For a while now, I’ve been in need of upgrading the Wordpress installation for this blog, especially after reading an article over at CyberNet about how easy it was to access old posts with the version I’ve been using. When finally getting around to doing it, I found that an upgrade to Wordpress is one of the easiest things you can do - just follow these simple steps:

1. Download, upload and activate wp-db-backup if you don’t have it, and make a backup copy of the database
2. Disable all plugins (there’s a link for that at the bottom of the Plugins page, no need to do it one by one)
3. Delete all files (no folders yet) except .htaccess and wp-config.php in the root of your install
4. Delete wp-admin and wp-includes folders with content
5. Upload the files and folders you deleted, from the latest WP version
6. Go to (blog.url)/wp-admin/upgrade.php
7. Click the link, wait a few seconds and you’re done

As mentioned before, I’ve been looking a bit at “GTD mentality” (GTD means “Getting Things Done”, basically it’s about ways to be more efficient) lately, and even though I was already effective and doing many of the actions I found recommended, I decided to try a few more. This basically means I’m currently trying out a few different online apps to help de-clutter my mind. Besides starting to note more in my calendar, I’m trying out Remember The Milk (RTM) and Vitalist as task management systems, while also easily integrating them in my Google Calendar to see deadlines for current tasks.

RTM is a system I see as focused on todo lists, more than a complete task management. I enjoy being able to tag each task without having to define the tag before, the integration with other tools (GMail, Google Calendar) is good and simple, which is also the case when adding tasks to the predefined categories. That is, the addition of tasks is simple, but I find it a bit lacking when wanting to specify more about a task I added - when moving my mouse over the list I find that I’m suddenly on another task, instead of simply highlighting the latest task and let me edit date and tags, write notes, share the task, specify a url etc - in other words, the basics. A big plus for RTM is that it’s a free service. I’ve used RTM for work tasks, where most projects have a similar theme, meaning it’s easy to simply keep them in the work tasks and separate by using tags.

Vitalist let’s you specify your own projects and sub-project, ticklers, tasks for “some day”, add new tasks by Jott (speech to text service, seems only to be working in US though) besides giving the possibility to show your tasks in your online calendar, although with the downside of not being able to edit or add tasks through the calendar (at least not as far as I’ve seen, using Google Calendar). As a side note, I’ve been using Vitalist for my home tasks, having multiple projects which are not similar - here I can differ between various projects and contexts, besides the handy multi-level project interface.

The verdict between those two system is relatively equal, leading me to give 3/5 as a rating for each of the services. I will probably try one or two others soon, such as Toodledo, Ta-da List or Todoist, although I’m taking the Todoist warning seriously: “High usage of Todoist may result in an organized life”. All the five mentioned systems seem to have good integration with other online app’s which help you getting things done, such as online calendars, email and other, and in true “Web 2.0″ spirit, of course most have an API if you want to do something in your own way, for example by mashing them all up together with the calendar of your choice, an email system (or a few) and of course put it all together with a good context interpreter (”if you are going to do this, maybe you should remember to do that other thing first”) - we all know from ProgrammableWeb’s 600 API:s that the possibilities are vast, and few categories are missing…

While on the subject of being productive and efficient, three of my favorite blogs often have articles on the subject, with lifehack.org’s “50 Simple Ways To Stay Productive“, Zen Habits “10 steps to becoming an email ninja” and Lifehacker’s “Newsreader showdown” as examples from this and last week. I find reading articles from those three blogs a nice start of the day, and would recommend subscribing to anyone.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about improving my Spanish, so when I stumbled upon the site SpanishSense, which contains lessons with voice dialogs, podcasts and help material I became pretty excited. One thing I really like about the site is how they allow you to embed lessons in your own site, to spread the word and build a community where everyone can help eachother in the learning process. According to the site, they also have Chinese lessons, but I’ll wait with looking into that for now - after all, it’s easy getting those new languages confused with the five I already know (six if you count beginner spanish that I didn’t practice for 2-3 years). You can try one of the SpanishSense lessons (introductions) by using the player I put in this post…

Another thing I did to find ways of improving my Spanish was to add a tab called Spanish to my iGoogle page - which of course gave quite a few widgets to use, including a dictionary, Babelfish and news in Spanish.

In other news, I’m looking around at a lot of Web 2.0 sites lately, getting some invites here and there (often found through Mashable), getting updated on new web API:s through ProgrammableWeb while in the process of starting one new site and one new blog. Meanwhile I’ve learned more about Google maps API (including the AJAX version), tiny mce (there must be ways of doing it better, but since it’s popular I guess they’re on to something), Community Server (I’m not very impressed), Dapper, Yahoo! pipes, Google trends and some add-ons for Firefox and Thunderbird. Next is to learn some more about the Google Mashup Editor and perhaps OpenKapow for the site I’m creating. Together with Dapper and Yahoo! Pipes I believe those tools can make wonders…

This is just about the maps for now, not about stand-alone software like Google Earth.

