Cloudy Days and Connected Nights

Seesmic Desktop Preview, feedalizer, zensify, Darkslide, Mobile Foto (with Tweetie and TwitterFon thrown in the mix) and a brief encounter with PeopleBrowser.

Seesmic Desktop Preview: Twitter accounts and Facebook in one app.

In this day of multiple social networks and multiple social network personalities, the task of keeping up with your Facepeeps, Tweeps, and Flickr buds can be daunting,  even for the least social.

And then too, many of us are multiple device folks: desktop, laptop, netbook, internet connected smartphone, etc., etc. so we are often tracking our networks from two or three directions at once.

Of course there are several good desktop and iPhone clients for Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr…in various combinations.

My favorite for  Twitter and Facebook is Seesmic Desktop Preview, which handles multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts, updates, replies/comments, friend/news feeds, follow and unfollow on Twitter, and most of the essential features of both sites. It is still a work in progress (it lacks the ability to view your own friend/follow list for instance), but it is excellent already and only stands to get better as it develops.

Recently I discovered zensify on the iPhone. zensify is a social network aggregater  that puts my Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr feeds in the same list on the same app, and allows me to update, reply, comment, etc. on each of them, with more or less ease.

Twitter interaction is pretty good, on a basic level, mimicking closely the functionality of  other iPhone Twitter apps like Tweetie and TwitterFon. You can choose to Reply or Direct Message. You can post images.

zensify: one stop social aggreation for the iPhone

Flickr interaction is very good also. zensify displays single or multiple new image posts from your contacts list, and at it also captures images with new comments. In cases where there are multiple images opening the viewer provides a slide show effect where you can flip through the offerings. To comment you have to tap the image (lower right corner seems to work best) and the Flickr .m site opens with the image displayed. Commenting is quick and easy and relatively fast.

Facebook interaction is the weakest so far (though there are hints they are not done with this section).  It collects your friend’s status updates just fine, and you can view them the viewer, and like them, but to make a comment (so far) you have to open the friend’s profile in the browser. Awkward.

One good feature is that you can make simultaneous posts to Twitter and Facebook.

Of course, there is a whole layer of functionality provided by dedicated clients for these networks that is missing so far in zensify. You can not view followers/friends, follow or friend, unfollow or block, view friend’s/follower’s timelines, view follower’s followers, see the update that was replied to, etc. etc.

zensify takes a while to aggregate all that information too, and clearly strains the limits of what current iPhone hardware is capable of.

Therefore, wonderful as it is being able to interact with all my important social networks in a single app, zensify will not be replacing Tweetie or TwitterFon for Twitter, or the Facebook app for Facebook until it reaches a more complete level of development (and maybe not until I upgrade to a new iPhone).

But that leaves me without an easy means of keeping up with my flickr account. I can easily fall 400 images behind on my contact’s submissions if I am away from the netbook for more than a few hours!

Darkslide: list view, Mobile Foto: grid view of contact's recent images

I have had the free, ad supported, version of Darkslide on my iPhone for some time, but never gotten into the habit of using it. After zensify I gave it another try and liked it so well, I ended up buying the paid version.

Darkslide implements the full feature set of Flickr, including image uploads, groups, sets, etc. etc. but for me the best part is that it  gives you quick easy access to your contacts’ recent posts, with an excellent viewer and easy commenting and is just the thing for keeping up with the image flow on the iPhone.

Unfortunately Darkside has two annoying habits. 1) when you reopen it, it stalls and refuses to reload whatever you were viewing last until you manually initiate a reload by tapping, for instance, My Photos if you are in Contacts, and then retapping Contacts. Annoying! Then too, Darkside is evidently working without a parachute (no local cache) so it has to reload everything every time you work with it. That can take a while if you have a lot of contacts, and forever if you have a lot of images yourself. Annoying. (Interestingly there is a Cache size readout in Settings, but it is always blank.) [Note: v 1.6.1 (current in the app store) is apparently broken in several ways, prone to crashing, and to hanging up internally when switching functions. The company is aware of the problem and working on a fix.]

Which lead me to search for alternatives. Mobile Fotos presents itself as a full featured Flickr client, and it is just that. Since it does cache locally, it is much faster than Darkslide, and it auto reloads on launch. I do not like the way it displays Contacts’ images quite as well as Darkslide, which groups multiple images from a single contact together under the contacts name in a list view, and it has one glaring omission (shocking!): there is no Activity function to look at activity on your own images.

