Daily Tech Bits

RSS Through Google Spreadsheets

Digital Inspiration suggests a way to create a feed reader using Google Spreadsheets. Basically, you create an aggregator, Popurls style, and it constantly updates. You can even publish your aggregator to the web if you want. All you have to do is use RSS feeds as the source for the individual cells.

I can see the attraction of creating an RSS home page with a dozen or so feeds, but I can’t see the point of using it as a reader when you have more than 100 feeds to go through.  Google Reader works well already. Am I missing the point? You decide.

Weekend Reads 13 June 2008

It’s almost the weekend, so I thought I’d share some of the interesting posts I’ve read this week. The first is a post from a Guardian UK blog on the Future of Journalism. It looks at how microblogging can be used in this way. Once again, the question of citizen journalism is under discussion, with Twitter as the main means of ‘demystifying journalism’. I don’t know that I agree with the article, but it raised some interesting points.

It occurred to me that Twitter is often included in discussion about the changing news process, and there have been many discussions online about how to use Twitter as a reporting tool. But while Twitter has huge potential for publishers, it is, at its core, a communication tool. It’s like round looking at a phone, trying to plan some editorial that uses the phone - when actually the thing to do is just to use it to talk to people.

Next up is Darren Rowse’s analysis of the differences between Plurk and Twitter. It’s all about how conversations happen, and he illustrates with some screenshots of responses to the same question on both services.

The other thing that I like about Plurk is that conversations are contained and don’t get as mixed up as they do on Twitter.

I have to agree that following conversations is easier on Plurk.

Finally, as the browser wars hot up again, Lifehacker has done a speed test comparing the latest release candidates for Firefox and Opera with Safari and IE7. IE7 takes no prizes, but the other browsers each win in one category. Happy reading.

Bored With Your Browser?

If you feel like it’s time for an upgrade to your browser, then you’re in luck. The next editions of three of the major browsers are now available for you to try.

Firefox has issued a release candidate for FF3, and the release version is due out in about a week. That’s something to look forward to, as FF3 is faster than before and has a host of improvements.

Not to be outdone, Opera has boosted its speed and made some improvments, issuing a fast, secure release candidate.

Finally, Microsoft has made a beta of Internet Explorer 8 available for download. I may be biased, but given the bugginess of most Microsoft software that’s been released, I won’t be trying this one out.

What’s your favorite browser?

Lifestreaming With Profilactic

Lifestreaming is all the rage now and there are tons of tools to help you do it. The one I’ve been using most recently is Profilactic. I have to say that I detest the name (which the founders say is ’something to do with profile’), but I love the service. Profilactic calls itself a ‘digital life aggregator’ which prevents an online identity crisis. Like other lifestreaming applications/sites, you can add the services that you belong to and amalgamate them into one nice, tidy feed.

It took only a couple of minutes to sign up for the site and add a list of all the places where I contribute content online. Profilactic supports a large list of social sites as well as RSS, and also lets you add custom sites, so in theory you can add any site to your lifestream. I have yet to test that, though. Once you’ve added your sites, you can build your lifestream automatically. Again, this works well and if Profilactic can’t retrieve a particular feed, there’s a discreet little message at the top of the page.

In another page you can retrieve your friends’ lifestreams. I don’t think this is working right on my profile, because I only seem to have the things I have shared on Digg, for example, so there’s still some tweaking to do there. As usual there are widgets and badges to allow you to display your lifestream on other sites. The interface is clean and easy to read, and provides handy links to all your stuff, so I think I’ll be working with this one for a while.

A killer feature is that it uses Ping.FM so that you can update all your microbloging services from your account. I still plan to do some more testing. To find out more about Profilactic, especially planned developments, visit their blog.

Androids Due By End Of 2008

One day, you’ll be able to do anything on your phone. If you think you’re already there with mobile browsing, playing music and recording video, then think again. Google has been instrumental in the Open Handset Alliance, and has produced a new operating system, called Android for use on the next generation of mobile toys.

Developer Andy Rubin says the system will be open source, so that developers can produce a wide range of devices and applications. He showed the BBC a demo of an Android based handset which can successfully run Google Earth. Google expects that Android enabled handsets will make their first appearance by the end of 2008, signalling a change in the mobile marketplace. More on that story here.

PS3 Leads To Age Of The Petaflop

What do the Playstation 3 and the world’s fastest computer have in common? Only that they use the same components. IBM’s latest supercomputer, codenamed Roadrunner, will be able to make one thousand trillion calculations per second. It uses both supercomputer chips and the PS3 cell chip to produce these speeds.

According to the BBC, it will be used to keep track of nuclear weapons, but there’s no fun in that for ordinary computer users. It does mean that high performance computers can use this technology to get faster and faster. I wonder when this will trickle down to home computers?