interface cobalt

While the Google Toolbar seems to be getting the most attention, I think the Google Deskbar is a much more useful tool. Why? Located on the taskbar, it’s very easily accessible, and it’s also very flexible and customizable.

These are a few of the things that I use it for:

• Going to websites using the I’m Feeling Lucky search by typing e.g. the site’s name followed by Ctrl+L. For example, typing strong bad and then Ctrl+L opens the Strong Bad email page in my browser. No need to type in the entire URL.
• Searching on websites such as Wikipedia and Javadocs.org. These are customized searches that you can add in the Options window. For example, in my Deskbar, I can type weblog and then Ctrl+P and the Deskbar mini-viewer will open to show the Wikipedia page about weblogs.
• Doing calculations, such as 123*45, sin(pi/4), 1/sqrt(2) and also doing conversions like 12 oz in kg and 345 mi in km. Just type in what you want to calculate followed by Enter, and you will be shown the result. I wish it could do calculations with currency exchange rates as well, e.g. USD 123 in SEK, but I guess you can’t have everything.

Does it sound like I’m advertising Google products? I think it does. Oh, well. Here’s where to go if you want to get the Deskbar.

For a couple of weeks, I had been using the trial version of FeedDemon, created by Nick Bradbury. Of course, I had already decided to make a purchase, since I believe it’s the best feed reader currently available. There were only a few days left of the 20-day trial, but the trial was reset back to 20 days left when I upgraded to the latest, recently released version. That really is very generous.

Anyway, I thought it was time to show some appreciation of that excellent piece of software, so I just ordered it. This will definitely increase my efficiency in reading the ever-increasing feeds that I subscribe to!

By the way, it would be fun to develop a feed reader of my own. I do have some ideas of features that would make it better than those of the competitors, at least in my opinion. And I have been thinking about doing some shareware development again. Well, if I do, I’ll let you know!

Wouldn’t it be nice if, when ordering something online, you received a URL to a feed keeping you updated with the shipment status? How about a feed alerting you to weather warnings in your area?

I believe uses like those are the way forward for XML feeds. While we’re not yet receiving URLs to feeds when ordering from Amazon or Dell, you could, if shipping with FedEx, use Ben Hammersley’s RSS FedEx package tracker (he has created some other useful tools as well), and the US National Weather Service offers experimental feeds of active weather alerts.

Everything we need for such services through XML feeds, we already have. Need to send some extra parameters? Include them in the feed URL, e.g. feed.xml?id=123. Want some security? Use SSL. That is, use https:// in the feed URL. For most uses, I don’t think it needs to be any more difficult than that.