Which lead me back to Flickr’s own m.flickr.com site, which is, afterall, very good. Not as fast as Mobile Foto, but in many ways the layout, look and feel, is just about as elegant as Darkslide (except no dark background view of images!!!, and the new postings are not grouped by contact), and it actually works better than the standard web version in that it returns to the actual page of contacts you were commenting on when you complete a comment…rather than poping all the way back to the first page of contacts’ images. For now, it might just be the easiest, fastest, way to keep up with contacts’ new postings.

zensify did make me wonder about developments in similar functionality for the desktop. FriendFeed I find somewhat limited from the interactive aspects, and I don’t enjoy being tied to my browser, but the availability of Adobe AIR has spawned quite a few social aggregation desktop apps beyond Seesmic Desktop.

You may have seen postings around the net for PeopleBrowser. People browser looks to be the ultimate be all and end all for social networking: once it is finished. Though a beta was announced this week, all I can find is the most recent alpha, which shows the potential. Unfortunately it appears unnecessairly complex and seems to produce inconsistent results at best. I will be tracking development on this one but it does not seem ready for prime time yet.

feedalizr: desktop social aggregation

feedalizr is an older, more mature app that looks like it might have been the inspiration for zensify.

Functionally they are much the same. You set up your accounts and then feedalizr aggregates them into one list. Filters are provided so you can see just what you want in the primary list, and you can open all kinds of things (other accounts, individual tweeps or Facepeeps, groups, searchs, etc.) in tabs beside the primary list. So far, I have not found a way to show new images of those who are not classifed as Flickr friends…all my contacts are missing.

Interaction with the various networks, updates, image posts, comments, replies, etc.  is pretty easy and works well, with pop down posting boxes, drag and drop for images for Twitter and Facebook, and image titling, tagging and description fields for Flickr uploads (up to 10 images at a time).

As with zensify, feedalizr appears to lack the second layer of functionality for Twitter and Facebook: friend/follow, unfollow, etc. (You can do these things but it kicks you out to the main Twitter site or Facebook to do them.) It does have a groups feature which is quick and easy (or was, until it mysteriously stopped working for me).

So, just as on the iPhone, the all in one solution on the desktop does not seem to be quite there. Seesmic Desktop still comes closest, but lacks the Flickr feed.

And I have yet to find an equivalent for Darkslide or Mobile Foto on the desktop. There is an Adobe AIR program called DestroyFlickr which attempts to be the equivalent for the desktop, but it will not run well on my netbook’s 1024×600 screen (AIR seems to still have trouble with windows).

The upstart of all this is…with the really strong social networking apps on the iPhone, it is getting to be more fun, and faster, to track my networks on the phone than it is on the netbook. This does not, somehow, seem right, but there it is!

iBird Explorer Pro

[This review is for the Pro version, for the Plus version, go here.]

iBird Explorer Pro is a app for the iPhone/iPod Touch with references for 891 species of birds found in North America. It is, so far, totally unique (apart from its iBird siblings, more on that later) as an interactive field guide (with songs and calls), exhaustive reference, and powerful search engine for iPhone/Touch carrying birders in the field. It is, in fact, pretty much unique as interactive, reference on any platform, and just maybe, the most unique and useful field accessory you are ever likely to see.

Browse screens: notice keyword hints!

I have reviewed two previous versions of iBird Explorer Plus (original and the v1.4.1 update) in a sort of incremental way. Pro marks enough of a departure to warrant a whole new review. (iBird Plus and the regional apps will continue to be upgraded with new content and features appropriate to their serious birder audience, but Pro will acquire a feature set which is more appropriate for the professional guide, teacher, mentor, citizen scientist, ornithologist, or field biologist.)

