Sunday, March 27, 2011

Apps and Extensions Revisited: All About the Chrome Bandwagon

So TweetDeck was a massive #fail. (sorry, couldn’t resist!)

All in not lost though. A few weeks ago, my company decided to convert to Gmail for their email hosting. It was a difficult transition for some (they literally had to remove Microsoft Outlook from computers), but I was pleasantly surprised by the move. This was [very] largely due to the fact it was highly suggested we access our Gmail through Google Chrome. And Chrome = more insanely useful, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that apps! To make up for last week’s TweetDeck enthusiasm, check out these applications and extensions which really do deliver on the promise to make life a little easier:

IE Tab: Not interested in Google Chrome? Do you need Internet Explorer to access a particular site? No problem. This extension allows you to open a single IE tab in your Chrome browser. On to the next problem...

StayFocusd: Now that you have Chrome, all you want to do is browse and explore (and basically anything else that allows you to procrastinate from the task at hand)? This extension lets you set a time limit on certain websites. If you are an avid random searcher like myself, you can set up this up to allow only certain sites. Where has this been all my life? 

Google Quick Scroll: I know you can relate to those times when you are searching for something, only to find what appears to be a quality result. You click on the link and are brought to a page with 8 pt. font that seems to go on forever. And somewhere in there is the answer to your search. With Quick Scroll, you have the option of going directly to that point on the page. Yatzee!

I would offer more suggestions, but my time is about to run out! (Thank you StayFocusd.) I'd love to hear of any apps or extensions that have wowed everyone else-

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Twitter: Back to Basics

So I'm slowlyyyy trying to reintroduce myself to this wonderful social networking world, and I've decided it may be a good thing to start out with the toughest hurdle first.

Twitter.

Even though I use it, I've got to be honest. I just don't get it. I've always felt like it was a lot of work, that it required way too much active participation. But I've had a revelation.

I think it's one of those stereotypical "if-you-don't-know-of-course-you'll-never-understand" type of things. After reading a couple of pretty standard Twitter How-To articles, I realized that there have to be people out there using Twitter just like me. This idea is further substantiated by all of the Twitter applications that are out there to help! A few of the most exciting for the slightly unenthusiastic Twitter users like myself:

Timely allows you schedule your tweets. (Hello not having my phone on me at all times!)


Proxlet helps block out some of the extra "Twitter noise". I wish I would have known about this when I decided to follow Charlie Sheen for 1.5 days.

TweetDeck is like the streamline planner of Twitter. Instead of being overwhelmed by the never ending stream that appears when I normally log in, everything is nicely organized how I want it to be. 

Knowledge is power. I feel better already.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

I'm backkkkkk

It's one of those things. Where the fear of facing your opposition exponentially gets worse with every day you avoid it.

My opposition? This blog.

Yep, I said it. It came out of nowhere, a whirlwind of extenuating circumstances that initially kept me away. Then it started snowballing, and I got as close to completely signing offline as I have in the past 5 years. Soon, I was scared to sign on and see what I missed. This finally led to acceptance and then empowerment. I knew what was going on in the world because I watched CNBC, not from status updates on Facebook! I only had to hear about Charlie Sheen occasionally, not constantly as a #trendingtopic. [#winning became more irritating than Chuck Norris jokes- if you don't know what I'm talking about read this.]

So here I am, at my current point. Where I'm checking back into the social networking scene because I feel like I have too. I'm scared I missed a message, post, or tweet that would have seriously changed my life.

I didn't. [One of the most interesting/ironic things I found during my catch up session: social media's plateau.]