Review: Seesmic Desktop

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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 down 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 its 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 Seesmic is 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

Wasted Space

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

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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)

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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.

Strive To Create Wealth, Not Money

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We are all spending our days working for someone, whether it be ourselves or someone else, or something. How do you know what you’re doing is worth your time and effort? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for several weeks, and I still haven’t figured it out, to be honest. I do have an idea of how we may be able to come up with an estimate, this requires honest introspection, no lying to yourself. Continue reading →

Collection Of Twinspiration Feb. 11 – Mar. 10

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Another set of quotes to inspire and motivate myself and others from my Twitter stream. If you’d like these daily you can follow me on twitter @jimminy.

“A good laugh is good for both the mental and physical digestion.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

“The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity” ~ Tom Petters

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.” ~ Albert Einstien

“Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected” ~ Mahatma Ghandi

“It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.” ~ Thoreau

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” ~ Anonymous

“Work banishes those three great evils, boredom, vice, and poverty.” ~ Voltaire

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” ~The Dalai Lama

“In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.” ~ Paul Harvey

“Personal participation is the universal principle of knowing.” ~ Michael Polanyi

“Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.”~Scott Adams

“It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and say the opposite.” ~ Sam Levenson.

“No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.” ~Aesop

“You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.” ~ George Eliot

“It’s hard for many people to believe that there are extraordinary things inside themselves, as well as others, keep an open mind.” ~ Myself

“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” ~ Bertrand Russell

“The only way that we can keep advancing is by not becoming complacent with what we have achieved and strive for more.” ~ Myself

“Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.” ~ Eric Hoffer

“Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” ~ Voltaire

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” ~ Unknown

“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I’ve ever known.” ~ Chuck Palahniuk

“Prepare your mind to receive the best that life has to offer.” ~ Ernest Holmes

“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” ~ Albert Einstein

“He who learns but does not think, is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.” ~ Confucius

“The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.” ~ Walt Whitman

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.” ~ Oscar Wilde

“Never talk defeat. Use words like hope, belief, faith, victory.” ~ Norman Vincent Peale

The Twitter Tradeoff

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Do you follow many people or few? This is the most essential question and most disputed aspect of Twitter, although it is also a huge part of other networks as well. I’ve been thinking about it alot the past month and  the answer is both depending on how you want to use the service. You can go small and extract alot of data and make deeper relationships or you can go big and funnel your relationships though they would be diluted.

Why go Small?

The main reason to go small is that you can stay heavily connected and have relevant data flowing constantly with out much noise in the stream. The system was originally designed for keeping track of friends so it makes sense to stay small. There are still problems with only following a few people and the main problem is based on the reciprocal friending that occurs on the service, if you are followed by someone they want you to follow them back. Having only a small group makes it hard to get a large set of advice and responses when you ask a question.

Why go Big?

The main reason to go big is to spur on the reciprocity that I mentioned above that allows you to poll your followers for answers. Also with the reciprocal reaction that gives you lots of followers it allows you to market yourself and your products to them. Another plus that comes with the mass friending is if your able to monitor and track the data that is coming through your stream you can pull out large amounts of focused data.

Now the downside of big is that you can’t build meaningful relationships easily with your friends based off of their tweets. You are opening the door to spammers by (auto-)following everyone back. It makes it harder to use apps because of to much data coming into the API for your user.

My Choice: Small

To me I’d rather have a large group of followers that I could ping off of but only be following a subset of them so that I can have a wealthy stream of information that’s relevant to me. To me I don’t want to have a lot of crap, I want to have valuable wealth inducing assets in my stream. It’s up to you whether you are marketing or there to extract information and build relationships to decide which path you want.

Note this is something that is equally applicable through the broad area of Social Media and it’s up to you. Twitter just takes this single aspect and inflames it in how their service is used making the way you use the service change based on the numbers. One site that has a similar set of changing data based on the numbers of friends & followers is Digg in that you have the ability to shout a story(currently being analysed for removal) to your friends to get dugg up.

Goals For March ’09

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So this is something that I was inspired to do by Erik Kastner over at his blog Meta|ateM. He did it last month and was fairly succesful and it also goes along with something that I have thought about and possible written about, providing people public knowledge of what your goals are so they can hold you accountable. So here is my list for March.

Get a working prototype of my Main project finished.

This might not get done but I’m really hoping that I can as I spent the past month working on the algorithm and design of the system. I think I can get the base down in 2 weeks but some of the higher functioning algorithms will take a bit longer but I have to build a working test body before I get to them.

15 posts

I know I was lacking last month, in fact this is the first post in over 2 weeks. I’ll be finishing a bunch of posts I’ve been working on and should be able to hit 15 fairly easily.

Find a new car

This is new as I just totalled my car an hour ago, at the time of writing. I was planning on looking more towards the end of the month but looks like that clock was stepped up a bit.

Build up my chipstack on Full-Tilt

Lately, I’ve been playing more often I haven’t reached a point where I’m able to sacrifice money from my daily life so I just play  for fun and intellectual challenge. Right now, I’m at 3,000 and I want to reach 10,000 by the end of the month.

I’ll update you guys on how I did at the end of the month. Oh and for those of you that subscribe and visit the site I’m wondering if the new design is more pleasing to you?