In general, iBird Explorer Pro provides, for each of its 891 species, instant access to:
1 ) one or more detailed illustrations
2 ) an audio recording of songs and calls
3 ) a range map
4 ) a basic description of identifying features and associated habitats
5 ) what amounts to a complete life-history, which includes detailed descriptions of individual body parts, descriptions of habit, range, feeding and foraging, nesting, etc., etc.
6 ) a few interesting or unique facts and factoids about the species.
7 ) lists of, and live links to, similar species
8 ) one or more (often several) supplemental photographs
9 ) conservation status based on the IUCN/Bird Life International ratings
10 ) instant links to every photograph published on Flickr of the species (requires wifi or 3G)
11 ) an instant link to the Wikipedia article for the bird (requires wifi or 3G).
12 ) and a large version of the primary illustration which can be zoomed in to study detail.

The illustrations pages

You can browse the species listing sorted alphabetically by first name (common names, Yellow-rumped for Yellow-rumped Warbler), or by last name (Warbler for Yellow-rumped Warbler). (Note that typing in Warbler does not pull up all the warblers, only those with Warbler as their last name. Painted Redstart, for instance, would not included in the species found by the keyword “warbler”. To find all Warblers you could do a search by family in the search section, see below, or use browse by Family, also just below.) In standard iPhone fashion, a quick index on the side of the page allows you to jump directly to any letter, or to scroll quickly through the letters. You can also view and browse by Families (as in all Wood Warblers), sorted in in the order they appear in on the American Ornithological Union check-list.

Range Map, Sounds, Similar

You can type all or part of a common name in the keyword field, or you can enter the “/” character and the 4 letter banding code, or “&” and the Scientific Name, and iBird will locate the species or group of species for you.

Tapping any species name in the browse pages will open the species (bird) screen with a scrolling (left and right) two-row set of info buttons at the bottom. Here you select from illustrations (Bird), Sounds (little speaker icon), Range, Identity, Photos, Similar, Facts, Birdipedia or (scrolling right) Favorites, Ecology, Flickr, or Portrait (all of which correspond to the information listed above.)

Photo, Flickr, Conservation

On top of all that, iBird Explorer Pro also has a built in search engine which can sort the included 891 species by:
1 ) Location (multiple settings possible)
2 ) Shape
3 ) Size
4 ) Habitat (multiple settings possible)
5 ) Primary Color (multiple settings possible)
6 ) Secondary Color (multiple settings possible) (Both primary and secondary color setting require care. If you specify two or more incomputable colors you will end up with no matches.)
7 ) Backyard Feeders (yes or no)
8 ) Family
9 ) Bill shape
10 ) Bill length
11 ) Head pattern
12 ) Crown Color
13 ) Wing Shape
14 ) Flight pattern
15 ) Conservation status
16 ) Song
17 ) Song pattern
18 ) Observed status in a particular state in a particular month (based on actual sightings records)

Song Search

The search process is fast and efficient, and, in my experience, very accurate. While some (maybe most) experienced birders may prefer to use the sorting engine they have developed over years of field experience in their own brains, the search engine in iBird Explorer Pro will teach beginning and growing birders some good ID skills (at the very least what features to look for, and at the most, the most likely species to display them). It is also very useful when someone walks up with one of those “I saw a bird in my backyard the other day, and it was this big, and blue, and…” stories. Instead so smiling tolerantly (or superiorly, depending on who you are), and then making a series of inspired guesses (or shaking your head and walking away, again, depending), you can now enter the features as they are mentioned, ask pertinent questions

Global and app settings (French currenly, Spanish and German planned)

(where is your backyard, what kind of habitat does it provide, did you notice the color of the crown, shape and length of the bill, etc, etc.) and end up with a small (hopefully) list of birds you can actually show them on the spot…and even play back the songs if they heard the bird sing. (You may answer some questions and spark some interest in birds and birding, but one thing I guarantee you will do, is sell quite a few copies of iBird, and maybe a few iPhones as well.)

So let us answer the question on many minds right now: how is Pro different from Plus? There is a feature table here.

In a nutshell, Plus lacks Song search, obvious band code and scientific name keywording (hint), search by month/state, the Ecology page (and search by Conservation Status), the full sized portrait, and the foreign language option. That’s it. All other features are there (even if some are not immediately obvious (hint):).

Portrait View

Is that worth the $10 difference? Maybe not, for some, but we are told that the differences will become more profound as more professional features are added to Pro.

The intention, according to the iBird folks, is to create a feature set for Plus that suits the needs of the average advanced birder, and to create a feature set for Pro that meets the needs of the professional, with professional being, in my interpretation, loosely defined as the group mentioned above.

