i’ve browsed the library of modules (94 modules at last count).
i’ve added some modules (with one click) to my netvibes page.

one modules that i particularly like was the “Web Search” module.

at first glance, the name alone doesn’t appear very impressive. in fact, some particularly astute observers might say: “hey, that’s nothing special. doesn’t the default netvibes page already include a search google, yahoo, icerocket, wikipedia?”.

what make this modules different, and the reason i thought it might be a useful addition to my netvibes page is because it lets you add any search engine. not just the 4 search engines mentioned above. what’s more (and this was the kicker for me), if you can make sense of “search query urls“, you can create any number of refined, or specialized searches for any given search engine.

For example, let’s say i wanted to search del.icio.us from my netvibes page using the Web Search module:

The first thing i would do is go to the actual del.icio.us site and enter a search term like “technews” into their search box. Once you land on the results page, take a look at the URL in the addressbar of your browser.

In this case, i get the following url in the addressbar on the results page:

http://del.icio.us/search/?all=technews

Note that the term i used “technews” appears in the URL (at the very end).

Congratulations, you’ve just figured out the logic behind a basic del.icio.us search and can now make sense of “search query urls”.

The only thing left to do now is replace the search term “technews” with the symbol %s so that the newly modified URL reads as follows:

http://del.icio.us/search/?all=%s

Paste this new URL into the Web Search module to complete the configuration and hit save. You can now search del.icio.us from your netvibes page.

i also added technorati search in a similar way.

http://www.technorati.com/tags/%s

(in case anyone was wondering).

obviously, the very first thing you need to do is add the actual “Web Search” module to your netvibes page before you can configure it to use new search engines, but the entire process went relatively smoothly for me.

also, you could probably add more specific custom searches, as i mentioned earlier in this post.
for instance, searching tags for specific users of del.icio.us or the “blog search” feature in technorati could be configured (just apply the same steps taken above).

to end my experience, i added my entire “technews” tab to the ecosystem to be shared with all netvibes users but there was a message about it needing to be validated before it becomes available to all users. [ Update: It didn't actually take very long to validate and my "TechNews" tab can be seen on the "Tabs" page of the netvibes ecosystem, with all the other shared tabs. ]

so until then (it might already be validated – i haven’t checked in a few hours) and to end this post i’ll add the code i got to let visitors add my “technews” tab to their Netvibes page.

here goes..

if you click on the button, it will add a bunch of tech related sites to your netvibes page as a new tab. your existing tabs will remain undisturbed. so enjoy!

This is just another small round up of Web 2.0 softwares that i can think of off the top of my head. Hopefully, i haven’t forgotten too many, but it’s only getting harder and harder to keep up with all these new sites and services. So i am going to try and keep this list updated as new web based services spring up to fill this relatively new market. Any suggestions for web-based softwares i may have overlooked are welcome.

The 3 main areas of the traditional Office Desktop Suite are: Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Calendar. Some would argue that Presentation software (like PowerPoint) should be included in there somewhere, i’m just not one of them.

The modern Web-based Desktop equivalents are:

Word Processors -

• Writely
• Zohowriter
• Writeboard
• RallyPoint
• AjaxWrite

Spreadsheets -

• Num Sum
• ZohoSheet
• Ajaxxls
• Numbler
• iRows
• Tracker
• EditGrid
• Google Spreadsheets

Calendars -

• Google Calendar
• Kiko
• 30boxes
• Calendarhub

Here’s a breakdown of all the new features added or upgraded since my previous post:

1. Compatibility with Opera web browser [ December 12, 2005 ]
2. To Do list module – i love this one – [ December 30, 2005 ]
3. Yahoo mail module – similar to the Gmail module – [ January 2, 2006 ]
4. Gmail module upgrade – set a title and no. of items to display – [ January 2, 2006 ]
5. To Do list upgraded – set a title and color, and more – [ January 2, 2006 ]
6. POP IMAP module – secure connections, webmail URL, more – [ January 2, 2006 ]
7. RSS module upgraded – set a color for each feed – [ January 2, 2006 ]

You’ll notice that all but the first 2 features/upgrades were actually added on the same day. i am consistently impressed with the rate at which Netvibes puts out new modules. it seems they’re really on to something here. i’m sure that there’s definitely room for many more interesting modules in the near future.

