I’ve talked about using delicious a couple years ago, I use it for saving website links, but more and more I’m using the delicious community to help me find things I’m looking for.  I’m not aware of other major communities like delicious, but I’m sure there are several or many out there.

To me, this is just like deciding to (A) look in the phone book or (B) to call your friend for a recommendation.  There are times when the phone book is perfect (use Google), and then there are times when you want that friend of yours to tell you who to call (Use delicious or a community search).  Here are a couple of situations when I use delicious to search instead.

1. Looking for Software

The delicious community is pretty technical (as you can see from their popular page), and it is a great resource when you need it.  Recently, I was updating my resume, and I wanted to convert it from a Word file to a PDF file.  I didn’t have the software for that, but I thought I’d try searching for it.  Using Google to search (“convert Word to PDF”), I found several ads, and the first choice was a software download.  I have no idea if this software is safe, stable, how many people use it, etc.  I could research it if I wanted, but that’s more time.  Here is a picture of the search results from a delicious search for  “Convert word pdf”

Notice how on the left is the title of the website, and below it the actual website address.  On the right the dark blue squares show How many people have saved this site.  This box on this right is what I’m looking at.  All of those boxes are dark blue because more than 1000 people have saved each website.  Looking at this list, I make a conclusion that all of these first few are pretty popular, but there is one clear leader with almost 40,000 people who have saved the link.  This clear winner is not on the first page of the Google results, so I probably would never have found it.

Even though this case produces an easy choice, in less obvious searches I can still quickly and easily see what a technical community of web users are using for different software applications.

2. Looking for  “Free” things

Using the word “Free” on Google is usually like putting a target on your back.  There are lots and lots of companies trying to sell you something, and they all know if they use the word free they are going to get a lot more traffic.  This is not a bad thing, but sometimes it’s just nice to find the free thing you are looking for with a minimum amount of BS.

I am currently preparing to take the GMAT, and I’ve been looking for free test questions that I can take to practice for the exam.  If I use the search term “GMAT prep” in Google I get a who’s who listing on the first page.  All the most legitimate companies who make a living preparing people for the test.  If you add the word “free” to your search the results don’t get any better.

Using the delicious search things are different.  Actually, there’s not 1 top link in common with the results page from Google.  There are a few companies selling here (as you can see from the titles), but there are also a couple of blogs and forum websites.  These are the places that I shouldn’t have to spend money, and I can find free test questions / tips pretty quickly this way.

So, there are some examples of when I think there’s a much better choice than Google for search.  The other nice thing about using delicious search is the information below the blue boxes on the right side (they are in grey, and the words I used are highlighted in grey).  I can see the most common words other people are using to save the websites.  If I’m having a hard time knowing what words to use to search, I can look here and get some new ideas and see what other people are using.

My friend Toto Vo is visiting me in Taiwan right now.  Toto is a semi-professional photographer and has 2 nice cameras at his disposal.  We took some great pictures this week in Taroko Gorge, and when we got back Toto was showing me how to tweak them so they look great.

While checking out the new photos Toto showed me the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button Picasa has for optimizing photos (which is on older versions of Picasa too).  Here are a couple of examples of how well it works, and 1 example where it doesn’t work so well.  BTW, you can also have Picasa apply this to an entire folder of pictures at one time, so you don’t have to do it over and over (see how).

Landscape Photo:

Close up with bright colors:

Flourescent Lighting / Yellow Tint:

All in all this is a great tool, and it was actually hard for me to find a case where it was bad for the shot.  Here’s one that looks worse though:

Night Time w/ Flash:

I know that a professional person could improve photos like this pretty quickly (and perhaps even make
them better), but I love that anyone can do this and it doesn’t take
any knowledge of digital images, etc.  I also like the Picasa makes it really easy to post your pictures online.

I heard about Chris Brogan through an article called “10 Thought Leaders Boiled down to 10 Words“.  Using some free IBM software (called Many Eyes), you can load all the text from your blog (or website or anything) and it’ll give you the most common words you use.  The article summarizes them by showing the 10 most common words found in their blogs.  Cool stuff, and some dynamic people.

