Oops, CentralDesktop Broke Google Chrome

September 4th, 2008 arthurfreydin

Ruh, roh. Looks like the one application that I had running all day on Firefox doesn’t like Google Chrome. I use CentralDesktop for collaboration at work so clearly this is an application that I need 100% of the time. I guess my goal of not opening up Firefox all day is no longer a reality.

On a side note, did you see how I referred to CentralDesktop as an application? Before Chrome, I would have just called it a website. Interesting.

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Google Chrome Early Review

September 2nd, 2008 arthurfreydin

I’m writing this post right in Google’s new browser - Chrome. It was officially announced here, via the Google blog. Here are my initial thoughts:

  • It’s crazy fast on web applications like Wordpress, Omniture, Gmail, etc.
  • More screen real estate devoted to the actual webpage rather than status bar, toolbar, etc.
  • Remembers usernames/passwords like a dream - all you have to do is begin to type the username and it automatically fills in the remainder of the username and associated passwords
  • Loads Flash animations much quicker
  • Gathered all Firefox history, cookies, logins, etc so it’s easy to hit the ground running in a new browser
  • Very pleasing design
  • Status bar on the bottom only appears when it needs to
  • The “omnibar” address bar is awesome!
  • No title bar
Overall, I would say that this is a great effort by Google. I’ve been using Firefox forever now and once Google Chrome starts taking off, there is quite a bit of potential here.

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Tapping Into the Liveblogging Readership & How it Benefits Conference Organizers

August 25th, 2008 arthurfreydin

I usually bypass liveblogging posts from online marketing conferences since most of that info gets covered by day-to-day reads in my RSS reader. I typically go to the conferences for the networking opportunities (or free drinks) unless I come across a really interesting session.

But what about all those other readers that can’t make it to the conferences but know they can benefit from the sessions? Since they can’t make it to the conference, there is really no better alternative but to follow the sessions through livebloggers like Lisa Barone and Lee Oden. The readers count on these livebloggers to provide them with the most updates to almost every session in the conference.

My question is this: How many livebloggers pass the readership metrics back to the conference organizers? Or, let’s rephrase that question: How many conference organizers [politely] ask the livebloggers for this info? Considering that most companies that don’t consider online marketing as a 1st priority, they may not want to shell out almost $1,000 a /day plus air travel to have their employees attend the conference. That means that most attendees may actually be “virtually” attendending these conferences.

I’m sure that conference organizers like Kevin Ryan (although a bit off-the-wall at times) find attendance metrics very useful and determine future sessions based on this data. So why not get the full picture instead of just understanding the paid attendees physically attending?

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AT&T Blue Room Loves Live Streaming Video, Twitter, Lollapalooza

July 29th, 2008 arthurfreydin

AT&T Blue Room

I was cruising on my way to work this morning, listening to 92.3 KROCK in New Jersey and heard a radio commercial that kinda cought my eye (ear?). AT&T was advertising a website that was said to stream Lollapalooza live on August 1-3rd. Interesting.

Judging by the AT&T Blue Room site, it looks like that is exactly what they are going to do, and then some! They will stream Lollapalooza via a webcast on said days. Not only are they using such new-world (to them) technologies like webcasts, but they are also posting updates on Twitter!

It looks like the live webcast will be their major marketing stunt to get people to notice them. Everything else they offer is standard fare for a video/music portal. I’m not really sure how this ties to their core offerings but AT&T service advertisements are splayed all over the site. Seriously, they’re advertising 3 seperate services on one damn page.

From their official release (the service has actually been around for quite a while):

The blue room is part of a larger initiative in which AT&T is leveraging innovative tactics to connect consumers to its products and services. Through blue room, AT&T is able to reach demographics, particularly the highly coveted youth market, which are generally more difficult to reach through traditional programs.

Last year in August, it looks like AT&T’s Blue Room has drummed up some scorn from Pearl Jam when it last streamed the Lollapalooza event. Apparently, AT&T inadvertently censored Pearl Jam’s anti-George Bush comments.

Better luck this year I guess.

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How to Use AutoText on Your Blackberry

June 20th, 2008 arthurfreydin

Here’s a quick walk through on how to use the AutoText capability and a couple of examples that don’t come included out of the box.

First, let’s discuss exactly what AutoText does. From Jeff Barr’s blog:

AutoText is a macro (text replacement) system with some built-in intelligence so that it can handle multiple languages and mixed case text. AutoText is responsible for some of SureType’s spelling correction features. For example, it automatically replaces “acn” with “can,” “ehr” with “her,” and so forth. Basically, the spelling correction dictionary is out in the open and … is also fully editable.

That sums it up pretty good and is a bonus because I didn’t have to type it out myself :).

If you’re new to your Blackberry (god help you), here’s where you can find the AutoText settings and how to add a new instruction, step-by-step:

  1. Go to your application screen (the one with a bunch of icons on it)
  2. Open up the “Options” application (should be all the way down on the bottom and looks like a wrench)
  3. Select the AutoText option
    Once in the AutoText screen, your Blackberry should present you with all the built-in instructions.
  4. Hit the Blackberry hard button on your phone to bring up the context menu
  5. Select “New” from the menu
  6. Enter the word you would like to replace as you type in the first “Replace” field
    example: “teh”
  7. Enter what you would like that word replaced with
    example: “the”
  8. Click your trackball and select “Save”
  9. Done!

Now, onto a few uses of creative text that didn’t come pre-packaged with your Blackberry.