On a side note, i remember when the Gmail module was first added to Netvibes. At the time, i didn’t even have a Gmail account yet. Back then i was thinking to myself, i wish Netvibes had that feature for Yahoo Mail. It’s funny, because now that they do offer the Yahoo Mail module, i realized that yahoo.com domains don’t get free POP access (although apparently many international yahoo domains do. – ie: yahoo.fr) – so i wouldn’t have been able to use the module even if it was available, and i still can’t use it. Here’s to hoping that Yahoo catches on to this problem, because this is not the first time i’ve had the opportunity to access my POP account from a different web based service/software and haven’t been able to. As i have mentioned before, i am slowly moving over to from Yahoo Mail to Gmail – and no POP access is one of my main reasons for doing this. i know that Yahoo Mail is in the process of getting a complete overhaul, but this is all happening behind the scenes and i’m just not sure how much longer i can wait.

Anyway, i’ll probably set up the POP IMAP module and test it out next. i’ve already been using the To Do list module for a little while and find that this is a great addition to the Netvibes content set. I’ve always felt that a full-blown desktop app for something as trivial as a To Do list was overkill. Here’s the perfect solution. Overall, there are probably a lot more situations like this involving bloated softwares, etc. And i think that if the folks at Netvibes can keep this in mind, they’ll likely find inspiration for many more modules. Nevertheless, from the looks of things, i get the impression they aren’t having too many problems in the inspiration department.

For more info and all the latest news you can visit the Netvibes blog.

Count ‘em, 4 new features added to NetVibes in the last 7 days – now that’s just impressive.

I’ve actually been casually using netvibes to for simple stuff like checking the weather and comparing prices between 2 similar products (like ipod nano vs. ipod mini prices). I also had a few RSS feeds loaded up just for convenience and a couple of notes in the “webnote” section.

But the following New Improvements finally got me to sign up:

1. Managing your Feeds (i wasn’t going to add feeds if i couldn’t move, rename, or delete them – it would just get too disorganized)
2. OPML import/export (i think the import feature may have been around all along but the export is new)
3. New Webnote features (being able to give each note a title makes them easy to spot and making hyperlinks clickable/live lets me add quick links to the side of my page)
4. The Bookmark Module (just added, this module lets you add or import your bookmarks as well as tag them for easy browsing later on)

I especially like the “alternative use” for the tag list area described on the netvibes blog. Using this technique you can pick from your existing tags instead of re-typing commonly used tags over and over again. This is similar to the way you can pick tags in del.icio.us and is a huge time saver for me.

Other Features in the Works to look out for include:

1. the Stock Quotes module
2. the Flickr module [ update: this feature was added on Dec. 8/05 and it looks pretty cool. ]
3. the ToDo List module [ update: this feature was added on Dec. 30/05 and is also cool. ]

There are a lot more features on the way that i haven’t even mentioned here but you can visit their blog to get more info.

The best part about netvibes is that you get an enormous amount of control over your personal page without ever having to register, fill in an email address, pick a username/password, or any of that jazz. The result is, you can’t help but customize it, reorganize it, and sort of grow attached to it. So much so, that i eventually begin to worry about accidentally clearing my browser cache and losing “all that work” in the blink of an eye. As soon as that happened, wouldn’t you know it.. i found myself right back on the sign up page looking to fill out that blasted registration form. doh.

On the upside, i can now login to my netvibes page from anywhere with an internet connection. Oh, and i can finally clear my cache.

[ For more on Netvibes, you can read my most recent article entitled: "Netvibes is on the move again." ]

The first distro is called SLAX -

From their website:

“SLAX is a small bootable CD containing the Linux operating system. It runs Linux directly from the CD (or USB) without installing. The Live CD described here is based on the Slackware Linux distribution and uses Unification File System (also known as unionfs), allowing read-only filesystem to behave as a writable one, saving all changes to memory.”

What this means is that anyone can run this CD and test out Linux without making any changes to their hard drive, or otherwise affecting their current Windows based machine. Take out the CD and reboot, and everything is back to normal.

The second distro is called XPde –

From their website:

“XPde is a complete desktop environment for Linux on x86. It tries to make easier for Windows XP users to use a Linux box. Nothing more, no clipboard compatibility between Gtk and Qt applications, no emulation of Windows applications, no unification on the widgets of X applications, just a desktop environment.”

