Jeff Wiggins

Now with invites and annotations!

Ever wish that you could have a cheat sheet for a webpage? Get through all that useless junk that the author wrote? I’m sure that most of my readers do. And thus comes Webnotes.

Webnotes is a new web-working tool designed at letting users add annotations and highlighting to websites. They combine two of my personal favorite things: Post-it notes and websites, it was just a matter of time. The utility is easy to use, just install the toolbar (Firefox plug-in FTW) and you’re set. There is a button to create a sticky note, button to highlight text and a button to share what you’ve done. It’s that easy.

Once you have that done, it’s easy to place sticky notes around. I know I’m going to have the bad habit of putting them on every site I visit (I have 29 of them in sight right now around my desk offline, yikes!). The good use for this is that you’ll be able to see a site, put your options on it then send it to your friend so they can see it how you see it. Here, check out I R Blogging with some annotations I put in (I may have put a few too many…).

Some uses for this that I came up with:

• Looking at somebody’s website and giving them pointers.
• Studying notes and highlighting the parts that would be important.
• Adding reminders for the next time you visit the site (like checking out a certain link that you know will be a time-sink)
• Being used as a bookmark when going through archives.

The only thing I can think of right now that this is missing is a social aspect of this. For example, if I could make my notes, send it to a friend then have them add some of their notes and send it back to me (displaying both sets of annotations) it would make it a great collaboration tool. Also, being able to select the color of sticky note would be pretty cool as well.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a few invites (Thanks Ryan!), so for those of you interested in some just leave a comment to this post. Be sure to include your email address when filling out the comment form, I’ll be using it to know where to send it.

Yesterday we covered Google Reader; Today we’re going to continue with communication, this time on a more individual basis of Gmail (Google mail) and Google Alerts.

Gmail: This is Google’s web-based email service that is quickly growing to the top spot, passing competitors like Hotmail. What is pulling most people into this from other email providers (aside from being completely free) is that they give you a TON of email storage. When I say a ton, I mean a lot. As of writing this article the limit on my gmail account is currently 2906mb, that’s 2.9GB. That’s HUGE. This means that people no longer have to worry about their boxes getting full, they can simply archive it.

This brings us to our first feature: Archiving. Gmail allows it’s users to archive emails, without the need to sort what they are into folders upon folders they’re never going to check anyway. We all get those emails that somebody will say something and you think ‘I should keep this in case I need to use it later’ well now you can. Hit the handy dandy archive button and you’re set. To find it again, you can use the search feature for the words, date, from, etc that you’re looking for through all the messages in your mailbox. If throwing your messages into the dark isn’t your thing, you can also use classic folders if that floats your boat.

Another nice feature is the ‘Stared‘ system. This allows you to put a little star beside the email to show it’s importance. It can be used for whatever reason, be it an important email, a note to yourself to reply to it later or just because you think the subject looks good with a star beside it. Gmail also lets you view all your currently stared items at once, so you can combine the star system with the archive system to keep your inbox clean.

One of Gmail’s best (or some say most annoying) feature is the ability to turn email into ‘conversations‘. When an email is a reply to something already sent, instead of the reply showing up as a completely new email it will attach itself to the email sent. Gmail forms them all into a conversation thus allowing you to view previous emails as drop down (instead of the random format that most email clients choose). An easy way to think of it emails being stapled together into a booklet instead of just laid out on the desk. Another space saver from Google.

Google Alerts: These little notifications are amazing. Once you enter a term Google alerts will notify you whenever anything around the net mentions that thing. Let’s say you’re interest is toast. You can enter toast as your search term. Whenever toast is mentioned (news/blog/web/group) you’ll receive an email with a link to the article. Before you think ‘well I’m sure my topic gets mentioned a lot, I’m going to get spammed’ you can also select if you want emails as-it-happens, once a day or once a week. This can be a very useful tool if you want to stay on top of a subject and be one of the first people to know about it. A definite must for bloggers (especially if you blog about toast!).

Some Helpful Links:
Gmail Tools & Plugins @ Robs Blog
Gmail Tips and Tricks Monster Roundup @ LifeHacker

I got a request earlier this week to review ListBums and the second I looked at the front page said to myself “Wow, this looks like it has something to offer, I’ll leave it until I have time to give it a proper review.” I’m glad I did.

