Apps

Applications are easily the most important aspect of the iPad. After you’ve been using the thing for awhile, the physical hardware slips your mind and it’s all about engaging with the apps. The quality of the application really shapes your experience. Apps with a great user experience, where the developer has clearly spent time perfecting the details, are a treat to use. Many people are saying the iPad is just “a big iPod Touch”. If you are looking at it purely from a hardware angle, then sure you could argue that. However, I think these people are clearly missing the point. The iPad is about the software, which is drastically improved on the larger screen with these new iPad-only apps.

There are already 3,500+ iPad apps in the App Store already and we’re still in Week 1. Most of the apps I’ve used so far have been completely redesigned for the iPad. Some of my favorites are Instapaper Pro, USA Today, AIM, and Twitterriffic. Oh, and the ability to run and scale up iPhone apps is basically useless. If you NEED to run an iPhone app on your iPad, it works fine. But the user experience is crap and it’s really not worth it. I don’t think I have any iPhone-only apps on my iPad. I’m really looking forward to a Reeder iPad app for Google Reader sync. I spend A LOT of time in Google Reader and their website is not ideal for the iPad.

Twitterrific on the iPad

Performance

The iPad is SO fast! I was prepared for it to be speedy after hearing from people who were able to play with it during the keynote in January. But, it was way faster than even my highest expectations. I’d almost go as far as saying it’s the fastest computer I’ve ever used. However, I think it’d be more accurate to say it is the “most responsive”. Maybe it’s because the touch screen gives you the feeling that you are actually interacting with physical objects. There’s not that level of separation you get when you use a laptop or a desktop computer. Interacting with the iPad is immediate and completely intuitive. Also, I have not heard a single noise from the iPad. It’s dead silent. I haven’t noticed any change in temperature either, even after using it for hours streaming video. It’ll be interesting to see if this performance continues after multitasking applications are introduced this Fall.

Hardware

The hardware is exactly what we’ve come to expect from Apple. The industrial design is elegant and the machine feels rock solid. Apple did a great job with the weight distribution so the iPad feels perfectly balanced. Many people have been complaining that it’s too heavy to comfortably hold with one hand for an extended period of time. I’d have to agree, although I don’t think this is a real issue. I’ve found that I can comfortably rest it on my lap or the couch while watching videos or reading. I really like the ability to lock the screen rotation. I’ve been using this a lot and it’s really handy for reading when you’re laying down or moving around.

The iPad battery is incredible! It has been lasting between 10-12 hours for us with normal use. We have been charging it every couple days.  Another thing worth noting is that I’ve  found myself trying to use OS X touch gestures on the iPad. I’ve been trying to 3-finger-swipe in Safari to move backwards and forwards on numerous occasions. Currently the iPad does not support these gestures, but hopefully they will be added in a future update.

Virtual Keyboard

A lot of people have been asking me about the virtual keyboard. This seems to be a big concern for many people. I’d say that the keyboard is basically what I expected. It’s sufficient for web browsing, writing emails, Twitter, and even instant messaging. The main thing to remember is that the iPad is more about consuming content rather than creating it. I’ve still been using my MacBook for heavy typing tasks, such as writing this blog. I’ve gotten better at typing on the iPad as the week progressed, but I still need more practice. It’s important to have the iPad in a stable position in order to type efficiently. I’m really bad at typing when I’m laying down on the couch, but can do a lot better if i’m sitting up or at my desk. My biggest issue so far has been missing the spacebar between words. Luckily, the iPad autocorrect is incredible and usually adds the space for me. It seems to be much more powerful (and accurate) than the autocorrect in iPhone 3.1.

Daily Use

I’ve spent most of my iPad hours this week reading blog posts and surfing the web. I read A LOT of articles/posts each day and the iPad has almost completely taken over this role. I can easily stumble across interesting posts on my Mac, save them with Instapaper, and then read them with my iPad on the couch. It’s much nicer to sit on the couch with the iPad than my warm laptop which is full of distractions. I found that I prefer to use the iPad in landscape mode. This is a stark contrast to my iPhone, which I almost exclusively use in portrait mode.

