we go from the big pile of digital photos to a story. I am not aware of any work in this field, so I will start looking at some applications and services and see how these can create story lines.

I see several aspects to the story:

• Selection - not all available photos will fit the story line. So a selection must be made. This selection can be automatic or done by hand;
• Ordering - for a story the order of the photos is important. The story line goes from one photo to the next. This story line could follow the the stamp of the photos, but that is by no means required;
• Context - usually a photo needs a context. This context can be given through associated text or audio. A single context might apply to multiple photos;
• Format - one should no longer think of photo albums in the classic format, the books. Photo albums can also have digital formats, such as a DVD, a presentation (video), web-pages, etc. Each of these formats might have other story line possibilities;

I will I add some conclusion to this post when needed.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application
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Thoughts on Wakoopa

A few weeks ago I installed the tracker of Wakoopa. Wakoopa tracks which applications I am using on my Mac (or PC). This results in a public profile page, where you can see which applications I did use. As Wakoopa has categorised each application, you can sort of see what I did / am doing: 'communicate', 'doing some office tasks', 'surf the web', etc. Interestingly also applications are shown of which I was not aware I was using them, such as Security Agent.

My initial interest for this application was naturally the MicroContent view. Each time I start or end the application use can be seen as a MicroContent Item creation. Unfortunately these Items are not available in Wakoopa. The service only stores the aggregated values. So not much MicroContent here.

Based on tags related to applications, the service recommends other apps. There is also a social component: one can join teams and thus influence the applications used by a team, such as MacOSX.

I did not find much use for this service however. In the Mac world there are better usage trackers and application recommenders. But what is more important, I have no idea why I should want to use this.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • service , wakoopa
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Application management and MicroContent

For a while I have been pondering the relation between user application management, the application Appfresh and the service iusethis.com. It is all about the applications one is using. For a while now there was a habit of publishing the things one is using. I did as well and created a blog dedicated to this. This blog lists the apps I am using, put on my dock and have been testing. (I really should work on this blog a bit more, though)

The iusethis service does something similar. Here is my profile. This service is somewhat similar to my own blog in that it lists the apps that I am using and have docked. The interesting thing about this service is that it also shows relations between applications, so that one can discover interesting new ones.

And then there is the desktop app AppFresh. This applications scans the hard-drive for existing applications, thus creating an application list. Subsequently this list is checked against a public list in order to check application updates. If there is an update, it can be downloaded and installed. This installation process is pretty transparent. If one takes a snapshot of an app, one can always rollback to that version. This is very useful, I already got bummed on an app. The problem is that the app is a bit to transparent and one does not always know the consequences of an update.

In addition AppFresh is integrated with iusethis. This means the apps found by AppFresh can be uploaded to iusethis, and if wanted flagged.

So where is the MicroContent in all of this. I see three parts: the application, the product information and the user input. The application can not be seen as MicroContent. The product information, i.e. the information on the application, can be seen as business MicroContent. Normally this information should be provided by the maker of the product, but in this case it is gathered by users.

And finally the user information. This information can be seen as a very simple review. Already the fact that an application appears on the list in the first place, can be seen as a review. At least the user took a look at the application. The user can only add a simple 3-level rating to this information: favorite, iusethis and is_installed (appears on the list).

I have not yet decided whether I find all of this useful for myself. Att the moment it is just fun to play with. And for applications that I really use, I will detect whether there are any updates available or not.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • application • service • type • review , appfresh, apple, macosx, apps, iusethis
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Listphile

I started playing with the Listphile service. This service allows a user to create and manage Lists of Items. One can create either some standard lists, such as text, people lists, video lists, images lists and an atlas. Or one can add fields at will to create one's own list. In order to experiment a bit, I create a list with sundials. I added some fields to the standard atlas list to suit my need.

This service offers many features of desktop MicroContent Clients, so I will discuss the service using that checklist.

The first check is whether the Items in Listphile are MicroContent. Indeed these Items support structure, are flexible (one can extend them) and offer some MicroWeb possibilities through links. There are standard fields, such as titles, descriptions and tags. And each Item has a permalink.

The interface consists of only 2 web-pages: a View-pane and a Items-pane. The View-pane shows a single Item, the location is shown on a map. The Items-pane can be set to maps, lists or thumbnails mode. There are limited sorting possibilities. A separate page is available for a tag cloud.

The service has standard Item functions for viewing, adding, editing and deleting Items. There are only limiting functions for a List itself (editing title, address, etc.).

There are only limited functions for importing an exporting, i.e. no importing and exporting only as RSS and embedded Lists.

The fact that this service is on Internet allows to add some news features. A List can be a social List. This means that multiple authors can work on a single List (still have to check this out). And to help here one has the possibility to see authors and what has been edited. There is some moderation and access control. It is also possible to comment on an Item or author.

I miss the import and export possibilities. I would like to exporting as KML and OPML. I am now locked in. The service is still in beta and I did see some minor errors, but overall it works great.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • service • widget • field • location • tag • mashing • type , listphile
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HoudahGeo

I have been playing a bit with HoudahGeo. This application allows the user to add geographic coordinates to images. For this the user only has to select an image and move the pointer around on a globe (bases on Google Maps). The images can be taken from the iPhoto library or a plain image file can be imported.

Once an image has been geotagged, the location can be exported as Spotlight tags, as EXIF info. Also the images can be exported to Flickr and to Google Earth as kmz file. The app also has support for GPS tracks (can not try that out).

I have mixed feelings about this application. I rather have something that is integrated with iPhoto. I do the Flickr exporting already there. HoudahGeo creates new sets for images with geocodes, but I already have those sets in iPhoto. The export as kmz-file is very nice.

Well I am still grasping with my workflow around locations. I am really waiting for camera producers to integrate GPS.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • field • location , houdahgeo, geographic, gps
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