XPde is made to look, as much as possible, like Windows XP. The idea was to ease the transition from Windows to Linux by designing an operating system that was visually familiar, with none of the extra things that might overwhelm a new user.

The third distro is called PC-BSD –

From their website:

“PC-BSD has as its goals to be an easy to install and use desktop OS, which is built on the FreeBSD operating system. To accomplish this, it currently has a graphical installation, which will enable even UNIX novices to easily install and get it running. It will also come with KDE pre-built, so that the desktop can be used immediately.”

The BSD family of operating systems is traditionally thought of as more difficult to install and operate than others. PC-BSD hopes to break away from this commonly held misconception and address these issues directly by focusing on simplifying the user’s experience. The result is a minimalist approach, with a clean, user-friendly feel.

I think that if you’re really nervous about installing a different (not Microsoft) operating system, or you’re just moderately curious, then you might go with the SLAX bootable CD. If you’re a Windows XP user, and you’re sick of all those browser vulnerabilities and viruses, you would probably like XPde best. Otherwise, if you’re looking for speed, stability, and all the functionality of a UNIX operating system, try out PC-BSD.

I thought it would be a good idea to make a list that compared Windows to Linux softwares, side-by-side. That way, i could describe the difference between the two operating systems in terms that people were already familiar with. Try Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, Open Office instead of Microsoft Office, Thunderbird instead of Outlook Express.. and so on.

All of these alternative softwares are free to download (there’s a good reason, right?) and can be installed on a system running Windows. The idea was to prepare the person for an eventual switch to Linux. So if those 3 applications are the only ones you even use, go ahead and give them a try. You too could be running a Linux desktop in the near future.

Unfortunately, these days the vast majority of Windows users demand a lot more out of their desktop systems. When comparing softwares for things like sound, gaming, viewing dvds, and different graphics editors – there may not always be a clear Linux alternative. I was relieved to find out that there is a site called Grokdoc that has taken on the challenge of maintaining such a list, so i guess i won’t have to. Lucky me.

If you were looking for a starting point, i would recommend the page entitled: Switching to Linux, which is a very complete step by step for first timers. It does a good job of bringing together info from many different sources. There is also a page called Application Crossover Chart, that does a side-by- side comparison of softwares with links to many Linux alternatives, but there isn’t as much description, so it is more useful to have just as a reference.

I guess i’ll end off by quoting what someone once told me when i first starting asking about Linux:

“Just read a lot.”

According to Microsoft, Windows 2000 SP4 has moved from “mainstream to extended support”. More info on the difference between these two can be found at the Microsoft Lifecycle site. What this basically means for Windows 2000 users is: no more new features, and mostly eveything other than security updates, will now cost money. While this might be alright for some people, when i think of what a mess Microsoft has made of maintaining previous versions of their OS, like Windows 98, and now the problems they’re having with the recent Windows 2000 Rollup.. let’s just say it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. It does, however, make me want to install a new operating system. I’m just not sure I want another version of Windows.

For many users, myself included, Windows XP was never a viable alternative. It seemed too flashy and new at the time. The benefits of installing it in a production environment did not outweigh the inherent risks. I don’t think business users care if you call it “home version” or “professional”, it’s still XP, and not 2K. Don’t get me wrong; XP is still an excellent upgrade from the now defunct Windows ME operating system. It’s just that i think many business users were waiting for a Windows 2003 professional. But that day never came. Windows 2003 server was released, that solved the problem for all those running Windows 2000 server, but everyone on the Windows 2000 Pro train was forced to merge with the XP crowd.

I’m not quite sure what Microsoft was thinking when it decided to lump all users into one basket of eggs. Maybe they thought that by focusing on XP, for both business and home users, they could ensure a more stable and secure operating system for all. Were they simply listening to what the majority of their user base was asking for? Did they seriously think that business users and home users were looking for the same things? Only time would tell.

Today, from my perspective, XP appears to be a veritable hacker magnet. The never-ending onslaught of security updates and patches, service packs, and still more patches has reduced this operating system into what i like to call: an accident waiting to happen. In fact, XP turned out to be no more secure or stable than windows 2000. I have yet to see a vulnerability that affects 2K and not XP. What i have seen, on the other hand, is the exact opposite… problems that affect XP and not 2K. I can’t help but wonder if LongVistahorn will offer any real improvements.

Or will it be: One step forwards, two steps back..