I’ve become impressed by the Google Maps API when working with it, by the support from the Google team and by the constant feature updates we keep getting - and of course by many of the extensions from the community.

I’ve tried out PdMarker, Clusterer and a few other extensions with varying results, and believe some of those features should be part of the standard API. Today I actually saw in one of the Google groups threads that some of those features will come to us soon, and especially the marker.onHover() for tooltips and marker icon change seems to be on its way.

As a way of learning the API I’ve followed some of Mike’s tips for managing the maps - and noticed it seems very updated (I haven’t seen any dates) - as well as following the official blog, looking a lot at the docs and sometimes checking out Google Maps Mania.

Even though I’m impressed by the maps, marker overlays, geocoders etc I am also a bit disappointed in the fact that I noticed this technology slowing my browser, and in conjunction my entire system, down so I can’t work at normal pace. Of course I understand it takes a bit of code to get it all running, but it seems to me there are still some memory leaks - and I really don’t like the message about ‘unresponsive script’ Firefox tells me about every time I exit the browser after looking at maps for a while….

I’m looking forward to the next update - but even more, I’m looking forward to GMap3(), hopefully with better OnUnload()…

I wish you a nice mapping..

Lately I’ve been tinkering a lot with maps and what is called the GeoWeb by some. I’m starting to master the API for google maps, geocoding addresses, airport locations etc through different services and creating my own maps showing markers and marker clusters to show locations for hotels, car rental offices and airports, as part of my job. While doing this I’ve also had the chance to discover much more of the GeoWeb, seeing a webcam over Trafalgar Square in London (which is placed wrong on the map) and a couple of creative mapmaking and tour creating sites, making me believe a great deal in the GeoWeb, and in the future both for services such as Google Maps and free software like Google Earth.

Some creative people use a map as a CV, a WikiMapia project was started to let anyone add information on maps - giving it so much information that my old laptop can barely move the map - and you’ve probably noticed the Google maps flight simulator, Goggles. You can find where you would end up if digging a hole through the planet from any position - I would end up in the middle of the pacific ocean if I started digging from here, so I guess I’ll skip that for now.

While creating my own maps with overlay, I’ve noticed it’s very simple javascript which helps us control the maps, overlays, events etc, and am now considering creating my own mashup using maps and some other services - doing something I haven’t seen around, at least not in Europe - but that will be a secret for now, until the plans start coming to life…

Happy mapping, and have a great weekend - I know I will, going to another place on the map…

I’ll keep exploring web 2.0 sites with this post, recommending a phone company for global calls at local cost, voki (I put one on my front page), a pretty meaningless timeticker, learning japanese, another time management tool and a nice tool for creating mindmaps.

You probably know about Twitter for short messages on what you’re up to - now you can find a similar service for the french speaking crowd at Yelago. WeShow is another beta showing videos, Streamy promises to become a new way for sharing stories online and Walletproof helps you save money both online and offline.

I’ve been looking at script.aculo.us and prototype for making this site a bit more user friendly, and less static, with some simple effects. Using Wordpress this could mean having to alter in the current theme, which I’m not fond of since I would have to remember altering again in another theme if I decide to switch. For this reason I decided to have a look for a plugin, and found what I wanted from the Signified site, with both prototype and script.aculo.us plugins for Wordpress.

After activating both plugins (instead of writing in the theme or creating your own plugin), you simply create a block element which you want to apply the effect to, and then add a trigger for the effect. In my case, I created a div for this content looking like <p id="scrcontent" style="display:none">Text</p>
and a trigger anchor to show this div: <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="new Effect.BlindDown('scrcontent');">Click</a> - it’s a simple thing to do, but be careful to not use too many effects, or it could scare away your visitors.

After installing the plugins (don’t forget that the prototype plugin is needed for the script.aculo.us plugin to work, if you want to try it yourself) it was a simple thing to add the functionality to the site - you can Click to see a description of how to do it.

In the near future I’ll explore other nice plugins and effects and show results here. Until then, have a happy playtime!

I noticed that an old post became relatively popular, the one called “The Web - past, present and future“, looking mostly at different solutions for the future web, and touching lightly on what others have said. Today I instead describe some of my own thoughts about the future of the web - with 3D applications such as Google Earth and Second Life, vertical search engines such as momondo, Ziggs and SimplyHired, and online applications like for example BudgetPulse and LabPixies helping you replace old offline applications with online equivalents.

