Handy blogging tool

I am writing this post using ScribeFire, which I discovered today. It's a great little Firefox extension that allows you to publish to your blog at any time, without having to go through your blogging program.

ScribeFire opens up in a window filling half your screen. You can cut and paste formatted text from the page you are visiting into the blog post. Like this:

Using the "Post Timestamp" feature

Filed under: Feature, How-To — Christopher Finke @ 12:00 pm

A
new feature in ScribeFire 1.4.7 for users of Firefox 3 is the ability
to set an arbitrary publishing date on your posts. (Note: Blogger does
not support this feature.)

To use this feature, simply write your post as you normally would:

All in all, one of the best Firefox add-ons I've come across so far.

Gone Surfin' online games edition

My latest Gone Surfin' web column is here. This time, I look at some online games that combine education and fun (it's true!). Much of the column is devoted to ElectroCity.

Really, every game – even the simplest one – has underlying assumptions that teach something. Two of North America's most popular games – The Game of Life and Monopoly – not-so-subtly enforce the consumer culture notion that whoever has the most money and stuff wins. (The new version of Life comes with no cash – instead you get a Visa card that allows you to keep playing even when you're broke. Now there's a great lesson.)

ElectroCity (www.electrocity.co.nz) is an addictive little sim-type game that helps drive home lessons about power management and environmental impact. It was originally designed for school children in New Zealand, but anyone can play and show off their finished cities in a gallery on the site.

You control the destiny of a small town, deciding what kinds of power sources and amenities to build. Coal plants are cheap, but the population is not pleased when a cloud of smog hangs over the town. And when your own coal supplies run out, you're dependent on fluctuating market prices. Go nuclear, on the other hand, and you'll have abundant power but really annoy your citizens.

Previous Gone Surfin' columns are archived in the links to your right.

Gone Surfin' two-fer

I never got around to posting last month's Gone Surfin' web column, so here it is, together with the current one.

How to Do It is about productivity and life hacking web sites, and Protect Your Computer for Free is, well, kind of obvious. I still can't believe anyone is using those horrible Symantec anti-virus products. Both files are pdfs.

Excerpt from How to Do It:

It's true that the Internet can be a huge time-suck. But it's also home to many sites that can help you meet your goals, work more efficiently and solve problems. I'm not talking about nifty tech tools, but good, old-fashioned tips and advice – many of them related to clearing through the electronic clutter that's supposed to help make life easier but can actually clog it up instead.

“Life hacks” is a newish term that's cropped up to describe tips that make your life simpler. The sites in this month's column include life hacks for everything from how to most effectively pack for a trip, to how to train yourself to wake up earlier.

Excerpt from Protect Your Computer For Free:

I have been blessed with 15 or so years of hassle-free computing. I don't spend hours and hours securing my Windows PC, and I don't spend a lot of money. If you are not especially computer literate, security may seem like too much trouble. But it's really not all that hard, and it's worth it – an unprotected PC connected directly to the Internet can be infected within minutes.

(If you are a Mac or Linux user, you may go ahead and feel smug at this point.)

The only thing I'm worried about is that this column will now jinx me.

Best error message yet

A piece of software on my computer just came up with this:

Test cannot be started because it already does not exist.

The price of being an early adopter

Apple has dropped the price of the iPhone by $200. People who bought it when they first came out are upset. Apple is apologizing and offering them a $100 credit (what can you buy at an Apple store for $100?).

From the CBC new website:

The apology and rebate came after Jobs said he received hundreds of letters from customers upset at having purchased the mobile device for $599 US only to see the price drop to $399 US this week.

What are these doofuses who complained thinking? You want to be the first to buy a hot product, you pay top dollar. Maybe I should get my dad after the folks who sold him an $800 VCR in the early 80s.

Music in Second Life

My latest Gone Surfin' web column touches on the burgeoning Second Life music scene, and looks at the Mill Pond Folk Festival -- which provided a triple-threat concert experience. From the story:

Trevor Grigg, one of the performers, was very aware of playing in both worlds at once. From the stage he could look at the audience gathered in Gray's house. Meanwhile, he could also see a flat-screen monitor that showed the Second Life audience as it appeared from the point of view of his avatar.

“You were looking out into the room from the stage, and you could see the avatars of the people who were attending in Second Life,” Grigg says. “As a performer, one of the things that was superb about that setting was that it was so intimate and so relaxed. Physically, I was in my friend's basement, and the sound was wonderful. But it had that other side of it where you knew you were going out somewhere beyond this room....

