Archive for May 2002

I had a most fun instant messaging chat with Ben on Thursday and could barely tear myself away to perform parental duties. Accidentally, we got into a (as Ben put it) “stream of consciousness game” and kept at it for most of the 2 1/2 hours we chatted.

Why do I mean by “accidentally?” The conversation:

Ben: BRB (Be right back)
Ben: back
Meryl: front
persist1: side
Meryl: hide

And off we went. I committed a big malaprop, which could be misconstrued for a Freudian slip. I promise it was not that at all! It was embarrassing enough. You really want to know what I did? Oh boy… here’s your laugh for the day (edited for brevity):

persist1: lucid
Meryl: penis
persist1: LOL (laughs out loud)
persist1: [connection please] (in other words, what the heck does penis have to do with lucid?)
Meryl: [oops. i mixed it up with another word]
Meryl: [flaccid is the word i was thinking]
Meryl: [i guess I was having a malaprop moment]
persist1: [!]
persist1: [Sounds like you really need to talk with yer man]
Meryl: [that was no freudian slip!]

Ah, just to have an old-fashioned good time and laugh.

* Note: Click on images to see bigger image. Image will open in a new window. Click on _ in upper left corner to close the window.

AmphetaDesk 0.93 Alpha has just gotten easier to use from its earlier release. You don’t have to be a computer guru to figure it out how to use this nifty RSS reader.

Before we get into it, let me quickly answer the “What the heck is RSS? What is the big deal?” questions for those who haven’t had a chance to read up on it.

Quick RSS Introduction

Where do you go for news and updates? Which sites do you regularly read each time its updated? To stay on top of all these places, you hop from site to site getting your feed.

RSS (Rich Site Summary, if you really wanted to know) aggregators do it for you. No schlepping required. It’s similar to having Moreover right in your browser on your PC. Quickly scan the headlines and see what you want to read.

Until recently, RSS aggregators were centralized and have taken a shift to becoming decentralized. Sorry for the big words. In English, in centralized, you go to a Web site and select the channels you wish to receive and that’s where you get your updates. One example is My Netscape. Decentralized just means you get it without going anywhere. Right from your PC. Load the RSS aggregator and that’s it.

PC on Speed

I don’t condone the use of drugs, but AmphetaDesk is a good kind of drug and it’s addicting. Installing it only takes one step — unzipping the file. Being the neat freak that I am, I put it in its own folder in the right place.

Click on AmphetaDesk.exe and you’re there. The pop up screen runs the aggregator to fetch the latest news from resources already loaded into the software to give you a place to start.

Set the Settings

When I use AmphetaDesk or any news aggregator, I prefer the news item to open in a new window. After I finish reading the news item, I close the window and go back to the list looking for another item to read. Not everyone likes new windows. Never fear, you can change this setting and others.

Clicking My Settings takes you to the screen for these options:

• How should links operate? Open a new window or within the same window.
• How often to check channels? Enter the number of minutes to get news updates.
• Full path to browser? Prefer Opera or some other browser? Enter the path here to have AmphetaDesk open it.
• How long before giving up? Channels (news sources) do go down and here you indicate when it should give up looking for the server in seconds.

Easy peasy, eh? AmphetaDesk is user-friendly and doesn’t make you think when trying to figure out what everything does.

Your Remote Control

No fighting over the remote. Make other household members use their own AmphetaDesk. Adding a new of your choice channel is quick. Let’s think of a channel to add. Of course, Meryl’s Notes. Click on Add a Channel or My Channels and enter: http://www.meryl.net/blog/index.xml into the box and hit Add This Channel.

Anytime you see an orange XML icon or blue RSS icon on a Web site that you’d like to track, click on the icon and copy the URL. Paste the URL into this page. Ta-da! Now, you know the secret behind those icons. Oh. You already knew? Darn.

The difference between Add a Channel and My Channels is that My Channels lists all your subscribed channels. Click on the box to the left of a channel and hit Remove the Checked Channels button to dump it. Add a Channel lists channels for discovering a new one to add to your listing. It’s how I find some of the off-beat places like Ananova’s Quirkies.

The Channels Home link displays the latest news. The little blue globe? That’s becoming a standard icon for going to the resource’s main Web site. The envelope icon sends an email to the resource’s Webmaster or whomever is destinated to receive emails. Orange XML icon displays the raw code. Most of you won’t use it. The X deletes the resource from the list and you’ll never see its headlines again unless you subscribe.

