Wednesday, 11 October, 2006

Google Docs, and Zoho

What was Writely is now Google Docs. Sigh. They’ve combined it with the spreadsheet package, so they are available from the same screen – the homepage being effectively a file manager when you log in.

One criticism of Google when they buy things is that they don’t bother to integrate them properly with everything else – think Blogger, and until recently, Picasa. But with Writely, sorry, Google Docs, they have got rid of the nice Writely green and orange look and the end result is just really dull. I suppose it means that Gmail, Calendar and the two productivity apps all now share the same interface.

In other news on the online productivity front, the Zoho suite of online productivity apps now only needs on sign-in per application. Before, if I used Writer, and then needed to go into Sheet, I would have to log in twice. No more. Good stuff.

The Games We Play

Spending a daft amount of time on my day off here. Nice flash versions of some classic arcade games, notably Space Invaders, Frogger and Asteriods.

The same chap who did the PacMan port which is on my personalised Google page.

Aggregating RSS with WordPress

I have been working away recently on a little project to bring together all of the RSS feeds of members of Palimpsest, the discussion forum I maintain. I have used third party arrangements, like KickRSS and Suprglu in the past, neither of which were wholly satisfactory. I’m a regular reader of the WordPress Planet – which pulls together influential WordPress based feeds – and one for the Anglian LUG. So I thought perhaps it would be best to host the aggregated feeds myself, using either the Python based Planet or the PHP MetaPlanet.

An hour’s fiddling last night made it clear that both were beyond my modest abilities. So, I needed another solution. I found it – a WordPress plug-in that aggregates feeds and spews out separate posts for each item. The title of each posts acts as a link back to the originating site. I soon had it up and running, and it seems to work really well for a quick-and-dirty solution. 

A great option for those wanting to create a blogging community.

Tuesday, 10 October, 2006

Sunday, 8 October, 2006

The Long Mynd

We returned to the Long Mynd today, for a stroll. Also, we were road testing the new rucksack we bought with some vouchers we received for the wedding. We had an excellent time and the backpack was just what we were after: i.e. it was big.

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We walked along the hill to Lightspout Waterfall, which at only 4 metres high doesn’t quite seem to deserve the nickname “miniature Niagara” which Victorian visitors gave it. Still, it was a fairly gentle walk, with only a couple of drag-yourself-along-with-your-hands moments, which only add to the fun anyway. Once we reached the waterfall we stopped for refreshments, though some steps led to a further walk, which we might try sometime.

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Good fun though, and as ever we left promising to come back sooner than this time was. That makes sense, right?

Saturday, 7 October, 2006

Tuesday, 3 October, 2006

Sunday, 1 October, 2006

Playing with Google

Have spent a little time playing with a couple of Google products which have changed since I last used them – both for the better. Firstly, Google Reader, which was rubbish before, and now is a lot better. As is probably obvious, it’s an online RSS aggregator, like BlogLines (only a bit worse). It’s had a pretty thorough makeover, all of which makes it quicker and more user friendly. It won’t become my regular feed reader (FeedDemon at home and BlogLines on the move) but I’ll keep an eye on it. It has another use though, which I mention below…

Reader

The other thing I played with was the personalised home page. You can now have more than one page of stuff, which is nice, not least because the range of things you can do now has increased. I have set mine to to have one page with my Gmail, Calendar, BBC News headlines, del.icio.us bookmarks, and some useful searches:

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Then a second page with some feeds that I regularly scan, along with a Google Reader summary of all my feeds, so I can quickly check what’s new.

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The third and last page has a few games on it that have become available. Plenty of oppotunities for wasted minutes there…

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I’ve added the personalised homepage to my FireFox startup pages – it’s pretty useful.

Note: I wrote this post, as I do all of mine these days, using the BlogJet editor. It automatically generated the thumbnails shown above, which is pretty cool, and makes my life easier…