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Startpage Mash-up!
The most comprehensive startpage review available…

To continue the weekly series reviewing, exploring, and living Web 2.0… Last week we introduced startpages.

Quick Note for those who feel left out: Web-based startpages(aka AJAX/Flash homepages) are nifty sites aimed at making your web life easier by putting most-needed services on one page. Check out my entry last week describing them. There are lots of them and they’re all free.

Go to the winner list…
Go to the reviews of the top 3…
Go to the score chart…

There are so many different options for what you can use for a startpage. In fact as I explored the list I gathered together last week, I discovered a few more. Some have big names with them, but surprisingly (or not) it doesn’t seem to guarantee quality. The startpage market has come into its own as something distinguished. I looked through 20 different options, which exhausts the lists of other older comprehensive reviews I found. For the sake of information, feel free to check them out: 14 Personalized Homepages Compared, Feature by Feature (June 2007); Top 12 web-based Startpages Compared. The winner is… (February 2007); and Alpha Geek: Start-page showdown (March 2007). My research even dove me into the world of easy-to-make webpages (now finally taking advantage of AJAX) and so I decided to draw the line of this review at the specific mention of startpage or a clear adherence to the concept. You can catch links to these page builders at the end of this entry. They do though provide a highly customizable option to developing a startpage.

To come up with a fair way to judge I had to come up with categories and an appropriate scoring system. I tried to think of the things most important to a startpage user. The categories I decided on are: user friendly, basic functions, looks, site layout, RSS handling, tabs, widgets, speed, a useful community, and an extras category. The overall scores were determined via an averaging of scores in all categories, you can view these at the end of the entry. The category winners were determined by which had the highest score in the category. If there was a tie, it was broken by which had the highest overall score.

Each was scored on a scale from 0-5. Zero - zilch worthwhile in the category. Five - I couldn’t have asked for much more in fulfilling the category.

User Friendly - How initially intuitive the functioning of and interaction with the site is.
Basic Functions - Whether or not basic functions expected from startpages are included. I considered RSS, email, calendar, todo, notes, and a few other things that my mind more than likely took note of.
Looks - Did it catch my eye or cause an eye-sore? Mainly, would I want to see it opening up in my browser every day.
Site Layout - Taking a close look at if the structure of the site made sense, displayed well, and felt like an asset to the functions offered.
RSS Handling - First, is there something to manage RSS feeds. Second, how worthwhile is it?
Tabs - Are they there? Also, looking at the functionality of them; if they drag, are easily created, and etc. or not.
Widgets - Variety, quality, number, organization, and integration were key factors in evaluating widgets.
Speed - Simply how fast it seemed to load and how quickly the site responded to user interaction.
Useful Community - Looking specifically at if there is a built-in community and how useful it is. Also, I wanted to see if there was any effort for one community to share/interact with another. Finally, I took into account permanent or shareable links to created startpages and their tabs.
Extra - This was a section to give extra points for unique features, overall site impression, and anything else that was hard to account for in the other categories.

The Winners!
Overall: Netvibes

And by category…
User Friendly: yourminis
Basic Functions: Netvibes
Looks: yourminis
Site Layout: yourminis
RSS Handling: Netvibes
Tabs: Netvibes
Widgets: Netvibes
Speed: iGoogle
Useful Community: Pageflakes
Extra: Symbaloo
Continue reading »

To continue the weekly series reviewing, exploring, and living Web 2.0…

Okay, okay, so I’ve not really given you any juicy stuff on this Web 2.0. You are probably wondering where the content is, the applications, the useful stuff, and what will make your life easier (or harder).

Lets first consider Web 2.0 through the two things that make it possible.

1. Client-side software - The software and know-how of your computer that allows the most difficult processing to be done locally andrelieve the complicated back-end from the servers you are accessing. In other words, it is still an internet connection and not the speed of the insides of your computer. Much like the old terminal to server networks, but reversed. You have the power they have the fancy views and clever workings.

What you need:
The must haves…
-Java
-Flash
-Silverlight

Often times if you have the most updated version of your browser, your in. So find that ‘check for update’ option now.

Even so, there are some browsers known for being more Web 2.0 friendly and I suggest you try them out.
Firefox vs. Internet Explorer - Mozilla’s Firefox wins. IE is known for being finicky with Web 2.0 apps and just clunky in general. Also certain Web 2.0 content can cause memory leaks (which means a eventual need to restart as your computer slows to a halt).
Apple’s Safari is now out on both operating systems and so recently is Flock (based on a . Both are worth a try. Safari has a great reputation as being stable and not released if otherwise. It also, until recently, shakily handled Web 2.0 content. Simplicity guaranteed as always. For a loaded baked potato of Web 2.0 browsers, try Flock. It’s what I use and it’s built to use the web browser as your Web 2.0 hub. Recently released as 1.0 (out of development), it’s much more usable, but still crashes (albeit a basic amount now) and mysteriously leaks memory (but instead of quickly like before you have to leave the browser running for days and days on end to notice the drag).

The browsers…
-Flock
-Mozilla Firefox
-Safari

2. Server-side software - The server, accessed usually through an internet connection, tells your computer what to do and how to make it pretty. Running heavily off of advanced databases and other structured data formats, the structure allows for organized access. You can now take advantage of this by knowing the internet’s limitations and only updating tiny portions of content at a time, often resulting in very frequent but small data requests.

