DiPot: Ice Tea tech » Opinion

Yahoo! Mail IMAP capability

ageor — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:59:35 +0000

It is possible to get direct IMAP access. Yahoo! operates IMAP and secure IMAP servers (imap.mail.yahoo.com in particular), which are globally accessible. However they require a specific, non-standard IMAP command to be sent before login is done, namely: “ID ("GUID" "1")”. This non standard command is not required if accessed from mobile networks, typically those used by smart phones on mobile carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile, etc… For regular internet users, it is feasible to modify an open-source e-mail client to send the ID command, and there are modified versions of Mutt and Mozilla Thunderbird available to download.^[24]Alternatively, one can connect an unmodified e-mail client through an IMAP proxy that adds the ID command. A commercial software package that accomplishes this is called ‘Yahoo IMAP Connector’,^[25] available here. Mutt-dev (1.5) works without any modifications.

It is also possible to send mail through mail clients as Yahoo! also operates an SMTP server (smtp.mail.yahoo.com). It is necessary to enable SSL through port 465. For IMAP and SMTPS access the username is the user’s Yahoo! Mail address and the password is the same as for webmail access.

via en.wikipedia.org

Strange decision on behalf of Yahoo! Mail to not support IMAP for all email clients. One that is a deal breaker, I must add…

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Apple and Google reward apps that have the ’sticky factor’ | Technology | guardian.co.uk

ageor — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:19:24 +0000

“We believe the new ranking algorithm is now more complex, taking into account a measure of activity in the application and not simply new installs per day,” wrote Geoff Cook earlier this month for Business Insider. “In particular, we believe the ranking now considers either Daily Active Users (DAU) or the ratio of Daily Active Users to Monthly Active Users, which is sometimes referred to as the ’sticky factor’.”

Talk of DAUs and MAUs pinpoints the significance of the changes made by Apple and Google, since they are bringing their app rankings into line with the metrics that have long been used to gauge the success of social applications and games on Facebook. Getting a large base of users to sign up (or in apps’ case download) may be easy enough, but keeping them? That’s success.

via guardian.co.uk

This form of measurement is no doubt a considerable step forward.

In the case of Android, lots of apps already run at all times with no apparent reason often against the user’s will or knowledge. There is usually nothing that can be done about it other than uninstalling (which is an extreme measure for a potentially useful app). Of course, good apps have the user decide when they should run but this is rarely the case.

To cut a long story short, developers will potentially address measuring active users by having their apps run all the time, which is a pure waste of resources, not to mention user frustration.

The only way this can work is if the users finally get easy, complete control over what runs when, the way it should always have been, without the need to root the device. And I mean true start up control, not process killers! Google please take this into serious consideration or a major Android flaw is about to get much worse.

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Improve Conversations in Twitter: Enter the ~Tildetag

ageor — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 13:02:26 +0000

Twitter isn’t about conversation. It’s about broadcasting that there is a potential conversation happening.

via quora.com

I avoid following conversations in Twitter. The reason is simple: Doing so is hard and RTs lead to reading the same staff over and over. Plus, I can’t always actually read everything, as not everyone uses “reply” and I am rarely a follower of all parties. Use of multiple URL shorteners don’t make it any easier to identify identical links, either.

I would expect Twitter threads marked with a #hashtag to work a bit better. Indeed, most Twitter clients make following threads with a # very easy. The #hashtag makes tweets hard to miss. Still, almost none of the above issues are answered. RTs (with the #hashtag) are still noise. Plus, not everyone always uses the #hashtag, despite the fact it’s automated in some clients.

I agree with Robert Scoble that “Twitter isn’t about conversation. It’s about broadcasting that there is a potential conversation happening.” (http://www.quora.com/Should-discussions-on-Twitter-evolve-to-those-of-FriendF…). How do you get all the parties interested in an already started conversation in Twitter to a single different service and which one would that be? People don’t always join new services that easily. Nor migrate their conversations, for that matter… Let’s face it; conversations do happen in Twitter.

So, this is what I suggest would improve following the conversation in Twitter, using what we have:

A conversation should always have a # hashtag
A conversation should have only one #. It should be as short and decriptive as possible. A bad # is prefferable to none at all and to multiple ones
The # should be thoroughly used within the discussion, even if this takes reposting. There is a “delete” option for slipped tweets
RTs of a tweet that already has the # don’t help the conversation
RTs and mentions of the conversation for each user’s stream are ok, provided the # hashtag changes to a ~ tildetag (which won’t appear in the original thread). It’s easy to do and saves everybody time and effort
Twitter clients can implement the ~tildetag in no time, replacing # with ~ on RTs, ~ to # on Replies and having both ~tildetags and #hashtags point to the same search on click. They could also suggest a # hashtag as we type our tweets

I admit this is somewhat bureaucratic and I am open to suggestions. Where should we take the conversation?

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#Mixero DNS and Certificate issues

ageor — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:25:57 +0000

@brycenz Bryce Ewing

Having #Mixero issues? www.mixero.com dns resolves, mixero.com doesnt, put “209.160.20.56 mixero.com” in /etc/hosts file to fix

via twitter.com

Mixero is my current Twitter and Facebook client of choice, thanks to its great stream filtering capabilities and it being Adobe Air based, so it runs everywhere.

My problem starting in were initialy solved by the tweet above, which worked as advertized. Windows users please notice hosts file is in %systemroot%\System32\drivers\etc (usually C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc).

An additional issue I am having is numerous instances of the Security Alert saying “The Internet site you are about to view uses a certificate that has expired or is not yet valid. Do you wish to proceed?”. This message is self-descriptive. It takes a good number of clicking “Yes” for the alerts to go away things to finally work.

Mixero client is now connected again

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Open ID: Great idea, poor implementations

ageor — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:01:40 +0000

I’ve always been a major proponent of Open ID. I love the idea and the intention – it’s a great solution to a long-standing problem and solves a lot of issues for developers. Unfortunately it creates a ton more for business owners.

via blog.wekeroad.com

I am a fan of OpenID. Enough so to host my own. I am disappointed by the slow adoption rate. I am also disappointed by the fact that this makes sense, as I can’t even login to Google Friend Connect (GFC) with my OpenID any more (although it works fine elsewere, so I believe GFC is to blame).