“It was a virtual festival within Second Life, and it was an Internet broadcast, and it was a real live folk festival in a guy's house. It seemed to me to be the best of all worlds.”

The full story is here.

You'll find previous Gone Surfin' columns to your right. Just click on the links for the ones you want to read.

Browser Buzz

My latest Gone Surfin' column is a quick roundup of web browsers for Windows.

In this column, I'll look at a couple of alternatives to Explorer: Firefox, Opera, and the brand-new Safari for Windows. All are easy to install and use, and all are free, download quickly, and set up easily. They also share the same basic features as Internet Explorer 7: tabbed browsing (the ability to open several web pages at a time in the same window), popup blockers, and a toolbar that allows you to search Google or other sites without having to navigate to them.

Click here to read the rest of the column. (Previous Gone Surfin' columns are archived on the menu at right.)

Gone Surfin': Facebook edition

(This post has been updated)

Here's my latest Gone Surfin' web column, this time about Facebook. A couple of non-Facebook users have told me that reading it finally gave them an idea of what FB is and how it works.

Due to overwhelming popular demand (OK, me responding to the first request I got), here is the full text of the Facebook column. No more downloading a pdf to read it.

Oh, and "local" if you're wondering, refers in this case to the South Shore of Nova Scotia.

Getting Some Face(book) Time

My Montreal friend Tony Pompeo (not his real name) was making his way home from work the other evening – and if you checked his Facebook profile, you could follow along with him:

10:57 PM: Tony is at Bonaventure Metro.

11:25 PM: Tony is almost home.

11:28 PM: Tony is walking down the street.

Facebook is a fast-growing social networking site that allows users to post photos and information about themselves, join networks related to geography, schools, or workplaces, and participate in online groups dedicated to just about anything you can imagine.

Tony had just discovered Facebook's mobile features and was – as he would admit – overdoing it as he used his cellphone to keep updating his page.

Facebook, which had 19 million active users as of April, used to be available only to students. But it recently opened up to the general population (leading to the formation of groups such as “Help!!! Old People Are Invading Facebook!”). The site is especially popular in Canada, with Canadians making up about 10% of users.

Here's how Facebook works. To access the site at all, you need to register (it's free). Once you've registered, you can search for people you know, and then ask them to be your “friends.” When you are friends with someone on Facebook, you can see their profile, along with the information about themselves they've chosen to post. You can also receive updates on their “status” (what they are saying they are doing), see photos and links they've posted, and invite them to upcoming events.

Facebook is a great way to connect with friends. You can stay up-to-date on what old college roommates are up to, without having to email and ask. And in a rural area, it's a handy way to keep a far-flung group of current friends in the loop about local happenings.

Don't know who to invite as a Facebook friend? Joining a network (such as Halifax, Bridgewater High School, or Scotiabank), connects you with a group of people who have some kind of shared interest. In addition, there are user-created groups devoted to pretty much any topic imaginable. Local ones include “I'm From Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia and I'm Not Ashamed to Admit it”, “In Memory of Jillian Paige Snair” (for a local teen killed in a car crash in January), and “East St. Margarets Elementary School.”

Are there any negatives? Of course. For one, Facebook can be addictive. Do you really want to track down everyone from elementary school and add them to your friends? Then there's the privacy question. Facebook will ask you for all kinds of information when you register. But there is no obligation to provide it all. You could enter a fake name (there are eight Facebook users going by the name of heavy metal guitarist Zakk Wylde), but that defeats the purpose if you are hoping friends will find you.

Instead, keep it simple. My profile, for instance, is fairly minimal, and the date of birth I entered inaccurate. And when I want to communicate with friends directly, I use my own email address, not my Facebook mail. There is also no reason to accept Facebook's default privacy settings. Instead, click the “Privacy” link and change your settings to a level you are comfortable with.

© Philip Moscovitch, 2007. All rights reserved.

Gone Surfin' column

My latest Gone Surfin tech column is now available online. It's about using Google for more than just searching. The link is here, and in the permanent links on the right side of this page.

High Steaks / Gone Surfin' and more

There's a new section over there in the sidebar on your right. It's called My Stuff. That's where you'll find my vegetarian- converts- to- meat-eater radio documentary High Steaks (thanks to all of you who have asked me to post it).

Right underneath is the first installment of my new Gone Surfin' web/tech column, originally published in local paper The Chester Clipper. Enjoy.