Web video on the iPad has performed better than expected. Most of my favorite sites provide slick HTML 5 video for their content. The YouTube app is great and Vimeo.com provides HTML 5 support for their videos. I’ve streamed some HD content from Vimeo and it looks and runs great. There are, however, a good amount of videos that simply do not work. I find that almost all embedded videos (with the exception of YouTube) do not work. Annoyingly, the iPad doesn’t display anything useful to tell you that they do not work. Instead, they just display as a big white “hole” in the page. It’s kinda like the iPad is tricking you into not noticing that the video is missing. I’d prefer to see an icon or a “Video could not be loaded” message in it’s place.

Conclusion

The iPad is easily the most exciting computer I’ve ever used. It’s incredible how such a rich experience could be packed into a sleek and tiny device. If you haven’t had a chance to play with one yet, head to your local Apple store and check it out. There is no amount of reviews or videos you can watch to get a full grasp of the device. I still agree that the iPad is a “luxury device” and it’s unlikely to be replacing laptops in the immediate future. However, I think it provides a compelling alternative to netbooks and has the potential to drastically shake up the market for secondary computers. I’m definitely happy that I purchased the iPad and I think I will use it even more once additional apps get released.

Game Changer?

I’ve been following the iPad hype from the beginning and I’m very excited about it. I really believe that it’s going to be the “first” of a whole new category of devices that will change the PC landscape dramatically over the next few years. I know there are a lot of haters out there and people who would completely disagree with that statement. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the majority of Apple’s customers are not super-nerdy tech geeks. These customers don’t care if they can navigate the filesystem, use browsers other than Safari, or remove the battery. I think this is going to be exactly the reason why the iPad will be successful. Just like the iPhone, it’s able to extract out the useful and necessary tasks of the OS without burdening the user with the complicated details. The iPad makes it REALLY easy for users to accomplish the most common tasks out there. I believe that this is exactly what the “general public” is looking for.

But I Have No Use For It

This was (is?) my biggest dilemma with the iPad. Currently I have a capable MacBook and an iPhone 3G. I’m on the computer all day at work, and a lot of the time in the evenings as well. When I’m not on a computer, I always have my iPhone with me and have access to the web if I need it. I don’t really read books. (I read, but it’s almost exclusively online articles and blog posts.) I don’t really spend my free time playing games or using Apps on my iPhone. I use my phone almost exclusively for listening to music, text messaging, and occasionally tweeting. So why do I need the iPad? I don’t.

I couldn’t really think of a reason why I needed to have it. I’ll be heading to the store on Saturday because I’m fascinated by the concept. Using the touch interface on my iPhone still excites me. I’m still impressed by new apps that are being built and some of the things my 2 year old phone can do. That’s saying something. I’m expecting the iPad to take that to a whole new level. I’m expecting it to be fun to use. Enjoyable. I’m hoping that, by having it around the house, I will start to discover use cases for it that I never would have conceived before. I think there is so much potential in a device like this and once thousands of people get their hands on them, many of these creative uses will be discovered.

On Flash…Briefly

This topic has been discussed extensively since the iPad was first announced. I agree that it could definitely be described as a “flaw” in the iPad. However, I’m not too worried about it. Apple has made it pretty clear that they do not plan to support Flash and are expecting content providers to offer their content using HTML5 and H.264 video. This is obviously not going to happen overnight, but there are already plenty of companies announcing support for HTML5 video. (YouTube, Vimeo, Brightcove, New York Times*, Time Magazine*) I’m expecting that many of the big players in the media space will begin to offer alternatives to Flash rather than lose the Apple audience. Only time will tell if it works out the way Apple hopes it will, but the early signs are good.

4 Days To Go

The pre-order numbers are rumored to be pretty good. Apple’s stock is on the rise and thousands of customers are purchasing a product that they’ve never even had the opportunity to see in person. That’s pretty impressive. I’m expecting Apple to have a really good launch and I think the iPad will be a big hit! I’m looking forward to posting some of my first impressions this weekend. Stay tuned.

