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Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts

04 April 2008

Add Persistent Highlights and Sticky Notes on Any Webpage

Diigo, the Web's premier annotation, bookmarking and research tool, just released their latest version of this resourceful tool. Unfortunately, the top tier of tech bloggers were not overly enthusiastic in their coverage. Such useful and appropriate innovation deserves a similar degree of acknowledgment in my view, but somehow writers seem to have fallen into what we might call a "sound byte" methodology especially in describing complex startups. Don't you want to know about things that help you?

Diigo is fairly well accepted as the best research tool on the Internet. Classified (incorrectly I might add) as uniquely a bookmarking tool, the feature filled platform is actually more of a people driven data gathering tool. With refined aspects allowing for marking, annotating, saving, sharing, organizing and manipulating Web data – Diigo essentially emulates most aspects of human powered research and study organization. Diigo helps users "grab" knowledge from all over the Web and stores it in a platform where it can be assimilated. Version 3 is all about accentuating and integrating these and more online research tools with socially interactive community aspects.

Version 3 Refinements

A great new UI, a new Diigo toolbar and especially an added fully functional sidebar have added great form and function to Diigo. Version 3 has over 100 new features; here are some of the new features.

Diigo as a research tool: Diigo's entire browser extension has been re-designed for improved usability, with a sidebar where a user can easily search and access their bookmarks, annotations and notes. This sidebar adds great flexibility and simplicity to viewing annotations and in using other Diigo functions. Users can view, search, tag and perform other functions in the sidebar while still using the classic view and/or surfing for resources.

Team research platform - Another powerful Version 3 addition is the enhanced ability for users to vote or approve bookmarks in a rather "suggestive" matrix. Group tagging, allows entire groups to suggest the "best of the best" and in this fashion good content (voted on by a collective) tends to rise to the top. Suggestive excellence may be the best feature of any social network and Diigo's content is superb.

Social Browser Discovery - The Diigo toolbar has been a great innovation of Web 2.0. Now with Version 3 users have added utility; users can see what others have tagged or marked as well as similar pages. This toolbar is the heart of the Diigo gathering machine and the new version rocks with features.

Personalization - Diigo as a source of collective social content makes finding, selecting, evaluating and effectively using interesting content much simpler. Users can see much more clearly the tags of individuals and groups, while browsing content of friends, group members or the Diigo community as a whole. From recommended news to top rated bookmarks, Diigo has added a compelling new way to gather and use data.

Networking – Diigo's strength as a social network has not yet been realized as the startup has not been overly promoted until now. An increased user base will only add to the great content and essentially empower the content and suggestive elements to "connect" users with more and more refined content. A network acting on such a storehouse of great data will truly make for a worthwhile series of valuable connections. Diigo is no Facebook beer sending messenger, but a serious knowledge matrix where people can derive real value.

Here is a video explaining it all in under 4 minutes:



Conclusion

As I mentioned from the start, refined and useful innovations like Diigo deserves better scrutiny from the top media outlets. There is no shortage of articles on TechCrunch or other about what I would call "entertainment" startups and sites. Perhaps our fascination with fast and hyped news has outgrown our desire for information about serious applications, but I don't think so. I think in many cases we are being fed what someone else wants us to utilize in much the same way fast food is presented to the consumer. This is a shame, as we thought the advent of Web 2.0 was going to be about value and the user experience. Personally, I would like to experience a little more Diigo type utility and a little less Twitter.

Article by Phil Buttler from Phil Butler Unplugged. Submit your thoughts - click here!

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18 March 2008

The Most Complicated Thing That Humans Have Built So Far!

'CERN's Large Hadron Collider is set to become the very first time machine in history. According to the research published by Irina Arefieva and Igor Volovich, "in general relativity, a time-like curve in space-time will run from past to future. But in some space-times the curves can intersect themselves, giving a closed-like curve, which is interpreted as a time machine - which suggests the possibility of time travel." Continue reading the article on Dark Roasted Blend - it pretty much sums it all so well!

Can you spot the humans?


Quick facts:

- 20 years work-in-progress
- A team of 7,000 physicists from more than 80 nations
- 27 kilometers in circumference, 175 meters underground
- Facilitating head-on collision of protons, travelling very near speed-of-light
- Each tunnel is big enough to run a train through it.
- Temperatures generated: more than 1000,000 times hotter than the sun's core
- Superconducting magnets are cooled to a temperature colder than in deep space

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16 February 2008

The Thinking Blog Goes Mobile (And So Can You)

Remember a few years ago when camera phones and music phones first started hitting the market? Everyone thought they were the coolest things on the block, but it's actually harder to find a phone that doesn't have a camera today than one that does. Technology is quickly advancing and the public wants more out of their mobile phones. They want to stay connected in every way possible and text messages just won't suffice. They want to harness the power of the world wide web everywhere they go.

