Seesmic Desktop: What I Like, What I Don’t Like

First, I’m not a fan of TweetDeck. It’s ugly; my eyes can’t stand white on black. And, it made me feel too overwhelmed. Twitter (follow me) already has enough information coming through it, I don’t need an application making Twitter harder to follow. Twhirl solved this for me and has everything I need without filling up too much of the screen. Not everyone has a 30″ screen!

Now that Twhirl is ‘done’, Seesmic Desktop is here. When I first heard of Seesmic Desktop, I immediately thought of TweetDeck and was disappointed, but interested. Once I saw it in action, I was pleased. It’s easier on the eyes and doesn’t put too much information in my face. Well, right now it kind of does, but more features are going to be added which will allow me to stop it from happening. (I heard maybe a more Twhirl-like view?) For example, the excessive notifications for every little thing which fills up half or most of my (19″ widescreen @ 1440×900) screen has to stop. If it doesn’t soon, I will stop using it.

I think it has a lot of potential to be one of the most used apps for Twitter. One feature missing from Twitter is the ability to group people you are following. This feature, known as userlists, is built into Seesmic Desktop. It’s not perfect yet, but this is one of my favorite features because ever since Pownce was shut down, I had a lot of ex-Powncers that I follow and no way to keep track of them without their tweets getting lost among the others. Now with Seesmic Desktop, I can easily follow/check in on them.

The second feature which Twitter had but stopped was tracking. Saved searches in Seesmic Desktop adds this. This is also built into Twhirl, but that’s not important. I use saved searches to track local events, my name, blog, Doctor Who news, etc. Sometimes if there’s huge news about something, I may follow that as well, but only temporarily since some things can bring in a lot of tweets.

And, thank you, thank you for integrating Facebook! One app to interact on both Facebook and Twitter is awesome!

Things I don’t like:

• It takes up a lot of space. The fonts in the tweets are too large and in such a compact space which creates a lot of vertical scrolling. Twhirl had this down perfectly allowing more tweets to be displayed in a small amount of space.
• My Facebook account should not be my default account. I do not use Facebook like I use Twitter. Everytime I close Seesmic Desktop to the tray and then open it, Facebook is automatically selected. This has caused me to post things to Facebook that I did not want to post there! I had thought my Twitter account was selected, because that was selected before it went to the tray.
• Don’t try to be the best app that has everything. My impression from what I’ve been reading on Twitter, that every little thing someone suggests is going to be added. Please don’t do this. I know Seesmic Desktop needs to have many features to compete with TweetDeck, but it doesn’t need to have every feature that everyone requests. Be the best app by having the best features.
• Memory usage. I’ve heard some of this is due to being an AIR app, but Twhirl seemed to handle this better. So, I think some of this could be worked on. I’ve been able to leave Twhirl running for days without ever closing it and it would never feel sluggish. I can’t even do anything in Seesmic Desktop after it’s open for one day!

Features I would like to see:

• Searches that aren’t saved. I have a habit of searching and forgetting about the searches. Searches that I only wanted to look up temporarily, but not to be saved and followed.
• The word ’searches’ should be referred to as tracking. When I think of searching, I’m just searching for a keyword and find (or don’t find) what I’m looking for.
• Do not expand the window to make room for a search. Instead, just display it over the main area. It adds the search by default to the list anyway. So when I search, add it to the list and then select it and display it without adding a new column. Maybe this could be a way to make it feel more like Twhirl? Obviously, this would have to be an option for the user so those who like it how it is won’t be disappointed, but also to please those who are happy with Twhirl.
• Easier way to add users to userlists. I know this is being suggested by many, but I’m including it here anyway. Some people are suggesting to offer a checklist or drag-and-drop way of adding users. Do not offer both a checklist or drag-and-drop option! This just adds too much to the app. Decide for the users how the lists are created and stick with it. I think a checklist would be the best way to go, because dragging and dropping is harder on a laptop with a touchpad.
• Per account searches. To me, this is very important. Twhirl has this because for each account you have a separate window. In each window, you have your searches. I would like to see this feature added to Seesmic Desktop because it is so useful. Currently it just selects my last added Twitter account whenever I reply to or follow someone from in a search. Then I have to manually switch to the account I wanted to use.
• Custom notifications. Twhirl did it right. There needs to be an option to select how many notifications appear at one time, length of time they appear and which accounts they appear for, including each individual search. I cannot have Seesmic Desktop open while I am working because it usually fills up half my screen when there are many updates at once.
  