* The New York Times and Time Magazine are both Brightcove clients and are said to be using this Brightcove experience to deliver HTML5 video for the iPad. (source)

I don’t think there’s one single reason why Google Wave hasn’t taken off like many expected it would. I’m sure there are still some people who are actively using it, but I’m fairly certain that these people are in the minority. For some reason, Wave was unable to really hook users and provide them with a reason to keep coming back. I think the main issue is the serious overlap that exists between Wave and many of the other services we are already using today. Back in October, I wrote about Wave and explained it as a blend of email, instant messaging, and document collaboration. Unfortunately, it was not good enough at any one of these tasks to win over enough users. Gmail is a way better email client. Text messaging, Twitter, and instant messaging are still far better options for instant communication. Wave is slow and awkward for instant messaging between two people. It’s still pretty good for document/code collaboration but I’m not sure it can be used in a practical sense. It’s missing some essential features that you would find in MS Word or even Google Docs.

Furthermore, I really feel like Wave missed the mark with the user interface. They tried really hard to create a fresh looking UI, but broke some of the basic conventions we’ve become accustomed to. The scrollbars are over-engineered and it’s frustrating to work with the Edit/Done buttons. The nested replies and custom privacy functions were neat, but they often became confusing and glitchy. Finally, deleting a wave from the inbox didn’t actually delete it. If another user posted in that wave, it would return. These sort of user experience quirks made it difficult for even savvy internet users to get the hang of Wave. I think the developers explored some pretty cool concepts, but I’m not sure all of their “improvements” were necessary.

Can Wave make a comeback and become a technology that we can’t live without? I don’t really see this happening in it’s current form. There’s just too much overlap. However, I think Wave introduced some fascinating technologies with their federation protocol and the ability to handle many simultaneous edits via the use of their transformations. There are plenty of applications where Google could merge some Wave features into their existing products. One of the mistakes Google made with Wave was not integrating it into Gmail. Just last week Google integrated their new Buzz product into Gmail. The result is pretty mixed, as some users are not happy with a social network invading their inbox. However, I think Wave would be able to complement some of the existing functionality of Gmail without it feeling like it was just awkwardly shoved in there or invading privacy.

It’s funny how quickly things can change in this technology landscape. If you read my post from late October, you will see that I was very positive about Wave catching on and becoming a daily tool of mine. Clearly, I was blinded by the hype just like everyone else. I’m still really excited to see what happens in the future for Wave.

The new homepage of the Penn State Snowboard Club.

Let’s start with the new design. For those familiar with the old site (photo below), you will notice some drastic changes. I set out to bring more color into the new site and I wanted to emphasize photos since they are often the best way to liven up a site. I decided to go with a custom designed header photo for each of the main pages. Each menu item has a unique header (and color) associated with it. I think this has made a difference in the user’s first impression upon visiting the site.  In addition to these changes, I also changed the primary link color from a maroon to a vibrant light blue color. I’ve been a fan of the light blue and black color schemes lately and I think it works great on this site. Finally, you’ll notice that I dropped the boxes around the elements on the right sidebar. Instead, I used a slight variation in the background color to differentiate these items from the blog entries in the center.

This is the homepage of the old PSSC website. It’s very boxy.

Officers page with new header image and the green color scheme.

In addition to these design changes, I made some other improvements to the sidebars on the homepage. The left sidebar is now displayed on each and every page of the site, instead of just the homepage. This will allow users to see who’s online while they’re browsing the forum or calendar and not just on the homepage. Big thanks to Ben Birk who provided the gorgeous photo for the left sidebar background. On the right sidebar, you’ll notice a new Upcoming Events section and a Recent Tweets section. The goal of the new Upcoming Events section is to present a clear and straight-to-the-point view for seeing what’s happening in the club. Previously, there was just a calendar with highlighted dates that you had to click on before seeing what the event was about. The new design explicitly shouts at you “This event is TODAY”. The Recent Tweets section is a way to get some of the new members familiar with Twitter if they aren’t already. Many of the most active club members are actively using Twitter.

Upcoming Events and Recent Tweets sidebar items.

Another huge feature that I rolled out with this release is a completely revamped Inbox/Messaging page. The old site allowed a very simple way for members to send Private Messages (PMs) to each other. If you had a message waiting for you, a notification in the sidebar allowed you to open a pop-up with that message. There was no central place to view your messages. To compose a message, you had to find that user’s profile page. Well, with the new site I’ve built a GMail-like Inbox page. This page is 100% JavaScript and allows the user to navigate their Inbox, Sent Messages, and even compose a message to other members. This was quite a task, but I think it turned out extremely well!