Mobile Web For Everyone

Wireless data appears to be the next major frontier for consumer-level cell phones, but not everyone is willing to pay the hefty data fees involved in rendering full web pages. When you visit Beyond the Rhetoric or The Thinking Blog, a series of dynamic elements are conjured up and images are loaded. Watch a YouTube video or two and you could be looking at quite an expensive cell phone bill.

At the same time, blog owners want their loyal readers to have access to their website everywhere they go, and a mobile-optimized version (WAP) is one way to do that. For those of you who aren't familiar, WAP sites carry much the same content as their full HTML counterparts, but they've been stripped of the fluff and heavy downloads. Images are kept to a minimum and the formatting has been designed to better suit the small screen of a cell phone.

I'm not a coder, so I have no idea where to begin when it comes to creating a mobile site. Thankfully, there is a service set up at Wirenode that does this for you, transforming any regular blog into one that is more accessible from a cell phone's WAP browser. Whether you've got a RAZR or an LG Voyager, there's a good chance your modern phone does WAP.

Wirenode Cuts the Wires

Wirenode specializes in creating mobile versions of blogs. As I mentioned earlier, these mobile sites trim the fat, so to speak, leaving readers with the core content. Yes, you lose some of the sidebar navigation and some of the flashy formatting you may have on your full site, but it opens your blog up to a whole new (mobile) audience.

After the mobile version of a blog is set up, Wirenode then allows you to enter into an admin area where you can safely edit the mobile site, adding more pages, images, and adjusting the content to suit your preferences. This appears to be a very straightforward and easy-to-understand process. If you can handle Wordpress, you should be able to handle this.

Better still, Wirenode also provides widgets for your blog. These widgets can inform your existing readers about the mobile version of your blog. These can be found under the Promotion tab in the admin area.

My main gripe is that the mobile sites are hosted at the wirenode.mobi domain, though I'd imagine it is possible to transport them over to your own servers too.

Read The Thinking Blog On Your Phone

To see what mobile blog reading is all about, be sure to check out the mobile version of The Thinking Blog on your cell phone. You can find it at http://ttb.wirenode.mobi/. Now you can access all these thought-provoking posts at the coffee shop, in the library, or when your significant other drags you to yet another boring opera.

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17 January 2008

Ambitiously Viral: Free eBooks Online

Here is an interesting viral tactic to spread the word online. Bloghology is one of the most ambitious projects ever with its ground-breaking objectives and creative approach to online marketing. Basically, it is a monthly eBook eZine composed by several different bloggers. Except, the download link wasn't clear enough so we created the buttons below for everyone to freely use. We're optimistically looking forward to the project's progress and, hopefully, its ultimate success!

From the page:

"An anthology is a collection of poems, stories, songs, articles, or other literary passages chosen by a compiler. Similar to an anthology, a bloghology is a collection of bloggers, their profiles, photos, and links to their best posts."

Feel free to add these buttons on your blog:

Badge (125x125)

Download Free Bloghology Ebook
<a href="http://www.searchforblogging.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/2007-bloghology.pdf"><img src="http://www.ilkeryoldas.com/download-125.jpg" alt="Download Free Bloghology Ebook" /></a>


Hi-Res (501x396)

Download Free Bloghology Ebook
<a href="http://www.searchforblogging.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/2007-bloghology.pdf"><img src="http://www.ilkeryoldas.com/download-big.jpg" alt="Download Free Bloghology Ebook" /></a>


Some other viral eBooks from around the net:

- Guide to Blog Promotion eBook (104Kb PDF, Direct Download link)
- Make Money Online eBook (1.78Mb PDF, Direct Download link)

Do you know of others? Let us know in the comments and help us expand this list.

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13 January 2008

Nikola Tesla: The Forgotten Wizard

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10 January 2008

True Zero Emission Cars Run On Air

This is great news. Not only for those who care about the environment but also those who have to visit the gas station frequently. With the price of gasoline soaring every day, using a traditional car is becoming more and more expensive - and thus impractical. Leading car manufacturers already started developing cars fueled by alternative energies but pulling down the costs is no easy task. Though, there is hope for fresh air! A French engineer, with backing from an Indian firm, has developed a car that runs solely on compressed air.

