I have been extremely impressed with http://sparkpeople.com. This is a web 2.0 site that allows you to count calories, track cardio and other goals, interact with others via spark blogs, spark email, and spark teams. It is interactive all the way to the bone. As the New Year rolls around, I think many are looking to implement a diet. I have been using this site for a few days now and I think it is certainly the coolest tool I've ever see...
I didn't realize WordPress could be reprogrammed in such a way as this, but someone has created an online budgeting software tool out of WordPress: http://Mo.neytrack.in. (I'm assuming that moneytrackin.com was taken.) Basically you enter transactions that are either positive or negative, and then tag them with a keyword. Mo.neytrack.in can then aggregate similar keywords (categories) and show you the money spent on that category, and so...
I've been a devout WordPress follower for some time now, but this past weekend I realized why Blogger is by far the most popular blog platform: usability. While WordPress is really flexible, most users want ease of use more than flexibility. My wife was trying to load pictures onto her blog, but WordPress really fails when it comes to images. You have to pretty much format your images prior to uploading. I even installed the Chenpress edi...
I've started using Gmail as my application for listserv messages -- I think it has more potential, but I'm still getting used to it. Someone posted this link on Digg: http://g04.com/misc/GmailTipsComplete.html It has about 50 tips for using Gmail. Looks useful. The reason I started using Gmail is because it threads conversations from listservs. The problem with Outlook or Outlook Express is that if you want to read a conversation on a lis...
This is an interesting article on how to design for Web 2.0 audiences. While I don't agree with the author's use of the term web 2.0 here (because I don't see how any of the design draws upon the audience's collaboration or participation), the principles the author highlights are worthy of a closer look. Here's a summary of the principles: Simplicity Central layout Fewer columns Separate top section Solid areas of screen real-estate Sim...
Listen here: In this podcast, Karen Bachmann, manager of the Usability and User Experience SIG, provides an overview of the user-centered design process. This is part one of a two part series. More specifically, she describes the following: How usability is defined Typical steps in the usability process Fitting in usability with a typical development life cycle User analysis User interface prototypes Usability test pla...
Update: For steps on removing the Skype-Firefox extension, see this post from howtogeek.com. Skype 3.0 has just been released. An interesting feature is the Skype extension for Firefox. When you browse a website and see a phone number on the site, the Skype extension automatically converts it into a button that you click to call the person using Skype. Unfortunately, with Skype 3.0, calls to cell and home phones now cost money. Here's a p...
This is my first post from Word 2007. In creating a new document, you have the option of writing a blog post. I think that is about the coolest thing in the world. I was actually seeing testing out Word tonight to see if the numbering structure fixed the numbering problem when generating a print output from RoboHelp. Nope, but I'm pretty sure the problem is with RoboHelp rather than Word. Here's a little formatting. Wow, Word 2007 is amaz...
If you need a free tool to open zipped files, tar files, or other types of compressed folders, and to likewise zip folders yourself, check out 7 Zip. I've been using it for a month now (after my Power Archiver trial ended), and I've found 7 zip does everything I ever need it to -- and it's free. Here's their site: http://www.7-zip.org
Word 2007 is available. It looks quite interesting -- definitely different. Here's a post from the Microsoft Team blog about it, with a demo video. Be sure to watch the video. I haven't experimented with it yet, but hope to soon.
I've been trying to figure this out for about two days, so now that I've actually gotten it to work, I'm posting the instructions here. I'm planning to go back and revise these, but for now, proceed with caution. They're probably not that easy to follow without screenshots. We have a lot of Wordtemplates that developers use in the software methodology process. The documents all have embedded help, but that makes the document actually qui...
This video gives instructions on uploading videos to youtube, but it's mostly humor, and only a little bit of instruction. Makes me think that the instructions I write are far too dry, serious, and boring.
If you have a traditional website, you can still create an RSS feed for it. The feed file is incredibly simple -- see this site: http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2175271 Basically the RSS files consists of just a few tags: title, description, and link. Each of these three tags is nested in an item tag. All the items collectively are nested in a channel tag. And then there are some generic statements at the top, and a closin...
Keith Hoffman, president of the Four Lakes STC chapter in Madison, Wisconsin, interviews Susan Burton, the executive director of the STC. Susan discusses the big things happening with STC, gives an overview of the annual conference in Minneapolis, and shares her view on the future of the technical communication profession. Specific topics include: The upcoming STC conference in Minneapolis The conference's emphasis on value for advanced ...
If you ever need to find out exactly where an IP address is located geographically, this is an amazing tool: http://www.ip-adress.com/. I think it's a mashup of Google maps and some kind of IP address database. This removes some anonymity from the web, but is convenient in tracking things.
