Earlier this week I merged my personal and work bookmarks into a single file and installed the Google Browser Sync add-on for Firefox. This keeps multiple machines in sync with each other. As of tonight, I have got my "global" bookmarks syncing between my home PC, my work laptop and T's PC.
All good stuff and working very nicely. This is a real result for cloud living.
Friday, 13 July 2007
Monday, 9 July 2007
Bookmark Woes
Having successfully synced my calendar, to-do list, notes and contacts so I can access them from anywhere, I turned my attention to bookmarks as the next thing to move to the cloud.
I have a small collection of bookmarks on my home PC, as well as on my work laptop. Over the weekend I took the step of merging them together into Yahoo!'s new bookmark system. This is pretty funky....
...until you try and manage them! Although sporting a slick AJAX driven UI, Yahoo Bookmarks is limited in being able to easily drag and drop bookmarks and re-arrange them. It also requires a visit to the page to access them and my common bookmarks are not sorted at the top (accessing Facebook is slower than typing www.facebook.com into the address bar).
The Yahoo! toolbar for IE provides instant access to your bookmarks by clicking a button, but the Firefox toolbar tries to read the old bookmarks system (which wasn't very good!).
Alternatively, I could use the Google bookmarks system, but this doesn't appeal at the moment (it doesn't have the whizzy page preview that Yahoo has).
So for now, I'm opting to use the Google Browser Sync extension for Firefox that will keep a copy of the bookmarks on the cloud, while still providing the ability to manage them using the rich Firefox interface.
It's not a solved problem, but it's a good step forward.
I have a small collection of bookmarks on my home PC, as well as on my work laptop. Over the weekend I took the step of merging them together into Yahoo!'s new bookmark system. This is pretty funky....
...until you try and manage them! Although sporting a slick AJAX driven UI, Yahoo Bookmarks is limited in being able to easily drag and drop bookmarks and re-arrange them. It also requires a visit to the page to access them and my common bookmarks are not sorted at the top (accessing Facebook is slower than typing www.facebook.com into the address bar).
The Yahoo! toolbar for IE provides instant access to your bookmarks by clicking a button, but the Firefox toolbar tries to read the old bookmarks system (which wasn't very good!).
Alternatively, I could use the Google bookmarks system, but this doesn't appeal at the moment (it doesn't have the whizzy page preview that Yahoo has).
So for now, I'm opting to use the Google Browser Sync extension for Firefox that will keep a copy of the bookmarks on the cloud, while still providing the ability to manage them using the rich Firefox interface.
It's not a solved problem, but it's a good step forward.
Thursday, 5 July 2007
A plethora of blogging options
So I've just registered with Blogger (part of the Google Empire). This is in addition to my Slashdot Journal, neglected Yahoo! 360 page and my personal website. Far too many options to keep them all relevant, so I'll try and settle on the best and remove the others.
This blog is called "Living on the Cloud" and it refers to my current mini-project of moving all my "digital life" (how's that for a pretentious blog comment) from my local network to the Internet where I can [theoretically] access it from anywhere.
Check back soon for more updates (I know, you can't wait...)
This blog is called "Living on the Cloud" and it refers to my current mini-project of moving all my "digital life" (how's that for a pretentious blog comment) from my local network to the Internet where I can [theoretically] access it from anywhere.
Check back soon for more updates (I know, you can't wait...)
Big Brother is watching you...
Had a thought recently following on from the terrorist attacks in the UK:
If we had hi-res CCTV in most public places, along with a DNA database of the entire population (including those peskly tourists ;-)), then would it dramatically cut crime?
At the moment, TV programmes like Crimewatch show low-res, grainy CCTV footage that doesn't look very useful. Hi-res will presumably arrive sooner rather than later and could help massively in identifying criminals.
Similarly, imagine how simple it would be to solve crime by turning up, swabbing the scene for DNA and get an instant ID.
I'm not saying that this is a good thing - it's open to misuse like most technology - and the privacy concerns are significant.
But it could also be useful in proving one's innocence. Hi-res CCTV will make misidentification more difficult, and DNA identification could similarly be used to prove that you were NOT the culprit.
Just a thought...
If we had hi-res CCTV in most public places, along with a DNA database of the entire population (including those peskly tourists
At the moment, TV programmes like Crimewatch show low-res, grainy CCTV footage that doesn't look very useful. Hi-res will presumably arrive sooner rather than later and could help massively in identifying criminals.
Similarly, imagine how simple it would be to solve crime by turning up, swabbing the scene for DNA and get an instant ID.
I'm not saying that this is a good thing - it's open to misuse like most technology - and the privacy concerns are significant.
But it could also be useful in proving one's innocence. Hi-res CCTV will make misidentification more difficult, and DNA identification could similarly be used to prove that you were NOT the culprit.
Just a thought...
Wednesday, 27 June 2007
Upgrades and Downtime
The main problem of living on the cloud hit me last night when I got home to find my phone line was dead. The UK is experiencing a lot of flooding at the moment, and although the area I live in is unaffected, I'm guessing the rain has waterlogged a box somewhere and killed the line.