• Facebook notifications. I do not mean notifying me of a new update. I am referring to those notifications when logged into Facebook, that appear on the bottom right notifying of new comments others have left, or new app updates, etc. Things that do not appear on the home page. Hopefully this is possible.
• More Facebook features. Ability to see if users are online and possibly post to their wall or send a private message.
• Sidebar scrolling. I don’t like scrolling the entire sidebar when my searches have gone past the length of the sidebar. There has to be a better way to do this. Maybe make the scrolling a little faster. Right now it takes so long to get back to the top so I can click on HOME! I guess another option could be moving HOME, REPLIES, PRIVATE and SENT to another location on the window.

I may update this post frequently as I think up new ideas or things I don’t like about Seesmic Desktop. Since it is still in preview mode, it will be changing often and some of the above may be added and if so, I’ll cross them out.

Want to try out Seesmic Desktop? Register to become a part of Team Seesmic and stay up-to-date on Seesmic Desktop’s progress.

Here are some others that have given their own thoughts on Seesmic Desktop:

• Seesmic Desktop will Destroy Tweetdeck
• Seesmic Desktop: The Sincerest Form Of Flattery
• Hands On with Seesmic Desktop: A Flexible, Customizable Twitter Client
• Seesmic Desktop Preview - 9 Amazing Thoughts for Seesmic Founder Loic Le Meur

PerfectDisk 2008 Professional Worth a Try

Having been a huge fan of Diskeeper for years, it was very hard to try another software because I was always comparing to Diskeeper. I had purchased Diskeeper and then switched over to 64-bit Vista and couldn’t run the Home version that I had purchased. I wasn’t about ready to spend even more money to buy the version that supported 64-bit.

PerfectDisk 2008 Professional supports 64-bit, so I thought it was definitely worth a try, especially when I don’t currently run anything to defragment my system. Diskeeper and PerfectDisk are almost similar in functionality. They don’t look exactly the same, but there are some features that do remind me of Diskeeper, which is a good thing because it made me feel comfortable using it.

One feature I look for in most software is the “set it and forget it”. I don’t have time to worry about my system running fast and working right, so that is a must-have feature that PerfectDisk has.

After changing a default setting, I was able to see and schedule my external USB drive to be defragmented.

The defragmentation took quite a while to complete since I modify, add and remove files almost daily on it. I found the process to be slightly slower than Diskeeper, but that could very well mean it is more thorough. Since defragmenting usually occurs when I’m not using my computer (using the idle feature), it’s not really that big of a deal. Defragmenting my main hard drive didn’t take as long even though it is slightly larger; it has a lot more free space on it.

For those of you concerned about how large of a hard drive you have, PerfectDisk does not have a size limitation like Diskeeper does. You are allowed to have multi-terabyte hard drives with PerfectDisk - no need to worry about spending more money on a version that supports larger hard drives. It also allows you to defrag with as little as 1% free space available!

PerfectDisk performs file defragmentation in a single-pass unlike other software which helps improvement of drive performance. It also does a single-pass defragmentation of free space.

PerfectDisk 2008’s patented SMARTPlacement™ optimization is paired with its exclusive single-pass defragmentation and Space Restoration Technology™ to maximize PC and laptop performance.

My favorite PerfectDisk feature is that it also defragments the hibernate file. Since using PerfectDisk, I noticed that Vista resumes from hibernation noticeably faster than it did prior to using the software.

