Month: April 2008

  • April 27, 2008

    Google Reader

    A few weeks ago I made the switch from my longtime feed reader, Bloglines, to Google Reader. Bloglines has been growing stagnant, their new site has been in beta for quite some time now, and I feel like there were better features in feed readers out there. I’ve got to say I have been very happy with Google Reader.

    First off, I feel Google Reader (Reader) has be a better design. It’s much cleaner and laid out better than Bloglines. Bloglines gives me the same look and feel I’d get from using a site with frames. Reader also has a lot more information readily available; this info is easier to find because of the better design choices made by Google.

    Reader recommends feeds to you based on what you read. It also tells you your trends- IE how many stories you’ve read, which feeds you read the most and the % of stories from each feed you read. My favorite feature of Reader, however, is the shared feeds.

    Reader has a list of all my friends (from my Google Chat list) who also use Reader. If they share a particular story they like, it will show up in my reader under “Friends’ shared items.” I think this is a particularly cool features because it’s an easy way to share stories. Between this and staring items, I’m quickly moving away from using del.icio.us. If Google integrates a way to star websites not in your feed reader, I will probably drop del.icio.us all together. If there is a way to do so already, please let me know!

    Finally, with Google Gears, I don’t even need to be online to use Reader, which is an awesome feature. All-in-all my experience with Reader (as with every other Google product I use) is great. I’m very glad I made the switch and can’t see myself going back to Bloglines any time soon.

    UPDATE 5/6/08: It’s like Google is listening directly to me..

  • April 19, 2008

    Getting Things Done

    Lately there’s been a lot of talk of Getting Things Done, or GTD. Lifehacker recently asked the readers about the five best GTD apps. My feed reader has also featured numerous articles on the topic of GTD; so in traditional blogging fashion I thought I’d weigh in. My best GTD ‘app’ is Google.

    Really it’s broken down into three different, nicely integrated parts with Google as the main player. Google, Firefox, and Remember the Milk make my life significantly easier. With GCal, GMail, Google Notebook, and Remember the Milk I don’t need a desktop application. And each app is accessible from within the others. Remember the Milk even has a Firefox extension that integrates it with GMail so you can not only view or edit your tasks, but add an email right to your tasks list. And of course, we can’t forget Google Gears.

    Gears allows me to access sites like Remember the Milk, Google Reader, and Google Docs even when I don’t have an internet connection. If/when they integrate Google Calendar, it will be perfect; I won’t need a desktop calendar program (sidebar- GCal also autosyncs with my Blackberry, so I don’t need to connect it to my computer either).

    All in all, Google has made my life easier and is quickly replacing the desktop applications I use. I’ve even been considering using Google Docs instead of MS Office, but that probably isn’t likely- though I am using it more frequently.

  • April 4, 2008

    Learn a Programming Language

    Over at LifeHacker, they are hosting a spirited discussion on what the programming language to learn first is. I think this is a pretty interesting discussion to have and want to comment on what the others are saying, as well as justify my stance. First of all, I did weigh in, saying:

    I’d say if you’re not going to be a serious applications programmer, learn some weak-typed language like PHP or Javascript first to get your feet wet with program logic without having to worry about whether your types (the difference between say a number and a word) are correct. This will help you with the control structures(if statements, loops), how the logic works and how to solve some basic problems. Then you can move on to a more advanced language and learn the different types, objects, etc.

    Many of the others who commented said that Javascript is not a programming language, it’s a scripting language. Is there a huge difference? Maybe, but not to someone first learning. They will not be doing things a programming language calls for- they will be learning control structures and how a program works, what kind of logic goes into writing a program, etc. To be honest, I first learned Java when I was a freshman in college, but I didn’t really understand programming until I picked up PHP over winter break of that academic year. So is there a difference? Sure. Is it a huge deal to someone starting out? Not at all.

    Then we’ve got those who say, “Learn C first, it’s the best” or someone even said, “Learn Assembly.” I know how to program and Assembly is hard. You’re not writing code in something that looks remotely like English and you need an understand of how data is represented on a machine. It sort-of applies for C too, as C is a low level language. Don’t get me wrong, C is the best language I’ve coded in- it’s fast and you can do really powerful stuff. But I think pointers alone is enough to turn someone off to C and programming in general.

    Finally, we’ve got those who say learning an Object Oriented (OO) language is the way to go. I can see that. I feel there is enough abstraction there that the learner might be ok. They shouldn’t dive right into object, however, because objects are pretty difficult to visualize if you’re just starting out.

    I still say my approach is at least a good one. Learning a simpler language that doesn’t put restrictions on data types will allow the learner to focus on program logic more than data representation. They will begin how to think like a programmer and can move up from there. PHP isn’t a bad place to start because it acts like a simple language (weak typed, syntax is pretty easy to understand), but you can do some powerful things like create objects.

    Teaching yourself to program is a pretty daunting task to begin with. However, if you pick up a good book and start with a simple language, you should be fine.

    PS- HTML is not a programming language. It’s a Markup Language. You will not learn anything about programming.