Some keywords for the future as I see it are Usability, Attitude, Flexibility and Creativity. What is missing most now is the Usability, and looking at the average web 2.0 application you can easily see many flaws - some of which I’ll consider here later. For some testing, I joined a few of the new networks and similar ‘Web 2.0′ sites, such as yumondo, tried some online tools like udutu, while wondering how those names suddenly became so popular - but at the same time positive about the globalised feeling and relaxed attitude it shows for names.

I’ll write more about my findings here later - for now I can say that many of the sites have slow loading, that it’s often difficult or impossible to bookmark search results and similar, and that many of the designers have tried being too cool and forgot that someone should be able to use the site as well…

Having a site everyone can use is obviously something every designer should strive for, but how should we do it, and why are certain methods better than others? As with many other research areas, there are divided opinions also within Usability. Some believe that the Usability rule set could be applied anywhere and goes above everything else, while others believe that usability should go hand in hand with a pleasing design to let the users have a relaxed look while trying to find what they look for. However, all agree that the user come first and the designer opinion last - meaning we must understand the target group to understand how to create the product…

In my first University course in the subject, we were first introduced to this way of thinking by looking at the Usability of real objects, such as kitchen appliances and parking meters. The books we used for a start were Designing visual interfaces by Mullet and Sano and The Design of Everyday Things by Norman - two books I can highly recommend both for a novice in the area and for someone who wants to know more about Usability in general. If you look at everyday things such as stereos, cellphone, laundry machines or even toasters, you can easily notice some part of the object which is more difficult, which is true especially the more advanced objects.

So what can designers, programmers, developers, managers, users and others do to help making for example web applications more user friendly? What can the ordinary man or woman do to help the designer, and what can the annoyed user with no patience do to help the programmer get it right? What can the programmer do to help both designers and users and what can the graphical designer do to help himself and everyone else?

What the users can do is pretty simple to answer - give feedback, comment and tell both what is good and what is not good enough. For this, the designer should give space for simple ways of contact - after all, the users is what should make the site live. However, the designer should still allow some security precautions to avoid spam, which can distract both programmers and designers…

One of the so called gurus of Usability is Jakob Nielsen, creator of the useit website and author of multiple books. If you want something simple and fast to read I recommend his book ‘50 websites deconstructed‘ - but when you look at his own site it’s easy to wonder if he cares at all about the design, and then the thought can be extended

The last course I had in Usability included one of the simplest books on the subject (besides many articles and essays of course) - ‘Don’t make me think‘ by Steve Krug - a well thought out book with simple illustrations and explanations of how the designers and programmers should think, to let the users keep their mind on the intended goal.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll write more about Usability and Accessibility, with simple rules to follow and methods to use - and also include simple analysis of a few websites. You are welcome to make comments here (or send a mail) to ask for an analysis of a specific site, or I’ll find one or a few myself which catches the eye - and maybe I’ll even use my own site as a starting point (yes, I am aware that it has flaws)…

Happy reading

Since this topic is quite popular at the moment, I had a look at different solutions. For anyone curious to explore more, you can look at sites such as AjaxProjects for a comprehensive list, Digital Trend for the best a year ago (according to them at least) or maybe you should simple start stumbling upon them? Looking at Stumbleupon, I start wondering what actually should define Web 2.0, since I used that site about 5 years ago before going tired of so many stumbled spam sites…

Some say that Web 2.0 is about mashing it up, creating sites like del.icio.us and digg, or maybe collecting the most popular sites to one, and showing feeds from the mentioned sites and others, also including media sites such as Flickr and ifilm…

Before uploading your photo to Flickr, you can edit online with tools such as picnik, and the videos can be fixed at sites like eyespot before putting them on for example youtube or Revver….

If you feel like being passive for the day, you can instead use services such as Songbird for streaming from a multitude of online radio channels, or go to Travelistic to see travel videos…

When you look at all the sites and what they have in common it can be difficult at a first glance, but then you start to think of words and terms like ‘user experience’, ‘creativity’ and ’simplicity’ - which are very important parts of the new web taking shape for the future. For example, you don’t always need AJAX or other new technologies to make it ‘Web 2.0′ - but you need to make it worth the time spent to visit the site…

By the way, is anyone else tired of hearing terms such as ‘Web 2.0′, ‘AJAX’ and similar? The technology and thoughts have been around for ages…

Googling for the term ‘Web 2.0′ gives results showing people aren’t tired of it, and actually it’s one of the most hyped terms our there at the moment. Sites like All Things Web 2.0, WebWare and Web 2.0 Magazine try to list as many as possible in categories, while some show the contenct from multiple sites, for example the before mentioned popurls or the iGoogle portal.

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