What is a browser?
Mar 8th
I just remembered this video today. It’s a great look at what people think a browser is. It’s incredible how many people confuse a browser with a search engine.
Now that the browser ballot has come into effect in the EU, will this lead people to be more educated about what a browser is? The browser ballot page has no information as to what a browser is and what it is for. As the video shows, many people are ignorant on the subject. Choosing a good browser is not something easy for those that have no idea what this is.
What would you do to increase awareness on web browsers and other important Internet technologies most users ignore?
Mis posts de esta semana en HogarGeek
Mar 8th
Google adquiere el editor de imágenes online Picnik
Mira películas enteras legalmente en YouTube
Esta semana también renovamos el sitio, con nuevo logo y nuevas secciones para reviews de hardware y eventos. No olvides visitarlo, seguirlo en Twitter, y agregarlo a tu RSS reader.
My Opera Rant
Mar 4th
Oh, Opera… You are the browser that standardized tabbed browsing, new tab pages, browser synching, and so many more innovative features. You are one of the fastest and most standards-compliant browsers. You are the browser that pushes development of other browsers forward. Yet you can barely break 2% market adoption. Why is that? Why, for a browser first launched 8 years before Firefox and only one year after Internet Explorer?
Opera, you don’t need to sue Microsoft to gain market share. Firefox, a browser just 6 years old, has reached 20+%. Chrome, which is less than two years old, is pushing on 6%. You might say, “But Google has funds for marketing!” But what about Mozilla? Firefox is the second largest browser, and it is made and managed by a company a third of the size of Opera Software.
Opera, your desktop business model doesn’t work. If you need the EU to force users into changing browsers so you can gain market share, you’re doing it wrong. You need to expand your user base not only by creating great new features, which you do all the time, but also by advertising them. Your main weakness, Opera, is that nobody knows about you.
On its launch day, Firefox posted a full-page ad in the New York Times. Both Chrome and Firefox have launched TV and viral ad campaigns like Spread Firefox and Firefox Flicks. Google has advertised Chrome in its most prominent products like YouTube.
Firefox arrived at a time when everybody was starting to get sick of IE. You never took advantage of that. Chrome arrived at a time when everybody was starting to get sick of Firefox. You didn’t take advantage of that either. Yet, when the EU says that Microsoft has to do advertising for you, you quickly whip up a shiny new version and thank the EU for tripling your downloads.
I’m disappointed, Opera, that such a good browser has such a little market share because you refuse to do real advertising. Let’s hope this new surge is market share the browser ballot might bring will change the way you look at the market and your users.
Three Facebook wall features Twitter should have
Feb 28th
Twitter is growing faster every day as a new player in the social media field, an area already heavily occupied with big players like Facebook. Twitter has one big thing to its advantage: its simplicity. Twitter is public by default and is extremely simple to use: just say what’s happening in 140 characters or less. However, Twitter is lacking some key features other social networking sites, notably Facebook, have had for a long time now. Here are the three I think are most important for Twitter to implement.
Easier importing items from external feeds
Facebook has a feature that lets you import external feeds from YouTube, Google Reader, Digg, and more directly into your wall, without using any third party apps. This is also the main feature of another service, FriendFeed, which is now owned by Facebook, and Google’s new Buzz. This way, your online activity from other sites is easily imported.
With Twitter, the only way to achieve this is by using third party services like Twitterfeed, which, although powerful, are by no means easy for a new user. Twitter needs a way to show your activity in other sites as easily as entering your user name of the external site, just like Facebook.
Inline comments and responses
Following a Twitter conversation is almost impossible. @replies work, but keeping track of a conversation with multiple people quickly becomes a chore. Facebook, however, allows inline comments to host a centralized conversation on a topic. This way, people can comment on the post, answer questions, and share their thoughts on the topic very easily. Buzz and FriendFeed also have this feature.
Posted links preview
This is not only more convenient, but also safer than just putting a shortenned link at the end of the post. Before clicking on the link, the user has information on the name of the page and a small snippet of its content. If the posted story is a photo, Facebook will show a thumbnail. If it is a video, Facebook will allow you to play it inline. This can also lead to better safety online as knowing where the link goes may reduce phishing scams.