Given the above, I understand (some of) OpenID’s issues. I do wish they weren’t there, but they are. So, the lesson I learn from this post is to never setup a site to authenticate its users only by OpenID. Until, hopefully, things change for the better.

Do you have any OpenID experience to share?

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Webmail vs IMAP4 vs POP3. Or not?

ageor — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 22:14:24 +0000

With email dominating a good part of our communication, mailbox management is an ever growing issue. This is primarily intended for people who access their email from at least two different email clients (webmail counts as one) and people who share a mailbox with others.

I want access to my email via webmail and offline acceess on my two laptops and mobile phone. Worse than that, I am using 2 different email clients on each laptop (one I regularly use and one I am trying). So, I frequently get to answer the question “How to best setup my client(s) to receive email; POP3 or IMAP4?” for myself and others. As usual, there is no single answer. However, there may be a proper email setup strategy for some scenarios. Good understanding of the tools will, hopefully, help determine which one it is. First, some background:

Webmail

Webmail is actually a web-based email client. As such, it is accessible from a web browser and it talks directly to the email server instead of transferring emails locally.

Webmail can be a one stop shop, provided there is access to the email server, which probably also requires Internet access. Yahoo! mail, Hotmail, Gmail, the upcoming Facebook Social Inbox etc. are full fledged email clients that can receive, send and manage emails, complete with antispam, folders and address books. A webmail user has no need to know about protocols to enjoy complete use of an email system, unless he would also like to access email offline. In that case, use of an email client like Pegasus, Eudora, Outlook Express, Outlook (yes, they are different), Evolution, Thunderbird etc. (forgive me if I missed your mailer of choice) is required.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol)

Not to be forgotten, SMTP is the protocol that sends email. It is used by all email clients in both POP3 and IMAP4 configurations.

POP3 (Post Office Protocol v3)

POP3 ia a protocol for one way transfer (reception, downloading) of email from the server to the client for offline use. It is supported by all of the above (and more) mailers.

Once an email is succesfully received by the email client, it is, typically, erased from the mailbox at the server. Thankfully, most mailers allow the user to modify this behaviour so the mailer leaves the email at the server’s mailbox as well, either indefinitely or for a preset amount of days. Not erasing an email from the server is so important that Gmail (basically a webmail system) supports setting emails to not be erased on the server side, in case email clients are setup wrong.

So, when we need to have our mail delivered to more than one clients, we can set them up so they don’t erase downloaded emails from the server. This way, email stays on the server ready to be downloaded again or to be accessed via a webmail client.

IMAP4 (Internet Message Access Protocol v4)

IMAP is also supported by all of the above (and more) mailers. It is usually perceived as another protocol to receive email. Well, it is not! It ia actually a protocol to synchronize folders on the email server with folders on the email client(s). Email reception is, effectively, a subset of that.

So, what exacly is the difference and why is it important? Here is a partial list (visit a more comprehensive list and “Internet Message Access Protocol” in Wikipedia). The reason I use “differences” over “advantages” is that advantages depend on the usage scenario:

	Some IMAP and POP protocols differences		Best protocol for scenario
	IMAP	POP	User with multiple email clients	Multiple users sharing a mailbox
Mailbox Size	The complete mailbox resides on the server and requires the corresponding disk space. Depending on how email is synchronized in the clients, they may require less disk space than on the server	At worst, only the size of the “Inbox” folder, provided that mail is not deleted when received (default behaviour)	POP	POP
Folders Structure	The structure of the email folders is the same in the server and the clients and any change propagates from the server to all the clients. If you like to arrange your emails in folders, you only have to do it once for all your clients and the server. Only folders subscribed-to are synchronized	The structurs must be maintained on every client separately	IMAP	IMAP
Direction	Emails get copied both ways; from the server to the client(s) and from the client(s) to the server. This applies to all folders (including “Sent Items” and “Drafts”). It also applies to any number of clients	Email transfer goes only from the “Inbox” folder on the server to the client(s)	IMAP	IMAP
Email Status Synchronization	Email status of “Deleted”, “Read” and “Starred” synchronizes as well. When it changes, it first propagates to the server and from there to all clients	Some clients can direct the server to delete emails that are deleted locally. “Read” and “Starred” status is local to the clients and to the server and does not synchronize in any direction	IMAP	POP
Deletion	Email deletions move both ways. Once a deletion happens on or reaches the server, it propagates to all the clients	Clients never ask for the same email again. Once downloaded, nothing will happen to it in the client, even if deleted on the server	IMAP	POP
Push email delivery	Yes, when both server and client support the IDLE command	No	IMAP	IMAP

User with multiple email clients

IMAP is clearly better for a single user with multiple clients, provided there is enough room for the mailbox on the server. Even with a limited mailbox, a backup of older emails will allow deletion from the server. This backup can be available in as many of the clients as needed.

Multiple users sharing a mailbox

Complete synchronization, a clear advantage for a single user, turns into a disadvantage when multiple users share an email account. I wouldn’t want my collegue(s) to erase the emails he doesn’t like for me as well. I have my own important emails to star. I don’t want to have emails I haven’t read yet appear to be read because someone else read them. And I have my own way to organize my inbox. I want my own email statuses and organization. But I also need to have access to the emails he composes and sends through this account. This is the one synchonization I need.

Thankfully, a mixed IMAP and POP system can be configured to optimize for all needs. The solution I suggest to this (quite frequent, I may add) problem is: Set it up twice. Once as POP3 without deletion for email reception and once as IMAP for the “Sent Items” (or “Sent”) and “Drafts” folders synchronization. Care is needed to not send email from the POP edition of the account. Even then, if the sent email is manually or automatically -via a rule- moved to the IMAP “Sent” folder, the result will be the same. Please note that while sent items and drafts will synchrnize back to the server, any folder-based organization of the email won’t happen on the server, therefore it won’t appear during mailbox access via webmail.

