Published on August 9, 2008
This may be old news to some, but it dawned on me to check for this a few minutes ago, and I was excited to see that it works exactly as I had hoped.
The [amazing] music site Last.fm has an events calendar system. Each artist page has an events listing, showing you when they’re playing where. There’s a great social networking mechanism where you can say that you plan to attend an event. You can see other users who are going, and there’s a message board for posting notes about the event. There’s even a unique Flickr tag for each event, and photos posted with that tag will automatically show up on that event’s page on Last.fm. As a user, you get an events calendar on the Last.fm site, but you’re planned events aren’t stuck there.
At the top of your events page there’s a iCal sync link. Click that link will add a subscription to your iCal that will auto update your calendar with your planned events. This is killer, the exact type of information freedom that we’ve come to expect from cutting edge sites. I recently found that it is possible to export Facebook events into iCal, but it looks like a one-time syncronization, and will have to be repeated as you add new events in Facebook. Last.fm, however, will automatically update your calendar, which makes the whole transaction seamless to the user.
What other sites with “event” tools have this level of syncing?
Published on July 22, 2008
Wordpress has released an official native app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It lets you create new posts as well as edit existing posts on Wordpress.com hosted blogs, as well as self hosted installations of Wordpress 2.51 or higher. This is an app I have been hoping for, so I was excited to try it out. The app looks very slick so far. I’m going to upload some photos too to test that out too. The auto-correction for the keyboard is disabled in the post title and tag fields, but thankfully it is intact when you are typing up a post’s body. You can post images from photos you have saved on the device (I used it to attach the screenshot). One feature I hope they will add is the ability to moderate comments. I expect that the app will grow to add such features with updates overtime.
iTunes store link
Official Wordpress for iPhone site: http://iphone.wordpress.org/
Published on June 17, 2008
Today is Download Day for Firefox 3. The official release is out today, and the Mozilla Foundation is trying to break a record for downloads in a 24 hour period. First of all, you should get Firefox 3 because it’s faster, more stable, and more feature rich than Firefox 2. I’ve been running a couple of the release candidates for a few weeks and I have noticed a huge difference over Firefox 2. While you’re helping yourself, you can help Firefox get publicity by downloading today and contributing toward reaching the record.
You can head over to www.spreadfirefox.com for more information and a download link. As of writing this (9:20am EST) the download link still goes to Firefox 2. I believe that Firefox 3 officially launches at 1pm EST.
Published on June 16, 2008
I’ve been using Google Browser Sync for a while now. It syncs your bookmarks, cookies, saved passwords, and open window sessions across multiple computers (and multiple operating systems). Unfortunately, the plugin doesn’t work in Firefox 3, and many users have been anxiously waiting for an update. A Lifehacker.com reader shared the reply e-mail he received from Google when he contacted them about Firefox 3 support for the Google Browser Sync plugin.
Thanks for trying out Google Browser Sync and for all of your feedback. It was a tough call, but we decided to phase out support for Browser Sync. Since the team has moved on to other projects that are keeping them busy, we don’t have time to update the extension to work with Firefox 3 or to continue to maintain it.
The e-mail goes on to suggestion Mozilla Weave, Google Toolbar (for syncing just bookmarks online), and the Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer plugin as replacements. I gave Mozilla Weave a shot last week, but it is in very early development and was far from stable enough for use. I’ve heard great things about Foxmarks, but like Google Toolbar, it doesn’t syncronize cookies, saved passwords, or window sessions. Weave is the only viable solution for my needs, so I’m hoping it will mature quickly and reach a stable release soon.
Google Browser Sync was a really great product, and it’s a shame to see it go. Google says that it will support current users until the end of 2008. Of course, I’m guessing that most Firefox users will be upgrading to Firefox 3 long before that (like June 17th).
Via: Lifehacker.com
Published on May 26, 2008
TUAW had a post on a new city guide type website targeted to iPhone and iPod Touch users, Schmap. Schmap does a lot of the basic city guy type stuff, quite well I made add, but the thing that got my attention was the interface.
When you view information about a location holding the device upright, you get the typical information such as phone number, address, etc. However, when you turn the device 90ยบ into a landscape orientation, the website switches into a split-screen display, with a map of the location on the left and information on the right. Mobile Safari can feed data on device orientation to the website you’re viewing, and this is the first developer I’ve seen really use this information in a big way.
This got me thinking about the future of device interfaces. We’re no longer just looking at button presses for application interaction. We’ve got so many more forms of input at our disposal now. Device orientation, touch, multi-touch, sound, ambient light, geographic location, acceleration… and these aren’t limited to the iPhone/Touch. Macbook Pros have all of these senses too, even though they’re not all natively reported by the operating system, yet.
I think, in the very near future, we will be flooded with devices that have new and natural forms of input. I’m still amused by the fact that when I’m trying a new application on my phone, and I’m trying to figure out how to do something, shaking the device is actually a logical thing to try.