PROs
+ Easy to use: Click and type. Editing is simple, double click on the section (title or description) that you want to edit and correct it without the need to go to another ‘editing’ screen which is useful.
+ RSS feed enabled for user or EACH LIST!
+ You can attach an image/video, related link and description to each list item.
+ Others can add comments to lists as well as add items to the lists you create.
+ ‘Digg’-like system allowing users to add points to lists for rating/popularity purposes.
+ Easy embedding. Just go to the bottom of the list, choose your colors, paste the URL. Sure you could just make a list using HTML on your site, but why? This way they can link back to ListBums to use the comments/additonal features as well.
+ Fun layout/theme. Funky faces, tons of graphical elements and (for the most part) easy to navigate.

CONs
- When creating list you have to add the item then add the description after you add it to the list. A field where you can put in both item title and description before adding would save time.
- I can’t for the life of me get the ‘reverse order’ button to work!
- Pain in the ass to figure out where the widget part was. It’s at the bottom of the list you’re viewing. Easy once you know where to look, I was looking for a ‘widget’ button for at least 5 minutes at the top of the screen.

In comparison to Listography (which I reviewed awhile ago here) I think ListBums is in the lead as far as quality goes. Listography seems to have simple ‘ it’s there and it works ‘ look to it, where as ListBums has more of a ‘ look I listed stuff and it’s pretty! ‘. That brings me to think that though both social sites based on lists, the targeted markets would vary. I’d think that Listography would be more for people who want to just get something down and be done with it, where as ListBums is for those who want to have fun with the lists.

This site was pointed out to me by a comment when I reviewed Pagii by Mark who actually works for ClutterMe. You’re off to a good start when you come to me for a review

At first glance, ClutterMe looks like a a really simple site. It features webpage building tools as well as the ability to add friends, comments, etc. However, It gives me more of an impression of a site one of your friends might make in their spare time more than a big company site. This has both flaws and benefits. Flaws being that people may not take it as seriously, but the benefit that those who stick to it will likely stay because they feel like part of it.

Now as far as the interface goes, this is where I’m having problems. Unlike other sides that have seperate pages to input information, you put everything down directly on the site you’re editing. This is a good and bad because everything is click-drag-done with this site, but that’s as far as everything is going. I’m finding it hard to come up with anything more than a blocky site. Their widgets are few and I’m finding them to work into a layout. For example the ‘about’ widget allows you to hover over to focus on it, but it doesn’t seem to want to work unless I click once first. But clicking once also changes it to the ‘add info’ mode where you can input information (thus expanding it so you can add info) and it makes it hard to position correctly on the page.

The site also has some nice features though that I have to mention. First off is instant text. Simply click anywhere on your site and start typing and it will appear. This is great because there is no need to add a text block or anything and position it, just type. This feature is good for adding titles or maybe quick links (yes, it seems HTML does work in this feature, yay!) Also since you’re constantly in Edit mode, you might not be seeing the site exactly as it will be seen, so you can click the Edit button in the top right and the site will switch from Edit to Non-Edit mode so you can see it as it is. This is nice because in addition to that the site saves as you’re working, so switching doesn’t require a lot of load time.

The best feature however BY FAR is being able to write on people’s sites. Yahoo’s Mash seems to be trying to do this, but ClutterMe does it better. Click anywhere on a ClutterMe site and start typing. When you’re finished your profile pick will show up with the comment written beside it. I love this idea, using the entire site as a wall, they did a good job on this and need to be commended.

What I’d like to see improved:

• Change the info widgets. If 1 click is used to access the panel (to move) then require a double click to edit the content. Chances are I’m going to be moving it more than editing it, so I don’t need it to display every time.
• Add a widget for a text area. Yes, I can just click and type but if I want to add in some code longer than a link (say adsense for example) it’s easier to be able to see exactly what I’m putting in and be able to click through my text in there after.
• Layering would be nice. When I add a new widget/image it goes to the top left corner. If I have anything else already there, I have to move it so that I can get to the newly added widget, This makes it a real pain if I want to give the site some depth.

