From the desk of » Web

Features for Twitter for Mac

konrad — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 22:55:37 +0000

Twitter’s native app for Mac OS has been my primary Twitter environment for some time now. I used it before it got that entirely new (nonstandard) user interface. I still like it better than the other Twitter app’s I’ve seen out there, but there are a few gripes with it that I have.

I like to be able to drag apps by taking their topmost element in the window. I don’t like to see that bit of UI convention out the door; I don’t like the fact that I have to pick up the Twitter window by it’s right-side margin.
I would like the default of presenting Twitter usernames to indicate whether I already follow them or not; this would be especially useful on fridays. Maybe give the names two distinct background colours, very light but noticable. That way, I could see the overlap with others, and not have to access each name seperately.
Sometimes, loading images from twitpic does not work reliably, and I have no idea as to why. I have to close the popup and reopen it for the image to load.
Handling blocking users is not consistent: When I am on the “Mentions” tab and block a user, the tweet I am on disappears right away. If I am doing the blocking in the user’s profile, the tweets of that user remain in my timeline and mentions. I’d much rather see them disappear everywhere.

But I’m sure they’ll all be addressed in later versions.

Zeitungs-Websites

konrad — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:36:45 +0000

Liebe Zeitungswebsite-CMS-Konfektionierer,
die Druckansichten auf Euren Websites sind ja durchaus sehr praktisch. Könnt Ihr es aber bitte so einrichten, dass die Druckansicht nicht ein neues Fenster oder ein neues Tab öffnet, sondern einfach in meinem aktuellen Browser geladen wird, so wie jede andere Seite auch? Und könnt ihr auch auf den JavaScript-Aufruf des Druck-Dialogs verzichten? Das fände ich sehr praktisch.

Danke!
Ein Instapaper-User.

Why IMAP is a good model for cloud services

konrad — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 23:36:31 +0000

I do admit it: I like the IMAP protocol. I regularly use multiple computers and my iPhone, and I read and write email on all of them. IMAP makes that convenient: I have the same view of my folders and my inbox on every computer. We also use a Webmail client that uses IMAP as its underlying technology, so even via webmail, everything looks the same. And apart from the fact that I quite enjoy the way that I can look for all stuff that was sent my way, I much more like the fact that I have just one folder of email that I sent out. It doesn’t matter where I am when I send something off: it all ends up in my sent box on our mail server.

IMAP is a well-specified protocol. One can argue whether it’s a well-desgined protocol, or whether parts of it are a total nightmare to understand and implement. But is is that, well-documented. Given enough programming talent, you can sit down and write either a client or a server for it. (And given the track record of various IMAP clients in the wild, it does take a certain kind of dedication and a good load of skill to really get it right.) But it’s not a technology that lets you guess what a certain field on all requests might mean or why the answers look so different on every second friday of a month starting with J.

The fact that it’s documented means multiple implementations exist. That means if you want, you can set up an IMAP server and just use that; or pay somebody to do just that. Personally, I’m not so fond of the idea of giving all of my email away to somebody who I don’t really know all so well, so my IMAP store is on a server that we run ourselves. But if your preferences are different, there are plenty of services that allow you to use their IMAP server, and be happy with that.

This is where I believe cloud services should be heading. Like so many, I’m a fan of Evernote (I’ve written about that). I’m impressed by what Google Documents can do inside the browser. But for either company: do I know who else has access to my data? What laws are even applicable for stuff that I put up? I’m sure that both Google and Evernote are subject to US subpoenas, but what about german legal demands to hand over data? Or, say, those originating in India? What happens to all the data should Evernote or Google fold? I’d love Evernote even more if there were a way to run a server of my own – because then I know for sure who has access to my data. Or the protocol they use were well-specified so that others could also contribute to a public server my Evernote client connects to.

Ah, if it only were so easy as with IMAP.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

konrad — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 22:21:30 +0000

It is a widely held belief that Steve Jobs is a man to transform industries. He’s done it before, and I think he (with his company Apple) has set his eyes to do it yet again. This time, it’s telephony. And I can’t blame him, it is a god-awful industry we (as a species, globally) are putting up with.
Take the epitome of modern phone technology: the mobile phone network. We’re still using phone numbers (a technology that is a century old and was optimized for the rotary phones and their electromechanical counterparts in the switching system), we’re basically using a network designed to deliver billable events and we’re communicating with voice quality that is actually more than awful.
Enter FaceTime.
FaceTime takes the telephone conversation out of the old phone network and puts it onto an IP network. It makes communication easy and fun. And it’s no longer just tied to the iPhone (which the carriers probably would have liked), but also going to IP-only devices: iPod touch and all iPads. Apple usually is known for delivering good user experience, so phone calls are good for the user.
But now, Apple is setting out to be not just the media centre of the world (with music and video already going their way), but the new phone system, too. Between the new Apple TV and FaceTime, I do have some ideas why Apple needs a new data center …
[EDITED] I do not think that the video telephony is what makes FaceTime so particularly important or game-changing. I think it is the seamlessness in which the phone and IP network interact. Ultimately, reducing the phone carriers just to another form of data carriers. I do know that Skype also works suitably well and has a good installed base. But what is different here is that FaceTime is automatically installed on every iOS device, and integrated well with the entire Apple experience (think: Address book, MobileMe, …)

URL shortening, a new approach

konrad — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:27:32 +0000

There is an approach in URL shorteners that I have not yet seen, but think that has some merit: Store all the information for the URLs in a DNS zone. Store the URLs you point to as TXT records. The zone can then be pulled and perused at will. That way, data is never stored in just one companies database, you can just go in an pull those links that interest you. If the shortening engine then allows for user specific zones, you can just get to all the data you are interested in.

The prototype should not be so hard to get in shape.

Google Browser Sync — noch eine Firefox-Erweiterung

konrad — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 07:53:11 +0000

Mit Google Browser Sync kann man über verschiedene Firefox-Installationen diverse Dinge gleich beibehalten. History, Bookmarks, Cookies, gespeicherte Passwörter und die offenen Tabs werden bei Google (auf Wunsch verschlüsselt) gespeichert und können dann von anderen Rechnern direkt verwendet werden. Auf den ersten Blick sehr praktisch. Ich berichte in ein paar Tagen davon, wie erfolgreich das klappt.