Software I Use, Part 2

Social networking sites are all the rage these days… MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Buzz, Foursquare, etc. For many folks, they've replaced more traditional, and in some cases, more private channels such as USENET, email, IRC, and legacy instant messaging (AIM, ICQ, Jabber, GoogleTalk, etc.). Each site uses its own web client and interface.

We end up having the same issue we had with multiple IM accounts on separate services. It was a pain in the ass to open one client for AIM, another for ICQ, another for Yahoo IM and another for MSN Messenger services. Some enterprising developers saw the need, and developed multi-protocol clients like Pidgin (Windows, Linux), Adium (Macintosh), BeeJive (smart phones), and Trillian (Windows, Macintosh, smart phones). I, like many others, immediately gravitated to the multi-protocol clients. Up to now though, there wasn't a multi-social networking client.

Enter Socialite…

Socialite brings access to many of/all your social networks into one client. It doesn't do instant messaging, but couple Socialite with Adium on a Macintosh, and you're in hog heaven. Originally Socialite was named EventBox, and was acquired while still in beta by Realmac Software, publishers of RapidWeaver. Socialite supports Facebook, Digg, Google Reader, RSS, Twitter, and Flickr. In terms of the services I use, that's the cream of social networking. LinkedIn support would be nice, and I wouldn't complain if they added AIM/ICQ, MSN Messenger, Jabber, and Yahoo Messenger support. For better or worse, Socialite only runs on a Macintosh under OS X.

Socialite has a beautifully simple and uncluttered 3 pane interface. This approach is vital to managing a lot of content, and it's quite easy with Socialite to deliver a massive amount of content into a single window. Links are passed to your default browser for handling. Socialite supports smart folders, which can be used for content filtering, and allows you to create your own simple folder structures. Smart folders can target just about any media stream (or part of a media stream) in Socialite, and are surprisingly powerful. It took me a while to realize this, which is an important dynamic of using Socialite. It's way more powerful than it might appear at first glance. I typically have one Google Reader account, 4 Twitter accounts (one with 2 very active searches running), one Facebook account, 2 RSS feeds, one Digg account (with all categories enabled), and one Flickr account enabled. There's also a HUD panel that can be configured to display the content of any content grouping. The HUD panel can even replace the main screen if desired, for a really lean look that mimics a lot of Twitter-only clients. If you set the HUD to display unread content, everything is channeled into one content stream in a single window, which can really speed up browsing, if having everything mixed up isn't a issue.

Socialite Screenshot

Twitter - Socialite is an excellent Twitter client, supporting new features like lists and the new re-tweets. You can't create lists (they must be created/modified on the Twitter web site), but you can see and use them. Twitter searches are easy, and automatically saved. You can easily remove a saved search by right-clicking on it and choosing Delete. You can also look at a Twitter user's timeline without following them by using the profile peek feature. It's a great way to keep track of someone's tweets without cluttering up your timeline. Unfortunately, the tweet function is a little flaky when accessed from the Google Reader topic list. After highlighting the feed item in the browser, it often took 2 or more attempts to get the tweet content to populate the post box. Socialite supports user selectable third party URL shortening and picture uploading. I'd like to see an option to automatically shorten a URL when composing a tweet. Socialite offers a menu command (with shortcut) but I always shorten URLs, so it's an extra step in my workflow.

Facebook - The Facebook support of Socialite is its weakest link. You can view some components of your newsfeed, but not all, and you can't post to many aspects of the service. You can update your status and comment on posts your friends make, but that's about it. Socialite does have decent integration with Facebook web site, and will launch the site when necessary. For most folks, the question would be, why use a 3rd party app when half the time you have to use the web interface anyway? In my usage scenario, I'm a light Facebook user who rarely posts, so I'm okay with Socialite's Facebook support.

Digg - I found Socialite to offer pretty much everything I want from Digg. I just want to view summaries, and only visit (via Digg's site) those items I choose to read more fully. Unfortunately, it's a two step process, although no fault of Socialite's. You leave Socialite to launch Digg in the browser, and then once you're on Digg, you have to click on the source link to actually view the content. Not much way to get around this, I'd suspect, but I'd really like to go directly to the source. I use Digg like an information fire hose. I don't care much about "digging" or "burying" stuff.

Flickr - Socialite's Flickr support is limited to viewing friends pictures, and/or having a sample of Flickr pictures repopulate over a defined interval. It's quite basic, but fits my needs. I have no need for uploading to Flickr from Socialite, but it would be nice to be able to comment on a friend's upload.

