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Josh Bancroft's TinyScreenfuls.com

Community Hacker. Edge Case. Cofounder of Ignite Portland and Legion of Tech. Hopeless Geek.

How I Use FriendFeed, and Why I Love ItMay 1

This post came out of an email conversation I had with a friend, who was asking why I like FriendFeed so much. He’s an active social network user, so it wasn’t a newbie question. Rather, he was wondering how I integrate it with all the other forms of connectivity we have - Twitter, Google Reader, Facebook, etc. My reply to him got kind of long, so I thought I’d repost it here for everyone to share.

(Update: In case you’re wondering about FriendFeed’s pedigree, Marshall Kirkpatrick has this fortuitously timed piece over on ReadWriteWeb about the guy that built FriendFeed - Paul Buchheit, former Google employee, the guy who built Gmail in a day, and then built AdSense in a day. FriendFeed is no rickety side project.)

In the beginning, I didn’t really “get” FriendFeed. I signed up for it, piped in all of my stuff (Twitter, blog, photos, etc.), but never really used it much. Why would I go to yet another social network to read the stuff I

Google on iPhone Gets New Tab HeaderApril 1

Just noticed some new tabs and a dropdown for accessing other Google mobile pages on my Google Reader for iPhone page. Nice.

I never used the old "blue button" ones because they acted like a frame, and wouldn’t let me bookmark my "tags" page in Reader directly, which is where I like to start. Now I can. Excellent!

My Dreams Just Came True - Amazon Kindle App for iPhoneMarch 4

I’ve been waiting for this moment almost since I heard about the Amazon Kindle (affiliate link). I dreamed of a simple app they could write for the iPhone that would sync with my Amazon account, to let me download and read my Kindle books on my iPhone, sync my place between the two devices, so I could hop back and forth as much as I wanted, and basically turn my iPhone into a little “mini Kindle”. Even though I take my Kindle most places I go, there are times when I forget it, and want to read something. Since I’m never without my iPhone, I usually just read feeds or something, but now, I have my whole world of ebooks, at my fingertips across multiple devices, stored and synced on the cloud.

Tonight, my dream came true.

I noticed (on Twitter, or FriendFeed, I don’t remember) someone wondering how page turning should work on the iPhone Kindle app. “Is that out?” I asked myself. A quick Twitter search for iPhone and Kindle revealed that yes, in fact, it was available in the App Store. After one super excited tweet, I was off to download it.

I’ve t

What Would You Teach a Bunch of Lawyers About The Web?March 3

Later today, I have the pleasure of speaking to a group of tech and VC lawyers at a local law firm (not sure if they want me to say who they are) about why and how they should be using “social media” and the web. I’ve sent them some pre-reading ideas, and I have lots to talk about, but I thought I’d ask you what YOU would teach a group of lawyers about the web?

Here’s an outline of what I plan to talk about, but please add your ideas, links, and recommendations in the comments. I really appreciate it!

Web Tools and Techniques

I think a web savvy lawyer (well, actually, I think this applies to everyone) should be versed in the following basic web and social tools. That’s not to say you have to be an expert, but you should at least understand what they are, and how they work in general terms.

• Feeds and Readers/Aggregators - Know what an RSS feed is, and how to subscribe to one in a a feed reader. Example: Google Reader. Know how to organize your subscriptions into folders, unsubscribe from feeds you don’t want anymore, and share interesting items with others.
• Social Network Sites - Under the skin, most of them are alike. Facebook is the most popular example. Know what it means to “friend” someone, what a status update is, how to s

Google Earth Adds Oceans; Tommy’s Games; Google Tasks on iPhoneFebruary 2

Time for your regularly scheduled list of stuff that I’ve found interesting in the last day or so…

Google Earth 5.0 Adds Oceans, More

Google Earth got updated to version 5.0 today, and gained a couple of nifty features: 3D imagery of ocean floors, historical imagery, which lets you see how an area has changed over time, and better ability to record audio and video “tours”.

And of course, it’s still free. More on the Google Lat-Long Blog. I wonder how long before these features trickle down to the iPhone version of Google Earth?

iPhone and Wii Games Coming from Tommy Refenes

Over on the Intel Software Network blog (where I work), Tommy Refenes, developer of the award winning threaded game Goo! gave us an update on two new projects he’s working on. First, an iPhone game called Beat