Many even serious birders will find the features of Plus (and the regional variations) to be completely adequate. If you are among them, I don’t think you have to fear that there will be a time when you suddenly need a feature from Pro and have to buy the new program. Put down your $19,99 and be happy. Your app will continue to develop along the existing lines. On the other hand, if you are a professional guide, teacher, mentor, citizen scientist, ornithologist, or field biologist, who needs the Pro features now, you can be assured that more Pro level features are coming to Pro in the future. And if you are not sure, or you are just the kind of birder who has to have the most advanced tools, then just pay the $10 extra up front and be happy.

For those who already own Plus, it is a harder decision. Is there a feature of Pro that you can’t live without? Then go for it now. Pro will only get better. On the other hand, if you don’t find a compelling reason to buy a new app (Pro) to replace your existing Plus, then stay with Plus. It too will only get better.

In this, of course, we are kind of at the mercy of the Mitch Waite Group and their decisions about what constitutes a serious (Plus) feature and what constitutes a Pro feature. In the current split, I could argue strongly that Song search should be a Plus feature, not necessarily a Pro feature. In fact I plan to do so, via the new iBird Explorer discussion forum the iBird folks just put up. By the evidence so far, the Mitch Waite Group listens carefully to user feedback and feature requests in making these kinds of decisions.

State and Month Search

And consider this: either program is a bargain at the price. To duplicate the content it would cost many times as much. The search features simply can not be duplicated.

And finally, the upgrade controversy. No there is no way, currently, for a Plus user to upgrade to Pro, other than buying the new program at the full price. There should be, but with the App Store system, which is totally under Apple’s control, there is not. This should change sometime after June when iPhone OS 3.0 becomes available, but it is really up to Apple, and until then…

You have choices. Need Pro. Buy it. Even if you have Plus. After all, even if you add the two prices together, it is still a bargain. If you can live without the features of Pro, do so. For now. Upgrade only when you have to. (And maybe by then there will be an upgrade path?? Who knows?)

(To be fair, I have three National Geo guides sitting on my shelf, one of each recent edition, and two copies of guides by Kenn Kaufman which only differ by the composition of the cover. I did not expect the publishers of those guides to upgrade my guide when a new edition, or an improved cover, came out. I did not even, come to think of it, as for a rebate, or a credit for already owning a copy. I just went out and bought the new guide. And no printed guide has ever promised, as iBird does, continuous upgrades of the content. (Oh there was that page for Sibely you were supposed to tape into your book…but you know what I mean.))

The bottom line here is that iBird Explorer Plus/Pro is an absolute must have app for any iPhone/iPod Touch owner who is even moderately intersted in birds. Plus for the moderate. Pro for the, well, for the not so moderate. For the avid birder, what can I say? Buy iBird Explorer. In fact, buy an iPhone if you have to, to run it on. With apps like iBird Explorer you will never regret the investment.

Since the future of the term netbook is at least uncertain after Psion’s recent spate of cease and desist letters based on their registered trademark, I would like to propose what we all (starting with Intel) switch to N’tbook instead.

N’tbook, n’tbook, n’tbooks, n’tbooking, etc.

Pronounced exactly the same way as netbook with a hint of a click.

If I were smart, I’d copyright that, and sell the rights to any who want it. But I am not either smart (that way) or greedy. So, any and all, feel free to use the term n’tbook to refer to what we have been calling netbooks. You will note that I have already changed the name of my blog, and I am ready, should Psion send me a letter, to do a complete search and replace on every reference to netbook (inlcuding this one) I ever made. And it will be n’tbook from here on out!

(actually I will copyright that, just to prevent someone more greedy than I am doing it and then telling me I can’t use the term.

n’tbook ©®™ by Stephen Ingraham 1/3/2008)

the three finalists

(Note revisions under the TwitterFon section. New version!)

My search for the perfect Twitter client for iDevices continues. (See Social Friendlies Sighted). There are have to be at least 10 strong contenders currently on the App Store. I have tried the free versions of most that offer free versions, and paid for two that don’t. 

For the past few weeks my three favorites have resided on my Touch, and I tried to be faithful in switching back and forth until I discovered which one I actually like using the most, or came up against an obviously missing feature that I was using in the other clients. After all, twittering is not such a huge part of my life that I am willing to keep three clients on my iPod Touch. Two would have to go.