A couple of articles from Chris’ website that have really been helpful for me in understanding what a blog is are Elements of a Personal Brand and When your blog is a Grand Stage.  I really like both of them because they are miles away from the “travel blog / journal” concept and get at what the blogging community is.

Other than a blog, and a facebook account, my main contribution to the internet is my del.icio.us account.  For those of you who don’t know what that is, you can read this post or check it out directly.  Comparing the words on my blog with those on all the websites I’ve ever saved, the 5 most common words on my blog are:

1. Taiwan
2. People
3. World
4. Called
5. Things

The 5 most common words I use when I save a website on delicious are:

1. Tea
2. Taiwan
3. Portland
4. Blog
5. Free

What to notice from that?  First off, they don’t match that well.  I my favorite website topic (tea) isn’t equally represented on my blog.  I can also see about my writing style with Called and Things on my blog.  I don’t know what else to say about the significance of it, but I think the question is: How Am I Represented Online?

Basically, anyone who wants to make a mix tape (or cd) would upload songs 1 by 1 to muxtape and create
their own mix.  Anyone else can see the mix, and you can name it whatever you want.  So, if you wanted to share some music with someone far away (ahem) or share your favorite mix with anyone, you can throw it up on Muxtape.  It’s free and legal (and had this 1 paragraph terms page).

Right on the homepage there are links to tons of different mixes that people have made.  You can click on one, see all the songs, and just click on the song you like, it’ll start playing.  It’s great to find a mix where you know a just couple songs, then you know there’s some common ground and you might just hear something new that is your style.  My little brother made this mix recently.

Photograph courtesy of www.muxtape.com

This is old news in Japan, and 2d barcodes have been introduced in the USA too.  Remember those stamps you could print out from home?  Probably not, but they are still trying to sell those online.  What I found exemplary was how these barcodes are being used in Japan now.  I picked up a newspaper the other morning, and found this on the upper left corner:  a 2d barcode taking you to another news site.

The barcode in the lower right corner of the BBC World News Ad can be used by your cell phone.  So, you just put your cell phone in camera mode, take a picture and your camera browser will automatically take you to the special webpage.

Cell phones in japan have the ability to take a picture of this barcode and take you to a unique URL.  It’s great because it’s like a landing page, but you don’t have to create a special URL for someone to remember.  Using Landing Pages with a unique URL (Ie. www.moretosee.com for the Sharp Aquos television) is hard to measure, usually expensive to create, can complicate brand messaging, and is generally problematic.  The 2d barcode is nice because it allows you to shortcut the naming (and then memorization) and focus on brand and content more.

• Intel Celeron dual core processor
• 500 gig sata hd
• 1 gig ddr2 ram
• 20x DVD burner

If I did a quick comparison with a typical computer from Dell that would have run me $749.  I believe the main drawback of building your own computer is getting the software installed on it properly.  Windows needs to recognize all the new hardware you’ve purchased, etc. which can be really difficult.

In the end, I went through the software installation process about 3 times on my new shuttle, mostly because of the SATA hard drive and XP not being too friendly with it.  Here is a brief outline to all of you with a shuttle trying to install XP on it:

1. Partition the hard drive – I did a primary partition of 100 gig.  This should get around any Sata issues you have.  XP was seeing my 500 gig drive as 131 gigs no matter what I did.
2. Install OS – I opted for XP because (1) I already have a license so I didn’t have to buy any software (2) XP has a much better reputation than Vista
3. Install the LAN and VGA drivers from the Shuttle CD
4. Go to Microsoft.com and go to Support, then Updates.  Run the program, install what they recommend, then reboot and do it over again.  The 3rd time you run through it’ll finally install Service Pack 2, that’s what you really want.
5. Auto-update the USB drivers through your hardware manager
6. Install the Audio and Chipset drivers from the Shuttle CD
7. Partition the rest of the hard drive and format it.  I partitioned another 300 gigs to a secondary drive.  This allows me to put all my media (photos, music, movies, etc) and other files on it.
8. Done!

