Show Notes for GreerMUG November 2006

Tim's Power Tips.

Pre-Tip survey from Tim: Tim's RSS screen saver has broken - he
thinks his Palm Pilot sync software is the culprit. Has anyone else
loaded the Pilot sync software and had problems? Yes, no, not really
exactly like Tim. Okay, just asking.

Power Tip #1
Safari. It's a great browser, but do you know how much you can do from the keyboard? Lots of keyboard support means we don't have to keep reaching for that mouse.

Shameless Plug Alert! To demonstrate, Tim logs in to HIS CHURCH'S website. Look at this screen, here's a field where Tim can add a note. (Starts to add a note.) He's using Tab to move from field to field. On a drop-down combo box he can use the down arrow key to open the combobox and the Enter key to select a choice, and move to the next field on the webpage. He then encountered a rather lengthy Drop DownMenu and used "Follow Me Typing" to select the item. Like magic the cursor jumped to the correct position as he typed and then pressed Enter. In summary, one can make quick and easy work of filling in Web-based forms by staying with the keyboard!

Power Tip #2
Tonight's Power Tip #2 is really an introduction to Web 2.0.

What is Web 2.0? No one knows for sure because it isn't something that was created by one company. But it is an integration of many technologies on the internet. And somewhere along the way, this integration took on the name Web 2.0, and it kinda stuck. Tim solicits input from the members, so what is Web 2.0? Members:
AJAX, mashup's, other web services. That's right. Essentially Web 2.0 is an integration which combines existing technologies in brand new ways.

Tim decides to demonstrate Web 2.0 by showing us a browser called Flock. (Beta warning. Flock is fairly stable, but it is still in beta so there may be problems if you decide to download and use it.) So, what makes Flock a web 2.0 browser? Well, let's look at Search. One of the things people use the net for is search. Search, search, search. We search all the time. Look at how Flock does it! As Tim begins to type, the searching begins IMMEDIATELY! As you continue to type the search results narrow themselves down. It's called Live Search.

How about the Bookmark Bar?

Have you ever run out of room on your bookmark bar? Crowd says, Oh yeah. Wouldn't it be neat if you not only never ran out of room, but you could customize your bar according to what you are working on? Flock can do it! It gives you multiple bookmark bars. You can group your bookmarks into categories and pull them up as you need them.
Just a click away. Not unlike the idea of Spaces that's coming out in Leopard.

What about photos and the web?

Everybody in the audience takes digital photos. Have you heard of Flickr ? Tim also mentioned Photobucket for image sharing. Tim uses Flickr, which is free except for the Pro account which is $24.95. Wouldn't it be fun if you could interact with your photos and do it through your web browser? With Flock you can. Flickr is integrated right into the browser. Click on the Pix icon and it takes you directly to your Flickr account. This is what we mean by Web 2.0 integration. Cool.

What about RSS?

Really Simple Syndication (Safari has it built-in, too.) RSS is what really makes newsfeeds work. It stands for Really Simple Syndication.Hmmm, maybe there's a better way. Web 2.0 integrates feeds directly into the browser. It's more attractive and easier to work with (in Tim's most humble opinion.)

At Tim's blog which he maintains for us MUG members, he uses three different pieces of software to maintain that blog, but look at Flock!It's Web 2.0 designed for interaction with blogs! Flock, meet blog. Blog, meet Flock. Just click the Blog icon. Flock launches a window with the article in it. When you first set up Flock, it will ask if you have a blog. If so, you can set it up at that point for Flock to interact with it.What if Tim wants to share some of his photos in his blog? (Whoa, you mean now we're mixing photos and blogs?) Drag a photo in there and add text, a link, and boom, it's so easy.

Tip within a tip: tab moves forward through fields, shift-tab moves backwards through fields.

All of this built right into the browser.

Thanks, Tim, for a great introduction into what they mean (whoever THEY are) by Web 2.0. Want to try Flock for yourself? http://www.flock.com/download/