Brand new Inbox design to view your PMs.

I also spent some time working with the Video page. This page previously displayed a thumbnail (added manually) of each video and linked directly to that video which was hosted on the server. In actual use, this was very clunky. The team members were simply hosting their videos on Vimeo or YouTube and posting links in the forum or on the homepage blog. I wanted to create a dead simple way to add a video. I came up with a simple form where the team member or officer could simply post a link to the video hosted on Vimeo or YouTube and the code does the rest. For each of these links, I used the video site’s APIs to fetch all of the relevant metadata about the video (including the thumbnail) and then I display it on the video page. This allows the page to be completely dynamic and saves the user the hassle of entering all the information twice. To help speed things up, I used memcached to keep the video metadata in memory so I can quickly load the page without waiting on these APIs.

The new Video page.

Finally, I made a lot of performance enhancements under the covers which should drastically improve the performance of the site and keep the code looking modern. I started by moving the site over to my brand new server hosted by Linode in Newark, NJ. This server flies in comparision to the shared server where was previously hosting the site. I also made heavy use of memcached to cache a lot of the data on the site that changes infrequently. This allows me to make less queries to the database and in turn, I’ve seen an incredible improvement in speed. Speaking of less database queries, I introduced a brand new database class which should greatly enhance security against SQL Injections and similar attacks. Overall, these improvements have made a very noticeable difference in site performance.

As you can see, I’ve been very busy. I couldn’t have done it all without the help of my buddy and former PSSC officer, Kenny. He has provided hours and hours of his time to help me test out these changes and get the site ready to go live. His attention to detail and high standards have greatly affected the outcome of the site and the club members are going to benefit greatly. (Thanks Kenny!) I hope you enjoyed this little tour and feel free to ask any questions you might have in the comments. I’d love to get some more feedback. Also, if you want to check out the site for yourself, it’s easy to browse it without creating an account. I’ll leave you with one last photo, and a link.

Here is the Forum. This is the most popular section of the site.

Penn State Snowboard Club – http://www.thepssc.com

Note: All of these screenshots were taken from my ADMIN account on the site. None of the New/Edit/Delete icons will appear for regular club members.

]]> http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/2010/02/12/introducing-the-new-pssc-website/feed/ 0 http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/2010/01/29/apple-you-dont-need-flash/ http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/2010/01/29/apple-you-dont-need-flash/#comments Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:02:51 +0000 Jason Wagner http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/?p=1503 If there was any doubt about Apple’s stance on Adobe Flash before Wednesday’s keynote, you can kiss that goodbye. During the keynote, Steve Jobs was casually browsing the web (it was a bit awkward, actually) and he spent a few minutes on the New York Times site. As he scrolled down the page, there was a large box with the all-too-familiar blue cube signifying that the Flash plugin was missing. The audience chuckled and Steve paused for a while, leaving the “Flash failure” on the big screen. Although he never mentioned anything about it, it was very clear that Steve was not trying to hide anything. It’s almost as if he wanted everyone to know that the iPad will not support Flash. For the last 3 years, critics have complained about the lack of Flash on the iPhone and it appears as though Apple is still unwilling to budge on the issue. I believe that Apple is trying to send a clear message: “You think you need Flash, but you really don’t. Try it.”

I’ve been using my iPhone for the last 18 months and I can honestly say that there have been very few occasions where I have been burned by the lack of Flash. Most of the web-related things I do on my phone are actually through third-party apps and I don’t spend that much time using Safari. As a result, the lack of Flash is definitely not something I think about on a regular basis. Now on my mac, it’s a completely different story. Nearly every website I visit has some type of Flash content. A majority of the videos I watch on the web are Flash videos, and there are TONS of ads that are built using Flash. If you took away the Flash plugin on my MacBook, the web would feel like a very different place. This is a problem. The iPad has been pitched to us as the “perfect web-browsing machine”. The entire reason I want one is so that I can lounge around on the couch or in bed and surf the web and watch videos. The screen on the iPad really opens up the browsing capabilities and makes the lack of Flash a glaring omission. So, is this why the internet is throwing such a hissy fit? Partly. I think there are also a lot of people out there who feel the need to latch onto a “flaw” and beat it like a dead horse. It’s almost cool to joke about the iPhone/iPad not supporting Flash. But before you get disappointed, there’s still some good news.