If you are mildly comfortable with computers are are thinking about buying a new one, consider building a new computer like the ones shuttle offers.  If you already have a computer with XP then you have a license, the savings on the software side would allow you to buy more computer or save even more up front.

So for those of you who are ‘older and set in your ways,’ I have a video you might want to watch about the internet.

It moves fast at times, but it’s a good summary of some of the ways people are using the web now.  It is often called Web 2.0, and has been referred to that way for a year or two now.

Be good to mention that this post is titled the same as my blog is titled, a very apt subject for the world I live in.

One of my co-workers just bought a laptop PC for these reasons, while needing a way to get work email at home.  She bought a dell
and has run into endless issues. She started with Vista, realized it
was too much trouble, upgraded to XP, and has been unable to get the
thing to work. Even though she got the best service contract with dell,
she’s out in the cold. Why?

Have you ever tried calling the
company who made your TV when the cable went out? I haven’t either, but
my guess is they won’t be much help. There have to be at least 20
million computer users (including my parents) in the USA who do not
understand the difference between hardware and software. They buy a
computer from dell, and expect dell to help them when they can’t
connect to a wireless network. As this happens, Dell is left making
their customers angry; Microsoft is building operating systems more
fuel-inefficient than the new Hummer, and everyone leaves frustrated;
The computer doesn’t work.

I don’t own a mac, but their model is
really killing the PC right now because of this problem. My coworker
doesn’t care that her soundcard driver needs to be updated with XP, she
just knows she bought a computer from dell and the sound doesn’t work.
She also gets a “not my problem” answer when she calls for help, even
though she thinks by buying the premium service package she’s getting
full support. Reading the dell warranty page, they have categorized support into three areas:

1. Hardware Warranty Support
2. Optional CompleteCare Accidental Damage Service
3. Spyware, Virus and How To’s

Clearly,
buying your normal computer gets you #1. #2 deals with dropping the
laptop, etc. #3 is what Dell is trying to package the software support
thing around. HowTo: Install a network, a printer, How to remove a
virus from your PC, etc.

This really sucks for dell. Service is
expensive, margins on computer hardware are razor thin, and all the
while they need to make the customer happy when the customer doesn’t
realize they are on the phone with the wrong company.

I wonder what Google is thinking about all of this.

“The US has the largest and most technologically powerful economy in the
world, with a per capita GDP of $43,500. In this market-oriented
economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the
decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and
services predominantly in the private marketplace.”

“Since 1975, practically
all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of
households.”

“Imported oil accounts for about two-thirds of US
consumption.”

“Long-term problems include inadequate investment in
economic infrastructure, rapidly rising medical and pension costs of an
aging population, sizable trade and budget deficits, and stagnation of
family income in the lower economic groups. The merchandise trade
deficit reached a record $750 billion in 2006.”

I really like surfing this way. I have found some very interesting websites on all kinds of topics. A while back, I read an article from InfoWorld magazine on social tagging, called Collaborative Knowledge Gardening.

Today, I was reading about Gore Inc. and their work environment / culture (I heard about it in the book The Tipping Point). When I added that page from Gore’s website to my delicious account, I could see that only 2 other people had linked to it. So, I clicked on those 2 people to see what other pages they had tagged. I ended up on someone named Page Sands DEL.ICIO.US page.  I found a link to a great article called A Cognitive Analysis of Tagging

The  best connection from the article was how it compared tagging with categorizing, like how each of us categorizes our emails so we can find
them when we need them. As everyone knows, having a good email folder structure is a real challenge, no matter how hard you try. Two of my
favorite quotes from the article is: “The brilliance of Gmail was to separate the tagging from the archiving.” The other very good quote is:

“tagging eliminates the decision – (choosing the right category), and takes away the analysis-paralysis stage for most people.”

The other main website people are playing up with respect to social tagging is flickr and it has to do with images…I’ve got a flickr account, and have shared it with people after parties, no social tagging there yet…

Image courtesy of Getty Images