  • b4 = before
  • goin = going
  • hr = hour
  • mins = minutes
  • r = are
  • sec = second
  • sry = sorry
  • thx = thanks
  • u = you
  • w = w/
  • y = why
  • yday = yesterday

One important point to keep in mind with AutoText is that it only automatically replaces what you have typed once it recognizes a space after the word to be replaced. For example, it won’t replace “y” with “why” but will if you type “y ” (there’s a space after the “y”).

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Gmail Automatically Deleting Spam Emails?

June 19th, 2008 arthurfreydin

Leave it to Gmail to dwindle my spam count down to 843 emails from a probably record shattering 5683 a few weeks ago. The problem is that I never even had a chance to review those emails before Gmail took it upon itself to rid me of all that spam. This is somewhat of an issue for me since I’ve noticed that Gmail isn’t 100% perfect in identifying spam versus regular mail. I would like to have had the opportunity to skim through my spam stuff before Gmail deleted it.

On a somewhat related note, Gmail has a sense of humor. Here is what I saw after browsing through my spam folder:

Gmail Spam Humor

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7 Things Your GPS Should be Able to Do

June 18th, 2008 arthurfreydin

I wouldn’t trust myself locating my car in the driveway without using a GPS. I’ve left the house in the morning on my way to work and have turned around because I’ve forgotten my handy TomTom OneXL (I’ve been making the same exact trip to work for a few months now and can get there blindfolded). Needless to say, I’ve become pretty dependent on that little piece of gadgetry.

GPS units have come quite a long way since the first models came out - but they still have a long ways to go. Below is a list that I, a heavy GPS user, have put together over the past month or so.

  1. Compute Toll Charges
    Computing toll charges would be a huge bonus to anyone that lives in a state where you are constantly slowing down for a toll plaza (hi New Jersey).
  2. Compute Gas Cost
    This one’s a bit more difficult since the GPS unit will require quite a bit of information about your car, amount of gas you currently have and aggregate $ /per gallon (which some GPS units already have). Even without all that data available, a GPS unit can also provide the user an option to estimate total cost.
  3. Add 1+2
    This little mashup of tolls & gas cost can give you a pretty extraordinary result: total trip cost! So now you can tell your parents “Hell no, I’m not paying $34.87 to drive to grandma’s house just so she can pinch my cheeks”.
  4. Driving / Cost Analytics
    We (or maybe it’s just me) love the word “analytics”. How does a weekly/monthly/yearly breakdown of driven miles/costs/frequently traveled areas sound to you? This would be huge for fleet managers & those that expense travel expenditures. Said report can be automatically generated and emailed once a month to your superior for review & compensation.
  5. Walking Mode
    Some GPS units may already have a walking mode but not as comprehensive as it could/should be. Walkers would typically use the GPS for site-seeing in tourist towns so why not also provide them with pertinent touristy information?
  6. Scenic Travel Mode
    Bored on a Sunday at 6pm and realize that everything is closed and you now have nothing to do for X hours? Great! Fire up that GPS and look through all the scenic routes you never thought existed in that boring state of yours and go for a drive!
  7. GPS Radar Detector
    Duh! When do you use your GPS the most? If you’re anything like me, you use it most on the highway. You also wish you didn’t have to use that stupid cigarette lighter splitter (why we haven’t replaced those cigarette lighters with usb plugs is beyond me) to power both your GPS and radar detector. What do you do? You take your GPS and your radar detector and smash them together to form one wonderous trip companion!

There. Now your GPS is actually useful.

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Foxmarks: A Google Browser Sync Alternative for Firefox 3

June 18th, 2008 arthurfreydin

One add-in that no longer functions in Firefox 3 is Google Browser Sync. The add-in syncs bookmarks, passwords, and browsing history across all PCs and Macs that have Firefox installed. Unfortunately, Google has decided to completely terminate the add-in for any future versions of Firefox which saddens me quite a bit; it has been an indespensable tool for me.

Fortunately, I have already found an alternative: Foxmarks. It only syncs bookmarks and leaves out all the additional functionality that Google Broswer Sync has supported but it’s one step closer to solving the issue. Foxmarks also allows you to access all your synced bookmarks from a web portal that it creates for you for free.

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How to Transfer Firefox 2 Bookmarks to Firefox 3

June 18th, 2008 arthurfreydin

So it looks like a few people are having issues (myself included) with their old Firefox 2 bookmarks transferring to Firefox 3 - this includes bookmarks stored in the dropdown as well as toolbar bookmarks.

Here’s a quick workaround that worked for me:

  1. Open up Windows Explorer and go to: C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\1ks8ivke.default\bookmarkbackups
  2. You should see dated bookmark backup files as .html pages such as bookmarks-2008-06-16.html
  3. Open up the file. It should contain all your bookmarks in their most recent backed-up state from Firefox 2
  4. Simply drag the bookmarks you need into your bookmarks menu or toolbar

There you have it, one Firefox 3 headache solved.

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Mozilla.com Down on Firefox 3 Download Day

June 17th, 2008 arthurfreydin

First of all, it is a bit befuddling to me why Mozilla chose to release their latest version of Firefox at 1pm EST instead of shortly after midnight. Oh well.

Well, now that 1pm EST has dawned, it looks like Mozilla.com is down for the count. While I would love to support Mozilla in its record setting ambitions, I really want the new Firefox so I went ahead and downloaded it from their ftp. Two words: it rocks.

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