Lost in Cyberspace

I came across a post over at Paul Enderson's blog 'Reflections' today that caught my interest; he is working to set up a new social network that will be aimed primarily at the British. Sounds good to me, seeing as I am British. At the moment he is preparing it for a private Beta and looking for some help in geting the bugs out, so if you have any experience with the inner workings of a social networking site and would like to lend a hand let him know over at his site, Reflections. If all goes well, those of us who are not as technically minded can sign on for a public beta of the network which should go live in August. With the continued growth of social networks on the web with sites like MySpace and Facebook this could be a great success. Also, as sites like YouTube are see the need to allow each country to set up their own community there is obviously an increasing need for more niche social networking sites. It will also be nice to be on a site where all the features are available to me, unlike the 'other' sites with their "currently only available in the US" applications. Wishing you well with this one, Paul, let's hope it all comes together. :-)

clipped from paulenderson.com

I’ve been working on Britster now for a number of months now, and the project is finally nearing completion! Everything’s in place to make this the biggest thing to happen to Social Networking in England for a long time - and I for one can’t wait to see this baby fly!

During the first week of July the site will enter a ‘Private Beta’ phase, during which all of the little niggles will be resolved. Once this is done, the site will move to a ‘Public Beta’ a month later - which will see the doors open to members of the public.

So… Do you think you’ve got what it takes to help me? I’m looking for technically-minded people, who understand how social networking sites work, and who can help me to take this project to the next level. There won’t be any payment for your time at this stage, but you will get your name and a link to your website placed in a prominent position once the site goes live.

8 Things You Don’t Know About Me

UKStevieB — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 13:26:35 +0000

Lisa Sabin-Wilson was kind enough to hit me with a tag for the "8 Things You Don't Know About Me" meme, and in my usual fashion I have failed to get it done when I said I would. Sorry. Now, in rectification:

Family. I am a middle child, but my younger brother was killed in a road accident when he was 6 (I was 9). My older sister has 4 children (1 boy, 3 girls). Parents divorced, Father deceased. 1 surviving Grandparent.
Alcohol. I like Guinness. It's an acquired taste, I know, but one worth acquiring. It took me to the age of 3 to really get a taste for it. Real Ales, Whisk(e)y and Wine are also acceptable forms of imbibing.
Food. I am generally Vegetarian, but not based on any principle, I just never really liked meats. I like to eat Italian, garlic is one of the greatest tastes to exist. Indian food is fine too. I will eat some white meats on occasion for the convenience of others.
Work. I am self-employed working mainly as a commercial window cleaner, though I do some domestic work on occasion. Though never my own, of course! ;-)
Fun. I love movies, mostly on DVD these days since vandals burnt down the local cinema. I don't watch TV, though I do watch some shows on video/DVD that catch my attention. Or the wife makes me watch. I also love reading, Jane Austen being my favourite. I like Fyodor Dostoevsky too, but I am not all 'high-brow', Sci-Fi and Detective novels are my staple. I am not much of an outdoor person, I have enough of that while working.
Pets. We have Joey Cat, which is my wifes first pet as she never had one while growing up. I have had all the usual suspects: canary, Guinea Pigs, tortoise, goldfish, dogs and another cat.
Religion/Politics. Yes/No. I find religion fascinating and politics boring, except wherein the two interact throughout history in forming each other.
General Life Philosophy. To try and leave things better than when I found them. Success and ambition play no real part in my life or desires, which is probably why I am usually very happy and content and have very little stress in my life.

In the time honoured tradition of the meme I am now required to tag some others, so I will nominate Darren Cronian of Blogged Out.

Increasing Productivity With iGoogle

UKStevieB — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 22:17:19 +0000

In the Official Google Reader Blog today there was an interesting post that mentioned that Michael Bolin had created 'Your Page Here', a gadget for iGoogle that allows you to embed the Google Reader, Calendar or just about any web page on its own tab in iGoogle. This seemed like a pretty nifty idea to me so I thought I would give it a whirl, and it seems to work very well. You can only have six tabs on the iGoogle homepage (though there is a hack . . .) so if you are already at maximum you may have to have a bit of a sort out, you can't really have anything else running in the same tab. I now have my Google Reader and Calendar along with Docs and Spreadsheets running in their own tabs, as well as a tab with this blog in it which allows me to run this site without ever leaving iGoogle. There were a few problems getting Gmail to work in its own tab, but that may just have been me, feel free to give it a whirl yourself and let me know how you got on. With the Remember The Milk now working offline via the Google Gears application I thought I would see how well that worked too, so I added that into a tab as well and it synchronizes fine when you go back online. All in all I think that the addition of Michael Bolin's'Your Page Here' gadget will go a long way to helping me be more productive, especially if I can work out how to get Gmail to work! What uses do you think you can make of it? Do you think this will increase your productivity? Let me know in the comments.

Google Reader Now Available Offline

UKStevieB — Wed, 30 May 2007 23:59:11 +0000

I was just checking my Google RSS feed and noticed that there is now has a new feature available, Google Gears, that you can use offline to read your 2000 most recent articles, which is more than you should need unless you're Robert Scoble. ;-) I haven't had a chance to fully check this feature out yet, but if it up to Google's usual standard it should be pretty nifty. Is this a feature you think you will use? Do you use Google for your feeds or do you prefer to use another application? Let me know in the comments if you think online or offline is the best way to read your feeds.

Online Image Editing: It’s A Picnik

UKStevieB — Fri, 18 May 2007 23:41:23 +0000

One of the tools I find myself using more often these days is the Picnik online image editor. It's a pretty nifty editor that can be used for your images on your own computer or those you find as you browse the web. It integrates well with your Flickr and Picasa accounts, allowing you to save your images direct to your profile or save straight on to your computer. You can also email your images to individuals and even certain websites that can be configured to receive images via email such as Photobucket, ImageShack and Typepad. The site is still in Beta but runs very smoothly, though you do have to have Flash 9 installed. Just about any image you find online can be pulled in to Picnik, either through using the images url or using a tool such as the Firefox Picnik extension that adds a menu option and/or a toolbar icon to make importing images into Picnik that much easier. Just what can it do for you? Apart from the usual resize, rotate, and crop it can take care of red-eye in your own pictures, fix your colours and contrast/brightness, sharpen and even add some special effects on their "Creative Tools" page. There are plenty of great effects to play around with at the moment, though a few of these will only be part of their "Premium" package once the site is out of Beta. Picnik, alongside of Faststone Capture, takes care of just about all my web image needs. I recommend you go give it a try, you don't even need to join up to test it out, so go have some fun! Seeing as there are quite a few online image editors out there, are there any you use and would recommend? Let us know in the comments.