Web2-0 on /usr

Replacing Mail.app with Gmail on OSX

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Off late the Mail.app email client on OSX has been acting up on me. It often stalls or displays the spinning beach ball of death till a forced quit is required. Also, it seems to have display rendering issues when a mail classified incorrectly as junk is moved back to the inbox.

I tend to use the Mail.app as a local email client for three main purposes:

Offline mode for reading my emails when there is no Internet connection available
Easy desktop search for the mails via Spotlight, and
Easy archival of important mail in my project workspaces (either in Devonthink or plain text export)

The other features (TODO and Notes) are nice, but not really useful for me as I use other tools for these items. The mail itself is served out via gmail accounts and IMAP synchronization.

Moving away from NetNewsWire RSS Reader

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

So today morning I got an email from http://www.newsgator.com, makers of the excellent NetNewsWire RSS Reader for OS X. NetNewsWire was originally a paid for application and a best of the breed at that. It was made a free download last year and has been my primary RSS Reader till date.

The main USP I found in NetNewsWire was the companion http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/WebEd2.aspx online RSS feed aggregator site, and the excellent synchronization between the local client and the web edition. This basically meant that I could read RSS feeds where I wanted to - even when away from the OSX laptop, and my reading history would be in sync when I fired up the OSX client. Heck, there was even a iPhone client to do the same sync up.

ASCII Art - Converting JPEG images to ASCII

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Found an interesting ASCII Art conversion site at http://www.typorganism.com/asciiomatic

The site takes 60x50 pixel JPEG images (size has to be exactly that) and converts them to a ASCII glyph based image.

Do you Twitter?

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Twitter is one of those Web 2.0 applications that at first  glance seems to beg the question: why? But first, a description of the service  from its home page: Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and  stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple  question: What are you doing? In short, it allows you to post a short description of what you are doing right  now (or in fact, any short phrase at all - the trend seems to be for posting  witty or funny comments). The next obvious thing is to track what others are doing - which can be a  limited set of your friends, or for anyone who has chosen to make their status  public. Another interesting use is to use it as a virtual SMS mechanism on the  web - you can choose to only track your friends, and use the service to keep in  virtual touch with each other. Twitter offers tracking and update via the web, IM as well as SMS via a  cell-phone. The service has already gained a large following, and many web celebrities such  as Marlin Mann of 43Folders fame or Cali Lewis from  GeekBrief TV are on board. Yours truly is also testing the waters right now, and has the handle evolve75  on the service. There are also quite a few tools already available to make the usage easier. A  Firefox extension called twitbin enables live tracking via  a side-bar on your browser, and OS X dashboard widget called  Twadget is available for updating Twitter from your Mac desktop (for  Vista users, an alternate version for the sidebar is available  here). Whether Twitter is just another Web 2.0 meme - or here to stay - remains to be  seen. The service is useful, but carries the risk of the novelty fading away  to becoming a chore :-( ~ Anupam