The Air Car can be refueled in minutes from an air compressor at specially equipped gas stations and can go roughly 42 miles on a dollar fill-up. The top speed is about 70 mph and the vehicle comes with a price tag as low as $7000. The car features a fibreglass body and a revolutionary electrical system and is completely computer-controlled. It is powered by the expansion of compressed air - using no combustion at all - and the exhaust is entirely clean and cool enough for use in the internal air conditioning system.

BBC News reports that the first cars will be available for sale by the end of the year:



However, there is still some questions as to what the environmental footprint of these air-powered cars will be. Manufacturers suggest that because the cars run on air - they are environmentally friendly. Critics of the air-powered car idea say that the cars only move the air pollution from the car's exhaust to somewhere else, like an electrical power plant. These cars do require electricity in order for the air to be compressed inside the tanks, and fossil fuel power is needed to supply electricity. What do you think?


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11 December 2007

DIY Wind Generator For Super Cheap Power

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13 November 2007

Find Missing DLL Files Online

Isn't it frustrating when you can't open some programs in Windows just because one file is missing? DLL stands for Dynamic Link Library and DLLs are one those necessary files that are shared by several applications - including Microsoft Windows itself. These files sometimes enjoy deleting themselves for no reason and it can be a pain to restore them. Well, sometimes when you remove a program using Uninstall, it removes all files it installed during the installation progress along with the DLLs used by the program that are also used by other programs.

This problem often shows up in an error window that reports: "A Required DLL File, xxxx, was not found" or "The procedure entry point xxxx couldn't be located in xxxx.DLL" when you try to run an application, but can also manifest itself more quietly as programs not working properly.


The quickest solution to this problem can be by getting the DLL file from one of the following sites and moving it to the directory that it is supposed to be. Unless you have perfect memory, it might be a good idea to note the message in the error window before closing it.
Simply search the missing DLL file, download it and place it where it belongs!

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05 November 2007

Hybrid SUV - An Oxymoron?

Hybrid SUVA hybrid vehicle typically realises greater fuel economy than conventional gasoline or diesel powered engine vehicles, such that fewer air pollution emissions are generated per kilometre traveled. Noise emissions are also reduced, particularly at idling and low operating speeds. On the other hand, SUVs have been criticized for many reasons, including their fuel economy, pollution record and size. Put them together and you get..?

I understand that SUVs are often used in places such as the Australian Outback, Africa, the Middle East, Alaska, Northern Canada, South America and most of Asia, which have limited paved roads and require the vehicle to have all-terrain handling - but driving SUVs in a city? That is reason why majority of the SUV producers today take into account that most SUV owners never go offroad. As such, SUVs now have lower ground clearance and suspension designed primarily for paved road usage. So people are drawn to them for their "utilitarian" image - their large cabins, higher ride height, and perceived safety.

Peel P50Now the benefits of hybrids are stunning but combining SUVs with hybrid-electric technology is beyond me (more details here but nevermind). Is that the direction in which we should go? I think what we really need to do is bring back the Peel from 1962, dubbed the World's smallest production car, and re-create it with carbon fiber materials, a makeover, and a modern engine. With a weight of only 59 kg (132 lb) the car runs 40 km to the litre (2.5 l/100 km or 100 miles per gallon) - almost cheaper than walking. At just 134 cm (53 in) long and 99 cm (39 in) wide, about eight peels can fit into an ordinary parking space. What's even more interesting is that this is a car from the 60s!

Size Comparison

Here is a segment from the popular BBC motoring programme Top Gear, during which the 6ft 5in (196cm) tall presenter Jeremy Clarkson reviews the car and drives it through central London to work.


This remarkablely innovative car of brilliant design comes from the Peel resident engineer and inventor, Cyril Cannell. You can find more pictures of the Peel P50 and Trident here and here. If all cars in a city were this small (consider a modern remake with hybrid or electric engine), then we wouldn't have any safety problems or pollution problems or parking space problems!

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30 October 2007

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

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19 October 2007

One Crazy Person Is All It Takes To Change the World



Video via Apple Gazette

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26 September 2007

Learn How to Robot Dance.. from Robots!

Learn how to do the robot dance from the masters of the art. Here is an interesting music video called Hell Yes by recording artist Beck featuring four 4th generation QRIO prototype robots, aka "Quest for cuRIOsity." Originally named Sony Dream Robot, these inspirational toys apparently took programmers three weeks to program their choreography. Watch the video after the jump.