Archive | November, 2006

Review: Webstractor

by evbart on November 22, 2006 in desktop software, review

An acquaintance asked me to take a look at an application called Webstractor by SoftChaos. He told me that it was a way to capture webpages for research, and then to export the results into word.

Here is the Webstractor product tour.

Pros

- The Radar feature seem like a useful one that other similar services don’t offer. Though, services that notify you of changes in a specific website already exist, and some of them are free ( see changenotes).

- Webstractor browser preview along the right hand side is very nice, and allows you to move through your captured web pages rather quickly

- The editing features are usually not included in apps that capture website

- It is nice that Webstractor captures long pages, but that can be done with other apps too

- The product shows up pretty high in google searches, there are not many easily found alternatives

Cons

- The html interpretation in the editor mode is not precise

- It does not export to microsoft word, just to .pdf, which doesn’t offer the differentiation that word would have.

- Is capturing every page you visit useful for research? it seems like it would be more useful from a search perspective. the model is to just bookmark them from yo

- Technical people will use a web-based solution, and if this is going to be a solution for less technical people it needs to be much much easier to use

- Print and share doesn’t count as collaboration these days. Exporting to pdf is something these others don’t do, but its pretty easy to do by just printing to pdf in your browser.

Suggestions

- the actual applications of the software are unclear, what market? what people, what would they actually do with the software?

- needs browser plugins for Firefox

- needs to be completely web-based

- needs collaboration features so multiple people can work on a project

- needs sharing features so people can share their work after they are done (aka publish to a private website)

Alternatives

Another big problem with webstractor is that there are many convenient alternatives.

Zotero
http://www.zotero.org

Yojimbo
http://www.barebones.com/products/yojimbo/

Slogger
http://www.kenschutte.com/slogger/

Scrapbook
http://amb.vis.ne.jp/mozilla/scrapbook/

Google Notes
http://www.google.com/notebook/

DEVONthink
http://www.devon-technologies.com/

Social bookmarking is also a very viable and popular research tool, and potentially has more powerful side effects. Here is a great resource on social bookmarking, and here are several popular tools:

- http://del.icio.us/

- http://www.furl.net/

- http://www.spurl.net/

Other Reviews of Webstractor

http://www.lifehacker.com/software/top/geek-to-live–save-and-annotate-the-web-with-scrapbook-168744.php

Overall I think webstractor definitely tries to solve a valid problem, but does so in a clumsy way. The jury is out on desktop apps, and the main survivor here is your web browser. The application has to be web based, and currently there are some good alternatives. Hopefully I will follow up with some review of these alternatives shortly.

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Review: Screensteps

by evbart on November 16, 2006 in review

Screensteps is a great little idea for making fast software tutorials using screenshots. It is for both Windows and Mac.

Here is their product demo video.

Pros:

  • Quick copy & paste – No swithching back and forth between the application and the program you’re using to write the tutorial.
  • Easy Formatting – Screensteps picks two standard formats for you to use for your tutorial
  • Easy Export – Very easily export to .pdf or html.
  • Nontechnical people can definitely use this

Cons:

  • No drage & drop to re-order the screenshots once you’ve taken them

Requests:

  • Spell-check
  • Needs automatic step numbering. I’d love to see it fill in “Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, etc,” or at least have that option
  • Quick screenshot re-sizing. Each shot may need to be a different size depending on its relevance, quick resizing and cropping would help solve this.
  • Quick highlighting. Sometimes you want to bring the users attention to focus on a specific item within the screenshot. The ability to add some sort of arrows or highlighted boxes would really help.
  • Make this a web based app with the ability to share, and you have a really quick way to build a graphic tutorial knowledge base for a small company!

Overall a really good idea, and a very simple execution. I think the fact that it did a few things very well helped me create my tutorials faster, and left me asking for a few more features. Hopefully I’ll get time to post a sample tutorial.

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Sources of personal information

by evbart on November 13, 2006 in personal productivity, Personal Tech, workflow

Here I want to begin an outline of all the personal information I encounter or take in as an input:

Real World (offline) - here we take in information from people directly through word of mouth, or we discover new information to track from our own original ideas, or by being prompted or informed through media (books, articles, commercials, signs, flyers, etc)

Online - here we take in information through e-mail, rss feeds, traditional news sites, etc

Regardless of where it comes from here is an outline of all the different types of data I might want to take-in or track:

  • Contacts
  • Locations
  • bars, restaurants, clubs
  • stores
  • travel ideas
  • Consumables
  • Products (cloths, gadgets, etc)
  • Books
  • Music
  • Movies
  • Websites
  • Ideas
  • Writing (blogs, journal, fiction, etc)
  • Business Ideas
  • Web apps
  • Vacation Ideas
  • Reflections/Observations
  • Personal Information Repository
  • Transactions (purchases, etc)
  • Passwords
  • Accounts
  • Finances
  • Insurance, etc

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High tech highway robbery

by evbart on November 3, 2006 in Other Interests

Now I know this story has been covered over and over again, but Wired Magazine wraps it up nice and neat into one high impact story about corruption, video games, models, businesss strategy, and fast cars. All of this without an MBA?

Check out this story about the Gizmondo scandal and the infamous wreck of the Ferrari Enzo. I was shocked by how easy it was for Stefan Eriksson and his crew of mobsters to game the system. In a frenzied market thirsting for high growth high tech companies it seems that people will give their money to just about anybody. Are there more stories like this out there? Do other corrupt executives make it as far or father without getting caught?

This story definitely makes me wonder how well our system works, and what the difference is between guys like this (who defend themselves by saying that they did in fact actually build a product, albeit a bad one) and the rest of the high tech world trying to make a buck.

Definitely entertaining and worth a read.

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