Facebook for LDAP? April 6, 2009
Posted by CLibra in Theoretical, Websites.3 comments
Once you get past all the pokes and the photos, Facebook could actually have a ‘real world’ use in both home and business computing.
Consider this: your personal (or business) network all use Facebook and are friends with you. They can chose to share their contact information with you and you can with them, so it’s easy to log into the site and check any details. However, people like me, that live inside Thunderbird, would find it useful to be able to lookup friends’ details on the fly when composing emails, so an LDAP system around Facebook would be an interesting project to pursue.
Privacy implications? Each user authenticated to the LDAP server with their own Facebook login, so as long as that’s secure, you won’t have access to people that you shouldn’t, and users can control who sees their details & how much, so in theory it should be a good model.
The solution to Notes? September 23, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Articles, Creations, Email, Gmail, Google, Notes, Sync, Theoretical.4 comments
Maybe this’ll be the solution to my notes dilemma?
Things I used:
Is it really that simple? Here’s what I did.
- Created a ‘Notes’ folder in my GMail account. Set it as the default templates folder in Thunderbird.
- Created a plus sign GMail address, and a GMail filter to put all email to here in the Notes folder.
- Write my note in a new email. A sample one might look like this:
To: Me+notes@someone.gmail.com
Subject: @Music @Money @ToDo
Message: Ask Dan about that £10 I lent him – maybe use it to buy tickets for that Gig?
Now, to save the note, either hit the send button, or save it as a ‘template’ in Thunderbird.
Checklist: Offline access? Yup, through iMap I can access the notes offline. Online web access? Yeah, just log in through GMail. Portability? Of course! Email can go anywhere, so I can have my notes on any platform, sync’d whenever I need them. Features? Uh huh, the subject line acts as tags, and I can search the notes through GMail’s powerful search front-end. I also have permanent notes (when I send the email) and ongoing editing notes (by saving them as templates). I can embed HTML into them, too.
Ok, it ain’t perfect…yet. It’s the best solution I have so far, and I intend to stick to it for a while – Google are managing my email, my calendar, my search, my photos, and now my notes!
EOM – Email just became IM August 3, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Blogroll, Email, Theoretical.add a comment
Just passing on the link to an interesting article, courtesy of Lifehacker -
EOM denotes “End of Message”. By writing an email with the entire message in the subjected (followed by EOM), email gains a certain instant messaging quality.
Read the article for all of the ideas and benefits.
[http://lifehacker.com/5028808/how-eom-makes-your-email-more-efficient]
Why I’ll never be happy with notes July 21, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Articles, Notes, Software, Sync, Theoretical.1 comment so far
Out of all of the tools I use on a computer, I’d say that multimedia notes have been one of the most useful, and I think that they’re severely underrated – I’d often store a mini progress log, annotate a picture or keep a phone number in notes, because it’s too cumbersome to then go and create a document to do these tasks, especially when the document will probably be deleted soon.
Notes are infinitely useful. But so is sync.
It’s an implicit necessity for me to be able to access any of my data – be it email, calendars, or files – across different platforms easily, have offline accessibility (through some medium like a client, Gears etc) and have a web interface.
I know it seems a lot to ask, but in my situation, I need portability.
And from there, the problem arises.
X has some amazing features, but will only sync to Windows.
Y is a sleek multimedia power-app, but we can’t get it offline.
Z will sync to all systems, however it has no web interface and lacks advanced tools.
There is no standards for notes. iMap and vCard are two standards for mail and contacts that are universally supported. What have notes got? Where would they even go? We could probably all name some built-in email aplications that will inherently know these protocols, but what about notes? By having image annotations, does that mean you loose out on a multi-platform/client user base? Ok, so plain notes are fine, but exactly where will they go, what can they be access in.
Do you see my dilemma? I can never find the perfect solution for notes because there is no ideal for it set.
Someone needs to create a system – similar to that used by, for example, calendars – that is globally accessible.
Twitter’s wide open May 6, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Articles, Internet, Technology, Theoretical, Twitter, Web 2.0.1 comment so far
Sorry, can’t see the photos, not got MySpace.
Google Talk? Can’t chat there, I use AIM!
Ever heard Phrases like these?
Not with Twitter!
Think about it. Twitter is an open data platform.
It’s easily accessible via the web where anybody can see it.
It publishes universal RSS feeds, which people can subscribe to or do cool stuff with.