So that’s my take on the features Twitter should implement to mature more as a social network. Do you agree or disagree? What new features would you like in Twitter? Leave a comment!
Mis posts de esta semana en HogarGeek
Feb 28th
Cómo hacer una extensión de Chrome, Parte 1: Básicos
Nunca olvides nada con Remember the Milk
¿Crees ser un experto en Linux? Intenta Suicide Linux
Convierte cualquier página web en música con CodeOrgan
DSi XL sale en Norteamérica en marzo por $190 USD
Cómo hacer una extensión de Chrome, Parte 2: Opciones y localStorage
HogarGeek, tu fuente de noticias, reviews y tips de tecnología en español
Feb 26th
Como ya se deben haber dado cuenta, esta semana inicié como contribuidora en HogarGeek, un blog de noticias, tips y reviews de tecnología. De ahora en adelante, publicaré ahí todos mis posts en español sobre noticias tech, tips geek y programación, incluyendo traducciones de mis tutoriales de desarrollo de Chrome.
¡Los espero ahí! No olvides agregar HogarGeek a tus bookmarks y tu RSS Reader y seguir a @hogargeek en Twitter.
Code snippet: Get a weather condition using Python and Google Weather API
Feb 19th
Here’s a simple Python code snippet for finding the weather condition of any given city using Google’s Weather API. It’s also published on GitHub if you want to clone it.
import urllib2
def getWeather(city):
#create google weather api url
url = "http://www.google.com/ig/api?weather=" + urllib2.quote(city)
try:
# open google weather api url
f = urllib2.urlopen(url)
except:
# if there was an error opening the url, return
return "Error opening url"
# read contents to a string
s = f.read()
# extract weather condition data from xml string
weather = s.split("<current_conditions><condition data=\"")[-1].split("\"")[0]
# if there was an error getting the condition, the city is invalid
if weather == "<?xml version=":
return "Invalid city"
#return the weather condition
return weather
def main():
while True:
city = raw_input("Give me a city: ")
weather = getWeather(city)
print(weather)
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
Update: GitHub is awesome because it allows very easy forking. Beau Martínez has made a fork of my script that includes Python 3 support, XML parsing instead of RegEx searching, and temperature reporting.
What does ‘limitedmage’ mean?
Feb 8th
This question was asked to me on Formspring. You can go to my profile and ask me anything.
I used to play board games and Age of Empires in Zone.com (now MSN Games) and I onced changed my email and had to create a new profile. All my usual usernames were taken, so the site recommended some from a random list of adjective-noun pairs. One stood out among the list: “LimitedMage”. It’s unique (Google it and you only get results related to me) and I like to think of it as cool and bad-ass.
I kept using my other regular usernames (julip and julipena) for a few years, but eventually limitedmage stuck. I still use my other names for some sites (eg. http://digg.com/users/julip), but most of my online profiles now use what I consider to be my online identity.
In recent years I’ve decided to tone it down a little and use my real name for more serious stuff. For this reason, both my blog (http://julianapena.com/) and my Facebook profile (http://www.facebook.com/juliana.pena) use my real name instead.
New version of Postponer, now with Google Reader integration!
Feb 5th
I’ve released a new version of Postponer, my Google Chrome extensions for managing your Read It Later reading list. The best new feature is Google Reader integration. Now an icon will appear next to article titles so you can add the article directly to your reading list, similar to the official Firefox extension.
The Google Reader icon is fully customizable and you can modify its behavior in the new Postponer Adder options page.
You can get Postponer at its project page. As always, feedback is well received; if you find a bug or want a new feature, please report it.
Help me translate ChromeMilk and Postponer
Feb 2nd
Google has sent me an email asking me to translate my extensions using the new Chrome Extensions i18n API. I’m only fluent in English and Spanish, but I want the whole world to enjoy my extensions. If you know any of the languages supported by Chrome and would like to help me translate, please let me know. You can read the documentation and take a look at the source code for ChromeMilk and Postponer. I’ll be providing two translations (English and Spanish) soon.
Update
I’ve set up wiki pages for ChromeMilk and Postponer with the links to the people who have volunteered to translate.