What they generally use, lay men’s terms, if you want to get all tech-y about it…
-AJAX is used to created interactive web applications that is responsive and interactive by exchanging those small bits of data constantly.
-HTML, DHTML, XHTML, and XML is used to code the pages that support the Web 2.0 content building on stricter rules to create interpretable standards.
-Special HTML (or microformats) are additions to the above code formats that allow for simplifications in Web 2.0 content and processes for specific web software.
-Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) creates standard layouts for a set of pages/site that can rely on color scheme or more specifically defined traits allowing them to be stored in one place and not separately on each page.
-Web APIs (application programming interface) are a machine (client) based interaction that moves away from read-only web sites.
-mashups are something you will see more and more and is the precursor to Web 3.0 as it takes unique information and attaches it to another pocket of unique information in way that connects data where the other’s ends.
-wiki or forum software is the growing user driven and edited content online.
-Atom or RSS are simple, standardized, and low memory ways to present constantly updated information in a readable format.
-Flash is interactive content gone graphically pleasing web application.
-Java and JavaScript are versatile and semi-related programing languages that have added complexity to web content when embedded.

Many of these are used together and you often don’t have to worry about what is being used as long as it work. I do hope that the simple vocabulary lesson will be useful in the future.

Next week and in the weeks to come, we will begin to talk about access to this content and the things that can help manage it. I hope from here on out the lessons will be shorter and the solutions will be longer. We have a foundation, now it is time to build on it.

Looking for a great moment of traveler’s glory? Always forgetting your books at home? Look no further than Amazon’s Kindle, the new electronic book reader.

DICEWARS

We all know the board game RISK© and it’s glorious multi-hour world domination adventure. Often, multiple hours are hard to come by, but the urge to dominate the world and exercise your strategic muscle doesn’t fade. It could just be the geeky strategy game player speaking, but DICEWARS has filled a growing need since the gay-RISK nights during college, a useful creation, have since ended. Dice become your armies but continuity of land ownership is still apart of the strategy in this smaller map and up to eight “players,” computer(s) and yourself, take on the classic board game.

It isn’t the multi-player amazingness that you can play with your friends but it will provide for a simple five minute to half an hour distraction amidst your workday, study for finals, or crazy unemployed livelihood.

Check it out, play it, and share what it kept you from doing/completing during your day. I owe the absence of a log of student volunteer hours and probably a blog entry or two to the joys of this dice rolling battle on my computer screen.

From the same show:

Aimee Mann/Grant-Lee Phillips- You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch
Aimee Mann/Paul F. Tompkins-Baby, It’s Cold Outside

It was a birthday gift and I loved it. If you enjoy a mellow almost “non-Christmas” type of celebration, then this is for you. You missed the Ann Arbor, MI performance, but her others can be found here. The classic lyrics and volume of Aimee Mann have brought songs such as “One,” where it can indeed be the loneliest number. Not a song she sang at the show but the majority of the songs, were not of the Christmas type. They were about the humble tone that Christmas, and the holidays, can often bring. High on quirky guest performances and a not quite polished variety show, Aimee Mann and friends shine. I laughed hard, loved the culties, newbies, and felt satisfied realizing that you can be and feel big even in a time when tradition can bring upon so much change.

So, get ready for the new year. Things are going to be crazy all over again.

Good luck shopping!

What is different this year come the holidays? (see: The weather outside is frightful…)

There are a lot of us who probably wish life was more of a trip. Less like the one you take to your next interview or conference but more like the one where the sky swirls above your head. Tonight I saw “Across the Universe.” It was good. It could have been a bit more polished but totally worth a big thumbs up in my book. There you go, review done.

It might make some of you go crazy, but I wouldn’t mind a bit of my life to be cartoonized, exaggerated, and stretched. This is because it feels this way everyday anyway, so it would be nice to know it’s normal.

Our life and the each characters’ lives in the movie seems to have many present-day parallels. The continuous rhythm of war, fighting, love, confusion, and passion ring as strong as the Beatles songs used in the movie. “Across the Universe” does a great job of exhibiting the tug of war between life, reality, life, and more reality. To learn that life is not only an individual experience but one that is shared with others.

So I need to ask you…do we settle? When does the fight that we each feel for freedom end?

Since school have you crossed the universe or stayed closer to your own shores? In short, since then, what have you fallen for? Interpret how you like.

The Cat Empire - The Cat Empire

If there was a balance between intensity and mellow this Aussie group has the tones and beats to wow.  There is a bit of salsa influence, ears appreciate the use of classic instruments.

The songs roll through nights out and days inside the mind.  They don’t shy from moral exploration that mimic the confusion and passion in youth.  So the ability to relate is easy.

This album found me when I was in the middle of a intense transition thanks to happening upon it with a friend.  It resounded in me and still does.

The third track of the album, The Lost Song, goes…
 ”I had a plan but never finished it and I’ve been searching for the thought and I’ve been searching in a haze I try all days to remember it but now the blueprint in my mind is gone my mind forgot the color of direction and my eyes they see the hands that could have built that coulda constructed the empire in my mind, the empire I’ll never find, I had a plan but that was where it ended.”

The urges to…
booze it up
celebrate
save
stand up
fight
cry
question
sex up a situation
settle down
be loud
be quiet

Much like this album, we can experience it all in one day.  We wish we knew the answer to control it.  This album helps me stop and embrace it.  Take some time and listen to these songs, maybe everything happening at once can be just as fun as this album.

It is hard to define your own empire after you have lost it to the transition that happened yesterday, the day before, and etc.