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Google Docs Now Offline
Google Docs is finally allowing users to edit documents offline using Google Gears. Initially documents alone will be editable and spreadsheets will be readable with presentation documents to get similar functionality down the road. Online word editors like Google Docs, while useful, still have the stumbling block of people not being able to get their work done without an internet connection.
Interestingly enough, competitor in this space Zoho has had offline functionality with its word-processing application for a while now, Zoho Writer. Is this welcome news to anyone?
Update Multiple Sites With Ping.fm
I was looking through posts by my Pownce friends today and found someone was complaining about people testing posting from Ping.fm, so I had to check it out. The idea is a simple one — that posting the same thing to multiple sites would grow tedious and ping.fm would help alleviate this issue. Setting up an account is no hassle at all and configuring your accounts is as simple as putting in your login information. Hooking up my Facebook profile took a little more, but it’s just a matter of an application being installed.
After configuring my Facebook, Pownce and Tumblr accounts it was time to test it out. You can post from the site directly and by default, messages go to all services you enable which can be good and bad. While I may have no problem blasting the same thing to Pownce, Jaiku and Twitter, I really classify my Facebook status updates as being totally different and personal, not to mention something I post for Tumblr may end up being too many characters for Facebook. Also with Facebook, messages still stupidly have your name at the very beginning of messages, so posting “I had a great chicken sandwich for dinner.” still gives you “Evan I had a great chicken sandwich for dinner.” It’s pretty annoying for the OCD grammar Nazis like myself who want Facebook status updates to appear in proper English.
The site does accept what it calls “triggers” which is a way to post to specific services using a code to prefix a message, such as @fb to update just Facebook and none of your other services. So, using the @fb trigger and editing your messages to accommodate your name at the beginning of updates is one workaround to the problem mentioned in the paragraph prior.
Sure, the site is trying to save you time by letting you post directly to different services from their site, but what if you don’t want to be on the ping.fm site at all? You can email updates to a personalized email address you get with your account instead. Even better, I used the AIM bot, adding the contact to my AIM buddies in Digsby, sending the verification code in an IM and instantly I could update Tumblr, Pownce and my Facebook status from within an IM chat. Given the time it would save to go to the different sites individually, this is a welcome addition to my work flow. My only suggestion/problem is that I would really like to edit the “triggers” to whatever I want, allowing me to make specific triggers to go to only Tumblr and Pownce as well as editing the triggers that go for Jaiku, etc.
Speaking with Sean over at Ping.fm I’ve been told that we can look out for an Adobe AIR application, as well as possible Mac and Vista widgets. (I’ve had nothing absolutely confirmed.) Even if they do get around to doing these things, I’m so far happy with just the IM bot but with Pownce I can only post messages, not reply to messages or see other posted messages, all things I can do with the official Pownce AIR client.
If you’re into the Jaiku/Twitter/Pownce/No Social Interaction thing you may want to give this a try, and we got you covered. When signing up, use the code ‘uneasysilence‘ to get into the beta. Invites are limited, so act fast and let us know what you think in the comments.
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Safari 3.1 Available
Apple has released version 3.1 of their Safari internet browser for both Mac and Windows. There are no real visible changes to be seen when you get the update, with the only updates worth mentioning being support for CSS Animations, CSS WebFonts and HTML 5′s audio and video tags. I wasn’t prompted for an automatic update, so I suspect some people may not know. You can run Apple’s software update program to get the update or just download the latest version from Apple’s site.
Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.
Thoughts?
‘Retardify’ Your Words
Believe me when I say I’m no Grammar Nazi, but it irks me to no end seeing some of the atrocities being passed off as English on the internet. I understand in the haste of typing we might publish some grammatically questionable sentences (see: this blog) but when it happens over and over again people need to take notice.
Of course, I don’t see myself teaching every forum user the difference between “its” and “it’s” so if I can’t beat them I’ll join them. Unintelligencer is a service, for lack of a better term that helps wage the war on literacy. Just copy and paste some text, select what level of unintelligence you want and press “The Button.” What you get is, well, I’ve made this post unintelligent for your consumption. Hit the read more button to take a look.
Dingbat Fonts
Photoshop Disasters
You are aware that any picture of anyone published is manipulated in some for or fashion, right? Believe it or not, people on magazines aren’t quite as amazing as those hawking their dead tress publications want you to believe. (See Faith Hill in Redbook) I was pretty much oblivious to this as most people would be when younger, but when you get older you are bound to notice something. Then of course comes the glaring Photoshop errors that anyone can look at and realize something is up. Photoshop Disasters sets out to keep tabs on some horrific Photoshop jobs in published media. Some of the stuff probably wouldn’t stick out to you unless someone pointed it out to you while others really are disasters. Seriously, there are people with no belly buttons or butt crack on there. And of course, we’re reminded of the unrealistic expectations these publications pump into people’s minds where body-image is concerned.
The site is looking for submissions, so don’t shy away.