Multiple users sharing a mailbox and using multiple email clients

Unfortunately, the second scenario doesn’t mix well with the first. If I want to organize my shared mailbox in folders and access it from multiple clients, I will have to do so manually on each client. This is a scenario where incoming mail needs to arrive to a mailbox all my own. Actually, nothing a good old mail forwarding setup can’t do, at the expense of multiple times the incoming email space on the server…

How many devices and email clients do you use? Are you happy with your setup? Please share!

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Daylight Saving Time change challenges electronic calendars

ageor — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 06:49:38 +0000

Daylight Saving Time (or summertime as it is called in many countries) is a way of getting more light out of the day by advancing clocks by one hour during the summer. During Daylight Saving Time, the sun appears to rise one hour later in the morning, when people are usually asleep anyway, and sets one hour later in the evening, seeming to stretch the day longer.

via timeanddate.com

Daylight Saving Time changed today in the EU and many countries in the world.

This time change seems to be a challenge for some electronic calendar systems. Please pay special attention to events imported from Internet calendars like Facebook’s (a reload seems to do the trick) & Google’s. Also mind appointments you have received by email and meetings that will happen in a different time zone than your usual. I hear Android devices have some issues with the time zone too, so, Android users, doulbe check.

I will appreciate any feedback on calendaring systems that needed adjustment. Please share, including all the details you can!

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9th Techblog Workshop; Android or WP7?

ageor — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 07:45:17 +0000

via techblog.gr

Last Friday, October 22nd, 2010, HTC Hellas hosted the first presentation of its recent lineup of Windows Phone 7 and Android moblies in Greece, in the form of the 9th Techblog Workshop. We were welcomed warmly in a very hospitable environment. No less than four of HTC Hellas’ staff and management team were there to answer all our questions. They offerred us enough room and time to fiddle with the Desire HD, Desire Z, HD7, Trophy and Mozart in an informal and quire friendly atmosphere.

In a room full of cheerfull people, unique, desirable mobile phones and plenty of snacks and drinks to go around, my task was to answer all the questions raised by the relevant literature I read after the introduction of WP7 to get an informed opinion about both the latest Androids and WP7. More than that, I am to be the first consumer of my own verdict!

All the phones are impressive, but HTC does that all the time. So much so that I regularly wonder why they don’t make a device with a choice of Android or Windows or both so everybody would be happy and able to switch platform at will…

My dilemma between the two platforms has been the major issue since the announcement of WP7. So, having the opportunity for a hands-on experience with a top-of-the-line WP7 device (thanks to Costas Vlachakis and techblog.gr, I had tried many Android devices including Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab) is all it took to resolve it.

WP7 is great as it should be, but some of its limitations are just unacceptable to me: controlled multitasking, fixed browser, search engine & media player, no flash support, no copy/paste, windows live account requirement (plus my old hotmail account probably won’t do) and no greek keyboard out of the box.

Based on the above, my preference goes to Android. While it has limitations of its own, it is more open and developers get more freedom to deliver on the platform. Which Android, then? An intentional Android limitation quite serious to me is lack of direct Outlook synchronization. So, since HTC has the only real solution to this problem that I know of and its devices are top notch anyway, I am having an easy choice there: If Android then HTC.

Yes, Super AMOLED is probably better than SLCD. Interestingy, Desire HD, with its 4.3′ screen, did not feel as bulky as the HD2 originally felt although their actual size is about the same; I guess the idea hs grown into me. And 4.3″ is better than Samsung Galaxy S’s 4″. The other contender, Galaxy Tab, is still at the back of my head as a single, middle ground solution, compared to a phone and a netbook or notebook. However, I think I am not ready to carry my phone in a bag just yet.

I am now waiting for HTC Desire HD’s availability to go on and get it. But I’m not talking about it much, because last year I was saying that about HD2 and then WP7 was announced…

Thank you, techblog.gr for a great workshop. Thank you HTC Hellas for your hospitality. Thank you both for a very productive evening!

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Synapse-Phones

ageor — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 11:48:38 +0000

The Starting Specs are:

Operating System:

Android 2.2

Processor:

1Ghz

Display:

10.16cm, 4,0-inch SuperLCD multitouch-sensitive screen with 480×800 WVGA resolution

Speakerphone:

Three built-in microphones
(Telephone, camera and noise-reduction)

Sensors:

Proximity sensor
Ambient light sensor
Accelerometer sensor
Compass

GPS:

AGPS

Buttons:

Four capacitive buttons under the screen
Power button
Two volume buttons on the left side
Camera button on the right side

Bluetooth:

2.1

Expansion Slot:

microSD memory card(SD 2.0 compatible)
Up to 32GB card support.

Body material:

Aluminium with ambientlight

In Box Content:

Main unit
Battery (as selected)
MicroUSB Cable
Charger (Voltage range/frequency: 100-240V AC, 50-60Hz)
RF Brochure
Product Safety & Warranty Statement
Quick Start Guide

3 years worldwide warranty
Shipping starts in the middle of Q1 2011.
We are shipping to the EU, U.S., Canada.
And now it is your turn to select the Hardware you want.

via synapse-phones.com

Great idea!

I am glad the Android ecosystem finds new ways to innovate. Smartphones built to order at such an affordable cost? So, the all-in-one portable camera, memory stick, radio, TV, PDA, GPS navigator, scanner, games console, audio/video player, walkie-talkie, thermometer, phone and is very close to happening, either as a regular product or as a customize-your-own-device. I can’t wait!

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Desktop Linux: The Dream

ageor — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:47:42 +0000

Despite phenomenal security and stability–and amazing strides in usability, performance, and compatibility–Linux simply isn’t catching on with desktop users. And if there ever was a chance for desktop Linux to succeed, that ship has long since sunk.

Over the past few years, modern Linux distributions such as Ubuntu have utterly transformed the open-source desktop user experience into something sleek and simple, while arguably surpassing Windows and Mac OS in both security and stability. Meanwhile, the public failure of Windows Vista and the rise of the netbook gave Linux some openings to capture a meaningful slice of the market. But those opportunities have been squandered and lost, and Linux desktop market share remains stagnant at around 1 percent.

via pcworld.com

I really hope the verdict of the article is wrong, but I happen to agree with most of its rationalle.

Linux and open-source software development tends to cover its own needs. They are two fantastic communities with different mindsets from the average PC user. As much and as hard as they work, their direction is not where this other, way larger community of the PC users would like it to be.