And then there’s SMS support. Bi-directional SMS usage, all over the world.
The API then opens more doors.
There are all sorts of programs and plugins for it. Email, IM, anything you can think of is now using Twitter.
More web apps should use open standards. It makes life easier for everyone.
The Deep Web – Really that good? March 23, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Internet, Technology, Theoretical, Uncategorized.add a comment
The Deep Web exists as the part of the net that isn’t normally indexed by search engines, such as databases, dynamically generated pages, information inside multimedia (such as text in a video) etc.
And while many ways exist to search it, I can’t find many practical uses for it myself.
Sure, it yields a hell of a lot of information, but not what I want. I have more luck searching the “shallow” web.
What are the most useful things found by the Deep Web? Realistically, I wouldn’t need to search a US Government database, so what can I do with the Deep Web?
My thoughts on Remote Disk January 16, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Apple, Mobile, Network, Software, Technology, Theoretical.1 comment so far
The ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s of the MacBook Air’s size may be very well, but I’m more interested in it’s Remote Disk feature. A laptop with no optical drive seems sub-standard to me, I’d rather compromise the size instead of the function.
So, to use Remote Disk, I presume you have to be on the same wireless network as the other computer; that rules out non-WiFi situations, and to be honest, is it that secure on public networks? How fast will a CD or DVD run over WiFi? What functions do you lose – burning? erasing?
Another problem that strikes me is that the software for the host machine lies on the Leopard disk; would you, honestly, carry the disk with you wherever you go? For simplicity’s sake, I would probably copy the install files onto a flash drive or the laptop’s hard disk, I would never carry the OS around with me.
Did a disk drive really need to be omitted? Personally I think that remote disk is glorified network sharing (of the disk drive in this case), and it should be as a compliment to an optical drive, not as a replacement.
Pushing the Technological Boundaries January 7, 2008
Posted by CLibra in Blogroll, Clippings, Internet, Software, Technology, Theoretical.2 comments
Although it’s sometimes fine, the line between the ‘virtual’ and the ‘real’ world is always there. It’s pretentious to try and send furniture via email, or create a four course meal, ready to eat in a matter of clicks. The boundary exists, but increasingly people are finding ways to blur it, merging technology with everyday life.
So what sort of thing is out there? Fab@Home is an open source platform that offers a 3D printing solution; the ‘fabber’ outputs a tangible 3d model created on the computer. The reverse of this? The Lego 3D MilkScanner.
Another interesting project is the Wii 3D Head Sensor, which uses the Nintendo Wiimote to provide accurate 3D headtracking, allowing a space & distance aware virtual simulation.
What else is being made? What is still to come?
Your Internet Parking Space December 24, 2007
Posted by CLibra in Blogroll, Internet, Poll, Technology, Theoretical.add a comment
Your parking space at work, you consider yours. Your locker at school, you consider yours. But what area of the Internet do you see as ‘your own’?
Most people would nominate their website or blog as their space. After all, it’s a place where they can express their views, upload content they want, etc.
However, some people prefer that their social network profile be their own, as it is a digital representation of a persons identity.
But what about age old email? It’s been around for years, and – although it has its flaws – it’s still one of the most effective means of communication. Email addresses are easy to identify, and pretty much a standard cross platform ‘nameplate’.
Email then leads onto IM. Your email address may double as your IM address, but some protocols use special ‘ScreenNames’. Once you get past the choice barrier (MSN, YIM, AIM etc), lots of IM providers offer services tied to your IM name, for example, Windows Live Spaces.
Possibly a little less heard of, but there is also an OpenID. This is basically a URL that is claimed by you and used to log into several sites, just with that URL and a single password. Lots of websites offer this in addition to a service that requires a personal URL anyway, such as LiveJournal and ClaimID.
Where do you consider ‘yours’? Click the link below to vote, and comment about it too.
[http://services.nexodyne.com/freepolls/votepage.php?poll_id=2178]
How I got my Views to rise December 16, 2007
Posted by CLibra in Blogroll, Google, HowTo, Humour, Internet, Theoretical, Websites.1 comment so far
Yesterday I posted about Google Knol, the proposed Wiki-like creation from Google. Since then, this has happened:
Why have 104 people come from there? I linked to that post when I blogged about it, so It had showed that by linking back to me. Then my visits went up and up.
The moral of this story? To get more traffic, blog about a Google Blog post!
