Archive April 2009
Review: Seesmic Desktop
So, Seesmic Desktop came out a little over a week ago and I have finally had time to do a proper review. The first few days I was unable to use it do to some major bugs that wouldn’t let me sign in to my account, thankfully Loic and the Dev team at Seesmic had it fixed within several days, along with several other issues. Well let me get done to business and do a quick review of the product.
Why you might want to use the Seemic Desktop over other Twitter Apps
- Multiple Account Support
It’s one of the few Twitter Apps that allows you to be logged into multiple accounts at once and helps to automatically reply with the appropriate account. Has easy switching above the update field.
- Allows you to create Groups and Save Searches
It’s also one of the few apps that lets you group users, following after it’s main competitor Tweetdeck. Saved searches are a continuation from Twhirl that makes ego searching Twitter a far easier experience. These 2 items make it a huge force when you are handling multiple accounts and managing marketing efforts.
- Offers a multi-column view
Though I don’t prefer this view; many people that they are trying to draw are coming from Tweetdeck where this is what they had. The issue that this brings up is that it takes up the whole monitor, which isn’t appropriate for someone who only has access to 1 monitor, say a laptop user.
- Future Integration with many other services
This is a given, after all they have integrated multiple services into their prior client Twhirl. I’d expect to see Facebook, Friendfeed, Seesmic, and Identi.ca support on it at the least. They also have built in Ping.FM support on Twhirl and I’d expect to see that included soon as many people are requesting its addition. Loic is also speaking to Kevin Rose, Founder of Digg, and I wouldn’t be all that surprised if they worked Digg into the mix.
Even with all these major pluses to Seesmic Desktop there are also some issues that still need to be resolved with Desktop
- Wastes a Large Amount of Screen Real-Estate
As you can see from @guykawasaki’s image (above) there is a large amount of wasted space. Now as I mentioned in the multi-column view it’s no good for a single monitor set up and it’s still no good with all the wasted space in general. They have stated that they are working on a minimalist version so hopefully they will fix this issue.
- Slightly Memory Intensive
I was playing around with it and it seems a bit of a glutton with how it treats your memory. Upon opening and signing into 2 accounts I was seeing about 95MB + ~5MB for each new column. Not the prettiest use of resources but still not to bad with only a few columns.
- Currently Doesn’t Offer Customizations
The UI isn’t all that pretty and you can’t modify how the text looks at this point. So it is costing them some users with bad eyes or those who enjoy modifying their applications interfaces.
- No Distinction of Read/Unread tweets
This was the biggest one of all for me, it’s the main reason I don’t use any app besides Twhirl. I like having an easy way of telling if I have read something, because my time is important and right now they don’t offer it. This is where Tweetdeck screwed up and the main reason I couldn’t use their product.
How does it stand up to the other apps
Right now, I won’t be using it often. I’ll use it over Tweetdeck because the interface is still more pleasing, but hands down Twhirl has my heart and until they pull most of it into the service I won’t use it frequently. I give it about 3 months until it becomes my primary App, because it is amazing and it shows promise. Overall, I think Seesmic Desktop is good and will be extremely useful as people begin to amass ever larger groups of friends/followers.
P.S.- Loic, Thomas, or anyone else that works on the Seesmic Desktop. I have a suggestion to help save some screen space and to also improve the UI. You could replace the Sidebar with something similar to Opera’s Panels. This simple interface change would allow for huge space savings and an easier interface to interact with.
Collection of Twinspiration Mar. 11 – Apr. 10
For those that are new to the blog this is a collection of quotes from the past month that I posted on Twitter. If you’d like to have one presented to you daily you can follow me, @jimminy.
“You will never plough a field if you only turn it over in your mind.” ~ Irish Proverb
“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” ~ Bertrand Russell
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” ~ Mark Twain
“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” ~ Victor Borge
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” ~ Jim Ryuh
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ~ Anne Frank
“Stay far from timid, only make moves when your hearts in it, and live the phrase sky’s the limit.” ~ Biggie
“The only true gift is a portion of yourself.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.” ~ Paul Harvey
“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” ~ Judy Garland
“Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent into the dark place where it leads.” ~ Erica Jong
“Don’t seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.” ~ Basho
“The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction to carry on.” ~Walter Lippmann
“Remember you are just an extra in everyone else’s play.” ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles.” ~ Washington Irving
“You must take action now that will move you toward your goals. Develop a sense of urgency in your life.” ~ Les Brown
“The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” ~ William Stekel
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” ~ Mark Twain
“Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.” ~ C. S. Lewis
“The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own.” ~ Benjamin Disraeli
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” ~ Lao Tzu
“Kindness is the oil that smoothen the friction of life.” ~ Anonymous
“Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.” ~ Jane Austen
“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.” ~Winston Churchill
“Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” ~ Woodrow Wilson
“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.” ~ Seneca
“From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.” ~ Arthur Ashe
“You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them or to them.” ~ Malcolm Forbes
“You can get through life with bad manners, but it’s easier with good manners.” ~ Lillian Gish
Why I Don’t Set Myself Up For Failure(March Goal Review)
I’d love to say that I completed my goals for the month, but I didn’t. The only one I actually accomplished was finding a new vehicle, which I would of had to do anyways. It came down to various instances for each one.
As far as the prototype, it ended up being far more complicated than I had suspected. I had originally planned on just using the SAX XML parser built into python. Unfortunately, it ended up not being a viable library now I have to build a custom parser which will take much longer than I originally planned.
As far as posts a lot of them I ended up cutting due to my own shortsightedness on using short term posts. I thought I had a lot more posts set aside but I began cutting them do to no longer being relevant to you guys. Falling back to quality over quantity I ended up killing a lot of my posts and haven’t been thinking much about topics to write about. The blog is now a place for ideas I can’t condense into a few tweets.
And as far as my stack goes I got up to 8k and then I got cocky and started playing with my emotions and not with my brain. This occurred even when I knew I had a losing hand I would shove all in. Stupidly, I did this over and over to the point that I hit 1k by the end of the month.
All of this goes back to me not being able to deal with failure. I have a tendency to either be perfect or just laze around. The only time I fail is when I don’t try which is far more often because I find a reason that it can’t be perfect and I’m not saying that everything I attempt comes out perfect, it’s not, there is always more that can be done. If it’s something that I only have a short time to do, I’ll finish it but it won’t be of the quality that I’d like.
Because of this I try to remain aloof and allow myself the time to adapt to any changes that may occur. If I need to implement something better I don’t mind stepping back and taking a little more time. I’m averse to failure and it makes me even more prone to failure. Maybe I need to just start trying more and failing only because I didn’t succeed and not because I didn’t try.