TechParent: mytvrss
I am not a big television viewer myself. If not for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, I don’t know that I would be watching anything (other than Disney Channel with LatteGirl). But between blogs and Twitter, I know many of you do, and seemingly live and die by the schedules. Well, this week have I got a neat little tool for you. It is called mytvrss, and it is so simple, it is one of those things that I am sure many will bang their heads against the wall thinking, “Why didn’t I come up with that?”
The great thing about it, is the shear simplicity of it. You go to the sight (no registration required), check off the boxes on the shows you want to be kept up to date on, and click “Create Feed” It will generate a custom URL that you can use in your rss reader of your choice, and be kept up to date, on airing dates of the shows. Never miss a new episode again. It is like have a customized version of the TV Guide made just for you.
TechParent: LocalCooling
LocalCooling is a free Windows utility that can help you configure power saving settings on Windows (Vista and XP anyway). Now granted, there is nothing in local cooling application that you can’t do yourself through various parts of Control Panel in Windows, but it puts them all in a single easy to use interface.
Through, its extensive database of computer components, the application is able to estimate what your PC’s full usage of electricity is on a variety of components, including the monitor, the hard drive, CPU, Graphics Card and more, and tell you (approximately) how much you save when you implement some of the power saving features.
Of course, the neat feature for those trying to be more green, is you get to see in terms of trees, oil and Electricity how much you saved by turning on some of these power saving features. For those that perhaps are quite so worried about the green aspect per se, there is another cool thing you get to see, and that is the green you will save on your electricity bill. I don’t know anybody that doesn’t want to at least save that sort of green.
Best of all. It is free.
Tech Parent: Remember the Milk
One of the things that despite solid offering for e-mail, and Calendar kept me locked into Microsoft Outlook was Tasks (or To-dos). Yes there are a few different offerings out there of a Web 2.0 nature, but nothing that integrated with other offerings very well. That was until I discovered RememberTheMilk.com. Remember the Milk is brilliant in its simplicity and ease of use. But, that is not the end of it. It can integrate into your Google Calendar, it has features called SmartLists (basically pre-sets like “all tasks due in next 2 weeks, 1 month, etc”), you can share tasks with others.. all for free. And if you go for a Pro Account, you will be able to sync Remember The Milk with your Windows Mobile, Blackberry or even Apple iPhone.
There are plenty of places that have given full reviews of Remember The Milk, so I am not going to give you a full run down. It is a to-do list and Task manager. You know what it does (basically). Sign up (its free), and give it a try… and you may never forget the milk on your way home again.
It will be interesting to see what Windows Live Mesh will bring to the table with the ability to sync data “across the cloud” but until it is fleshed out a bit more, and the direction clear, I will stick with Remember The Milk for all my tasks.
Of course, as with many small Web 2.0 companies, particularly those still in Beta, or of unknown financial status, I would not keep anything in this or any other site that would be devastating if it was lost. Keep duplicates, or synchronize with another source, but never trust your only copy of critical data out of your own control.
TechParent Editorial: Alltop? Make it Stop already!
I feel very lonely, no I am not completely alone, there are others (well at least two here and here). But it was this glowing over the top “review” that was the straw the broke the camel’s back. I’ve had a lot of thoughts about Alltop, and none of them are positive.
I have seen nothing at Alltop, that would make it stand on its own if Guy’s name wasn’t attached to it. As a matter of fact there are very similar sites already that you could say it is a KNOCKOFF of, and that most people probably haven’t heard of, such as popurls.com or Web 2.0 Workgroup. Never heard of them? My point exactly. Not that there is anything wrong with them per se, they are RSS aggregators. Whoo Hoo! They are not the “next big thing” even if Guy’s name is attached.
Many are bragging about the traffic it brings, but this really reminds me a lot of the old “Web Rings” that were popular with some web sites a long time ago. Yes, they brought some traffic for a little while, that traffic basically was the other members of the web ring (or in this case, other people that are listed at Alltop.com). Much like a multi-level-marketing plan, it almost looks real at first, but eventually the house of cards tumble.
The layout and design is neither time saving, nor customizable enough of experience to make it useful, it is difficult to read, and the “one-page” paradigm is washed out by lots of longs scrolling.
Then, and this may sound a bit bitter, but hear me out. There are some blogs and sites (some of which I read mind you), which are listed on Alltop, which just make me scratch my head, and say if that is the “Top” there is something wrong. Now again, this is not about me being bitter. I know damn well, I don’t belong on any “top” list at this point. I certainly hope to share things with people, and I hope some even find some value in this blog, but when the day is done, I realize what this blog is. It is more of a social medium than anything else. I share bits of knowledge I have garnered and I get some advice when I am stuck by a few readers. That does not qualify this blog as “top” of anything. I saw a comment go by on Twitter the other day saying, “Just ask Guy, I’m sure he will add you if you ask him.” Oh, I see this is what it takes to be a “top” site on the web today? Give me a break.
In the end it is a novelty that will go nowhere once Guy moves on to his next project, and the people listed, stop coming back to prove how worthy they are to be on “the list.” A few sites will continue to have the “badge” long after anybody cares any longer, much likes some old sites that still have links to web rings that have long since stopped being updated, but it won’t matter because nobody will click on it anyway.
TechParent: Twitter in Plain English
I am in a bit of a bind time wise, so this week I am letting somebody else do the heavy lifting for me on TechParent, and it is from the folks at Commoncraft.com. If you are not familiar with them, Commoncraft has started doing something they call Paperworks videos, which are simple “lessons” such things such as online photosharing in plain english, Blogs in Plain English and now Twitter in Plain English (and other topics as well).
Now I am willing to admit, I was one of those people that dragged their feet before finally jumping into Twitter. Simply put, I didn’t “get it.” And seems to be the common thread around those that are either on or not on Twitter. If you “get it” you are probably on it, if not then you probably just don’t understand why people would want to do this. Well, with a simple video and explaination, the folks at Common Craft have made it easy, so that the next time somebody says they don’t understand why people “tweet” you can just show them this video.
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