As always, BT claim that testing the line reports that all is okay. When pressed, they offer to send an engineer (but it will be chargeable if it's not BTs fault). After agreeing to this (I've done it enough times to know it's a delaying tactic), they immediately noticed that the problem was not just my line, but affected a significant number of lines in my area...(!).
So the "take home" from this is that life on the cloud is only as good as the connection to the cloud. Obvious stuff, but it's amazing how reliant one becomes on a permanent net connection.
Got to work this morning to read that Google Docs and Spreadsheets have been upgraded. The new interface is better and supports folders. It's still missing a way to bulk download documents for backup purposes. Will need to investigate this a bit more, but it's a good upgrade.
As always, BT claim that testing the line reports that all is okay. When pressed, they offer to send an engineer (but it will be chargeable if it's not BTs fault). After agreeing to this (I've done it enough times to know it's a delaying tactic), they immediately noticed that the problem was not just my line, but affected a significant number of lines in my area...(!).
So the "take home" from this is that life on the cloud is only as good as the connection to the cloud. Obvious stuff, but it's amazing how reliant one becomes on a permanent net connection.
Got to work this morning to read that Google Docs and Spreadsheets have been upgraded. The new interface is better and supports folders. It's still missing a way to bulk download documents for backup purposes. Will need to investigate this a bit more, but it's a good upgrade.
Tuesday, 26 June 2007
More cloud talk
I've been using Google Docs and Spreadsheets more and more. It's actually more than suitable for knocking out simple documents, and the ability to use it as a collaboration tool is very smart.
My experience with Google Reader has also been very positive. Finally a way to keep my RSS feed reading synchronised between work, home and away! And today I've managed to go another step towards living on the cloud: Yahoo! Bookmarks.
The old Yahoo! Bookmarks was a bit rubbish - too difficult to manage. So what does the new one have that improves on locally managed Bookmarks (beyond the obvious), and why not use Google Bookmarks? The killer feature of Yahoo! Bookmarks for me is the ability to save a copy of the page and view bookmarks using thumbnail images. All wrapped up in a nice AJAX interface.
So the cloud experience is going well. There are still concerns about backing up - perhaps something the Google and Yahoo APIs will address, and the concerns about privacy won't go away (but then I'm not storing personal sensitive details in the cloud).
Of interest is the ability to access data from anywhere. Google have created a Java application for my k800i phone that provides a really decent interface to Gmail. Yahoo have similar offerings, so I'll be doing some further investigation into that soon...
My experience with Google Reader has also been very positive. Finally a way to keep my RSS feed reading synchronised between work, home and away! And today I've managed to go another step towards living on the cloud: Yahoo! Bookmarks.
The old Yahoo! Bookmarks was a bit rubbish - too difficult to manage. So what does the new one have that improves on locally managed Bookmarks (beyond the obvious), and why not use Google Bookmarks? The killer feature of Yahoo! Bookmarks for me is the ability to save a copy of the page and view bookmarks using thumbnail images. All wrapped up in a nice AJAX interface.
So the cloud experience is going well. There are still concerns about backing up - perhaps something the Google and Yahoo APIs will address, and the concerns about privacy won't go away (but then I'm not storing personal sensitive details in the cloud).
Of interest is the ability to access data from anywhere. Google have created a Java application for my k800i phone that provides a really decent interface to Gmail. Yahoo have similar offerings, so I'll be doing some further investigation into that soon...
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Living in the cloud
Firstly, to follow up on my last journal entry regarding Facebook - I'm hooked! It's so much fun to be able to see what your friends are up to.
As detailed in previous entries, I've started to move so that my calendar, contacts, to-do list and notes are synchronized to my Yahoo! account, and therefore online. I've also spent more time sending email from Gmail. Recently I received an email with a .doc attachment and Gmail offered to open it with Google Docs and Spreadsheets. This proved to be a very pleasant way of easily checking out a document without having to have Office or Openoffice.org installed.
Unrelated to email, at work, I was using Thunderbird for RSS feeds, but got frustrated when I couldn't access them from home. Which led me to investigate the new, improved Google Reader. It's very impressive - even down to the keyboard shortcuts that include some vi-like functionality :-) I exported my RSS feeds from Thunderbird into Google Reader and added a whole bunch more. It's a highly addictive way of browsing for news.
I realised that these small steps were moving me to storing all my non-private (confidential) data onto "the cloud" which I could then access from anywhere. There are nagging doubts about the data mining that Yahoo and Google can do, but so far they are providing genuinely useful services.
I'll update the journal with my progress, but until then, back to Facebook... ;-)
As detailed in previous entries, I've started to move so that my calendar, contacts, to-do list and notes are synchronized to my Yahoo! account, and therefore online. I've also spent more time sending email from Gmail. Recently I received an email with a
Unrelated to email, at work, I was using Thunderbird for RSS feeds, but got frustrated when I couldn't access them from home. Which led me to investigate the new, improved Google Reader. It's very impressive - even down to the keyboard shortcuts that include some vi-like functionality
I realised that these small steps were moving me to storing all my non-private (confidential) data onto "the cloud" which I could then access from anywhere. There are nagging doubts about the data mining that Yahoo and Google can do, but so far they are providing genuinely useful services.
I'll update the journal with my progress, but until then, back to Facebook...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)