I think Apple is being a bully here. They are making a very bold statement to content providers out there on the web: “If you want to play on the Apple devices, you need a Flash alternative.” As the market share and even more importantly, the mind share, of Apple products continue to grow it’s going to become really hard for content providers to ignore Apple. Last week both YouTube and Vimeo made a point of reminding the internet that they have pilot HTML5 video players available on their site. This allows anyone to watch most videos using just a modern HTML5-capable browser (except Firefox). With these industry leaders taking charge on the HTML5 video front, I expect many other sites to follow. Earlier today I spoke with the web guy from a favorite site of mine, Freeskier.com, to ask him what his plans were for the custom Flash player they are using. He informed me that they need to re-configure their videos to use the .m4v format instead of HD Flash and that they would be charging ahead with this in the next few months. I think by the time the iPad is released, we will see many sites providing these type of alternatives for their users who prefer (or can’t) use Flash.

As you might imagine, there are a lot of politics going on here. Adobe and Apple are battling it out for control over the content. Apple wants full control over their device and the ability to tweak anything and everything. By allowing the Flash plugin on the iPad, they are opening themselves up to possible performance issues, crashes, and other issues. Have you seen Flash on the Mac? It’s not pretty, it’s loud. Adobe seems to be pretty bitter about the whole thing. I suspect that they are starting to get concerned about the future of their platform as Apple (and Google) continue to push HTML5 as a better alternative. Futhermore, Apple’s recent purchase of Quattro allows them to setup a robust ad platform for the iPad and iPhone. This will provide a nice alternative for advertisers who were primarily relying on Flash as their preferred format for publishing ads. As the situation continues to heat up month after month, I really don’t see Apple giving in any time soon.

Still want to learn more? Check out @gruber’s excellent post “Apple, Adobe, and Flash” which dives into some of the technical (and political) reasons for the performance issues with Flash on the Mac and other interesting tidbits.

Update Adobe posts another anti-iPad blog post. Boy are they scared!

Watch the full Apple keynote

College students love Facebook. Actually, it seems like everyone loves Facebook…at least until they start changing (“improving”) things. At Penn State there was an endless stream of parties, sporting events, meetings, and other things to keep track of. Facebook is great for inviting friends to things, or finding out what’s going on tonight. It’s also a great place to share photos and keep in touch with friends. I’m stating the obvious here, I know. The problem with Facebook is, it quickly becomes cluttered with people that you barely even know. Maybe you met the person once 2 years ago, or they are a friend of a friend…but regardless, you’re going to be getting constant updates on their life pushed into your stream. Sure you can choose to “Hide” that user from your stream, but you’re still going to get mass messages, event invites, application requests, etc. The easiest solution is to just unfriend them. This usually works, but there are always a few pesky stalkers who don’t get the message and keep trying to request you as a friend again. Facebook quickly turned into a game of cat-and-mouse where I tried to block out all of the clutter and keep up with the constant nagging of people that I don’t care about.

I believe that my core gripe with Facebook boils down to a single design decision. A design decision that Twitter nailed perfectly: one-sided friendships. Twitter allows me to “follow” other users but does not require that they follow me back. Even better than this, I can allow other Twitter users to follow my tweets without having to burden myself with their content if I’m not interested. This is critical. There are plenty of users who I am extremely interested in (popular tech bloggers, professional athletes, etc) who couldn’t care less what I did last weekend. Twitter makes it easy for each user to self-select the people they follow in order to get the most out of the service without having to waste time and effort sifting through all the baggage their “friends” bring.

So, to put it bluntly… I realized last month that the only time I visited Facebook was because I had to. I clicked a link from a friend, logged in, and then had to decline/ignore/hide 10 useless requests. It’s annoying, and I’m done with it. Will I quit Facebook forever? Maybe not. I could see some value in the service if I go through and remove a large portion of my friends. Other friends of mine take the approach of simply ignoring all invites/requests/etc. and just letting them build up. I guess that works, but it’s still a broken approach. For now I plan to continue living in the peaceful stream that is Twitter.

