The Web Life

November 2nd, 2009

5 quick Microsoft Entourage keyboard shortcuts

Posted by Andrew Mager @ 6:37 pm

Categories: Commentary

Tags: Message, Microsoft Corp., Keyboard Shortcut, Microsoft Outlook, Groupware, Microsoft Office, Web Browsers, Desktops, Office Suites, Software

Mac users: If you’re used to managing your schedule and contacts with Outlook, switching to Microsoft Entourage isn’t familiar.

Your mail and calendar software should be quick and simple to use. Here are some quick tips that should save you some time and frustration:

⌘ + [1-6]

If you’re a Firefox user, this will be native to you. Command + [number] corresponds to the tabs in the web browser. In Entourage, each app (Email, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Notes) is represented by a number. It’s the main navigation of the program.

CTRL + [1-5]

I just learned this trick today, and it’s actually what prompted me to write this how-to.

When you are in your mail stream, sometimes you have action items that you want to attend to later, but it’s not always convenient to right click and say “Mark as Unread”. Instead, hit CTRL + 1 when an important message is highlighted.

This actions flags that message as a to-do item. You will be reminded by the end of the day to respond to the message.

CTRL + 2 makes it due tomorrow. CTRL + 3: you’ll be reminded to act on the following day.

⌘ + J

Hit Command + J to forward a message. Not to be confused with Command + R (Reply) or Command + Shift + R (Reply to All).

⌘ + 9

Command + 9 shows or hides the My Day widget:

⌘ + SHIFT + J

This one is a little harder to remember, but if you get a lot of junk mail, it’s pretty handy. This command adds a message to the Spam folder.

Luckily, the next version of Microsoft Office for Mac will include Outlook instead of Entourage.

Bonus:

October 29th, 2009

CNET launches social news river

Posted by Andrew Mager @ 4:31 pm

Categories: Commentary

Tags: CBS Interactive Inc., Blog, CNET River, Blogging, Internet, Andrew Mager

When I worked at ZDNet as a tech producer, the term “river” meant “flood of new content”. I guess CNET uses the same terminology. CNET River is a new perspective on their content. It includes blog posts, videos, photo galleries, and Twitter updates from the staff:

CNET is basically saying that a tweet should receive equal coverage next to blogs and videos. I think this is a breakthrough for journalism world. It will force the old print guys to take another look at micro-blogging as a respectable source for real-time info.

October 28th, 2009

Twitter now explains trending topics

Posted by Andrew Mager @ 7:35 pm

Categories: Commentary

Tags: Twitter Inc., Andrew Mager

Twitter recently integrated real-time trending topics into your home page, but they never really explained them, until now.

Who writes these explanations? Do they come from Brizzly or WhatTheTrend?

October 28th, 2009

How to revert your Facebook home page back to show live status updates

Posted by Andrew Mager @ 2:05 pm

Categories: Commentary

Tags: Facebook, Home Page, Corporate Communications, Marketing, Andrew Mager

Facebook recently screwed up their home page. Here’s how to fix it:

Click here to view this video at a higher resolution.

1. Log in to your Facebook home page and then click the More link at the bottom of the far lefthand column.
2. Find the “Status Updates” box and drag it to the very top of the list.
3. Click “Status Updates” to load that view. Now when you login, you will see the old view.

PC World originally posted this trick.

October 28th, 2009

Fake Google Chrome OS looks a lot like Ubuntu

Posted by Andrew Mager @ 12:05 pm

Categories: Commentary

Tags: Ubuntu, Google Inc., Operating System, Google Chrome, Operating Systems, Software, Andrew Mager

Earlier today, there was a lot of buzz about the new Google Chrome OS beta. I downloaded it, and installed it… and then found out it was a hoax. The fake is actually based on OpenSuSE, which looks a lot like Ubuntu.

It’s funny to see how many people retweeted it before even checking the validity of the ISO.

October 26th, 2009

Threadsy: personal and social media convergence [invites]

Posted by Andrew Mager @ 3:48 pm

Categories: Commentary

Tags: Facebook, Twitter Inc., Social Media, Convergence, Threadsy, E-mail Providers, Cloud Computing, Internet, Andrew Mager

Messages are ingested in so many formats on the web today: email, Facebook Inbox, Twitter DM—even Twitter @reply.

Threadsy is bringing it all together better than anyone I’ve seen to date. They’ve done such a good job that I don’t even need to login to my GMail, Facebook, or Twitter anymore.