Those are really the only problems I have with it, because I see a lot of potential in this site. And yes, I’m a sucker for the little guys and can see myself sticking to the site if it makes improvements (which from what they’re saying, they’re working on it). ClutterMe is one of a few sites that seem to be developing that are using both the ‘social networking’ platform and the classic ability to modify a site (without using a predefined template) together. I’m going to watch this site over the next few months to see how it plays out and will most likely do a follow-up review, so keep an eye out for that.

Do you ever find yourself searching something and coming back with a ton of ads and having to go through page after page of search results for what you want? Chances are you can use some searching tips.

Google Blog Search: This is always a great place to start. Blogs aren’t always personal journals, simply weblogs. Most sites today are done using a ‘blog’ format, the smarter ones make sure to get indexed in the blog search. There is much more content and nowhere near as many ads in this engine. This works especially well for finding answers to questions.

Google News: A search engine for news. There are many news sources listed, all compiled into one big blob or site for your viewing pleasure. The only issue I have with this is smaller sites aren’t often considered as reliable sources (which can be a good thing) so are not listed. Blog Search (listed above) can help if you’re not finding what you want.

Google Book Search: An interesting feature, this actually lets you see what’s inside of books. A great tool for checking to make sure you get quotes right. However, there is a limitation of what books are in this engine because of copyright laws.

Google Images: I have to point this out because I talk to SO many people who don’t know about this. On the main page simply click the image text (as seen in the image) or go to images.google.com. From here you can search and it will come up with images, so you don’t have to search through a ton of sites looking for an image you want, Google has already found them for you.

Google Directory: Categories, categories who has the categories? This is a FANTASTIC way to search, cut down your results by category. This tool makes it easy to cut down exactly what you want, where you want it. The only problem is that this doesn’t seem to be as up-to-date as the normal engine (they need to get on updating that better).

Here’s some more neat tricks you can do with Google, simply type:

• “Define: word” and you’ll get a definition of that word from multiple sources.
• A mathematical equation (such as 4+4) and Google will solve it and show you the answer.
• A conversion statement (such as 100 lbs to KG or $10 USD to CDN) and it will figure it out for you.
• “Weather City-name” This will give you a 4 day forecast (available in most places, you may need to include province/state)
• “Spell: word” to have Google check to make sure the word is real.

More Helpful Links
Google search features @ Google
7 Clever Tricks Worth Knowing @ Marc and Angel

We’ve come to the end of the Google Greatness week and we’ve covered a variety of webapps and tips. First we had Google Reader, our trusty and reliable RSS feed reader. We met all of your email needs next with Gmail, followed by the oh-so-colorful Google Calendar, then Google Docs and lastly (but not least) Google Maps. But wouldn’t it be great if you had a central hub for all of this? Well your prayers have been answered, we’re going to look at iGoogle

This is a hub, simple as that. There is no need to jump around for everything, it’s all there on one page (Bing bang boom), You can add ‘stuff’ aka gadgets that you want displayed such as a preview of your gmail inbox, active doc files, your recent rss feeds in your reader, the top videos on youtube, picture of the day, news articles and even the weather! You can add more by clicking on the ‘Add stuff’ in the right of the screen. You can even add a new tab (left) so it’s like running a complete secondary igoogle window (great for those of us that are too organized)You can also add a ‘theme’ to the site, though it’s very limited. You can use some of the tweaks (see helpful links) to make it a little better.

We haven’t covered all of Google’s Greatness this past week, just the tip of the iceburg. Here are some honorable mentions that almost reached Greatness:

• GOOG-411: A free 411 (information) service from Google. A good alternative for those who still pay for this info.
• Google Talk: Google’s instant messenger service. A good product, but still behind in users compared to others.
• Google Earth: It’s the earth. All of it. Google has mapped it out and is now even starting on outer space, a great look.
• Google pack: A Wonderful package of free software. The products are not google-made, but are free and recommended. A great collection.

Some Helpful Links
15 iGoogle Gadgets for Web Word Productivity
Pimp your iGoogle with Greasemonkey @ Mashable

As many people know, Google is one of the world’s leading search engines. But did you know that Google can do almost everything else as well? Yes, I mean everything. Over the next week I’m going to tackle some of Google’s other products and tell you how they can be useful for average needs.