TwitterFon

TwitterFon is clearly the best deal here. Free. It is also, at least by impressions, the fastest and most responsive. It will, when you have not checked your tweets in a while, load enough tweets at one time for most anyone. And it is attractive. The layout of tweets and profiles is elegant, and navigation is pretty straightforward. There are only two tweet color codings: Read (white)  and unread (light blue).

It does a lot of things that I really like. If you open a tweet, it displays where the tweet was sent from. I do not know why I am interested in this, but I am. It tells me, I guess, if the tweeter is sitting in front of the computer, or out somewhere using a mobile device. Maybe. I don’t know. I just like it to be there. It also displays the bio information when you open one of your follower’s profiles. Again, I don’t know why this is important, but it is to me.

as far as TwitterFon goes

Opening urls within tweets is not as intuitive as some clients. URLs are not highlighted or underlined, and are not direct links (touching does nothing). If a Tweet contains a URL, there will be a white arrow in a blue circle on the right side of the tweet (as opposed to the normal little gray arrow without circle). Touching the circled arrow opens the tweet. The URL is still not highlighted or underlined, but there is another circled arrow on the right side of the tweet. Touching that will open the in-line browser to view the URL. (It took me quite a while to figure this out. At first I thought TwitterFon did not open URLs at all.)

TwitterFon’s one major shortcoming, as far as I am concerned, is that it does not drill down past the first profile level. It lists the tweeter’s total following and followers numbers, but does not list the individual followers or followings, and there is no way to open those peoples’ profiles to see who they are following and who their followers are, etc. etc.

Again, others may not find this necessary. I like, on rare occasions, to see how one of my followers or someone I am following is connected in the Twitterverse. For one thing, I often find someone among their connections that I would like to follow.

Still, if fast, responsive, elegant is all you need in a Twitter client, then TwitterFon is by far your best choice, even when tested against the paid competition.

NOTE: Today (1/2/2009) version 1.3 of TwitterFon was released as a free upgrade to this free program. It adds the ability to drill down into followers and following from user profiles as deeply as you would want to go, and, though it is not obvious at first glance, it also adds Trends. Then too, TwitterFon has added a third color to its coding, the same strange green that Tweetie uses for replies and mentions. In addition, unique among Twitter Clients, the TwitterFon url browser now has sideways view! With these additions, and considering that it is, among those clients I have tested, the fastest, and still free, the only reason you might pick a paid app (Tweetie) over TwitterFon is if you need multiple accounts or simply like the layout and style better. This is an amazing effort for a free program.

Tweetsville

I really tried to like Tweetsville. It is the most expensive twitter client I have tried…expensive being relative to free here…at $4.99 it still very affordable, and half the price of Twitteriffic Pro. I bought it on the recommendation of another reviewer, just in time for the Twitter Favorites Null Value disaster which put more than one twitter client on the ropes for a few weeks there. The short of it is that for the first weeks I owned the program, if it opened at all, which was rare, it would crash while scrolling through the tweets list. Like I say, this was not really Tapulous’s fault. As I understand it from the rumors going around, Twitter made an unexpected and unannounced change in the way Favorite status is reported in the data base, and many clients were simply not able to cope. 

What is Tapulous’s fault is that they continued to sell the program even though they knew it would not run, and it took them the better part of two weeks to get a fix out. TwitterFon was affected by the same bug and, to the creator’s credit, he changed the description on the App store to advise people not to download the program until he could fix it, and he posted a filter/temporary-fixer-web-app to get folks who already relied on the app through the crisis. That is the kind of service that endears a creator to his customers. Besides, it is the right thing to do. No one should continue to sell what they know to be a faulty program.

Okay, with that out of my system, Tweetsville has a lot to offer. If you like the chat bubble layout, it offers a clean, elegant bubble view…or you can opt for the traditional list view.  URLs are highlighted in the tweet text, and touching them opens the in-line browser directly. Sweet. It will drill down infinitely from the tweeter’s profile to followers and following and on to their followers and followings, etc. etc. It has a search feature to search for keywords in tweets. It has a trends feature that tracks the top keywords. 

