Eddy Respondek’s Posterous

Using Google Wave as a Notebook

I've been searching for a decent notebook tool since the demise of Google Notebook and I have never liked Evernote enough to make the change. Interestingly Google Wave might be a good alternative solution. The trick is to remember that Google Wave is not a straight email or IM service but a rather a ongoing, always editable, collaborative document. And who says you need to collaborate with anybody else!

So how do I do it? Simple. I create a new Wave (document) which becomes my new notebook on a particular subject. I can add reply's to myself to form sub-sections for each new topic and inline reply's to create hints, extra notes or even to-do lists. I make sure the very first sentence of the Wave is the name of the notebook so I can visually find it in my search results. I tag each notebook with "mynotes" and setup a saved search for any documents I create using that tag.

And that's it! If you can stick to using the same format structure for all your notebooks then you shouldn't have any problems using Google Wave as an effective notebook.

How do you use Google Wave as your personal notebook?

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Kung Fu incoming!!!

Finally got some snaps of Kung Fu! I couldn't get him to sit still long enough for a full family photo.

He's a big boy and still growing. As you can see he nearly comes up to Nicky's shoulders and I don't think he's much lighter than her either! It's always fun watching them play together.

P.S. Check out the last photo my favourite :)

         

Click here to download:

Kung_Fu_incoming.zip (2051 KB)

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New Sawitree Coffee Business Cards

Here are our new business cards. We've been using them for a couple months now and they've been very successful so far. Designed by yours truly!

   

Click here to download:

New_Sawitree_Coffee_Business_C.zip (492 KB)

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Google Wave. Shiny! (Geek Warning!)

I was originally going to post about the nauseating discussion people have been having recently about how Google Wave is somehow a competitor to Flash and Silverlight. In that it's NOT. It was so nauseating I decided not to write about it, instead I'd thought I'd mention something most of you wouldn't understand and probably find equally as nauseating!

I discovered on Wikipedia that the name Google Wave comes from one of my favorite TV shows Firefly where a "wave" is the futures version of a text message and words like "good" have been replaced with "shiny". Also when the Wave crashes it displays the quote "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" which I really, really hope they keep when it's finally released.

To me this is extremely cool and makes me never want to doubt Google ever again :)

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Alexa Sparky update stalls Firefox 3.5 RC3 on Mac OS X until website finishes loading

If you've just updated to the latest Alexa Sparky add-on on Firefox 3.5 RC3 then I recommend disabling it if you notice websites stalling FF until it finishes loading completely. If a website won't finish loading for whatever reason then you'll have to quit FF altogether to get it to work again. This is not tested on any other OS or FF version. Let me know if you discover the same problem.

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it feels like a real cafe now with staff uniforms... check out the logo. Cool!

Modeled by Tum, Nong, & Cat

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Q. HTML 5: Could it kill Flash and Silverlight? A. Yes and IE too!

Continuing the discussion - HTML 5: Could it kill Flash and Silverlight?, via http://blog.skitsanos.com/2009/06/html-5-could-it-kill-flash-and.html

HTML 5 won't only kill Flash or Silverlight but it could also kill IE's dominance in the browser market altogether and well ahead of the projected timeline if it continues to treat customers, developers, and more importantly web standards in general with indifference. As browser vendors such as Mozilla, Apple, Opera and Google continue to implement HTML 5 features seemingly quicker than WHATWG can make a recommendation for it, it clearly shows peoples desire for a more dynamic web experience. After all it's been well over a decade since the original HTML and we are still used to websites being mostly static pages.

Flash and Silverlight have several problems that new features of HTML 5 effectively solve. I won't get into the details here as they have been endlessly debated over the internet for the last year, you can Google it if you like but many will argue that Flash and Silverlight work just as well. Frankly most suggestions are complicated work-arounds and at the end of the day it's just not as simple or as integrated as doing it directly in HTML 5.

As these new experiences blossom on the web and word of mouth spreads (as Mozilla and the developer community have proven work so effectively) people will start asking why they can't do that on their IE browser. I get the sense there is a genuine ground swell of support for HTML 5 with more sophisticated demo's being produced on a nearly daily basis and eager developers who are looking to experience that excitement and passion they once felt for the web when they first started in the industry and when it wasn't "just a job".

I've been tracking development of HTML 5 via the WHATWG mailing list for sometime and if you want a say in the furture of HTML 5 or just want to keep abreast of developments I strongly suggest you join their mailing list. While I agree HTML 5 is definitely a step in the right direction I also believe it should not be overshadowing the efforts of XHTML 2 which is a another blog topic entirely. However the future of the web is indeed a bright one but it could also, as many have been predicting, be one without a dominant Microsoft.

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Sawitree Coffee Logo

Some of you have already seen the Sawitree Coffee logo from our newly opened cafe but I thought I'd post it again along with a few details.

The logo was created by Douglas Vitkauskas of vtks.com.br. I found Douglas while searching for some fonts for a project I was working on. Not only does he do awesome fonts but also logo's and you should especially check out his silk-screen's. What's unique about this is that Douglas hails from Brazil half a world away and we've never met except over email. After presenting my brief he showed great professionalism and good dialog over the course of the project despite the fact that English was his second language. This was also advantageous because the exchange rate of Brazil is comparable to Thailand's. I will be using Douglas's services sometime in future without a doubt.

It goes to show with a little bit of research and if you keep the lines of communication open there's absolutely no reason not to hire someone who freelances from overseas for your next project.

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