[This post is for those who read Hebrew websites...]
TheMarker is one of the few Israeli web sites that constantly introduces new products, features, technologies and improvements such as: Tag Cloud, Social Network and experimental UI
I visited TheMarker earlier today and was surprised and pleased to see something new once again. TheMarker IT (still in Beta) which covers the Israeli Internet & technology industry is their latest product and from a first look I can say that the TheMarker team did a pretty good job.
Things I like in particular:
- The site seems to load faster compared to TheMarker (although there is always room for improvement when it comes to speed). Hopefully this will continue to last even with the (expected) increase in the number of ads on the site as well as the (expected) increase in traffic to the site
- Overall design style
- The width of the pages was increased by 200 pixels and more information is now visible above the fold. The extra width makes the page feel lighter and less cluttered compared to TheMarker. I assume that this change is due to the fact the majority of the readers are IT professional using high resolution/large displays and they all saw large empty margins screaming “Use Us!”
Things I think can be improved:
- I have an issue with the fact that the site has no navigation bar and that the only way to access different sections is by using the tag cloud at the top bar. Tags are great but should not be the primary navigation method
- “Popular Stories” section could be moved above the fold to increase visibility and serve it’s purpose. The “Upcoming Events” section is probably not that important and could be moved down
- The integration with TheMarker can be improved. It is not clear to me why top stories on TheMarker’s High-Tech section would not show up on TheMarker IT. Perhaps this is a symbolic sign that the there needs to be a better connection between Israel’s Technology and Internet industries & the rest of the world
Final suggestion – The Search results page could be greatly improved using Snap Shots next to each search result. This will improve the user experience (especially since some of these pages load really slow) and would add some web2.0 glam to the site.
Technorati Tags: TheMarker, Usability, Snap Shots, Website design, TheMarker IT
Wordpress is a great blogging platform offering plenty of templates and extensions. One thing that Wordpress needs to improve is their text editor which is often slow and buggy. For example – The built in spell checker displays spelling alternatives but does not commit changes. It also does not have a personal dictionary that can be built over time. Formatting text is often buggy when switching between preview & HTML modes. Previewing a draft is slow in many cases. Another challenge is embedding images and controlling their position, size and margins like you see at the top-right corner of this blog. In order to get to the exact result you probably need to be an expect in HTML.
The buggy & slow Wordpress web interface led me over time to develop a clunky process – I used to write my drafts using MS Word (including spell check and proof read). I would then copy and paste the text into Notepad (so the rich-formatting from Word will not be preserved – otherwise I will have to switch to HTML mode inside Wordpress and clean all formatting). From Notepad I would then paste the non-formatted text into Wordpress. Then I would add links and photos/videos, preview the draft, switch again to edit mode and fix whatever formatting needs to get fixed, preview again and finally post.
A few days ago I installed Window Live Writer and it instantly became my primary blogging device. I must say that I am impressed with this simple productivity tool. It took me two minutes to setup the tool and connect it to my blog, including downloading the blog’s template and categories (once thing it does not allow is to create new categories), so now I can preview posts easily, instantly and even when offline. Live Writer offers a WYSIWYG editor that supports many of MS Word features and more: paste in rich media content using drag and drop, spell checker with ‘add to dictionary’, insert tables and embedded maps, add tags of different services and more.
Overall, the time I spend now on writing, editing, previewing, proof reading and posting to my blog has been significantly reduced.
What a great tool from Microsoft. Highly recommended to any blogger. This is a real time saver.
Snap Shots Add-On is now available for Internet Explorer. What’s so great about it? It enhances the experience on the web sites you visit regularly and can save you a lot of wasted time by previewing the content behind the link.
What I really like about it is the fact it truly upgraded my Netvibes experience. I use Netvibes as my favorite RSS reader and with the Snap Shots Add-On I can preview any external link inside posts. In addition to Netvibes, the Snap Shots Add-On supports a wide range of sites including:
- Search engines ? Google (in any language), Yahoo (in any language), MSN Live, AOL Search, Ask, Lycos and Baidu
- Blogging platforms ? Blogger, Typepad and Vox
- Web based RSS Readers ? Netvibes, Google Reader and Bloglines
- Social Networks & Video Sharing ? Myspace, YouTube, Metacafe, Google Video, Xanga, Veoh and Revver
- Popular news and blogs sites ? Google News, Huffington Post, Drudge Report and more are on the way
- Reference sites – Wikipedia, IMDB
- e-commerce – Amazon.com
- All other web sites will get the Snap Shot functionality as long as they have links to sites associated with a “Rich Snap Shot”: Video, Wiki, Product, Photo, Stock, Audio (but not RSS or Preview)
Try it out – Download the Snap Shots Add-On for Internet Explorer or FireFox
The art director and designer Edwin Tofslie collected images from most of the major design revisions Apple has made to many of their most significant products, including the Mac, Newton, iPod, Xserve and iPhone. Outstanding.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Product Evolution
CO2 Saver, a little side project we developed at Snap in order to make the world better and greener has been getting a lot of momentum recently. This morning it hit another milestone.
