August 2005 Quickie Update

August 23, 2005 1:02 AM Comments [10] Posted in ASP.NET | Nant | Africa

Hey folks, I'm still on vacation with the family, but so you won't stop reading my blog and wonder if there will ever be an update again, here's what I've been doing in no particular order.

  • New Music: I've been totally digging/obsessed with this South African band called "freshlyground." They are an eclectic mix of pop/jazz/xhosa and they're a blast. You can have a listen here. I highly recommend "Mowbray Kaap" on their album "Nomvula." If you can find it, get it.
  • Sidebars galore: Google Desktop now has a Sidebar. Now that I've completely switched over to Microsoft Desktop Search, it's surprising that Google beat them to this. I've installed it and am running it with the search index off. I think I still like Konfabulator Widgets though, and it'd be interesting to write a Konfabulator Sidebar. (BTW, both are free, so at least download Konfabulator! Ya, I know it's a memory hog, so what?)
  • Speed: FireTune seems like a great idea but I always wonder why apps can't just tune themselves?
  • Maps: It's lovely that Omar is looking for reasons not to use Google and that he's stopped using it for maps. However, is it just me or is Virtual Earth virtually unusable? I can't figure out how to do a simple address search without double-taking. The interface is truly obtuse and the results are unforgiving. Google Maps is wonderfully elegant. Maybe it's just me. He loves the MSN Weather Add-In also, but I yawn at that since I'm using ForecastFox.
  • Babies: The baby is chugging along. We're at 25 weeks right now. It's been the non-pregnancy-pregnancy. She's had no sickness, no sleepnessness, no weird food. Nada. We hope the next 15 weeks are as easy to handle - certainly the next 18 years won't be as easy!
  • Ajax: I've been looking at a number of Ajax libraries lately, and I'm disillusioned by the bizarre drama going around around Ajax.net. I can't fathom why the guy didn't just put up a zip file then use SourceForge. The code's far to complex for what it does anyway, IMHO. I have been impressed by Jason Diamond's implementation though, which is nice and simple. As of this writing his latest is here. I've also checked out Mochikit and a number of others.
  • Del.icio.us: This continues to rock my world. If you're interested you can subscribe to my del.icio.us RSS feed and see what I'm currently bookmarking. If you end up using del.icio.us, for gosh sake DO use the BookMarkLets. They are a treat.
  • Fun: Here's my list of hilarious or poignant blogs I'm reading/subscribed to...
  • Um, OK: Aeon Flux. At least they tried.

Now playing: Freshlyground - Touch In The Night

Tracked by:
"[Trackback] Google Sidebar, 又是一項利器!" (Rexiology...) [Trackback]
http://www.jonburrows.co.uk/PermaLink,guid,2ab3e08d-70ca-44b4-8245-004695557762.... [Pingback]
"Tune-Up Your Firefox" (Bogo's Blog) [Trackback]
"check the blogroll and give them props" (ernpac.com) [Trackback]
Comments [10]
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Tuesday, August 23, 2005 6:04:35 AM UTC
It's funny cos I was wondering where you where!
Ian
Tuesday, August 23, 2005 7:09:37 AM UTC
Enjoy your vacation.
We have enough time to come back and see your blog later although no one can leave internet ;)
Keyvan Nayyeri
Tuesday, August 23, 2005 7:30:36 AM UTC
I have heard of Freslhyground before, but failed to find a place to buy any of their records on-line (MP3/WMA) available from Sweden. I have also failed to find a place in Sweden (internet or shop) to buy any CD. I guess Sweden is too far away...
Thomas
Tuesday, August 23, 2005 10:02:58 AM UTC
Ajax: monorail looks intriguing
RichB
Tuesday, August 23, 2005 1:30:33 PM UTC
re: baby ...ahhhh, so your wife has been able to feel the baby moving for a couple of weeks now? hehee, it's fun when you can feel the baby from the outside. We're at 34 weeks and my favorite passtime is watching my wifes belly jiggle and pop when my daughter moves around.

re: The Schwartz AJAX library ("use the Schwartz!") - I'm glad I'm not the only one who came to that conclusion.

re:konfabulator - Yup, it's a memory hog, but so is the dashboard on OS X. Maybe it's just a property of DHTML/XML widgets? Maybe a binary based widget system would be better?
Scott
Tuesday, August 23, 2005 1:57:48 PM UTC
Guess it depends on what you use the mapping software for. Now that I've used Virtual Earth, I find Google Maps virtually unusable for the "search for a business in this area" feature. Whenever I try it, it changes the area I'm searching in, and brings back a whole bunch of unrelated results. MSN works. The "scroll the map and watch the results change" feature is icing.
Joshua Flanagan
Tuesday, August 23, 2005 3:04:42 PM UTC
Bad casting. Aeon is definitely not flat chested. And the obvious allegory is going to suffocate the story.
dpurrington.blog@mailnull.com (Dave)
Tuesday, August 23, 2005 7:27:35 PM UTC
Sweet - we are at 20 weeks. I am completely terrified about everything (is she healthy, is she happy, is Cornelius Pass going to open when labor starts in January) and I really wondering what darm camcorder I should be buying. How am I going to get all this digial media to the grand parents in Montana. Arrrgggg.....
Eric Williams
Tuesday, August 23, 2005 9:18:35 PM UTC
RE: Google Desktop. I like how I just finished the switch off everything Google, including GMail. And now what, Google delivers this awesome sidebar that I haven't been able to stop staring at all day long. (Must be those picturs that keep cycling ;-)). My biggest beef with this is the search functionality. After using MSN Search for a while I really began to enjoy how much information I could see on what was actually searched for. Such as being able to see the entire email message that matched the search, not just the sentance that had the match. So what I would like is a way to be able to tie MSN Search into the google toolbar. I guess I feel a custom widget coming on.
Aaron Weiker
Wednesday, August 24, 2005 9:07:24 AM UTC
Must agree on both Konfabulator (have you seen the new system glow balls?) and del.icio.us, but on the latter have actually settled on context menu additions (http://www.unpossible.com/blog/archives/000086.html) rather than bookmarklets for screen real estate reasons. One possible improvement to them, though, is that you can only right-click the current page whereas I'd quite often like to right click and post a link.

Also new to del.icio.us are their linkrolls (http://blog.del.icio.us/blog/2005/08/we_rolling.html), which look quite neat.
Paul Bartlett
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer’s view in any way.