As a consequence, the comparatively small Linux & Open Source communities grow slowly and their products don’t reach that many more people. It’s not that they fail the rest of us. It’s that they are not after pleasing us…

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Facebook in Online Privacy Breach; Applications Transmitting Identifying Information

ageor — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:22:20 +0000

via online.wsj.com

Facebook’s security settings and terms of service leave a lot to be desired. Changes that happen every now and then are difficult to follow and certainly not always for the better for users concerned about their privacy. On top of that, what apps are supposed to do and don’t do and how these don’ts are enforced are always good issues to discuss.

It turns out they are not doing a very good job there either. And even more unsettling is the suspision that it’s not the users’ privacy they are concerned about, but the power to control the flow of this information themselves…

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OpenOffice.org vs.Microsoft Office

ageor — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:44:00 +0000

via youtube.com

It is all over the news, but it’s not that new. Microsoft has just legitimized openoffice.org as an opponent office suite… Actually, Microsoft has been answering about Office vs. OpenOffice.org for quite a long time now.

Googling for “office vs. openoffice site:microsoft.com” (without the quotes) just returned “About 2,460 results” in the microsoft.com domain and 5 of these date back to 2001.

This reminds me of the time Microsoft compared Linux with Windows, legitimizing it as an opponent OS and marking the start of another era. Googling “windows vs linux site:microsoft.com” (again, without the quotes) for fun returned “About 13,500 results” in the microsoft.com domain and 6 of them date back to 2000 or earlier.

Is it history repeating itself? Hopefully, yes. Only the name to look after in the future will be libreoffice from http://www.documentfoundation.org/, or whatever they finally call it.

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Thunderbird – Temporarily Switch Composing Between Plain Text/HTML

ageor — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:11:27 +0000

TIP: Thunderbird – Temporarily Switch Composing Between Plain Text/HTML

In order to temporarily switch your composing format for a message, hold the [SHIFT] key while clicking the “Write” (Compose) button.

If your default format is Plain Text, the message format will be in HTML format. If your default format is HTML, the message format will be in Plain Text format.

via blog.pengoworks.com

Excellent tip that saves a lot of frustration, thanks Dan!

Let me just add that Shift also works on Replies and Forwards

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Windows Phone 7 or Android for Horde, Lightning and mobile phone synchronization?

ageor — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 13:45:14 +0000

via cnet.com

Starting fresh with Windows Phone 7 was a bold decision on behalf of Microsoft. Whether it will be a successful one remains to be seen. Being an old Windows CE, Pocket PC and Windows Mobile user about to buy a new phone, I have been waiting for WP7’s release eagerly.

I have been reading and trying everything I can put my hands on and I still can’t decide between Windows Phone 7 and Android (yes, iPhone is out of the question). Available applications are of course going to make a difference in the early days, as every major application is soon going to be available in every platform.

My real problem, though, is how to synchronize my contacts and calendar among my new favorite PIM, Mozilla Thunderbird + Lightning (on my way to Linux), my new to-be phone and, ideally, my personal cPanel-based cloud, Horde, without using Google Contacts and Calendar.

This is what the decisive factor will be. I am open to suggestions.

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WM, Android, or, maybe, a Maemo smartphone?

ageor — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:13:11 +0000

I am a long time user of Windows CE, Pocket PC and lately Windows Mobile devices. I am no fan of Microsoft’s. However, I have always thought their mobile OS, although not always the best and, certainly not open, it was a step in the right direction with decent devices and plenty of software.

It’s time for a new smartphone. I admit habits die hard and this is the first time since 2000 I am actually considering changing mobile platform. Not because touchscreens were “non-existent” before multi-touch, as Apple fans would put it, but because Microsoft has, or is close to managing what seemed impossible: lose in the software availability arena. Most new mobile applications for new Web 2 needs are created for the iPhone and Android first and for Blackberry and WM later.

Microsoft clearly failed to recognize the mobile devices market trends in time and doesn’t even seem to do anything serious about it. WM updates are drugged by hardware and other developments and are nothing to write home about. Devices are still best-of-breed, thanks to HTC and others, but this can’t be credited to MS.

So, these are the lists for and against staying with WM:

Stay with WM

10 years of usage (habit)
It does work, most of the time
I have almost all the applications I need
MS Outlook synchronization. What about Outlook synchronization with Android? Android Market’s web interface is bad to useless. It’s a Google product with no search!
HTC HD2

Leave WM

WM is not open. Android or Maemo would be candidates as open platforms
Most hip programs and services are first available on other platforms. Android is the only candidate here as the iPhone is closed, regulated and not the best hardware around
All else being equal, open platforms are also hosted by cheaper devices

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

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Ning Greek Localization Error in Translation

ageor — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:26:43 +0000

I am a user of two Ning networks and I think it’s a great product-service!

Localizing everything can some times be a waste of effort. In other cases, localization (ie. of an infrastructure) can be well worth its while. Ning is such a case. In terms of multilanguage support prolepsis, as english is a simpler language than greek and others, building localization mechanisms is no easy task and translation can be tricky…

The case in point is four terms in Ning Forum’s messages greek translation. When Forum conversations grow long, pagination is introduced at the bottom of the page with the english messages “First”, “Previous”, “Next”, “Last”. The greek terms used for these messages are “Όνομα” (”honoma”), “Προηγούμενο” (”proeghumeno”, in Ning notation, where “h” shows where the word is stressed), “Επόμενο” (”ephomeno”), “Επώνυμο” (”ephonymo”) respectively. However:

“Όνομα” is greek for “First Name”, not “First Page”. The correct term would be “Πρώτη” (”prhoti”, “first in order”)
“Προηγούμενο” and “Επόμενο” are basically correct. In greek, however, adjectives have a gender. In this case the term refers to a page, which is “η σελίδα” in greek and has a she-gender. Therefore, the correct terms are “Προηγούμενη” (”proeghumeni”) and “Επόμενη” (”ephomeni”) respectively
“Επώνυμο” is greek for “Last Name” (or “Surname”), not “Last Page”. The correct term would be “Τελευταία” (”telefthea”, “last in order”)

Ning first-last messages in english

Ning first-last messages in greek (translation error)

Thanks, Ning, for allowing us to built our own social networks. Please keep improving!

