Tag Archive for 'feeds'Page 2 of 3

Just as I thought: 3rd Party Apps… er… Web Apps on iPhone

Published
by
Josh Kim
on June 11, 2007
in Apple, Project Ideas, Web Applications and Web Development
. 0 Comments

When I thought about 3rd party applications for the iPhone, I didn’t think that it would require me to learn Cocoa.

I thought… why not web applications? Heck, it’s got a browser built in.

I’m happier now that Jobs has come out and said it. Although, for some, this might seem like a copout solution. However, I’m happy that things are, once again, moving towards the web.

The only thing missing is somehow using the power of the multi-touch screen… That sucker seems locked down… Maybe somehow somebody somewhere could hack that.

And here comes the feeds about today’s Stevenote… ugh.

Oh my goodness, apple.com looks more lickable…

Oh, and go download the Safari Beta. Because… my love for Firefox is dwindling… and I’m trying to kill my dependence on interface add-ons. More on that, later.

Couple of cool commentaries

Lessons From Yet Another Reformat

Published
by
Josh Kim
on March 29, 2007
in Project Ideas, Web Applications and Web Development
. 0 Comments

As I’ve discussed earlier, I love reformatting my computer… At face value, it might seem like a waste of time, but in the end, lots of lessons are learned. That, and, you get faster every single time… and you get a squeaky clean computer.

Let me just go through where my data lives, and how it made my life so much easier to get back on track after my reformat.

  • Email

    • Gmail: I think I’m going to start using Gmail as my sole email application. It seems like for some reason, this time around, SMTP doesn’t want to work in Mail.app. Also, since I’ve already gone Google for RSS feeds as well as my budgeting/documenting/spreadsheet-ing, might as well commit to… er… submit to the Google overlords.
    • I have to go and somehow find a way to match the folder structure I have on my desktop to Gmail’s labeling structure.
    • Is there a way to move all your mail from one service provider to another? Is Yahoo really going to provide unlimited storage? This really isn’t a selling point, though, since I don’t think I’m even hitting 10% of my storage space yet.
      • But, of course, through the wonders of gDisk, I’ve begun backing up my most important documents, like blog post rough drafts and such.

  • Contact Information

    • Plaxo: I love it. It’s free for us normal users… plus, there’s a little bit of the social magic built into the app: you can send “eCards” to people with their information and such.
    • I don’t use Plaxo much, but I do use the synchronization tool with Address Book, and you know how I love to think that syncing is going to be one of the many killer web apps.

  • Calendar

    • This is next… to go with Google Calendar? How about Plaxo? How about something completely new?

  • Bookmarks

    • What? Delicious? The only thing I needed to reinstall to get back into bookmarking was the bookmarking extension for Firefox and Safari.
    • I’m satisfied with delicious to even think about moving to ma.gnolia.

  • Feeds

    • Google Reader: I love it. I think I might start integrating the “Starred Items” on the blog like Alex Argo has done.

After all… they’re all bits and bytes. It’s the application that brings that information to life. With web apps, though, you get a handy method of not having to deal with keeping track of your own data: the system does it for you.

Actually, more like… the system administrators of the web applications are doing that management of data for you.

Hey, it’s less work for me! But… alas, advertising revenue for them…

Relient K and Shutdown Day? More like… Shutdown 1.5 Days

Published
by
Josh Kim
on March 24, 2007
in Site News
. 0 Comments

Chicago. Ah.

Inadvertantly, I kinda celebrated Shutdown Day a half day early. Supposedly, today was supposed to be a day without using the computer, at all.

For me, this happened because I was without Internet. You see, without Internet, my computer ceases to be a computer in a lot of ways. I can’t check my email, talk online, check my feeds… I need my data!

I finally drove over to Panera near Woodfield for some lovely wireless bits.

Now I probably have like 300 stories I have to wade through (Google Reader, why don’t you tell me the exact number and NOT “100+”… what, is it that CPU intensive to give me the right number?) I have about 10 emails I have to reply to (lengthy… ahhhh!). Posts upon posts to write…

Here are some post ideas I have right now, sitting at Panera.

