Keeping it Clean

Real Estate Rainmaker: Keeping it Clean

Thoughts on correlation between email productivity and a clean inbox.

GReader - Facelift. But is it Faster?

Official Google Reader Blog: Square is the new round.

Looks like GReader is getting a facelift.  I hope it plays better with the Nokia browsers than the current version.  I use Reader all the time at my PC, but am forced to use the mobile version when away beause the MicroB browser on my n800 crawls so bad it's unusuable.

I can't wait to try it out!

TweetDeck: the App That Keeps on Giving

TweetDeck is a Twitter application that I've been using for quite some time. It's developed and maintained by a one man team: Ian Dodsworth. What initially drew me to the program was the ability to group tweets into different columns. While I do not follow hundreds of people, this feature alone made the program worth using for me. As much as I loved using Twhirl, once I started using TweetDeck I never looked back. Like it's predecessor on my system, it runs on Adobe Air, so it'll run wherever you can install that particular runtime environment.

At the time, what I didn't realize, is how responsive Ian is with his development. Not just to bug fixes and giving help to users who need it, but also in response to feature suggestions and then their implementation. Since I started using the program here are some of the things that he's added:

- A slew of URL shortening services (it seems he adds new ones every release).
- TwitPic and 12Seconds support.
- Built in spell check (YES!).
- Visual and audible tweet notifications.
- International font support.
- Color palette customization.
- Un/Read indication, the ability to clear read tweets.
- Integration with Search.Twitter.com.
- Replies are pulled in via the above, so you can see anyone who has replied to you, regardless of following status.

Going forward, we have to look forward to multi account support, among other things. This is particularly impressive considering that he is a team of ONE.

If you access Twitter on a computer, you are doing yourself a huge disservice by not checking out this program. It has changed the way that I interact with the service, and I know that my usage is relatively light compared to a lot of people out there. Just having a separate column for people I know, verses news or other automatic posting services helps to cut down the signal to noise ratio.

There arn't many programs out there that I endorse 100%, this is one of them.

Check it out at: www.TweetDeck.com.

Chrome: Shiny Enough to Make a Difference?

A recent comic at UserFriendly.org made me smile. It's something that I can totally relate to:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080906

Now that Chrome is little over a week old, I've had some time to use it. It's also been installed at home, and used by the Missus. Her initial thoughts can be summed up by the question that she asked after it had been on our system and set as the default browser for the day: "Did you really get rid of Firefox?" She then followed up with: "I want it back." I later found out that the browser had locked up on her several times, and that's why she wanted it back. Further thoughts from her are as of yet forthcoming.

My usage habits are a bit more complex. At work I use no less than two separate browsers most of the time, and sometimes as often as four due to the many online systems that I access (Firefox, IE, and occasionally Prism and Flock). How does Chrome fit in with all of that?

I've found that I much prefer Chrome's application shortcut feature to be a superior replacement to Prism (application shortcut + m.twitter.com = ROCK). As for just plain browsing (what I've used Flock for), I prefer Chrome as well. So two browsers have just been replaced with Chrome, not too bad!

What about the long term? Speaking personally, I don't think that Chrome will ever totally replace Firefox in my own use. There are just too many extensions that I rely on. For day to day browsing and non specific usage, it does a wonderful job, and is already gaining headway on my own PC here.

All of that aside, the most important aspect of Chrome is the competition that it will give both to Microsoft and Mozilla. Google's in a very good position to market and push a new browser (some may argue that they're in the best position). Competition breeds innovation and therefore a better product, consumers win all around, even those don't switch browsers.

Cutting the Fat

Verizon's email client on their cell phones is pretty much garbage, so I've abandoned using it altogether. Opting to simply forward my personal email, all of it, to my cell phone's SMS email address. Basically letting the text messaging act as an instant email notification. This had a very unexpected side effect, though. It made me very conscious about what exactly I was getting in my email.

Every email message is now sent to my phone, and I realized just how much garbage I was getting. Things that I really don't care about, that I was always a bit too lazy to opt-out of, but still didn't mind deleting on a regular basis, week after week, or month after month. Not really spam, just solicited advertising that I had been given due to my email address being in some companies database.

It certainly gave me the incentive to take the few seconds to opt out of those emails. Got me thinking, also, as to how many other people do the same thing. Legitimate email advertisements, that they don't even read, but never bother to opt out of, just deleting them over and over ad nauseam.