Today I’ll tackle the first line of communication Google Reader:

This is your RSS reader, it will be one of your best friends and you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it (once you figure out what it is!). RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Why does that matter? It doesn’t really. Most sites today with constantly updating content (news sites, blogs, and most other sites) use RSS and produce an ‘RSS feed’ which users are able to subscribe to (usually by clicking on an orange button similar to that located on the right of this page). This is like subscribing to a newsletter or magazine, and you’re notified when the site is updated.

But how do you get the notification? You use a feed reader, such as Google Reader. Like most other Google products, you can access it through your Google account at the address http://www.google.com/reader. You’ll see that you have no subscriptions, so let’s add a one to it. Remember the giant orange button on the right of Blogging for Apples? Click it. You should have an option to subscribe to the feed, do it. You’ve now subscribed to your first RSS feed.

Now go have a look at your Google Reader again (it may take a minute or two, refresh the page) and you should be subscribed to Blogging for Apples. Whenever the site is updated with new posts, the new posts will automatically be added to your reader I’m sure you’re thinking around now ‘but couldn’t I have just visited the site?’ and the answer is yes. But the key is to subscribe to more sites. There is no limit to how many feeds you can subscribe to with Google Reader, and all will be displayed in the reader, so you don’t have to visit each site one by one. It saves a ton of time and allows you to get the most out of all the resources out there.

Now that we have the basis covered, why is Google Reader great? Well first off it has a great user interface. You can access all your feeds by just clicking the title of the feed. Each post allows you to star (favorite) a post so it’s easier to find later, share it (put on your public feed page), email it to somebody or add tags to it (so you can search for it later in your feeds) with a simple click on the footer located at the bottom of each post.
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Reader also allows you to use keyboard shortcuts for even faster reading of your feeds. On top of that it allows you to view your feeds on your mobile phone as well, never be disconnected. If you’ve never used RSS before give it a try, you won’t be disappointed and you’ll catch on quicker than I made it sound.

Some helpful links:
OSX Style Google Reader: A Firefox plugin to make Google Reader prettier.
Google Reader Notifier: Firefox plugin that notifies you when a feed is updated that your’re subscribed to with google reader.
50+ Google Reader extensions and scripts for Firefox @ Mashable

Everybody uses maps, but not everybody uses them right. Google Maps is a great alternative. No need to get a GPS or yell at your wife “I know where we are”, just use Google.

GMaps are great for 3 reasons: 1) You can have fun finding your house using the ‘satellite’ mode. 2) Directions tells you where to turn and where, as well as how long each step in getting there to take. 3) You can plan your bank heist without having to leave the house!

First lets play with Searching: Just type in an address. This can be In the form of ‘City, Province/state’ or you can go all out and find a specific place such as ‘Road City, Province Postal Code’ (in most places just putting in the postal/zip code works, but the more information you put in the faster it will find the place you’re looking for. Remember, it’s searching the whole world). You can also try writing names of stores and the city/province that you’re looking for and Google is usually pretty good at finding them. Once you find your location try clicking the ‘Hybrid’ button located on the top right of the map. This will display both roads and a satellite image of the map, you can then zoom in (using a scroll wheel or the bar on the left of the map) and try to pick out your location’s image. The search feature is more a free-for-all locating tool, directions work better, so lets head over there.

To get into directions mode, click Get Directions just under the search bar. You’ll now have 2 search bars, a start and end address. Once you find the two places you’ll see a green marker (start) and red marker (end) connected by a blue line, this is your path. You’ll also notice some new information show up on the left of your screen: How to get there. There will be total KM, time it takes to get there, any additional info (toll bridge, crossing a nation’s border, etc) and what signs to look for. It’s as if somebody was sitting beside you reading a map (correctly!).

By default, Google will choose the quickest route from A-B, but you can change this. There is an option you can check on the left that says ‘avoid highways’ which is good for you older people who drive slow. You can also change your route yourself by dragging the line. For example, if you were going from Kingston, Ontario to Saint John, New Brunswick you’d be going through Montreal, Quebec by default. If you don’t want to do that, drag the path down to where you do want to go through, in this case Vermont. You can drag down parts of your path to avoid the French province completely (it just adds about 5 hours to the trip, minor details). This can be useful also if you want to stop by somewhere that isn’t on your route, you can go there without getting completely lost.