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PeopleBrowsr: The Multi-Social-Networks Client Pros, Cons & Wishlist

ageor — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:42:43 +0000

PeopleBrowsr is an excellent multi social networks client. Although still in Beta RC 1.5, it is very rich in features and often leads the way for dedicated clients. On the flip side, it has a number of issues that prevent it from being the hands down client of choice, nor a one stop shop for the networks it supports. All comments are about the Air version of PeopleBrowsr, running under Windows XP SP3, although most are valid for the PeopleBrowsr web version as well.

Pros

The PeopleBrowsr people listen and respond
Multiple Stacks
Very Strong Search
Multiple networks support (alphabetically): Bitly, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, FriendFeed, Identica, LinkedIn, MySpace, Photobucket, PingFM, Plaxo, Seesmic, Trim, Twitter, Webpage, YouTube etc.
Multiple accounts on each supported network
Both a Web and an Adobe Air version
An impressive list of Options in Settings, including but not limited to:
- Auto refresh rate in seconds
- Auto sync Following/Followers
- Auto Refresh
- Show real names
- Show Location
- Persistent Stacks compression for more information in the same space (Stacks can be individually set to be compressed or not, but the setting is not saved when the session ends)
- Show absolute times instead of how long ago posts were posted
- Added value among PB users
Combination Stacks like DM+Replies+Stacks for Twitter
PB Groups can contain accounts from different networks, thus not becoming obsolete after Twitter introduced Lists
Color-coding and custom names for Stacks
Twitter threads (when available)
Posts can be delayed, repeated and post on multiple networks at once

Wishlist & Shortcomings

Trim down the top

PeopleBrowsr top part

The top “Post”, “Search”, PBIDboxes, PBExpet and Logout boxes/buttons/choices are too wide and actually takes a 1030pixels wide window for it to display properly! When narrower than that, the Search box goes down and sits on top of these stacks’ titles. Very annoying.

Improve non-latin text support: Sometimes Greek, Cyrillic etc. text decoding fails to display properly
Keep Twitter Lists up to date: My lists seem to have been read once and have not been updated since
Keep FriendFeed Lists and Groups up to date: They seem to have been read once and have not been updated since
Friendfeed Lists and Groups cannot be managed at all
Improve the Twitter Lists and PB Groups manager: As it is, it leaves a lot to be desired; see the “Twitter Lists Support: Management Status & Optimization Wishlist” post
Fix the “Font Size” setting to work in both the Stacks and, while it used to work properly, now (v1.5) only sets the Quickstrip’s font size and is not persistent between sessions
Improve the memory management: PB keeps allocating more memory while running, eventually bringing any system down on its knees
Fix program exit: When I close PB Air, it remains resident withholding large amounts of RAM & virtual memory and can’t start again until its previous process is killed
Prefill #hashtags and all @twitterers in replies
Add a “delete post” feature
Update the database when posts are deleted from other clients, so deleted entries do not keep showing
Support OpenID

I like PeopleBrowsr; a lot! And I’m impressed with the work done so far. Which is why I expect even more from the development team

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Twitter Lists Support: Management Status & Optimization Wishlist

ageor — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:31:52 +0000

I follow 2001 Twitter accounts (the limit Twitter inexplicably imposes for my number of followers). I have created some Twitter Lists and added some accounts in them, usually as I come across them. Twitter’s web interface leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to Lists management, so, this is a slow, painful process. I had also created groups in PeopleBrowsr, TweetDeck and PockeTwit. Having done part of the work to organize those I follow in Groups and Lists in a chaotic manner over time, I now wish for an easy way to bulk organize everything in Twitter Lists and be done with it. I wish for a Lists Manager that will let me optimize the process. While searching for it, I came across the following facts (please note that this is by no means a thorough survey; I just went through the clients I know of and use):

Clients that support Twitter Lists
- Seesmic for Windows now offers read only support
- SocialWhale offers read and add support on a per user basis, like Twitter
- PeopleBrowsr initially offered read only support and now also supports additions
- TweetDeck was the last to market but offers the best support so far, including read, easily add and export of its own Groups to Twitter Lists
Export the application’s Groups to Twitter Lists
- SocialWhale asks users to import their preexisting Groups to Lists at login
- TwitDeck fully supports copying Groups to Lists
- PeopleBrowsr initially did the opposite; it copied Twitter Lists to PB Groups. It does not do it in the right direction
Bulk-add accounts to Twitter Lists
- Twitdeck shows a selected Group, List or the complete list of followed accounts and allows to multiple-select-and-import any account from all friends, TweetDeck’s own Groups or Twitter Lists to a Twitter List
- PeopleBrowsr shows 16 accounts already in the Group or Twitter List with an “x” next to each one for one-by-one removal. To add an account to the List, one needs to manually type (part of) the names one by one and can’t bulk select them from a full list or PB’s own Groups
Applications’ own Groups vs. Twitter Lists management tools
- Oddly enough, both TwitDeck and PeopleBrowsr have different Managers for their own Groups and for Twitter List

The winner, so far, is TwitDeck; hands down. The race is not over, though and neither is my work, as I still have the PeopleBrowsr and PockeTwit groups to convert to Twitter Lists. So, I am waiting for them to add a competitive Lists Manager that not just gets the job done, it also removes some of the pain that goes with it. Some optimization suggestions to that extend:

Show the avatar, full name, site’s URL, following and followers along with account names

Long lists are difficult to handle just by a nick name.

Make the list auto resizing with the size of the window

The more the information available, the faster and easier the process.

Make it reliable and responsive

PeopleBrowsr often shows me a partial list of Twitter Lists and TwitDeck sometimes retries and fails to add accounts to Twitter Lists.

With Christmas and New Year around the corner, it’s a good time for wishes to come true… Meanwhile, I will update this post will any relevant information I come across, so check back.

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Twitter: Unable to follow more people (following 2000 limit)

ageor — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:47:59 +0000

Twitter has never been my favorite, especially compared to FriendFeed, but I can’t overlook the valuable community built around it. Lists have just made it much better, but there’s still no decent way to manage them that I know of and they come with limitations of their own.

