Posts Tagged ‘Web applications’

WordPress 2.6 to support Google Gears

You probably already know Google Gears - Google's browser plugin, that allows web applications to work in offline mode. This can be Google's own, for example Gmail or Google Docs, but developers can also use the Gears.

And that is what open source blogging sofware WordPress apparently aimes to do in the next version 2.6.

I just downloaded the most recent trunk build and noticed a "Speed up!" link in the top right corner of my WordPress administration interface. When you click it, this screen appears:

The first time you click "Install" you're taken to gears.google.com (if you don't have installed it yet), and after that you restart your browser, klik "Speed up!" again - and now you clik "Enable Google Gears".

Select that you trust WordPress, and now you just have to wait for Google Gears to update your WordPress files:

Nice!

James from Geniosity Musings has a good post on WordPress 2.6 + Google Gears (he has apparently experienced some speed ups!). Also check Google Blog Search to see what others are saying (sorted by time).

Sadly, Google Gears doesn't support the browser I use the most (Firefox 3 trunk).

Enter Hobnox - music production in your browser

More and more applications are living the browser nowadays - especially office applications counting Google Docs, Think Free, Zoho and numerous others.

Some time ago I received an email from a US and German start up, entitled Hobnox - which I just have to tell you about :-)

The first though that strikes you when you enter the homepage is "not another social networking site". But, the most interesting thing with Hobnox is the audio tools, especially Audiotool.

True oldschool equipment
So what is it that Audiotool can do? It allows you to produce music directly in your browser. And it works. Currently you have to TB303 basslines and two drum machines: TR-909 and TR-808.

Connoisseurs will note that this is the exact same setup as in Propellerheads' ReBirth (note: site is down right now) software, but where Rebirth had relatively few effects (delay, distortion, compressor etc) Hobnox features a good range of effect pedals.

And the beautiful part of all this is that you don't have to upgrade or worry about system requirements. The Hobnox team is constantly working to improve the application and the next update will be this summer. I can't wait.

Coming up: Coolness
MIDI control (video: 1 and 2), which allows you to control the application from your MIDI equipment, is in the pipeline and I've also been told from the Hobnox folks that they are working on support for VST instruments and effects.

As for now, you can't save but that is on its way, so is a sequencer and the ability to collaborate with your friends.

When all of the above is implemented, and I can upload my own samples and buy access to more, I'll put my production software to rest and embrace Hobnox in full effect.

del.icio.us down for two hours - at least

Wow, I guess internet services still can crash with style.

For two hours I haven't been able to get in contact with bookmarking service del.icio.us, which is one of my most used online services. Needless to say, I felt quite handicapped.

It's back online again now, but a very strong reminder, that the performance needs to be in place if you want to rely 100 percent on a service as del.icio.us to keep your booksmarks, like I do.

At this moment nothing regarding the crash has been posted at the del.icio.us blog, so the only information regarding it is an error message, which appeared a few minutes before the service went back online:

Internal Error

Apologies, it seems something is horribly wrong with our code.

If you keep receiving this message, please send us a message with the offending URL.

Apology accepted?

Update @ 17:26:
Another blog post on the downtime on del.icio.us and with a link to a neat service (Summize) which you can use to scan/search Twitter.

Update @ 17:35:
In our Jaiku talk (in Danish) Mark posted a link to the service Down for everyone or just me? — great tool.

Google Maka-Maka and Mozilla Prism

It's election time here in Denmark, so regretfully I don't have as much time to blog as I would have liked to have. Anyhow, here are two awesome things that I came across today and want to share with you:

Google’s Response to Facebook: “Maka-Maka”
Apparently some sort of API's that will be Googles answer to Facebook's succes.

Mozilla Prism
A piece of Mozilla software that lets you run your online applications directly from your desktop.

Suggestion: Secure login at Bloglines

I use Bloglines — a lot.

But whenever I'm on a wireless network, that isn't secured or encrypted I refuse to sign in to services that doesn't have a secure login (with https:// in the address bar), since everything transmitted unencrypted via a wireless network may be visible to anyone else on the network.

This means, that I can't sign in to Bloglines as much as I want — especially when I'm currently without internet at home. The result: 7461 unread items.

The login for Gmail is secure, so why not Bloglines?

Update 1
Check Paul Querna's comment below :-)

Box.net integrates Zoho for document editing

Aaron Dunn from Box.net who offers online storage just told me in an e-mail that they've integrated Zoho Writer to edit online Microsoft Word documents (.doc) directly without saving them to your disk.

This is possible because Zoho has opened up the API for writer (and the APIs to other Zoho applications, Zoho Sheet and Zoho Show).

Check out the Zoho APIs.

Over at Zoho they also have a post on Box.net's integration of Zoho.

Also notice how the Zoho blogs are WordPress powered ;-)

With online document editing getting better and getter and open source office suite OpenOffice.org 2.2 in the works, it's getting harder and harder to find reasons to spend money on Microsoft Office 2007, or what?

I'm moving online, slowly but steady

I think it's interesting to see, how more and more of the things I use, when I'm seated in front of a/my computer, has moved onto the net.

This isn't an over night thing, but it's been happening gradually — and I like it! Because it means that I can access a lot of my various stuff, no matter where I am, as long as I'm at a computer.

Currently, I use…

…Gmail (Google Mail) for my e-mail
…del.icio.us for my bookmarks
…Google Docs and Spreadsheets for my notes and texts
…Bloglines to read my feed subscriptions
…Google Calendar for managing my events and life
…Flickr to show my photos to family, friends and others
…WikiPedia to look up up stuff and (try to) get smarter
…Google News for, well, news
…YouTube for entertainment

Looks like Google's got a pretty tight grip on me :-)

A better notifier for Bloglines?

As any other, I've signed up to be updated via RSS at Bloglines.

But since I don't want to keep a browser window with Bloglines open all the time, I decided to download their notifier.

But how awful. The notifier really doesn't do anything but tell me, when I have unread posts.

I think that the idea of an online way of handling feeds is brilliant, but I want more control without having to visit the site! Therefore I would like to be able to see the various feeds in my notifier, mark them as read, add new feeds and so on.

Everything in the background would still be happening online, but I would be able to control it via my software notifier. The Gmail hack GmailerXP has some of the features I'm looking for in a feed notifier.

That's what I would like from Bloglines to make it all complete :)

Related posts

Tags: Feeds, Web 2.0, Web applications

Isn't Google Notebook just great?

It's been about two weeks since Google announced four new services, among them Google Notebook.

After testing it since them I must say, I'm in love… well, almost in love.

The Notebook is just what I've been looking for - a place online to put down all those things, you normally end up putting in a text-document and then throw away! With Google Notebook I can have access to them wherever I want.

And since it can work as a plugin for the Firefox-browser taking, and reading, notes has never been easier. And to make it even easier, it is simply attached to your Google account (the same as the one you use, when you sign into Gmail).

Google are putting out more betas than a 25 year old open source developer with too much time on his hands. It's nice to see something really useful in the bunch of services!

My good colleague Kurt has also done a post about Google Notebook (pssst — it's in Danish)

Computer Love

A tech journalist's news and views on the world of the web and end user software

Who's blogging?

Recent Comments

Tags

Subscribe