It was featured on ABC’s Good Morning America by Sam Champion and Zem Joaquin (green editor for House and Garden magazine and author of ecoFabulous.com) as one of the simplest things anyone can do around their work cube/desk in order to save the environment.
In case you have not done it yet, simply install CO2 Saver on your desktop computer and this lightweight application will automatically adjust your computer’s power settings (including hard drive and monitor) in order to save electricity when the computer is idle (I am sure you are familiar with those endless screensavers running forever day and night…what a waste…)
By the way, since it was launched about three months ago, C02 Saver users collectively saved almost 160,000 lbs of CO2 from being released to the atmosphere (use this calculator to convert to more conceptualized terms – trees, cars etc)
Technorati Tags: CO2 Saver, Eco-friendly
Earlier today Apple released their Q2 ‘07 numbers and announced that 270,000 iPhones were sold in the first 30 hours (!). As we approach the one month since the iPhone debut, I thought it would be a good time to post my own personal feedback based on the extensive usage I have had with this great device.
Overall, I am very pleased with my new 8GB iPhone. I find it to be a true next generation mobile multimedia device. The user interface is gorgeous and the operation is brilliant yet extremely intuitive (you should see how my 3.5 years old son zooms in/out or slips between photos).
BTW, the presence of the iPhone in my hands made me think of some the fascinating work I did together with a small group of Israeli geeks on the Galleo mobile-multimedia-communicator in the years 2000-2001 (back then there was no such thing as Blackberry or Trio). Similar to the iPhone, the Galleo was a Unix/Linux operated device with a wide variety of applications including a fully functional web browser (Opera), MP3 player, Camera, Email, Instant Messenger (Jabber) and more. The zooming application though was not as slick as the iPhone’s…anyway, enough with the nostalgia and back to the review.
As I use the iPhone I try to take notes (using the built in Notes application of course) of any missing/broken/limited feature I come across. Here?s the current state of that list. Hopefully someone at Apple will read this post and add the items below to their product roadmap:
- Phone
- Voice-activated dialing (even my old Nokia 6102i supports this)
- Ring tones & Video tones – turn the first 5-30 seconds of an MP3 file to a ring tone, turn recorded video clip (see Video below) to a video tone
- Call log
- Delete selected numbers from call logs (missed, made, received). The current functionality lets me delete all the records at once. This is too aggressive
- Improve call time resolution. Currently calls made/received/missed get a week day resolution if they happened prior to today (Yesterday, Sunday, Friday, Thursday?). Only today?s calls show the exact time. So for example, if someone calls me at 10pm I will see ?Yesterday? if I look at the call look after midnight
- Missed calls are colored in Red but there is no visual indicator to differentiate between calls made and received
- Contacts ? Add keyword search (with RAT – Refine As you Type)
- Camera ? Digital zoom, night mode, size & quality options
- Video- Capture video clips, make video conference calls if/when on a fast connection (Wi-Fi)
- Keyboard ? Improve the predictive text application (Apple should take a look at T9)
- Spell checker? Add to applications like SMS, email & notes
- Clipboard ? Add Copy, Cut and Paste capabilities (at least for text)
- MS Exchange support
- Contacts and Calendar sync
- Inbox sync – It?s a real waist of time to delete emails twice ? first on the iPhone and then on Outlook. Unfortunately, I have been doing that a lot lately
- Push mail – Currently I have my iPhone set to auto-check every 15 minutes and this wastes the battery. Pushing mail only when there is a new message will help preserve the battery
- Photos
- Create photo albums
- Select multiple photos and email then together
- Games – Imagine playing Snake using your fingers
- Maps
- Voice recognition & Text to speech – Both are key features to improve safety while driving. This functionality is pretty standard in GPS systems built into cars. I should be able to instruct the iPhone for new destinations. I should also be able to hear the directions instead of pressing on the little arrows that appear at the top of the Maps application and trying to read the little text
- Add Highways/Avoid Highways modes
- Add GPS – use Multilateration to estimate phone location based on signals received from cell towers
- Instant messaging? Web based IM applications such as eBuddy or Beejive developed special versions for the iPhone form factor and I would rate their experience as less than OK. However, it is essential to have a native Jabber/Trillian type of application fully integrated with other applications like Contacts, ring tones, camera and more. This way I could be constantly online even when my iPhone is in standby mode
- Hebrew support? This is one of the most critical problem for me. I read a lot of websites in Hebrew, I receive emails written in Hebrew and have a large library of songs with Hebrew ID3 tags. iPhone’s lack of Hebrew support prevents me from reading those websites and emails and forces me to go back to my PC to do that. Also, I can not imaging editing ID3 tags for my entire Hebrew iTunes library just to get them onto my iPhone (for my iPod I solved this using iPodHeb but they do not support iPhones). This is a real pain!
