Plaxo

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Bookmarks come alive!

Just when I was tempted to feel cocky about my knowledge of Internet matters (and I’m more than tempted) a non-webby colleague yesterday introduced me to Live Bookmarking.

I had never heard of Live Bookmarking, despite the fact that I have been using Firefox pretty much since its beginning. Firefox offered it back in 2004 and even Internet Explorer with version 7 has it now.

For those who may not know what Live Bookmarking is (and I hope there are many others so I won’t feel so bad) it allows sites using feeds to have many syndicated articles appear dynamically as a unique bookmarks within a bookmarks menu.

If you’re already using RSS or Atom, one line of code will turn this feature on. For users, sites that offer it will have an orange RSS icon in the address bar - just click on the icon and follow the steps.

Here’s more in-depth info and how-tos on Live Bookmarking

In researching Live Bookmarking, I discovered more fun with bookmarking that I was missing out on (okay when the browsers threw their Bookmarking party, why wasn’t I invited?) – that is Microsummaries!

Microsummaries allow for the title of a bookmark to be dynamic and have salient points included rather than a static page name. Setting it up seems to involve special generators that seem too complicated for my needs. However, from a user perspective a mircosummary can let you see at a glance the up-to-date status of a webpage. The best examples I saw were for pages that are updated very frequently and have all crucial points in a few words (eg. stock lookup pages, auction item status, delivery status for orders, etc.).

Microsummaries are only available in Firefox 2.0, so I had to update my browser to get it (haven’t had a chance to test drive the other enhancements in 2.0 – more on that in the days to come).

To choose the microsummary version, just bookmark a site as usual, but under the Name field you'll have a drop-down menu, just choose from a "Live titles" items.

Mozilla Wiki has a great in-depth guide to Microsummaries and Mathaba News offers and article on the topic and they are using it so you can try it out by bookmarking their site.

Until yesterday I thought a Favicon was a great thing to add zest to bookmarks (I still haven’t been able to get one for my company’s site yet either). At least I’m finally at the Bookmark Party now - with our without an invitation.

Wedsites

I am seriously backlogged reading the hundred or so emails I receive a day (who has time to count them). I finally got to one of my favourite e-newsletters by Sean McGrath.

He writes an interesting article about what a fully online wedding might be like:ITworld.com - A Webby Wedding

This article resonated with me as a couple weeks ago my wife and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. At the time we got married (Oct. 23 1999) I was just finishing up the Internet Management program ant Humber College. To hone my skills and as a online testament to our e-ternal love I built us a Wedsite.

On our anniversary we reviewed the wedsite which has been left lingering unloved in cyberspace for years. (We switched ISPs a couple years ago but our old one never removed my web files so the wedsite lives on - thankfully it hasn't outlived our marriage). Anyway, we still enjoyed the wedsite as it is such a reflection of us, which was what it was meant to be. It is silly and fun and I think unique. Yes the design makes me groan and there are some really dated elements, but overall there were some cool things, particularly for the time.

I had links to a couple webrings which were an early attempt to build communities and encourage traffic - kind of like a blogroll now. I had links to our online registry at the Bay (after all marriage is a gift grab!) where people could buy online and have it shipped to us automatically. I had multimedia in the form of RealAudio clips of our songs and an animated gif (okay sorry about that - animated gifs were okay in 1999 seriously!). We had games, trivia and surveys for our suggested new surname and TV couple we should emulate and voters could, and did write in their own content - so this was interactivity and user-generated content.

Okay I'm grasping - but for a wedsite at the time it was pretty rocking.

Battle over 'net neutrality' arrives in Canada

An alarming possibility that Internet access providers, due to recent changes to laws in the U.S. and possibly eventually in Canada, would be allowed to control download time and potentially access to websites. So people who pay - and their own sites of course - get better or the only service.

Read the full story at the CBC

Could this mean the end of blogs like mine? What would all my many, many, many readers do without access to Webslinger???

Internet surpasses 100 million sites

Internet surpasses 100 million sites

I'm a bit dubious about the claim of 100 million sites. I'll bet it's much larger and we just don't have the ability to count them all.

Also, what is a "Site". I'm not sure a blog is a website. Some blogs do blur the lines of a website, but others are really just web logs and not a site per se.

Either way, I'm sure there are more sites out that haven't even been counted.

I have a couple relic websites (my "wedsite" for my wife and my wedding and an early portfolio site). There must be tons of sites like this - and more every day - that don't get counted.

Nonetheless, the Internet is growing faster than I imagined it would. Some security in knowing I'll have a meausure of job security.

e-lections!

We are having municipal elections soon in Ontario. Would love to vote online as some communities in Ontario allow, but Toronto doesn't allow it.

Voting online might actually help get voter turnout a little better than pathetic. Also, with a two-year-old in tow, it's no picnic going to a crowded voting center. Though I have to admit that I'm dubious that a national election online vote site could ever support the traffic that would be asked of it.

Even though we can't vote online, I can honestly say in the last few elections I have been way more informed about my voting choices thanks to the Internet. Some candidates have great sites with lots of info and others don't. While I won't not vote for someone just because they have a bad website, it certainly shapes my opinion.

Also, yesterday I emailed a candidates and got an answer in a day. This is way better than attending candidates debates (which are few and far between) and trying to squeeze in one's question.

Here's an article on the whether or not Internet voting is inevitable

Internet spending in Canada reaches $7.9B

A study shows that more Canadians are shopping online - 41% of Canadians - and spending more.

Here's the study by StatsCan that also shows the top types of items purchased online, which provinces are the biggest e-shoppers, and other details.

I think concerns about security are pretty low now. I don't hear anyone avoiding online shopping due to security concerns. Now if online stores could just improve their interfaces to make it easier and more enticing to shop...