Now I suddenly miss Boracay. 

Blogged with Flock

Tags: boracay

Cool!
I’m trying out several blogging tools right now. So far, Journler looks okay unlike SOHO Notes which I removed less than five minutes after installation, SOHO Notes is such a resource hog.
Enough for now, more testing to do.
- end of my note.

Tao called Tao is not Tao.
Names can name no lasting name.
– Lao-Tzu

Welcome to Journler!
Version 2.0.1

Hi and welcome to Journler! I don’t want to keep you long, just a few words before you begin. Journler is the premier notebook and entry based information manager for the Macintosh. If you’re looking for a simple, elegant program that will keep your diary, look no further. If you need a powerful information manager than can collect your thoughts, bookmarks and media, Journler is it. Either way, Journler includes a host of features that will meet your needs.

Poke around before you get started writing. On the surface Journler is a simple enough program: create an entry on a calendar date, write your thoughts down, and maybe add the entry to a folder or two. But look a little further, around a few nooks and crannies, and you’ll find a program that is suprisingly sophisticated and capable. Journler includes stunning iLife integration, it can record audio and video, it will import years worth of rich text entries and filter them on the fly. When you’re ready, you can use Journler to blog or put linked notes on your iPod, and much more.

I hope you enjoy Journler as much as I’ve enjoyed using and developing it. If at any point you aren’t sure what to do or are confused about something, have a look at the help files via the Help menu up top. Journler Help is extensive, and you’ll learn a lot just browsing through it.

Philip Dow,
Journler developer

- http://journler.phildow.net.

Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but that’s my litmus test if I’m a little too confused on my like/dislike of an application. I learn its features, use it for a while and then junk it for a couple of days. If it turns out that I can live without it then I go on with my life, if not then I reinstall the application and use it forever. However, if I’m still confused, I do the install-uninstall cycle all over again. Crazy.

hehe.

It just feels so weird having 4 (Four!!!) browsers in my Mac. Sure, I do compatibility tests to ensure my web applications behave as intended in various browsers, both Firefox and Flock however use the same engine so there’s really no need to test on both. But… I still end up using Flock.

I tried using plugins that provide the same (additional) functionality that Flock provides. They’re… “ok”. Sage gives me my news feeds, FlickrFox allows me to browse photostreams in a sidebar, Performancing helps me blog (and it even has more features than Flock’s blogging tool) yet there’s something about using Flock that makes it different. hmm, I think that’s it – User Experience.

That little orange button that tells me when a Flickr contact has published a new photo (like this one and this one) satisfies my need to know what my friends are doing and at the same time saves me time by not having directly go to the site just to check it out. And in my busy schedule it somewhat helps in reminding me too that, yes, I do have friends. Same orange button applies to the News feeds that I subscribe to, this one reminds me that the world continually revolves outside my office walls.

The layout and the way things are presented is also very appealing. Take for instance the photostream topbar, compare it with FlickrFox’s layout and you’d see the elegance behind Flock’s design. News feeds too – a simple enhancement of adding favico’s beside the site name improved its readability.

What can I say? I think the Flock guys got it right – specially after version 0.7.1 when Flock gave users the option to install FireFox plugins that were not tested in Flock yet. So now my browser provides me with a great user experience plus I get to use those cool Google plugins like Google Toolbar, Google Notebook and Web Comments.

Cool!

Now if only they’d integrate more with Google as opposed to Yahoo….

Blogged with Flock

So I went and googled for such an extension.

Tadaa! I’m using it now. Its from Performancing and it looks spiffy. I’ll try it for a couple more days and see how this measures up with Flock’s tool. I’ve seen blogs though that praise this tool.

We’ll see.

That was my first reaction when I heard of Flock. hmmm… I thought, If I download this, this is going to be my 3rd browser. First one is Safari, which I have kept as my Mac’s default browser, next is Firefox which is what I always use (alltime favorite ), then there’s Opera (I like it’s clean interface and the way it caches the most recent webpages that you’ve been reading) and here comes another one… Flock.

What’s that? I didn’t mention IE? Forget it! It’s buggy, I don’t want to use it.

So why create a new browser? What’s the need? Why do I need another browser to browse?

Well, apparently, it’s not just for browsing!!!

Oooooh…..

The other day I was looking for a tool that I could use to easily upload pictures in Multiply and Flickr. I found a few including one that nicely integrates iPhoto with Flickr (FlickrExport) and then I started pondering about how do I easily manage all the content that I maintain in the internet (even if I haven’t published anything for the last 2 years except for some mailing list posts).

Enter Flock.

It’s still in Beta 1 but according to the Definitive Flock 1 Beta Review it is already very stable.

Hence, I gave in, downloaded it and I’m now using Flock to write this entry. It looks good!

For those who are curious, you can use Flock to post in most blogsites (as I’m doing right now), upload and maintain files in Flickr, integrate with del.ico.us, and it’s got a new style in doing web searches from the browser.

Best of all, it is built on top of Firefox.

Check it out!

Blogged with Flock