Twitter: You are unable to follow more people at this time. Learn more here.

Plus, I have just ran into the inexplicable “You are unable to follow more people at this time. Learn more here.” pop-up, only to discover there is a 2000 follows limit! From http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/68916:

“…

What are the limits?

We don’t limit the number of followers you can have. However, we do monitor how aggressively users follow other users. We try to make sure that none of our limits restrain reasonable usage, and will not affect most Twitter users.

We monitor all accounts for aggressive following and follow churn (repeatedly following and un-following large numbers of other users). You can read more about these below, but if you don’t follow or un-follow hundreds of users in a single day, and you aren’t using automated methods of following users, you should be fine. Please note that the only automated following behavior that Twitter allows is auto-follow-back (following a user after they have followed you). Automated un-following is also not permitted. Please review our Automation Rules & Best Practices for more information on automating your account.

…

Additional limits if you are following 2000 or more people:
The rules about aggressive following and follow churn still apply. In addition, every user can follow 2000 people total. Once you’ve followed 2000 users, there are limits to the number of additional users you can follow: this limit is different for every user and is based on your ratio of followers to following. When you hit this limit, we’ll tell you by showing an error message in your browser. You’ll need to wait until you have more followers in order to follow more users—basically, you can’t follow 10,000 people if only 100 people follow you. When you reach a daily or total limit and we show you an error message, you’ve hit a technical limit imposed to limit egregious behavior by spam accounts and to prevent strain on the site. These are just the technical limits for your account; in addition, you are prohibited from aggressive following behaviors. These behaviors may result in account suspension, regardless of your account’s technical ratio.

Limits improve site performance by ensuring that when we send a person’s message to all of their followers, the sending of that message is meaningful. Follow limits cannot be lifted by Twitter, and everyone is subject to them, including verified and developer accounts. Based on current behavior in the Twitter community, we’ve concluded that this is both fair and reasonable.

…”

For the record, my behavior has never fallen into anything described in Twitter’s Following Limits and Best Practices page, except for trying to cross the 2000 limit. It turns out that “… this limit is different for every user and is based on your ratio of followers to following …”. It seems this ratio is a big secret, although online sources like @JanSimpson and “Using Twitter” give it a value around 1.1. Limits seem to be the approach of choice for Twitter to keep their service running. They have another one: you can only have up to 20 Lists, which, of course, you discover only when you try to create the 21st!

I am not happy with adhoc limits, particularly undocumented ones. The 2000 limit is both hidden and its mechanism undocumented by Twitter. Look it up and find that “basically, you can’t follow 10,000 people if only 100 people follow you”; hardly indicative of the ~1.1 actual ratio. Why? They claim this is to prevent spam and overload! Spam, though, can be measured with any number of real (and, preferably, documented) criteria…

I say, Twitter just can’t handle the volume. Arbitrary limits may give easy short-term solutions. Then, what? In the mean time, I have to decide weather to start unfollowing good people, try to “Get More Followers Fast” (oops, this is against the rules), try to get more followers slow (wait, “Remember, Twitter isn’t a race to get the most followers”), leave it be, or quit Twitter and concentrate on FriendFeed. Or put new people in an “over 2000″ List…

Did I mention how disappointed I am and how alienated I feel?

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PCs and the Internet: Addiction Magnets or just Tools?

ageor — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:44:38 +0000

The traditional Media (at least in Greece, where I live) don’t treat computing nor the Internet right. I don’t know if it’s because of ignorance or because they feel threatened by it. However, I do get the impression that, most of the time, when radio, TV or the press mention PCs and/or the Internet it’s because of a child pornography site, computer fraud or how young people are getting addicted to it.

According to WikiPedia’s “Addiction” article: “… The term addiction is also sometimes applied to compulsions that are not substance-related, such as problem gambling and computer addiction. In these kinds of common usages, the term addiction is used to describe a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences, as deemed by the user him self to his or hers individual’s health, mental state or social life. …”.

I’ve had various discussions with intelligent people who are not well acquainted to computers nor the Internet and they express concerns about its use and hidden dangers in it, especially if they are parents. The concern that “kids, teenagers or people who use their, usually networked, PC for long hours are addicted” is overrated and exaggerated.

From Wikipedia’s “Internet addiction disorder” article: “… To the extent that the Internet is a social medium instead of an object, people cannot be addicted to it. The analogy is made to an environment: a person can not be truly addicted to living in a favorite town (no matter how distressing a change of home might be), and a goldfish can not be addicted to living in a pond.
Secondly, it is widely recognized, even by its supporters, that most if not all “Internet addicts” already fall under existing, legitimate diagnostic labels. For many patients, overuse or inappropriate use of the Internet is merely a manifestation of their depression, anxiety, impulse control disorders, or pathological gambling. In this criticism, IAD is compared to food addiction, in which patients overeat as a form of self-medication for depression, anxiety, etc., without actually being truly addicted to eating.
It is possible that a person could have a pathological relationship with a specific aspects of the Internet, such as bidding on online auctions, viewing pornography, online gaming, or online gambling (which is included under the existing Pathological Gambling), but that does not make the Internet medium itself be addictive. …”.

People spending way too much time “in” the Internet is a misconception dated back to the time we needed to dial-in to the Internet. While connected to the Net over telephone lines the meter was running, hence the need to make the most out of it. Broadband has changed this. We are now “online” all the time for a flat rate, or, at worst, for a pay-as-you-go rate (especially true in cellular telephony). In these early days, we got online specifically to use the Internet, mainly use email, surf the Web and, if advanced enough, to do some instant messaging and e-shopping.

Today, thanks, in part, to digital convergence and the computer becoming a consumer item, we have one PC each instead of one per office or home and we do online pretty much anything we did before the Internet existed at all. Thanks to broadband, the phrase “I am connected” doesn’t mean much any more, because we are online whether we actually make use of the Net or not. Sometimes we are practically online and we don’t even realize it (most high end cellular phones are a click away from the Internet)! We have blended it in our everyday life like the telephone, the radio, the TV, the newspaper, the typewriter, the tape recorder etc. before it.