And the last one,
- Configuration via PC ? The activation process Apple & AT&T came up with is a true revolution from my perspective. It completely changes the way people buy and activate cell phones. When I bought my pervious Cingular phone over 3 years ago, I spent over an hour at the store filling paperwork, waiting for the sales rep to call the support center to activate my number and more. Getting the iPhone to work took me less than 10 minutes (3 minutes buying the device at the Apple store and another 5 minutes in front of my PC going through the simple activation wizard). Now, if iTunes is the place to setup, activate & synchronize the iPhone, why not make it also the place to configure it? After all, it would be much easier to configure email accounts or type Wi-Fi networks password using a regular keyboard…
That’s all for now, I will keep taking notes as I use the iPhone.
I will end with a good news and a bad one. The bad news ? there is no software update yet. The good news ? all of the above (and more) can be fixed via a software update. I look forward to it.
I just came back from the Apple store on Colorado Avenue. As of 2pm there are approximately 100 people in a well organized line waiting to put thier hand on a shiny iPhone.
The reps could not answer how many units they are going to have in stock but I have a feeling there will be plenty available. Was the “get in line” hype over exaggerated? We will see in a few hours.
btw, one thing I do not understand is why ebay buyers are willing to pay over $200 premium!?
Myspace officially released their desktop IM. The question is does the world really need another major IM network, especially if it takes a walled garden approach?
“Fox estimates that more than 17 million users have installed the service”. Is there a reason they did not report the number of active users? Is it related to the fact that the product is a generation behind the competition and supports only text conversations, without the ability to do video/audio calls or file sharing?
You might have noticed that some of the links on my blog that previously displayed a PreviewShot (image of the linked web site) now display RSS information from the linked site. This new capability is called RSS Shot and it’s the latest improvement & enhancement that we added to the Snap Shots product.
This is how it works in plain words:
- An Expanded View would show if the link is to a specific article or to a blog post permalink
- An Excerpts View would show if the link is to a site that has an RSS feed accosiated with it. Typically you will see 2-4 headlines depends on the size of the bubble
A more detailed & technical description is avlaiable on the Snap blog.
The more I use it I find it more and more useful. In many cases it is faster for me to visit hover over the links on my site’s blogroll and see thier latest headlines than to launch an RSS reader (Netvibes has become really slow for me lately, not sure why). What do you think?
I received today an invitation to join Jaiku from Jason. Considering Twitter’s latest outages I though I’d give a try despite the pain in setting up a new online-mobile friends’ network. So, I began the sign up process & immediately liked it:
- First, Jaiku comes out of Finland, a pioneer in mobile technologies and services and the homeland of Nokia, my favorite handset manufacture
- The UI of the signup process is very clean and minimalist
- Super simple account setup process built as a 3 step wizard
But then I received the txt message with the activation code and was surprised to see that it came from the number 011467374940501. I then realized that Jaiku currently offers a short code that works only in Finland (17273). Users from all other countries would have to use an international SMS number (cost would be about $0.20 per message). To me this is a major adoption barrier. True, Jaiku offers a J2ME version for Nokia Series 60 phones that uses data plans and not SMS, but how many users have these types of phones?
Beyond the signup process, the Jaiku web site has a few neat features and overall I find the Jaiku product offering much more complete than Twitter. Two things that I like most:
- The ability to add different feeds (RSS feed of your blog, flickr page, video, bookmarks and more) under you account. Once you do that your contacts will automatically receive notification whenever a new item is being posted to any of those feeds, meaning that activity level on the site compared to Twitter is much higher. This feature could get improved if Jaiku would integrate with TinyURL to automatically convert long URLS of any of these feeds to TinyURL ones and send those out. When they will do that this would turn from a good feature to a killer one.
- The power of Previews – being able to preview the latest message sent by people just by rolling over their thumbnail. Did someone say Snap Shots!
Bottom line - A good looking product with some strong features but a pricey way to broadcast status from mobile & no built-in ability to use an IM client to broadcast status (to do that I would have to use a 3rd party product like Anothr or IMified).
Until Jaiku would offer a US short code I do not see this becoming my main status notification service (and probably this would prevent them from becoming a serious competitor to Twitter in the north-american market), which means I would still have to keep seeing the cat making thingz better.
Or maybe I should use both and monitor them together using Twitku.