PerfectDisk has also helped Photoshop load faster and while editing several (10-20) large images for work, I don’t notice it lagging like it used to. I have always hated opening Photoshop because of how slow it was and now I can actually enjoy using it. Diskeeper has never done this much of an improvement on my system.

PerfectDisk is easy to use for anyone, very thorough and will keep your system running smooth! I recommend trying it out. Check out the comparison charts.

I am still a huge fan of Diskeeper due to its speed, but PerfectDisk has definitely improved my system in a shorter amount of time than Diskeeper has. PerfectDisk gets my vote for the amount of improvements.

Click on screenshots below:

If you use PerfectDisk 2008 Professional or older versions, I’d love to hear what you thought of it in the comments!

Windows Vista Hidden Applications

A while back I had found out that Vista comes with a Snipping Tool. If you’re like me, you don’t browse the Accessories folder very often, so these are considered hidden for some! I just found out there are more applications from a search for note in the Start Menu, which revealed Sticky Notes and is installed if you enable the Tablet PC Optional Components.

Curious, I quickly opened it to find that it’s a basic application that allows you to scribble notes or even record audio notes. I’m not very impressed with the appearance, because it looks like something that should be on XP. The minimize, maximize and close buttons do not match Vista at all.

There is also no choice of colors for the writing or the note itself. It’s just black on gradient yellow.

Since I had found this hidden application, I thought I would search for tablet to see if there were anything else.

Searching for tablet revealed Windows Journal. It has a piece of paper look to it. You can add images or a text box if you want to type out some text instead of just writing. Also highlight over text, images or writing. You can even change the look of the background and writing. Add multiple pages and save the journal.

And, of course, there is the Snipping Tool that allows you to take screenshots of either the whole screen or just parts of the screen, for example, just one window on the screen. Optionally, you can just press Alt + Print Screen on the keyboard and do the same thing for the active window. But Snipping Tool lets you save as an image without having to open up an image editor like Paint or Photoshop.

Snipping Tool gives you four options that can be selected under New in the menu: Free-form Snip, Rectangular Snip, Window Snip, and Full-screen Snip. See examples below of all three, except for the very obvious Full-screen Snip.

All of these can be found in Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories and Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > Tablet PC. This applies to Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate.

Do you know of any other hidden, but useful applications in Vista? Let me know in the comments!

Google Chrome Thoughts & Everything Chrome

Google’s browser, Chrome, was released not too long ago and just about everyone wrote some kind of review on it. I wanted to wait to have enough time with it. I have been using it exclusively since the day it was released to know for sure if I can use a web browser that is so different from the rest. It turns out it’s my favorite browser.

A little something about me you probably don’t know. When I use a browser, I use it just for viewing websites, what it was intended for. I am not a fan of plugins and themes. A browser should be as light as possible. It makes viewing websites a lot more enjoyable. Google has created a browser that I have always wanted.

Here comes Chrome at a perfect time when we’re angry for Microsoft causing web developers nothing but problems with Internet Explorer; Mozilla pushing Firefox 3 out with its annoying bugs; and Apple with their font smoothing in Safari, which doesn’t even look good in Windows with any of the font smoothing options; and Opera, I don’t know what to say except that the last time I used it, a lot of sites didn’t work right.

So, what’s so special about Chrome? It should be very obvious when you look at it, ignoring the blue appearance of course. In Vista (with Aero enabled), it isn’t blue. In Vista, the titlebar and the tab bar both have transparency. My favorite part is that there is no menu, search or address bar taking up space above the tabs. Chrome still has an address bar, which allows you to search from it as well. And, the menu is found by clicking a couple buttons. I love having the ability to move tabs into its own window or move from one window to another one. No need for me to go into detail about every feature, you can find that on the Chrome Features page.

What makes Chrome better than others browsers (except for Lynx)? Its speed. Chrome loads very quickly. Websites appear right away. Everything is about speed today.

For those of you paranoid people (who probably have something to hide), a German security company created Iron. Quoted from the Incomplete News Project:

The “Iron” browser is based on the “Google Chromium” source code, but “Iron” does not send any user specific data to Google anymore and it does not contain a unique user ID.