Except for physical activities (debatable; have you tried Nintendo Wii Fit?), computers, possibly connected to the Internet, are used today for prety much everything else. Today, even more than in the earlier days, neither computing nor using the Internet are activities by themselves. They are just enablers for countless individual activities (the following is by no means a complete list, or in any particular order):

Reading, Watching, Listening to Multimedia Documents
Reading, Watching and Listening to our own or others’ material includes art, essays, news, books (electronic and audio), presentations, schematics, photos, music, videos, radio & TV broadcasts, podcasts, etc. or any combination of those and more.
Research
Whether it is scientific or market research, online computers are the tools behind it that collect, store, index, process, search, retrieve, distribute and present all the information and data in ways limited only by imagination.
Multimedia Documents Creation
Most (or all?) of this so-called “content” we can view, we can also create ourselves for us and others to view or use.
Communication & Social Networking
Email, Instant Messaging (IM), VoIP telephony, Video calls, Audio & Video Conferencing are just some types of online communication. Social Networking helps keep in touch with lots of people. Additionally, (micro)Blogging and RSS feeds help us get input from and address potentially unlimited content creators and audience, respectively.
Recreation & Games
Physical activity aside, electronic editions of traditional board games represent only a small fraction of the games we can play with practically unlimited human or computer opponents from around the globe.

It’s not my intention to prove how good technology is; there may be issues in all applications that leave room for discussion. I am trying to raise awareness to the fact that computer and Internet usage cannot be measured as an activity on their own, as they are not. They represent the sum of all their individual uses. Of course (networked) computing (possibly as life itself) is a platform where addictions can occur. Like all drugs are not inherently addictive, nor is technology, computing or the Internet. Still, ‘… With the widespread use of computers in the 21st century, it may be difficult to distinguish users who are “highly engaged” in their computer use from those who might be considered “addicted”. …’ (from Wikipedia’s “Computer addiction” article).

Diversity and multiple activities & interests have always been factors against addictions. Having a tools combination like a computer networked to the all-inclusive Internet actually promotes diversity. Let’s do so, too.

PS. There are studies indicating computer and internet “addiction” or “overuse”. At this point (and I am no expert), I believe many people use or overuse them like they do with any new, shiny toy. Once they both become commonplace, like the telephone and television did, any “related” addiction will be easily traced to the pre-technology causes.

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Apologies for last days’ posts flood

ageor — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:17:04 +0000

I apologize for the flood of links of the past few days.

I have been trying to implement Yet Another Autoblogger to bring my Delicious and StumbleUpon bookmarks in WordPress-based Ice Tea tech. It seems that, while everything finally worked fine with Delicious, StumbleUpon kept returning the same posts over and over to Autoblogger causing a flood in the blog itself and to its RSS feed, FriendFeed & Twitter by extension.

I stopped using StumbleUpon a while ago, because it didn’t support greek-encoded titles. It seems there is also an issue between its feed and Autoblogger. So, at least for the time being, I removed it, which is not that much of a problem, as I don’t post there any more.

Sorry about that, I’ll try to contain such incidents in the future. Thank you all for your patience and especially @Sotomi, @Cybereddie, @Chriiiiis, @Botchagalupe, @Alexnewbee, @Skoroneos, @Jimeh, @Vtripolitakis, @Spdd and those I may have missed for taking the time to notify me about it.

In an attempt to minimize the impact, I erased all the Ice Tea tech feed (with posts) from FriendFeed (I don’t know how to bulk-erase the relevant twits, any ideas?). The sideffect is that, as I am about to recreate the feed in FriendFeed, multiple blog and bookmark posts will appear at once, possibly in Twitter as well. Please forgive me, hopefully it will be the end of this annoyance.

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News Reading Thoughts

ageor — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:46:27 +0000

I never have enough of a good thing. The first time I read the online edition of a magazine I immediately wished for a filtered edition which would only contain the articles of my choice. When Greek Naftemporiki newspaper’s online-edition provided filtered, personalized content, I immediately wished for a method to push the content to me, instead of going around the sites and soon after that RSS appeared (what I like about technology; it always catches up).

Now RSS is commonplace. Filters increase, but the implementations are still early and immature. For example, except for Google and similar sites, filters usually apply to a single site; that of the content source (like http://naftemporiki.gr -only in greek). RSS makes it easy to gather information from multiple sources to the feed reader of choice, but by itself provides no filtering in the source, except in the form of multiple feeds. So, where should filtering apply?

The tools have been expanding and improving. From the days of raw content we now have search, filtering, RSS and a multitude of clients to put them to good use. I tried the very good BlogBridge for a while for its keyword-based virtual feeds (thanks, karagos, for suggesting it). It being offline and other problems I had (bad greek support and hitting the 600 feeds limit of the free edition while not convinced to buy yet) made me return to Google Reader. Regardless of reader, my everyday struggle to get and keep informed about the news and my interests has been getting very time-consuming, mainly due to increasing volume (never have enough of a good thing, remember?).

How many sources and how many pieces of news and info am I talking about? A quick count showed around 2800 items from my (ever expanding collection of) ~750 subscriptions in Google Reader in the last 12 hours. This includes my ~450 FriendFeed subcriptions feed, but not my ~900 people Twitter feed (strangely, only a small count of the tweets I follow make it to the RSS feed). Thankfully, a good portion of the tweets make it to FFd as well (although I fear not all FFd posts make it to the RSS feed, either). At this rate of incomings, it takes me 10-20′/h to browse everything, read and microblog about whatever catches my eye.

This is way too much time. In practice, I browse some of the titles when there’s time and only read the interesting items among them. I do use the Google Reader Filter GreaseMonkey script to highlight items containing an increasing number (~100, so far) of keywords and it is helpfull. But the real problem is with the multiple sharing of the same (great) URLs in FriendFeed, which in turn produce multiple different (as they come from different users) items in Google Reader. Those are not caught by the script’s “hide duplicates” option.

So, for the time being, I consider avoiding duplication my #1 goal for increasing my news-reading productivity. I hope Friendfeed will listen and convert duplicate link posts to likes or comments of the first such post. This would also result in a major added benefit: aggregating all the relevant discussions in one thread, as discussed here. I find it so important, I even requested Robert Scoble to lobby for this here (I guess it’s impossible to read everything, even for him)!

