• The RSS feed. – This gives you everything. Notes, links, photos, videos, etc. I suggest Google Reader.
• @cdevroecom on Twitter. A simple link to every single post immediately as it is published.
• CDEVROE.com Facebook page – Syndicates the @cdevroecom tweet stream.

If you follow my personal Twitter account, @cdevroe, you will only get linked to mobile photos and posts that I feel are worthy of tweeting about. Oh, and my smooth wit and charm too.

Until this latest release the Top Sites page in Safari was too slow for me to find useful. Now, however, it is much faster and I’m liking it very much. I liked Chrome’s New Tab page a lot. However, unlike Safari it wasn’t really all that useful for more than giving you a clickable tile to go to your favorite sites. Safari’s Top Sites page does a bit more.

First, it shows a ‘page-curl white star on blue’ icon to show which pages have been updated since you visited them last. This makes is quick and easy to go to the pages that have been updated rather than checking them yourself. Second, Safari allows you to choose how many sites show up on this page. Chrome does not. Depending on your screen size you can choose between Small, Medium and Large tiles for each site. Small is more, large is less.

Third, but not necessarily specific to the Top Sites page, Safari allows you to search your history in a visual way right from the Top Sites page itself. As you type in your search query a coverflow like window shows you a thumbnail of the Web sites that match it. It makes finding pages you’ve been to in the past much, much easier than in Chrome.

So, for now I’m back to Safari.

My Top Sites in Safari are (from left to right and down) this site, my WordPress admin, Twitter (although I rarely use this because I use Echofon so it may be replaced soon), Facebook, Gmail, Instapaper, Tumblr, 37Signals Launchpad, Flickr, Viddler’s Recently Uploaded page, GitHub and Google Reader.

I wish Google Reader did this for people that subscribe to my feed (which is also available on Twitter by the way). According to Google Reader there are a few hundred people that have subscribed to this site that use Google Reader. This certainly isn’t everyone that has subscribed to this site but it’d be nice to know who these people are. It’d be nice if Google Reader, optionally, told me the usernames of the people that subscribed. A simple email notification that says “So and So has subscribed to your site via Google Reader” would suffice. This would give me the same opportunities as today’s popular social networks and I think that’d be great.

• On Viddler I save videos that I like, that I want Derek (our Community Leader) to see, or that I want to promote to the front page.
• On Flickr I save photos that I like, would like to paint or draw, or want to find again easily.
• On Twitter I save tweets that I like, would like to read later, or that I think are notable in some way.
• On Tumblr (no permalink?) I save posts for the same reason I do tweets. Reading later.
• On Google Reader I star things I want to read later.
• On Facebook I like things that I agree with but have no comment on.

And that is about all of the services that I use on a regular basis or that I favorite things on. With my recent addiction to Instapaper I like less Tumblr and Google Reader items but I still do occasionally.

What about you?

Glims, a plugin (read: input manager hack) for Safari, enables a lot of preferences around searching that Safari simply doesn’t have built-in. I originally installed it because I wanted to play around with Bing, Microsoft’s latest version of their search efforts. However, it came with a caveat that I can’t seem to find a solution to no matter what combination of preferences I choose. Keyboard shortcuts, such as those found in Google Reader, do not work when I have Glims installed.

So, I’ve uninstalled Glims – for now. The benefits of keyboard shortcuts in my most used Web applications outweigh those of trying out other search engines besides Google. I’ll be watching Glims for an update.

In nearly every Twitter application, and on the site itself, you may favorite a Tweet with minimal effort. On the site you click the star, in Tweetie on Mac I have to secondary-click and select favorite, in Twitterrific on the iPhone I tap the asterisk and tap favorite. Those are the applications I use to interact with Twitter – so your mileage may vary.

Since Twitter is a literal stream of links (Fred Wilson, an investor in Twitter, remarked that its true value was in the act of passing links) I’ve come across a ton of valuable links from those I follow on Twitter. This can cause a lot of distraction, however. If I followed every single link that I found on Twitter, read them in their entirety, and continued my day … I do not believe I’d ever accomplish anything.

So that is why I use Twitter’s favorite feature to help me save links for reading later.

I still use it to save my favorite Tweets from those I follow. Tweets that are funny, memorable, mark an occasion, or the like – still make it into my favorites list. But mostly I’m using this feature to create a list of things I’d like to read later rather than at the moment they are posted.

This post could stop here because your favorites are easy to access on the site. Whenever you want to catch up on the links posted by those you follow – you could just log into Twitter.com and click on your favorites and do some reading. However I’ve found it much more efficient to subscribe to the RSS feed of my favorite Tweets and have that fed into Google Reader.

I check Google Reader a few times a week. I fly through my subscriptions and, in general, star the items that I want to read in detail, comment on, write about, or save for some particular purpose. As I’m going through my main subscriptions my favorite Tweets pop up and I’m able to then catalog those links appropriately, with some context, or just star them for later to read.