Mae at House of Blues

  • Relient K Concert (with Sherwood and Mae) at House of Blues
    • The Actual Event: Whoo hoo! First non-classical concert ever!
    • RIAA and Music: I thought this topic through while they were playing their new songs, the ones that I didn’t know.
    • City of Chicago: How INSANE it is to drive in the city
    • 14 Year Old Girls: DAH. “Sadie Hawkins Dance! Mood Rings!” still rings in my ear…
      • I always thought Relient K was more geared towards college kids… huh.
  • Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
    • How incredibly awesome it is
    • How amazingly the author Jessica Livingston could have easily been Josh Kim
      • She writes… the Intro. The rest of the book is basically her asking questions at the founders of each respective company covered in the book. I could have asked those questions, and typed out 450 pages. Heck, I’d probably type that sucker faster…
      • Meh, maybe she asked the right questions… we’ll see as I keep on reading
    • How much I want to write a review PER CHAPTER
  • Consulting
    • How I keep mistyping “consulting” as “consluting”… ew…
    • Things I’ve learned with the clients I’ve had in the past
    • How I want to grow it: How to create an effective portfolio
  • Blog
    • Categorizing vs Tagging: I think I’m getting it…
    • Redesign process: How to effectively design a Wordpress Theme

Yeah, insanity.

I have a feeling, April is going to be insane.

Are you guys wondering “I mean… dang, Josh Kim… how much more insane can it get”?

You’ll see.

Time to Change the RSS Reader: Google Reader

Published
by
Josh Kim
on March 18, 2007
in Project Ideas and Web Applications
. 0 Comments

I’ve decided to ditch Vienna for my RSS feeds. It’s been getting on my nerves with a lot of little bugs (double downloading, “recent post” count problems), and I decided it’s time I should make the web app jump for this type of application.

I’ve written before on how a problem encourages me to move and try something new. Here’s what’s relevant from that post.

Feeds

  • I dislike most online feed readers. I love Vienna, because it’s free and open source and fast and responsive and does EXACTLY what I need.
  • I can go through feeds in very quickly, by being able to delete articles that are completely worthless (about 90% of which are Digg crap stories that link to the blogs I’m already subscribed to…)
  • I still want to be able to set it up so that OPML file is still saved somewhere…

Looks like I’m going to be going against my own words. I still don’t like online apps for certain things, but for feeds, google reader is quickly becoming something that… just works.

Short-cut keys for Google Reader

Only a subset of the advertised short-cut keys work for me, since I turned on “start searching when I type” feature in Firefox (BonEcho for the mac users). But these seem to work:

  • s: Star an item
  • n: Navigate to next item without opening it
  • p: Navigate to previous item without opening it
  • j: Open next item
  • k: Open previous item
    • Oh sweet vi keys…
  • o: Open / Close item (In list view, doesn’t do anything in expanded view)
  • r: Refresh
  • t: Tag it

I think there might be more, but this is more than enough, I think.

What would be really nice is if I had the ability to scroll down an article using a shortcut key also. For example, if the post I’m reading is longer in height than the window it’s in, I want to be able to scroll down on just that story. I’d much rather have j and k be the “scroll key” and have l and ; be the “next/previous post”… thereby solidifying Google’s love for vi. I’m probably asking too much.

A VERY long day

Published
by
Josh Kim
on February 21, 2007
in Personal
. 0 Comments

After going to sleep at around 3 AM (not sure… I just kept reading the Bible), I woke up again before the alarm at 7:30, only to be so tired that I decided to cut down on RSS time and get like 15 minutes more sleep.

Missed the bus that would have taken me to work by 9, but instead took the next one to make it by 9:30. Worked like a crazy person until 2 PM, with no discernible break in between… and I’m still not done. Lots to do tomorrow… but I wonder if I can get out of going in. Trackball’s supposed to come by mail, and I wonder if someone’s going to be here to accept the package.

I decided to stick around campus and finish up what little lunch I packed. Read through the Bible… I feel more and more confident and able to point out where things are in the Old Testament each day… I feel like it’s fast becoming my textbook on life.

Took the bus back, then without warning, I fell into a deep sleep. Then woke up and started going through my feeds, yet again… to find out that a friend needed a ride to a meeting, and she was already late. Taking this as a sign, I packed myself a very VERY light dinner (comprising of grapes and yogurt… wow, I’m such a girl…) and got ready to head for WIMPE.

But you see, my day should have ended with me, coming back home, making dinner, and going to bed. NOPE. I went to ISR, to meet the likes of Colin, Christine, Andrew, Ken, Jon Chu; and the list goes on and on…

And I feel like this all-nighter was only possible because of those people. Well, yeah, they did take up my time and forced me into this position… but what I’m saying is that the energy that these guys spewed forth into me… something about being near students again makes me feel alive.

Oh, a sidepoint: For the first time since… that one really messed up night during college… I had a nosebleed. This happened while I was helping Christine with her ECE 205. I have a theory: My brain freaked out when it started getting bombarded with resistors and diodes. I can’t believe I still remember some of this stuff.

Just goes to show you: God’ll redeem everything. Even elementary circuit analysis.

Now, to the code and to the writing of worthwhile posts.