Replying in Tweetsville

The layout is attractive (both views), and navigation is relatively straightforward. I find replying to a tweet a bit awkward. You have to open the tweet first, and then select Reply from a list that includes Direct Message and Retweet, but also such unrelated things as View Profile. It works though, and it most direct of the apps in applying retweets. 

It displays the most tweets at a go of any of the programs I have tested: 200.

Unfortunately, perhaps because of that long tweet list, it is also the slowest to open of any twitter client I have tried. And, while it is loading tweets, you are staring at a blank white screen (wondering, given recent experience, if it is going to open at all). The slowness persists in that it sometimes takes a while for it to load the atvars of the tweeters. At least once, after following a new tweeter, it refused to get the atvar at all until I cleared the cache and forced it to redownload all atvars. 

So, while I do like Tweetsville and find it both attractive and usable…and certainly feature rich…given the intense competition in the clients, it is not my final pick, and will not, despite the $4.99 invested, be finding a permanent place on my iPod Touch. I will, of course, watch for updates and new versions, and give it another try if and when.

Tweetie: list view

Which brings us to may actaul pick of the litter. I purchased Tweetie when Tweetsville refused to perform, since it was only $2.99 and by then I knew I would be writing this review. It turns out, the $2.99 was well invested.

Tweetie also offers your choice of chat bubble and list views, and the bubble view is enhanced with color coding, and directionality. Tweets come in from the left, replies from the right, with atvars placed appropriately. This takes up, of course, a good deal of screen real estate, and is not, perhaps the most efficient way to view tweets. Worse, the color picked for self tweets is a particularly sick shade of green (it might look better on a 3G phone or 2G Touch, I have the 1G Touch). Strangely, this same color in the list view is just fine, perhaps because it not set off against a stark white background. I use list view, for both efficiency and aesthetic reasons. (Text size is adjustable in list view…a very nice feature!)

Tweetie is the only client in this set that allows multiple accounts. It also has the search by keyword feature, and Trends (and the list seems both more extensive and more comprehensive than the Tweetsville or TwitterFon trend lists). 

Open Tweet with action icons

Navigation is straightforward. I like the use of icons instead of text for major functions. When you open a tweet, for instance, you have only three icons across the bottom of the screen. The Reply swooshy arrow thing on the right (where it belongs), a star for favoriting in the center and the swooshy arrow overlaid on an envelope on the left. When you touch the reply arrow, you then have a choice of public tweet or direct message. When you touch the reply envelop thingy it gives you the choice of Reposting Tweet (retweeting) or emailing a link to the tweet. (If it is your own tweet, as in the illustration, you also have the option of deleting the tweet.)

As in Tweetsville, you can drill down into following/followers and profiles as deeply as you want to go, and, as in TwitterFon, Tweetie displays the bio information when you view a profile. All three programs allow you to unfollow, but while it is just one option in a list of options in Tweetsville (and placed next to Visit Twitter Page where you might hit it by accident), it is a big red, unmistakable button next to the atvar in Tweetie. In general I prefer the layout of tweets and profiles in Tweetie as well. It just matches my sense of logic and design better. You may differ

While URLs are not highlighted or active in the list view (as they are in Tweetsville), they are highlighted in the tweets view, and open in the in-line browser with a touch. 

Finally, Tweetie is fast. It opens fast and shows that it is updating. It only loads about 25 tweets, but there is a load more button that will fetch another 25 at a touch. All functions work quickly, with minimal lag. (The one exception is the loading of atvars, which can be slower than on TwitterFon, especially on a weak wireless connection.)

So, if you are in need of a full featured Twitter client, and are willing to pay for it, I highly recommend Tweetie. At $2.99 it is very reasonalbe, and I think you will find that it does everything you need it to do, and more, with a fair amount of elegance. It is the, for the moment, the second twitter client that has earned a permanent place on my Touch.

Now if they would only lets us select some other color for replies and mentions!

For those of you who have one or more essential greasemonkey scripts that you have needed in Chrome, the 1.0 release, available to some today, others tomorrow, supports greasemonkey. Turn it on by tacking ” -enable-greasemonkey” after the last ” in the target line in the properties box for the Chrome shortcut (note the space in front of the -enable). Place scripts in C:/scripts on your hard drive.
I have been waiting for this, since I use a comment script on Flickr every day, and disliked always starting Chrome through the Greasemetal shortcut. Good on you Google.