thingamajig

i found librarything to be very well laid-out and user-friendly. it seems like an excellent resource for book lovers, and i find myself wishing there was something similar for music. i can't tell yet if i will be using it much personally, but i have enjoyed reading users' reviews of books that i have read recently.

the ever-increasing irrelevance of microsoft

i absolutely see google docs taking over from microsoft office, it's just a matter of time. the only reason i can think of why anybody is still paying money for (or even going to the trouble of pirating) microsoft office, when a better, more convenient option is available for free.

speaking of which, it still boggles my mind that the only web browser that the library offers to its customers and staff is microsoft internet explorer, a notorious unstable and unsafe browser, when mozilla firefox, safari and google chrome have been available for free for years.

anyway, back to google docs, i bought a new computer in the past year, and it came with a trial version of microsoft office. i deleted it off my hard drive without even installing it, because for me it's become a completely useless waste of disk space. i originally download openoffice, a free, open-source alternative to microsoft office, and found it to be comparable in every way (quality, ease of use) to the proprietary software.

but the sheer convenience of google docs makes even openoffice obsolete. there is no need to download or install anything, and you don't need to carry around a USB stick to work on or print your documents on different computers. everything is saved and accessed online, the documents and the program itself.

i see this as the future of personal computers. the demand for hard disk storage space and physical storage media like cds and dvds is already rapidly decreasing as more and more media content becomes available online. as programs themselves become available online, computers will become little more than net portals. i only hope that copyright laws and information- and media-based industries will see this coming and adapt themselves accordingly, but i don't think it's likely.

catroulette

youtube allows me to spend literally hours doing nothing but watching an endless stream of adorable kitten videos. i give it a 10/10.

really simple

i can see how RSS would be very useful for someone who follows a lot of blogs, since it would cut down on all the browsing time, and instead deliver all of the new posts from all the different blogs to a single webpage. however, i don't really follow any blogs, so it isn't that useful to me personally. i will definitely keep it in mind for the future though, as i'm sure that sooner or later i will come across some blogs that i will want to keep close tabs on.

i'll goooooooooooogle it

google is slowly taking over the internet, and i'm pretty okay with that. they do it well, and, for the most part, seem to be adhering to their motto, "don't be evil".

the most obvious google tool, and the one i use by far the most, is the search engine (including image and video search), but i also use google maps at least once a week. i find google maps' public transit directions to be far more reliable and useful than calgary transit's. not least among these is the fact that google is not afraid of telling you to walk a few blocks, where the calgary transit website would tell you to catch a bus for 30 seconds, or, if such a bus is not available, that it is regrettably impossible for you to reach your destination.

i also use google maps' walking directions to plan bicycle routes. google are starting to introduce bicycle directions in some cities, but unfortunately, not yet for calgary.