interweb

I Googled something a minute ago and noticed that my SERP looked a little different:

In particular, check out those three grey icons. They appear next to every result on the page, but there isn't any noticeable indication why they're there. So I clicked one :)

The link turned green, which was fun. But the most exciting thing was that it moved to the top of the page—with a nice, slick animation. Apparently Google is letting me customize the results of my search.

Check out Google's editable search result experiment after the jump.

Every once in a while someone asks me what cool software they should install on their computer. Invariably, I say something like "check out the OS X tag on my blog."

Apparently I've been lying to everyone, because I looked at the software categories on my blog the other day and realized that I haven't been posting much there at all. So I decided to do something about it:

Introducing Technophobe, the future home of my tech rants and recommendations. I've started out with a really sweet Mac menu extra called Jumpcut.

More features, more reviews, more hotness coming soon. Check back for a regular dose of nifty applications. Subscribe to the site feeds. Enjoy :)

we're going to set a world record! download firefox 3 on it's release date to do your part (that's tuesday the 17th, if you haven't been paying attention)

i've been using firefox 3 on os x for a while, and i have to say it's amazing. doesn't crash (as often). doesn't have memory leaks. it's way faster. and it feels like a native mac app now. i imagine all you windows users will see similar coolness, but i can't speak from experience there...

it's tough to find a good example of "text only" typography on the web. most designers eventually throw in the towel and use images... so you can imagine my excitement when i saw the site for Seed Conference 2008.

textey web typography goodness after the jump.

the @colorwars are taking the twittersphere by storm. it's time to choose a team, kids.

and that team is @theBlackteam

1. pick your team (text follow theblackteam to 40404)
2. show your support... change your avatar to something more fitting, add a banner to your myspace page or blog, etc.
3. visit theBlackteam home base for resources and more info.

to get a ribbon that looks like mine, you should be able to copy and paste this code into any post on your blog/website/myspace. if that doesn't work, add it to your header or footer.

how to add your own ribbon after the jump.

i think twitter is a huge experiment in human interaction. what does a group of users do when given a service (for free) which does essentially nothing, with no real direction or constraints on its use? they play. yesterday i got to witness a twitter microevolution firsthand.

a less known feature of twitter is the ability to track certain phrases. whenever someone posts a tweet containing that word, you will see it even if you're not following the user who tweeted. the most common example is "overheard". in fact, twitter has been telling its users to "track overheard" for quite some time. judging from the lack of tweets they must have disabled it. until yesterday, that is.

sometime around noon, all hell broke loose. twitter began sending out updates to all the curious users who had ever tried to "track overheard". most of them had no idea what was happening. so they start responding:

ISPs need to stop taking down blogs because of legal threats. it just riles up the blagosphere.

The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. —John Gilmore (EFF)

look how long it took for Craig Murray's website to come back...

all of my reports have flatlined :-(

i want a refund.

i mentioned my newfound twitter addiction a couple of weeks ago. my addiction has now been upgraded.

if you haven't been using Remember The Milk, you should be. it's an online to do list with all the functionality you'd expect from a Web 2.0 app.

today i hooked the two of them together. RTM now lets you interact with your tasks by sending Twitter messages. they'll send you messages back when tasks are due. you can mark 'em complete, or postpone 'em via messages.

because Twitter likes text messages, i can now text my productivity to my Remember The Milk account too. i think this just replaced my phone's to-do lists and calendar in one fell swoop, and i've only been using it about an hour.

i guess the upside is that this will prob'ly increase my productivity instead of just fueling my addiction to Twitter. and it's a good thing i signed up for unlimited texts.

useless firefox extension of the day: mozilla firesomething. try it. you know you want to.

all your branding are belong to firesomething!

nerd note: it even rebrands your user agent string. abuse the open source!

the internet is really good at helping me avoid productivity. my new toy of the day: twitter. it's a really simple site where you post periodic updates answering one question: "What are you doing?"

the answer for me? usually nothing exciting. check out my twitter profile for all the amazing news about my mostly boring life. there's even a news feed, if you really need up to the minute updates.

i can update with txt messages from my phone, i can post on the website, or i can use Gtalk and send them via instant message. twitter can even send friends' updates to my phone as well. i'm not sure how i feel about that yet...

i like this site's simplicity the most. they're not trying to do anything fancy. but the results are clean, simple, and amazing. everything they do, they do well.

besides, i can always use a new addiction :)