And, if you’re worried about Chrome’s automatic updates, get a firewall and block it. Also, If you’re worried about Google collecting data, maybe you should be worried about your ISP, too?

Everything Chrome

• Use Google Chrome Backup to create, backup, restore and manage multiple profiles. It also supports Google Chromium.
• Install Greasemonkey so you can use some useful scripts. There are two ways to do this. Learn how at Make Use Of.
• Increase the number of URL suggestions in the Omnibox. Learn how at Make Use Of.
• Change Chrome’s appearance with a new theme. Download all in one pack or download individual themes. Also find more themes at Free Chrome Themes.
• Install and manage Chrome themes with XChrome.
• Create your own Chrome theme with Chromium Theme Creator.
• Worried about privacy? Make Use Of has a few tips to regain your privacy in Chrome: changing default search engine, disabling the suggestion service, and removing the unique browser ID by using Chrome Privacy Guard or UnChrome.
• Use TabsLock to launch a new Chrome tab or even Chrome itself if it’s not already running by just using the Caps Lock key on your keyboard.
• Force Chrome to use less memory by telling it to use a single process rather than one process per tab. Doing this will cause the whole browser to crash if one tab crashes.
• Block advertisements in Chrome by using Privoxy.
• Run Chrome on a thumb drive with Portable Chrome.
• Download a more up-to-date and open source version of Chrome, called Chromium.
• See all of Chrome’s features in video format.
• Read the Power User’s Guide to Google Chrome from Lifehacker for some great tips.
• Add a Print button to the bookmarks bar.
• Make the bookmarks display as icons only on the bookmarks bar. (I love this because I have so many that I would like to appear without having to go to Other Bookmarks.)
• Use the Chromium Nightly Updater to check for the latest nightly build.
• Check out Chrome’s full list of special about: pages.
• Add features from Chrome in Firefox.
• Check out the Google Chrome Wiki for some tips and tools that I may not have mentioned above.

Everything Else Chrome

• For those of you who switched back to Firefox but love the look of Chrome, just download Chromifox or Chrome Package. They will make Firefox look almost like Chrome.
• Want a Google Chrome icon for a dock? Download at Deviantart.
• Use CrossOver Chromium to run Chrome on a Mac or Linux. CrossOver Chromium is a Mac and Linux port of the Chromium web browser.
• Check out the Google Chrome Comic Book.
• Open websites in Chrome from Firefox with a Firefox extension.
• Detect Chrome using a little bit of Javascript.
• Chrome themes for WordPress, Tumblr and Blogger.

I think too many people expected more from Chrome. They should realize Chrome is beta and is very new. Does beta even mean anything anymore except to say that it’s new? Every browser started off with very little features. Do you really want a browser that will just slow down as you demand more and more from it? I really hope if/when Google adds a lot of features such as themes, that they provide a light version of the browser (what it is today) and a full version, or at least an install that lets you select what you want installed.

Have you installed Chrome? Did you like it? Will you use it when there are more features? If you didn’t like it, what did you not like about it? Saying you need your Firefox extensions isn’t a good answer. That’s not a good reason for not liking Chrome, it’s just you missing your Firefox extensions.

Tip: Fix Gmail IMAP Inbox

For the past couple weeks, I have had an error appear anytime I go to the inbox. It would just prevent me from downloading any new e-mails in the inbox. I didn’t know why it was happening, just figured Gmail was having some problems. After I heard from people that Gmail was working fine for them, I thought it was probably my profile in Thunderbird.

I didn’t get around to cleaning up my profile and just today thought I would look at my Inbox properties. In the General Information tab, there is a button that says Rebuild Index. I’ve never known what this button does, but thought I would just click on it and see what happens.

Do you know what happened? All of my e-mails in my inbox were downloaded from Gmail!

So, if you ever have problems with your inbox (or other folders), try rebuilding the index to repair whatever is broken.