Oren’s Weblog

I just took a first and all-too-brief look at Panic’s new Coda application. Coda bears the simple tag line of One Window Web Development, and aims to consolidate a familiar litany of applications used by web developers:

So, we code web sites by hand. And one day, it hit us: our web workflow was wonky. We’d have our text editor open, with Transmit open to save files to the server. We’d be previewing in Safari, running queries in Terminal, using a CSS editor, and reading references on the web. “This could be easier,” we realized. “And much cooler.”

Coda has integrated that familiar workflow into a single app. My quick look included making sure that it could get to my web server using Secure FTP, read files from the site (which it does speedily), editing html and css, and previewing html files. I’m sure it’s got a lot more in store, and I look forward to further explorations.

Technorati Tags: osx, coda, coding, web-development

I just took a first and all-too-brief look at Panic’s new Coda application. Coda bears the simple tag line of One Window Web Development, and aims to consolidate a familiar litany of applications used by web developers:

So, we code web sites by hand. And one day, it hit us: our web workflow was wonky. We’d have our text editor open, with Transmit open to save files to the server. We’d be previewing in Safari, running queries in Terminal, using a CSS editor, and reading references on the web. “This could be easier,” we realized. “And much cooler.”

Coda has integrated that familiar workflow into a single app. My quick look included making sure that it could get to my web server using Secure FTP, read files from the site (which it does speedily), editing html and css, and previewing html files. I’m sure it’s got a lot more in store, and I look forward to further explorations.

Technorati Tags: osx, coda, coding, web-development

Something I read the other day (maybe it was this post in TechCrunch) pointed me towards Tumblr, which says:

Tumblelogs are like blogs with less fuss. Tumblr is your friendly and free tool for creating tumblelogs.

which got me thinking about what you really need a blog service to do and what makes it easy to post?

Despite my best intention to use my blog to post insightful and well-thought-out original writing, most of the time I’m posting a quick comment, or a link to a cool site or video, or a picture, or quote. While much has been made of the “blogosphere as a conversational medium, I receive very few comments since I’ve required TypeKey authentication for comments (to defeat comment spam), and trackback is hopelessly broken.

So tumblr’s interface, which makes it supremely easy to post a small text snippet, a photo, quote, link, conversation, or video link, makes a lot of sense to me. If anybody asks me now where they should turn to start blogging, I’ll point them to tumblr first. This makes a whole lot more sense to me than Twitter, which I’m still having a hard time getting.

Technorati Tags: blogging, tumblelogs, tumblr

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m having a very hard time getting to any Google URL this morning from my Comcast connection at home. Not having a hard time with other network locations.

Some sinister plot, Google problems, or just network configuration issues somewhere in the cloud?

It sure makes me realize just how dependent on Google I’ve become!

Technorati Tags: broadband, google, comcast

I’m trying to use Outlook (2007) more as my mail and calendar client, but I’m finding it frustrating.

I’ve got both an Exchange account and an IMAP account set up, with an Exchange address book and an LDAP directory for looking up addresses. I can’t figure out how I can get Outlook to search the LDAP address book automatically for names entered on the To: line as I compose an email.

And when I specifically go over to the Address Book search screen, the LDAP searching algorithm seems broken – for instance, if I search Jack Hoffman, I get no answer, but if I search Hoffman, I see he’s listed as Jack D. Hoffman. Other email clients don’t have this problem.

And one more minor nit – I, like most people I know, tend to sort my email so that the newest messages appear on top. Then I scroll down to where the unread messages start, and work my way up to the newest. Apple’s Mac mail app knows that if I’ve got messages sorted that way it should move up when I delete the message I’m reading. Outlook, by contrast wants to move down, which necessitates two or three more key presses for each message. Multiply that by several hundred messages a day and it’s not so trivial as it seems.

Are there some configuration options I don’t know about that can fix these issues?

Technorati Tags: email, Microsoft, outlook

I’m trying to use Outlook (2007) more as my mail and calendar client, but I’m finding it frustrating.

I’ve got both an Exchange account and an IMAP account set up, with an Exchange address book and an LDAP directory for looking up addresses. I can’t figure out how I can get Outlook to search the LDAP address book automatically for names entered on the To: line as I compose an email.

And when I specifically go over to the Address Book search screen, the LDAP searching algorithm seems broken – for instance, if I search Jack Hoffman, I get no answer, but if I search Hoffman, I see he’s listed as Jack D. Hoffman. Other email clients don’t have this problem.

And one more minor nit – I, like most people I know, tend to sort my email so that the newest messages appear on top. Then I scroll down to where the unread messages start, and work my way up to the newest. Apple’s Mac mail app knows that if I’ve got messages sorted that way it should move up when I delete the message I’m reading. Outlook, by contrast wants to move down, which necessitates two or three more key presses for each message. Multiply that by several hundred messages a day and it’s not so trivial as it seems.

Are there some configuration options I don’t know about that can fix these issues?

Technorati Tags: email, Microsoft, outlook

I just tried the release candidate for the next generation of Mozilla’s Thunderbird desktop email program. Tbird 2 has some nifty new features, including tagging, phishing detection, and a nifty little popup summary display of recent message information when you hover over a folder with new messages.

Perhaps one of the features that will be most appreciated is pre-configured setups for reading Google Mail and .Mac mail, though Thunderbird doesn’t appear to see tags on Gmail messages (probably because it’s not part of the metadata that the antiquated POP protocol supports – maybe that will change when/if Google adds IMAP access). I also like the little toggle on the folder display that hides the folders that don’t contain unread messages – it’s almost as handy as Pine’s Incoming Folder collection (a ridiculously useful concept that I can’t believe hasn’t become commonplace in all email programs).

I still bemoan the lack of a real IMAP expunge command – you still have to “compact folders” to get rid of messages that have been marked for deletion.

And I have gotten completely hooked on the way Apple’s mail program knows that when you have messages sorted with the newest at the top, if you delete a message the cursor should move up to the newer message on top (if there is one) instead of down to older messages. I haven’t seen other mail programs emulate that simple, but smart, behavior.

At any rate, it looks like this is a solid advance for a popular desktop email client. On a related note, Wired has an interview with Thunderbird lead engineer Scott MacGregor where he talks about the continued relevance of desktop email clients:

Wired News: With seemingly every aspect of our data moving toward online apps and away from the traditional desktop model, why is Mozilla still interested in a desktop e-mail client?

Scott MacGregor: We believe the Thunderbird experience is better for moderate to heavy e-mail use. It’s much easier to process incoming mail — anyone who’s had to use web mail on vacation to deal with dozens of e-mails can testify to how tedious it can be.

Roger that, Scott!

Technorati Tags: email, mozilla, open-source, thunderbird

I don’t know about you, but I don’t understand much about colors and how they interact, and when I’m working on web pages that want to look spiffy I never know how to pick colors that work well together.

This Sphere thingy on the Colorjack site looks like it will help a lot!

Technorati Tags: design, color