#2 goal is to reduce sources that produce similar content, like press releases etc. Google News does well about it but doesn’t track all the sites I do. Mechanisms of bookmarking sites like Delicious might also help, as they keep URL scoring. While I work on a plan, I’ll stick to goal #1. Please join!

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Which Service should a Post go to?

ageor — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:21:55 +0000

I have been trying to organize/visualize the way I post, be it blogging, a comment on FriendFeed, an interesting link a came across etc. During the time it took me to complete the flowchart, more services were added as sources or carriers of my posts. As a result, the chart got more complex than originally anticipated. Interestingly enough, there is a pattern and the flowchart works for me most of the time.

Also get the Posting Flowchart as built in Dia (hence the crudeness), for your own use. So, there it is:

Posting Flowchart

Please do comment. Is posting a one-way street for you? Are there any general rules or do you post on a case by case basis?

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Athens Startup Weekend 2008

ageor — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:53:30 +0000

First things first. I told them all in person and I’m saying it here as well. Special thanks go to Andrew Hyde, the mind behind Startup Weekends, Alexandros Pagidas, the person who brought it in Athens, Patrick Malone, our host in Microsoft Innovation Center venue (Patrick and Lydia, you definitely improved Microsoft’s image for all of us), the sponsors of the event (Domino’s, Loumidis, Coca Cola-3E, Wind; hopefully I am not forgetting anyone) and all the professionals who dropped in to give us a hand. I won’t go into the event itself. Others have already done that; follow the event’s site and the links all over this post for that.

In danger of giving the feeling of repetition to readers of other relevant posts, I’ll say it: Athens Startup Weekend was a successful event and proved several points (Greeks can actually work together without shouting or arguing all the time, previous acquaintance is not important, teams can form without guidance or many introductions etc.). Plus, it produced and set off a number of ideas that can eventually work.

Andrew mentioned that Startup Weekends are not meant to create viable startups over the weekend but, rather, form a community among the participants. In a private conversation he said only 4 such startups were created in Startup Weekend history so far (unfortunately I didn’t get the names). The event is meant to prove that people who didn’t know each other before can sit around the same table, share and expand on an idea and make the most out of it in a very short time-frame. The important thing is not the idea, but that these people can work together, add their talents to a cause and produce a combined result that’s greater than the sum of their individual strengths. At the end of the day, these people become potential partners/collaborators in these very same or other promising projects.

The event put the best out of us all. We expressed our opinions and discussed difficult matters (we sometimes knew nothing about) in a civil, productive manner. We all got out of there with some fresh ideas, some new potential friends and partners, the knowledge that talented, cooperative people are there waiting to be found and great accomplishments are so much closer than expected. Indeed, 10 great projects were born.

I consider myself privileged to have been a part of it and hope the event does go annual so we can experience it again.

Here are a few additional relative links (no particular order; I’ll be happy to add links I’ve missed):

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The Google Android Platform

ageor — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:47:52 +0000

I read about Open Handset Alliance’s Android platform and cellular phones with great interest. The web is full of specs, reviews, comparisons and the like. I just can’t help but share the following thoughts:

Sometimes it seems Google’s Android is the second touch screen platform after Apple’s iPhone

I can’t understand why Android-based HTC G1 and other touch devices are automatically compared to the iPhone. Yes, it is a great looking device. It has a great touch screen. And that’s where innovation ends and limitations begin.

Great as the iPhone may (or not) be, it’s not clearly and objectively superior to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile devices hardware-, software- nor appearance-wise. Plus, Windows (Mobile and its previous incarnations) has been, so far, dominant in the touch arena. So, how come the iPhone (a new comer with plenty of flaws of its own) is the ad hoc point of reference? And how come all Windows Mobile’s long-standing features (touch screen, great sofware library, multitasking) are rarely mentioned?

Android, anyone? Sure, on what hardware?

Maybe I understand a new platform like Android needs to come with new hardware for psychological (marketing) reasons. Now that’s over and done with, why not introduce Android for old and new hardware? Wasn’t one of Linux’s advantages better performance on old PCs? I’m sure I would love to run Android on my current Windows Mobile Phone but I fear this won’t happen any day soon, if at all. How about selling the HTC Touch HD (my favorite, in the absence of an Android phone with no hardware keyboard. With a camera flash, please) with a choice between Android and Windows Mobile? Better yet, sell it able to dual-boot both platforms? I would buy it right now. Now this is not so, I just have to wait and I am not happy about it at all.

Consider how nice it would be to compare different platforms’ sales and performance on the same hardware (isn’t that what Apple avoids at all cost on the PC market?)! How different the HTC G1 is from the Touch HD or any other current model?

It is my prediction that we will see Android and Windows Mobile running on the same hardware not later than 2009. And this will be the start of a new era on the “choice” and “objective comparison” fronts.

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NAS for shared storage

ageor — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:46:56 +0000

I have been hooked on the idea of NAS (Network Attached Storage) since around 2000, when I first read about it. Of course, capacities and costs back then were out of this world.

Today I installed an Infrant Technologies ReadyNAS NV+ with 4 Seagate ST3500630AS Barracuda 500GB SATA2 hot-swappable hard disks and 1 gigabit ethernet port. For a total cost around 1.400â‚¬, I got a 3-disk RAID5 configuration with 875 usable GB and a hot-spare disk. In plain english, 2 disks have to fail before any data is lost.

I preferred the Infrant (now owned by Netgear) solution to the much cheaper (~900â‚¬) 2 gigabit Ethernet Intel Entry Storage System SS4000-E, (also with 4 500GB SATA2 disks) for its Active Directory support. However, apart from increased peace of mind (thanks to the hot-spare) the NV+ offers some nice built-in backup and media streaming features, in addition to the 3 USB ports with support for a UPS, printers, flash and USB disks.

I am fairly sure that NAS is the way to go for shared storage. With LAN speeds, disk capacities, users and uses increasing at a hectic pace NAS is cheap (starting at <200â‚¬), scalable and very easy to setup. Please note I am not referring to server applications storage; that’s a different, much more expensive, story.