Ben wanted a simple design so the photos were the main focus. We decided to go with a plain white page with a simple header and menu. The site is entirely JavaScript and is fun to interact with. The photos are loaded on-demand via AJAX calls to back-end PHP resources. For many of the photos, Ben also has them uploaded to his Flickr page. His website knows about these photos and provides a handy “see this on Flickr” link to provide more details about the photo and help spark discussion. I used the Flickr API and created a tool which allows Ben to upload a photo to the site and have it automatically uploaded to Flickr as well. In fact, I used the PHP GD library to dynamically add copyright information onto the Flickr photos before uploading! It turned into quite a task.

The gallery I used is called JqGalScroll which was created by Benjamin Sterling and based on jQuery. I heavily modified the gallery to speed things up and allow for multiple galleries to live on the same page. I fell in love with the simple animations of the gallery and as a result I decided to write the rest of the site using jQuery as well. It was my first time working with jQuery and I really like it so far. I definitely plan to use it for future projects if possible.

Ben and I are both extremely happy with the way his site turned out. I’m still working on some tweaks to speed up load times and some other usability improvements. The project was a fun one for me and a great learning experience. Please head over to Ben’s site and experience it for yourself.

Ben Birk Photography – http://benbirkphoto.com

]]> http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/2009/12/31/new-ben-birk-photography-site-launched/feed/ 2 http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/2009/12/05/why-google-dns-fits-into-the-plan/ http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/2009/12/05/why-google-dns-fits-into-the-plan/#comments Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:09:24 +0000 Jason Wagner http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/?p=1392 On Thursday Google announced a project they have been working on called Google Public DNS . The Domain Name System, or DNS for short, is something that we use hundreds of times each day but hardly ever think about. DNS is used to translate easy-to-remember hostnames, such as www.google.com, into the actual IP address for the server handling the requests. It is absolutely essential to the way today’s internet works. By default, most of the DNS servers that we use are hosted by our ISP. The ISP has a set of DNS servers and each website request we make goes to these servers which sort everything out and find the server that we’re requesting. Google’s Public DNS will join existing services such as OpenDNS to provide an alternative to the DNS servers hosted by ISPs all over the world.

When I first saw the announcement flow into my Twitter stream, I was pretty confused. DNS isn’t really something I think about on a daily basis and it seemed like an unusual project for Google to be working on. I was eager to dig into the documentation and see what Google’s motivation was. They must have expected this type of reaction because the first section on the Introduction page is “Why Google Public DNS?”. Google explains that webpages are getting more complex and the sheer magnitude of DNS lookups each day is starting to put major pressure on the existing DNS infrastructure. Since they already crawl most of these sites on a regular basis for their search indexing, it makes sense to cache the information and use the knowledge to help speed up DNS lookups. They claim that they just want to make the web a faster and more secure place. While I believe this is a valid motivation, I think that there’s more to it. How does this really fit into Google’s business plan?

It’s all about the data. The more valuable data that Google is able to gather the better they are able to target their advertising. By routing all of your DNS lookups through Google instead of your ISP, Google is able to “see” all of the internet traffic that’s coming from your PC. For example, if you visit 100 websites today and are using Google’s DNS servers, Google would be able to see each of the 100 websites you requested, what time you requested those sites, and the ‘geolocation’ you are requesting those sites from. Whoa, whoa, whoa… sounds like a privacy nightmare!?  Not exactly, the Privacy Policy for Google Public DNS is actually pretty reasonable. They store two types of logs for the DNS requests: temporary and permanent logs. Temporary logs are kept for 24-48 hours and store all of the information about the request, including your full IP address and region information. Google said these temporary logs are useful for detecting and debugging problems with the service. The permanent logs do not store your IP address. These logs store information such as the domain name requested, user’s geolocation (like zipcode, region, etc… not very detailed), cache hit-rates, and other technical details. Furthermore, Google says:

“We don’t correlate or combine your information from these logs with any other log data that Google might have about your use of other services, such as data from Web Search and data from advertising on the Google content network.”

Good news. Google is not gathering any of this DNS data in an attempt to “know” more about us. At least not on an individual basis…and as long as you trust them to adhere to this privacy policy.