Google Reader - The Google Reader functionality in Socialite is the equal of its Twitter functionality. In other words, it's very good. It seamlessly syncs with the Google mother ship, keeping read/unread status up to date. Socialite doesn't support Google Reader's sharing feature, but I don't use it, so I don't miss it. The Google Reader support enables me to use Reeder on my iPhone and keep things completely synced between desktop and phone. If you've toggled on the "hide read items" functionality, be prepared to have a feed post disappear if you're reading it when an automatic refresh occurs. It can be quite annoying. (Update: the latest builds of Socialite seem to have fixed the post "disappearing" issue.)

RSS - The RSS support is handy for those feeds that aren't supported by Google Reader, namely authenticated feeds.

Realmac keeps polishing and improving Socialite, currently at version 1.2.2. With every update, I use Socialite as my default RSS reader and Twitter client for a bit, and then go back to the venerable NetNewsWire and various Twitter clients. I want to use Socialite, but a couple of things keep me from staying with it. It's very slow to launch with my accounts. And although it's snappy enough once loaded, when I'm browsing/reading information the automatic updates can bring it to a halt. If I'm doing anything, and one of the Twitter accounts updates, Socialite effectively freezes until the update is complete.

I intend to keep checking out each Socialite update. One of these days, I'm expecting it to become my default social media client.

http://www.realmacsoftware.com/socialite/

Music Over a Lifetime, Part 2

As a kid, I listened to what was playing on the AM radio, and as I got older, I sought out album oriented rock FM stations. FM 100 in Memphis, TN was amazing in the early 70's. I first heard Wishbone Ash when they did an in studio mini-concert. From the first licks of "Time Was", I was hooked. The dual lead guitar approach was amazing. I might have heard other bands with twin leads (the Allman Brothers Band comes to mind), but nobody did it better than Andy Powell and Ted Turner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishbone_Ash

Since I was living in a very small town in west Tennessee, finding the LPs of new and/or non-mainstream artists was quite a challenge. Whenever I was in Memphis I'd always seek out a record shop to browse for those "list" items I couldn't find at K-Mart locally. I'd start with the A's, and flip through every bin looking to see what I could find. It wasn't uncommon for me to spend a few hours in a shop browsing. I had some great conversations with the sales folks in those shops. The typical worker in a record store of the day was a real music enthusiast.

Software I Use, Part 1

I've been thinking about doing a series of posts about software I use, or have used, why I use it, and what I like/dislike about it.

Let's get a little background information on my computing environment out of the way. I use a Macintosh as my primary machine. To be specific, I have a first generation black Macbook purchased in September 2006. It's a 2 GHz Core Duo model running OS X 10.6, with 2 GB of RAM, and a 500 GB hard disk (upgraded from the original 80 GB hard drive). So I don't have a bleeding edge wicked fast new Mac. I'm more like dragging up the back end. :) Once we get away from the main unit, my laptop-based desktop setup gets a little more unusual, primarily in the amount of storage I have attached to the unit. I have a 4-bay 2nd generation Drobo hooked up via FireWire 400 populated with two 1 TB drives, and two 500 GB drives. I have a FireWire 400 connected 500 GB LaCie Big Disk I use for a SuperDuper image of the MacBook's 500 GB internal drive. I also have a 500 GB LaCie Porsche USB 2 drive, and three 1 TB Western Digital Elements USB 2 drives. One of the Elements drives is my Time Machine drive. I use a Samsung 20" widescreen monitor, an Apple wireless keyboard, and Apple wireless Magic Mouse. I have a Klipsch Promedia 2.1 speaker system for music and video, and a Sennheiser PC151 (with USB connector) headset for voice calls and private listening. I also have a 16GB iPhone 3G that's part of my technology package, and I mention it here because the iPhone definitely impacts my choice of desktop software because of a desire to access the same information across the two platforms.

That sets the table. With Part 2, we'll present our first application on the list, Socialite.

(Update: LaCie Big Disk died. These units have proven pretty flaky, based on my personal experience and that of several folks I know)

(Update: 16 GB iPhone 4 replaced iPhone 3G)

(Update: Apple Magic Trackpad added)

State Of Life

What is our state of life...as in "state of the union", or "state of mind"? Is it about what we think, what others think, or what God thinks? We often tie our dreams to some yardstick we apply to ourselves, in those moments of reflection when we measure our accomplishments and failures. Persons of faith would say it's about God's judgement, while mystics and agnostics would find comfort in other mechanisms for examining our soul's net worth.

Introspection

Often, but not often enough to sustain clarity, after a day or so of feeling sorry for myself about some aspect of my life (if not the whole thing), I'll begin to get a whiff of my own cooking, and realize that for everything negative I can find in my life, there are countless folks out there who have far greater challenges than I. I also manage to uncover a long list of blessings I conveniently overlook on those self indulgent moments. Even a blind man sees life more clearly than I do at times.