Another nice feature is ‘My Maps‘. This allows users to add content to Google Maps, just as businesses, real estate for sale and many other features that could prove helpful for people in the area. Google is available on many mobile phones now as well. It has implemented a street view feature in some cities where you can ‘virtually walk’ along the street, but it’s still very limited. You can also embed or send your maps to friends by clicking on the buttons located on the right just above your map.

More Helpful Links:
Google Maps Nighttime: A nice view of lights from space at night.
Cool Google Maps

Google Docs, Google’s version of the popular Microsoft Office suite. The difference between the two though is that with Google there is no need for a download, you can access it from anywhere with a net connection and it’s free. So you can spend the $400 on something that’s actually worth the cost.

Spreadsheet (Excel)
This is a very basic spreadsheet application but from my experience seems to cover all of the basics. Some features include color coating cells, quick sorting (A-Z, Z-A), charts (Columns, line, pie, bar, scatter), and easy use of popular formulas (Sum, count, average, etc). The formulas are very intuitive of what you want done which makes use a lot easier.

Document (Word)
It’s a word processing application. It has all the normal word formatting, comments (footnotes), tables, separators, bookmark (anchor) features. As well, it also includes the ability to quickly upload and insert pictures and links.

Presentation (PowerPoint)
Google’s newest addition to the Doc package, and in my opinion the most impressive (or at least showing the most potential). This application proves its simplicity in form of slide creation and organization, as well as modification. It does this most prominently by supplying a variety of default themes and formatting for the user. As with the other Document applications, the ability to upload and add text/pictures is found here as well. Aside from the creation features there is also a ‘Presentation mode’. This allows you to invite users to view the presentation with you as you move through it. Beside the slides there is a chat window allowing easy conversation. This would be good tool for virtual meetings (voice would make it amazing!)

What makes all of these stand out though is the way they’re used by groups. Each document can be shared or published to allow groups to view or even edit them. This saves from having a million copies on everybody’s computers, as there is only one copy that is being edited. Google also makes backups of the file, so you can easily review the changes that were made and who made them. The only issue I find with this is that both collaborators as well as viewers must have a registered Google account. This is understandable for those editing, but the service would prove better if this was not needed for visitors.

All office files you already have are easily uploaded to Google without any need to play around with converting or reformatting, so the switch is completely painless. Give it a go, you’ll be glad you did or your money back (Oh wait, it’s free!)

More Helpful Links:
Fun explanation video by Google
5 things you probably didn’t know you could do in Google Docs & Spreadsheets by Josh Lowensohn

We’ve covered RSS feeds with Google Reader, your mail with Gmail and news with Alerts over the past few days; but what good is that if you never have time to do it with your busy schedule? In comes our next product: Google Calendar.

Google Calendar (GCal) is a great product, it has all the needed elements that most people look for in a calendar. We have the different view types (Day/Week/Month/Agenda) but that’s nothing new for calendar programs. When you add an event it has all the routine What/When/Where/Description, again nothing new. One of hte most useful features about GCal however is the ability to have multiple calendars as one.

By creating a new Calendar (Click the Add button located on the left of the screen) you can easily categorize events by type, or by who is doing them. For example, I’ve added the work schedules of some of my friends, so I know when they’re off (Yeah, I’m a stalker like that), dates jotted down when I plan on blogging about a certain topic and even when I should go get groceries or do laundry (insufficient memory). Adding all of these things are colored-coated and all appear on the same calendar so you can see when things over lap. If things get too crowded, you can always uncheck a calendar to make it invisible on the calendar. All events are also Drag-and-drop once created, which helps for people with rotating schedules.

Google Calendar also allows users to make the calendars public. If you wanted users to your site to know for instance when an event was going to happen, you could allow that calendar that it’s attached to be set as public. This does not mean your entire calendar will be public, just the one you’ve set as public. Because Google permits you to do this, they’ve also made it so you can ‘play’ with it a lot. This includes being able to have notifications on your Firefox browser, having your GCal show up on your desktop and much more. I’ll include the links at the bottom of this post.

GCal also has some nice features like emailing you before an event, which is handy for having time to prepare and access from mobile phones (which is all the rage these days). More than features though it’s simply, which Google is best at.

Some Helpful Links:
Tweak Google Calendar @ Firefox Facts
How to make your Google Calendar your PC’s desktop wallpaper @ LifeHacker
Best of Google Calendar (Addons + Tips) @ Makeuseof