Even though Google will not be using this data to build up their knowledge about you and me, I don’t see any reason why they can’t use this data to increase their knowledge about all of us collectively. If enough people use this service, Google will be able to gather billions and billions of webpage requests. Requests which didn’t come from search. This data will include geolocation information which could allow Google to know the “top website requests for Raleigh, NC”, for example. Are you starting to see how this knowledge would be invaluable for advertisers trying to decide where to spend their money? I assume that Google is also able to get this type of information from the millions(?) of websites using their Google Analytics tool. This is useful, but tapping into the DNS requests is going straight to the source. It’s extremely useful data about web usage and something that I think Google would be wise to take advantage of.

Assuming you’ve got to this point and I’ve calmed your privacy fears, you might be wondering how you can start using Google’s DNS service. Google has put together a useful doc explaining how to configure your computer for Google DNS. I’ve been using their DNS servers for a few days now and it seems pretty nice. Webpages seem to load quickly and I’ve noticed MUCH nicer “DNS error page” than the one my ISP (Time Warner Cable.. blahh) shows me. Give it a try and see if you notice a difference.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts about this post. Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below!

]]> http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/2009/12/05/why-google-dns-fits-into-the-plan/feed/ 2 http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/2009/11/24/staying-in-the-loop-feed-readers/ http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/2009/11/24/staying-in-the-loop-feed-readers/#comments Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:18:41 +0000 Jason Wagner http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/?p=1246 Often the lunch conversation at work turns to books. Many of my coworkers are avid readers. I, on the other hand, NEVER read books! I can’t remember the last time I’ve read an actual book. I spend most of my “reading time” reading blog post after blog post on a quest to learn as much as possible. It’s actually turning into quite a time-consuming hobby of mine. According to Google Reader Trends, I read approximately 600 blog posts each month. While that might seem like a lot (it is), only a fraction of the blogs I track are even read in Google Reader. I also use Apple Mail, Twitter, and the good ol’ website approach to keep up with the news.

The major topics that I follow are general technology news, mobile news, web/internet news, and Apple news. This includes blogs like TechCrunch, AppleInsider, Daring Fireball, The Google Blog, and Twitter news sources. I’m fascinated with technology and absolutely love to read about the future and how the web is evolving. I think this is a testament to the fact that I picked the perfect career. Not only am I learning a ridiculous amount of stuff about technology, but I’ve also noticed that my writing has been improving as a result of all this reading. I’m always looking to streamline my method for consuming all this news, and I’ve found a few tools that work great.

Some of my feeds are in Apple Mail. This used to be my primary reader.

Apple Mail is my mail client on my Mac. I use it for my IMAP email accounts and I also use it to track a few of my news feeds. Mail is a great app for tracking feeds if you 1) are always on the same computer, 2) don’t require sharing capabilities, and 3) don’t care about syncing with other devices. I use Mail to track my friends’ blogs who update infrequently and those blogs which I’m not in a big hurry to read.

Google Reader has become my primary feed reader recently. The main reason I switched over to Google Reader from Apple Mail was my desire to keep track of feeds from multiple devices. I use 2 different laptops on a daily basis and I needed a centralized place to track my feeds. Also, Google Reader is really good at syncing with mobile devices like my iPhone. Now I can read a post on my phone and it will show up as read on the Google Reader website. This is analogous to using the IMAP protocol for email. Finally, Google Reader allows you to have “friends” and share interesting posts with them. I don’t use this feature much right now, but it’s handy to have.

My feeds from Google Reader

Newstand is a feed reader application for the iPhone. One of it’s major selling points is keeping itself in sync with my Google Reader account. It also offers offline support so you can download posts you’d like to read before your internet-less flight.  Newsstand is available for $4.99 in the Apple App Store (iTunes link). I highly recommend it for anyone who is heavily reliant on feeds. Here are a few screenshots:

Left: A fancy feed view for Newsstand. Cool to look at, but not that functional. Right: My preferred home screen for tracking feeds.

Left: Lots of great sharing options for a blog post. Right: Viewing all of the posts for a given feed.

What feed readers do you use? Have you found a better method for consuming feeds? I’d love to hear it!