On Friendfeed, I noticed  is that often a theme bubbles up and people start to share links and pictures with that theme during a particular day. This happened recently with pictures of Ronald McDonald. I find this mix of zany along with the informative tech news and social media commentary is what makes friendfeed fun, social, and addictive.

In the past month, I’ve seen fun links around Bacon, Legos, and Darth Vader. I wonder what will be the theme tomorrow?

A quick way to share the current page that you’re browsing on friendfeed is to use the friendfeed bookmarklet. Make sure to watch the video to see how to share sites along with pictures.

An issue I have with the bookmarklet is that I need to display the bookmarks toolbar in order to have a place to hold the bookmarklet. Ideally, I want to keep the browser chrome at a minimum. But unfortunately, you can’t just drag the bookmarklet like a button into the toolbar; it needs to reside in the bookmarks toolbar.

Here’s how I was able to add it to the left of the address bar.

1. Drag the Share on FriendFeed bookmarklet to the bookmarks toolbar
2. Delete the default bookmarks.
3. Right-click on an unused area in the toolbar and select customize
4. Move the Bookmarks toolbar to the left of the address bar and select done.
5. Right-click on an unused area in the toolbar again and uncheck bookmarks toolbar
6. I renamed the bookmark to simply “FF”

One thing that I would like to do is change the Icon to use the Friendfeed ico file and remove the text. That’s something that I’ll explore.

The first thing that I do after installing Firefox is add the “New Tab” button. With Firefox tabbed interface, I find that creating a new tab is my most often used command (I even use it more than the back button). There is a keyboard shortcut (ctrl-T) for creating a new tab, but I browse with my left hand on the keyboard and my right on the mouse, so having a toolbar button that I can click is simpler and quicker than reaching with my pinky on the ctrl and T keys.

Here’s how to add the “New Tab” button to the default Firefox toolbar:

1. Right-click on an unused area in the toolbar and select Customize
2. Find the New Tab button and drag it to the toolbar. I place it to the right of the home button for consistency across the different computers that I use.
3. Click Done

A frequent problem I have with tagging links on del.icio.us is labeling some links singular and others plural. For example, I have a few tags that are marked as resource and other tags marked as resources. In general, I think of these sites as a collection of resources so the plural form of the tag would suit better. I need to combine the tags. I can go to each of the tagged links that have “resource” and change them to “resources”, but this can be time consuming for tags that have many links.

Fortunately, there’s a really easy way to consolidate the tags using del.icio.us rename feature. Login to del.cio.us and go to settings. Under the tags header, click on rename tags. In the old tag field, select the tag you want to change. In the new tags field, enter the plural form of the tag. Now you’re all set.

I’m a big fan of Twitter. If you haven’t heard of Twitter, it is a simple way to stay connected and communicate using the web. It is useful in its simplicity. Anyone can post and update their status and their followers will be able to see the updates. Twitter is especially useful at conferences to enhance the experience by facilitating the conversations around that conference.

Tomorrow, I’m heading to the Mix08 conference and will be using Twitter to meet up with other attendees, find out what my co-workers are up to, and keep up to date on what’s happening at the conference. I usually check my regular timeline with my twitter client, Witty, to see the latest updates. To get the latest tweets just about the Mix08 conference, I am doing the following:

@Mix08 with Friends

The Mix08 conference has an account on twitter that anyone can follow and it’ll follow you back. I can see all of the updates from the people that @mix08 follows by checking out its with_friends view: http://twitter.com/mix08/with_friends

TweetScan search

TweetScan is a great search engine for Twitter. I can see Mix08 related tweets by searching for "mix08". I can then subscribe to the search results for mix08 feed to see it in my feed reader.

Hashtags

Hashtags can be useful for topic related discussions on twitter. Here is the link to the mix08 hashtag: http://hashtags.org/tag/mix08/

via Reddit

The traffic around the MacArthur Maze is still really bad due to re-construction of the collapsed freeway.  I drove by last night at around 8:30pm and the traffic was still there.

You can see the traffic in the screenshot of the Live Traffic gadget. The MacArthur Maze sits in the center of the map.

I was trying to check out the new synth of Gyeongbok Palace on Photosynth and got the following error message. Hey at least they’re honest.

I’ve been using Windows Vista for awhile now and the Sidebar is one of my favorite features. I continually want to know the status of my system as well as other information that I find useful. The Gadgets gives me this information at a glance.

Since the Sidebar and gadget is also there on the desktop, I want them to be informative but not distracting. I customized the opacity of all the gadgets in my Sidebar to 40%. If I want to focus on a gadget I just hover my mouse over it.

Here are some of the Sidebar Gadgets that I use.

Multi Meter

Multi Meter displays CPU and RAM usage in an aesthetic way with percentages and bar graphs. The bar graphs are color coded for additional information. This gadget, like all the gadgets by SFKilla from the Hobby Lounge, even supports multiple skins. Double-clicking on this gadget will quickly bring up the Task manager. I often check this gadget when Vista is being unresponsive.

CPU Utilization

Like Multi Meter and as it name implies, the CPU Utilization gadget displays CPU usage but presented in typical linegraph form as displayed in the Task Manager.

Ping Gadget

Latency is important is important to me. The Ping gadget will graph the ping query to a specified site. I can also tell if my internet is down or not from this gadget. I use to open a command prompt and leave it open with the “ping -t www.google.com”. This gadget replaces doing just that.

Weather and Slide Show Gadgets

The Weather and Slideshow gadgets are the only gadgets that ships with Vista that I use.

The Weather gadget is appealing to look it. I can immediate tell if it’s sunny, cloudy, or raining outside based on the gadgets background while I’m stuck inside the office. Knowing the local temperature is also useful.

The Slide Show gadget is pleasing to look at. I point it to my collection of wallpaper photos. It great for a minor distraction and often times inspiring to look at.

Traffic by Live Search Maps

Traffic by Live Search Maps is useful right before heading home from work. My commute takes me by the MacArthur Maze in Oakland. I use this gadget to gauge how long my commute will be. On days where I see long stretches of red, I stay a little later at work to be more productive so that the traffic can clear up.

Magnetosphere is a new iTunes visualizer that’s very mesmerizing. It’s like watching a great fireworks show. I got back into Electronica recently and this visualizer matches that genre really well. If you’re using iTunes as your music player this visualizer is a must-have.