Digital media: explained by others, compiled by me, presented to you

After reviewing how I use my desktop as a toxic waste dump for files I want easy access to for a one time use, I recently downloaded a new Mac software app called Hazel from Noodlesoft to clean up my MacBook Pro. Basically, it creates rules to clean out your downloads folder, your trash and move any file you wish to a more organized spot. Downloaded an application to then later deleted it? Hazel will sweep away any left over support files. It’s cool like a roomba – cleans and you don’t need to do a thing.

The free trial was a great idea because now I want to buy buy buy.

So, if you’re lazy like me, try it out. Have a better way to clean your computer? Let me know!

A recent article in Mashable pointed me to a new website that promises to help you stay on track of your resolutions: Dorthy. The site promises to give the user a living page that focusses on their specific goals, provides information on said goal, and connect the user to other like-minded goal searchers.  It’s a focussed Google with a bare-bones community attached.

On first visit, I’m left wondering what to do after I input my dream: to find more time to update this website (lame dream, yeah). I’m taken to an overview page (called a dreampage – very Oprah-esque) that looks similar to what I would find if I typed “I want to find time to update my website” into a Google search: I see online articles, videos pulled from You Tube and Vimeo, photos and links to blogs that I think have the “update website” phrase within their copy. Since it seems to work by automatically pulling keywords (even though the site says “We’ve abandoned key words and moves beyond traditional semantics to develop an implicit understanding of what you’re interested in,”) I wonder if this blog entry you’re reading now will eventually show up in this Dorthy feed about updating websites? Vouldn’t that be Veird?

When I click on the community tab, it takes me to other members who have entered similar goals and I can subscribe to their dreams so my own page is updated with their updates. From what I can see, there’s no way to contact the person, which the introvert in me likes but may have helped create a virtual “cheerleader” squadron to the user’s goal achievements. The site uses Facebook Connect, which could translate that community support from Dorthy onto a Facebook page, I suppose.

Snooping around, I see someone entered a dream to run a marathon in Maui. This opens a dreampage that’s a little more focussed than my vague goal but again, I don’t see anything I wouldn’t have seen without entering the same dream into a search engine.

This isn’t to say the site doesn’t have potential… As more people subscribe and enter data, perhaps the algorithms will improve and my Dreampage will be more relevant and less vague.

Maybe I’ll set a goal on this site to review Dorthy in 6 months to see what’s changed on the site.

Let me know what you think and what sites you use to keep on track of your goals.

Tech blog StartUpMeme wrote about a new service called UserNameCheck, a service that shows you if your preferred username is already taken by another in this growing social media world.

I use it, however,  to remind myself of all the social media sites I have signed up with and have subsequently forgot about using. I tend to jump into any social media network and sign in with my preferred user name to maintain my online identity in case that service takes off. Quite often, though, I end up never visiting that site again. 

This site is also good to keep abreast of some of the social networking sites you  may not have known about existing.

Only seven years ago, the internet was a very different place. And I have proof! As part of Google’s 10 year anniversary, they’ve opened up an easter egg so you can search the internet as it was in 2001.

I’ve looked up Facebook (first link to its Harvard incarnation), You Tube (didn’t exist), my name (I didn’t exist) and some of my other favourite sites. Thanks to web.archive.org, you can even see how some sites looked back then (and how just a few small tweaks can make a huge difference).

Just because: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qQKdHxeMkk

Turns out YouTube is shutting down all copies of this pageant. Seems suspicious. Anyone know why?