Rob Goldman, creator of Threadsy, says that they are not just aggregating the content. They are integrating it.

First time I logged in, I wasn’t really impressed, but the more I check it out, the more I want to use it.

The list of features that are available in Threadsy are too long to list here. You can comment and like posts on Facebook, easily quick-archive messages in GMail, and follow or unfollow users on Twitter, all directly within Threadsy’s interface.

If you want to try Threadsy, use this invite link. I want to know what you think of it. Please comment here or send me an @reply on Twitter.

October 25th, 2009

CNN.com launches cleaner, more personalized design

Posted by Andrew Mager @ 10:49 am

Categories: Commentary

Tags: CNN, Andrew Mager

The new homepage of CNN looks great.

I love the grid layout and clear headlines. The colors are bold, but they don’t interfere with the content.

CNN added the “News Pulse” tab to their main navigation. It’s different view of the news based on what is popular, how many comments, or what the subject matter is.

There is also a better view of your profile on CNN.

You can save stories, view your comments, and see news relevant to your locale.

This is step in the right direction for CNN. They have had a good design in the past, but now it’s even better.

October 23rd, 2009

Facebook launches confusing, counterintuitive, broken UI

Posted by Andrew Mager @ 1:22 pm

Categories: Commentary

Tags: Facebook, Newsfeed, News, Andrew Mager

When you login to Facebook today, you might notice a slightly different news feed.

There is a link that says “View Live Feed”… but wait. What makes something “news” and what makes something “live”? Okay, I’ll click the new button.

When I click the new “View Live Feed” button, I’m taken to a new page that shows stuff other than status; the stuff that used to be in the news feed like friend relationships, event RSVPs, and group joins.

But I thought it’s supposed to be live and updating in real time? Okay, I’ll wait.

…

…

Nothing’s updating. I had to hit refresh to see new posts in my live feed. Even the old “View new posts” link that used to come up every few minutes is gone.

Facebook is making an Ajax call on this page, but it’s returning an error:

Okay, back to news view.

Wait, why is there a post from my friend Nini that says “Go Raiders” from yesterday at 10:19 a.m? What makes that news and the other thousands of posts per hour that have happened since then… not visible?

Stuff in my “news” feed is not in any particular order either.

What is going on here? For someone who uses Facebook a lot, I don’t understand what I’m supposed to look at. Imagine how the average user will feel.

The worst thing you can do as a software team is release something and have it blow up in your face. Please fix this guys…

There was no warning to users about the change, only a post on Facebook’s blog explaining why the changes were made and what they mean.

They’re messin with the social graph…

The other thing about this taylored news feed is that I didn’t decide what was important news… Facebook did. I think this needs to be more in the hands of the users.

October 22nd, 2009

Foursquare partners with Bay Area Rapid Transit

Posted by Andrew Mager @ 4:48 pm

Categories: Commentary

Tags: Bay Area, Foursquare, BART, Business Structures, Social Networking, Blogging, Finance, Online Communications, Marketing, Advertising & Promotion

Today, BART announced a partnership with location-based social network Foursquare.

BART will award $25 promotional tickets each month for the next three months to riders chosen at random from all the riders who have logged Foursquare check-ins at BART stations, starting in November.

Foursquare will also supply a BART “badge” for frequent riders who checkin to the 43 stations around the bay area. BART is taking advantage of the Tips section of Foursquare by listing popular venues and things to do around BART stations as well.

This is a genius move by both BART and Foursquare because neither party really has to do anything except watch the social web. Don’t be surprised if Foursquare inks more deals like this with local companies.

Make friends with me on Foursquare.

October 21st, 2009

Twitter search results on Google are... distracting in a good way

Posted by Andrew Mager @ 9:54 pm

Categories: Commentary

Tags: Google Inc., Twitter Inc., Search Result, Search, Andrew Mager

When we are hunting for information, recency is relevant.

For the past few days, I have been using a Greasemonkey script that displays Twitter search results alongside Google queries. It shows the latest 3 updates from search.twitter.com.

Google is already working with Twitter to include real-time results, but I’m curious to see where they place it. Seeing tweets inline will be what the user looks at first. People always want to know what’s going on right now.

Bing is playing ball with Twitter as well, and they already have a better visual design.

But I want Google to implement this on their production servers now. What are they waiting for?