cool new browser plugin

Thanks Dave for sending me a link to cooliris which is a great browser plugin – I love Flickr and now with the help of cooliris browsing photostreams is much more fun and so much easier – cooliris works on hundreds of sharing and web 2.0 websites, including the likes of Bebo, Facebook, Friendster, Google, Yahoo and Photobucket oh and not forgetting YouTube
.

Brrr


It’s official the Arctic chill has arrived. I woke up in the middle of the night and it was chilly so chilly I had to take a grab of the weather temperature on the iPhone provided by yahoo. Now I know severe weather warnings have been issued as temperatures in the UK dipped as low as -11C (12.2F) overnight but I never really believe it in fact normally I sleep through the coldest of the weather – like modern day hibernating.

The BBC seem to not be showing the weather at all today and just says Freezing Cold- maybe it’s so cold it’s broken?

The Arctic weather is expected to keep its grip on the UK, with lows of -10C (14F) forecast for southern England and Wales into Wednesday.

flickr and maps

Those lovely people over at flickr have integrated geotagging and yahoo maps into the organiser function. Very nice integration. Well if you live in the US it is. If you live in say London…

You might have more of a problem. Yahoo maps just simply doesn’t cut the mustard for this kind of application. Well any application actually. Let’s compare Google and Yahoo maps for my neighbourhood.

You can see if you look closely towards the centre a big square block called Du Cane Court. Well you can on the map on the left (google) on the right you just see a blur of housing.

searching…

So want to know what people are seaching for? Well okay people using AOL are searching for.
Interestingly the outrage caused by this lapse in privacy by making this information available (and if you have no idea what I am talking about there is a link here) is nothing compared to the other information you can gleen from this data.

AOL Search is powered by google. It’s branded as such. Yet there are over 180,000 searches for … google or it’s varients.

Useful links
research.aol.com
New York Times article
AOL Search Database
AOL Search Logs
Black Box Search – Anonymous proxy searching for Google, MSN and Yahoo!

Do I really need a new IM client?

Okay so I use AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) and iChat for work. They work nicely and most people I know use them.
I use MSN sparingly and a few people I know use it but of course more importantly the other half uses it.
I was having problems using MSN for mac until I discovered that I could hook up MSN into iChat using the jabber protocol and MSN transport.
I’ve noticed a couple of developments recently in the IM space.
The trend to create site based messaging continues. Many of the newer social networking sites come with a proprietary messenger service. See imeem.com for example here and even myspace are looking to launch a messenger. Also a newer smarter trend for services that work on many platforms and move with you like indi – it’s not just a messenger it also is a storage utility for contacts and notes etc. See getindi.com for example.

My big question though is why would I need a new messenger? If you take email as an example the beauty of it is that you send a message to anyone on any other service and they receive it and respond.
With messengers there are 3 big players, MSN, AIM and ICQ. AIM and ICQ talk to each other and MSN and Yahoo! talk to each other.

Allegedly MSN and Yahoo! hold 44 per cent of the worldwide IM user base between them, with AOL (AIM and ICQ) taking, according to Radicati Group. Third parties such as Jabber aren’t statistically significant, with Google’s Jabber-based chat holding just 0.5 per cent. So really there are 2 big players, the AOL people and the MSN people.

If the big players refuse to talk to each other that leaves the space open for the likes of trillian and meebo.com. Trillian is software that allows you to sign into different IM services using one piece of software and Meebo is similar but web based so no download or install required (handy for internet cafes and travelers) and also means it is platform agnostic (you just need a supported web browser).

Meebo is my favourite in this space so far. I can use it on either of my Macs or my work laptop and with a single login I can be signed into MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! and Jabber and GTalk.
So until the big boys play nicely I’ll be using meebo.com

Spam and grammar rarely mix

No doubt this also has a virus but hey I use a mac and besides I was too busy laughing to download anything.

Hello! (address removed) for a fast exchange of messages suggests you establish Yahoo.Com Agent. Download you can directly in this letter I have attached last version of the program program to the letter. I wish to communicate to you therefore as I consider that you good kind person Yahoo-Agent – the free-of-charge service possessing a number of advantages before usual means of electronic dialogue. Having established Yahoo-Agent and having authorized, you can:
* to find new friends * to exchange instant messages
* to see an image of the interlocutor and to pass to its picture album * to express the emotions c the help original smail and gestures * to see online-status of your respondents * to receive notices on new letters * a voice (free of charge!) to talk to the interlocutors * play with friends online From main menu Yahoo-Agent you can to enter quickly into the largest English-speaking chat, and also to create in it the personal room.

To load program Yahoo-Agent and to receive the information necessary for installation, you can directly in this letter. What to contact Natali, establish program, attached in the letter. Thanks,
Administration Yahoo.Com