Duh Moment

I emailed Morbus, the author of this awesome program, suggesting the ability to minimize the small screen since I didn’t need it cluttering my space (neat freak, remember?). He quickly wrote back and said to try minimizing. Duh! I thought I had tried that already. *blush* To hide the mini-screen, click on the _ button in the upper left corner of Windows. It worked on the XP. Minimize doesn’t work in all operating systems (Linux is one), so it’s not a guaranteed capability.

The software gets high fives all around. Morbus plans a few more features to give users more options. He has done a lot and deserves a break.

p i x e l v i e w – behind the screen with Matt Haughey, the MeFi guy, co-author of Usability: The Site Speaks for Itself, and the voice behind A Whole Lotta Nothing, which is a weblog with plenty of somethings.

Happy 49th Birthday, www.zeldman.com! OK, it’s really 7, but it deserves dog years calculation since this is the Internet. He is now entering his 8th year online.

I’d like to take a moment to thank Jeffrey for being so passionate about the Web and design, for keeping ALA going for so long despite getting no monetary restitution, for taking the time to write a My Glamorous Life story when inspiration hits, for keeping us informed on anything that impacts Web design, and just for being the amazing person he is.

Recently, he wrote an apology for not having a My Glamorous Life story in a long time. That’s OK. He doesn’t owe us. We should be grateful to hear from him at all, much less on a regular basis. Maintaining a Web site, blog, stories, ezine, business (great redesign, BTW) and God knows whatever else is a thankless job. Guess what? He has a life outside of this, ya know? Job, special person, and book. Thanks for all you do, J.

My first encounter with RSS (syndication and that XML orange button) came with Radio 8.0 and it swallowed much of my free time early this year. Since then, I’ve tried AmphetaDesk and Feedreader. Neither worked as well as Radio.

Jon Udell writes about the aforementioned aggregators plus a few more in Personal RSS Aggregators and mentions Cory and Jenny.

Having a personal RSS aggregator saves you the trouble of jumping from CNN to ABC to [other fave online news information site] for news updates. All the updates come to you in one shot. See those blue RSS icons? Those orange XML icons? Grab the link from those icons and feed it to the RSS reader to start retrieving updates from the site. It’s that simple. Refreshing and running the application is the clunky part with the applications that I’ve tested.

Expect more personal aggregators to emerge and they’ll be more user-friendly as concept matures. [Link Webreference]

Hungry for more feeds? News Is Free has a ton of ‘em. It even has a recently added resources page and it can be syndicated, too.

Craig Saila briefly and simply explains using DOCTYPES and links to:

• A List Apart’s “Fixing Your Site with the Right DOCTYPE”
• IE 6 Quirks Mode – CSS Enhancements
• Mac Quirks Mode
• Mozilla’s Quirks Mode

There are plenty of resources on DOCTYPE on the Web, but these should be enough without overwhelming you. [Link diveintomark]

Slashdot tries an optional paid service for opting out of 1,000 ads for every $5. Business 2.0 explores the Pay to Play, but I wouldn’t say this is the first time this model has been done. Remember Salon?

Uh, sorry… you won’t find free upgrade downloads here. But, I had to share the song, Upgrades for Nothing by Pirillo because it’s accompanied by lyrics and this is the way to make music accessible for the hearing impaired. Mondo-kudos to Chris! Thank you.

It took a little figuring out how to turn on the lyrics since it’s not the caption functionality in Windows Media Player. Here’s the screen shot [pop up] [HTML].

I’ve literally been buried in Excel trying to create tracking metrics for a training program. The problem is that there are too many variables to create a pivot table or other automated function to provide meaningful information. The key is to show how much training has been completed and not completed by month so the bigwigs know when we have to pull their employees for training and for how long.

I provided an example, but the real thing is more complex as there are 10 classes, 11 departments, and 300 names. I searched the Internet for Excel ideas and tutorials, but most are focused on financials or creating forms. Nothing like this. We do not have a training program in place that would make it worth it to invest in software or create an Access database to give us what we need.

Any geniuses out there with a few hints to help a poor crossed-eyed girl?

<edit>Finally making headway, but it is a long, slow method. It will be easy to maintain once I get all the formulas set up.</edit>

strange systems: Using Wireframes is a simple introduction to wireframes, which are used to help visually communicate a layout of a Web page in blocks: content, navigation, header, footer, branding, and any other regular occurrences. [Link Digital Web]