Not only do I rarely miss a valuable link posted by those I follow on Twitter, I get to read those links when I want to – rather than when they’re posted. Value without the distraction.

In no particular order I present – the best of the Web 2008.

The Best Blog: Daring Fireball

John Gruber’s blog will, it seems, always win this award from me. I toyed with the idea of awarding Daring Fireball with Best Journalism but I don’t want to take anything away from the writers that are writing about much more important topics than the goings-on of the Apple community and marketplace.

The Best New Blog: The Big Picture

Boston.com’s The Big Picture is easily the best new blog of 2008. Jason Kottke agrees with me, or I agree with him maybe. The photos are always stunning and the topics always seem perfectly aligned with my particular interests at the time of publishing. Even though I’ve read Andy Baio’s interview with the author, Alan Taylor, I still don’t know how this blog is as consistently awesome as it is.

The Best Blog Redesign: Jason Santa Maria

Jason’s latest redesign for his personal site is inspiring. Each of his posts, as he so choses, are designed specifically to empower the content he is posting. Example. Example. Example. His site has made me rethink my random headers on this site and I’ve now begun development of a much more intelligent way to allow my site to choose the headers. And that is just a start. Jason’s blog is also one of the only blogs that I purposefully leave the Google Reader interface to read the article as he intends, on his site. Brilliant.

The Best Blogging Platform: WordPress

My love for WordPress isn’t a secret. But Automattic’s effort to continue the momentum of this open source project has certainly been a big win for it. Regular, scheduled, feature and bug fix rich updates to an already industry-standard-setting piece of software is refreshing in every way possible. Kudos to every single developer that works on WordPress.

The Best Feed Reader: Google Reader

I’ve wrote about Google Reader a few times. I know that this is a touchy subject for some – because we all have very different ways of keeping up-to-date with our subscriptions – but I feel that Google deserves the recognition of building what has quickly become the most popular feed reader on any platform. NetNewswire held that title for a very long time, and deservedly so, but I believe the throne was usurped this year.

Side note: Boy do I miss Ranchero in its original form.

The Best Company: Apple, Inc.

I’m sorry but I have to give this award to Apple for their apparent take-over of the entire mobile, computing, and music industries. Regardless of relative size and market-share as of this moment, I believe that we’ve all seen what it looks like to rip these things out from other holders. In a few years Apple will be on top of every single list not just the “this year’s top” lists. I’m not sure how this will effect Apple overall but right now I’m happy that it is happening. Check back in 5 years to see if Apple makes my Worst Of 2013 list when I hate Apple for being like Microsoft, or something.

The Best Mobile Twitter Client: Hahlo

For me this is a no brainer. Being an iPhone-owner means that I have many, many applications at my disposal for posting and keeping up-to-date on Twitter. Whether we’re talking about iPhone applications or web applications built for the iPhone – Hahlo is far and away the best mobile Twitter client.

The Best Twitter Account: @MarsPhoenix

Duh. The Mars Phoenix Twitter account is the only somewhat-non-human account on Twitter that I follow that I’m not directly related with in some way. I’m sure there are other great Twitter accounts that are out of my own echo-chamber but this just strikes me as the obvious choice because of the way it has fundamentally changed the way that NASA delivers its news about their programs.

The Best iPhone application: Handshake & Ocarina

Two bests? Yes. These two are tied for very different reasons. Handshake is probably the iPhone application that I feel should have been part of the iPhone all-along more than any other application that I have installed. Being able to share contacts with other iPhone users through the air is awesome. Ocarina just simply makes me happy in a way that no other iPhone application has done. I can’t play a lick of music with the thing. But the ability to listen to other people who are equally horrible Ocarina players makes this application get a dedicated spot on my iPhone’s home screen.

How’s that for subjective!

The Best Application: Coda

I don’t do near the same amount of programming as I once did. However, the one application that completely changed the way that I do programming has got to be Coda. It’s single-window environment has made working much more enjoyable, less frustrating, and much more focused than ever before. The latest update which allows other developers to extend its text-editing functionality will, I think, improve the built-in text editor at a much quicker pace. I’m really happy about that.

The Best Browser: Fluid

I don’t know what else to call Fluid and it needs to be on my list somewhere.  My normal browser of choice (that is, the browser that I use to ‘surf’ the Web) is Safari. But as far as creating a single site browser for my favorite applications; Hahlo, Brighkite, Gmail, Google Docs, and Basecamp – Fluid is the best choice.

The Best Preference Pane: Connect 360

This selection could also be categorized as The Best Way To Save Money By Not Buying An AppleTV. If you have an Xbox 360 and a Macintosh – I suggest purchasing a copy of Connect 360. You can use your Xbox 360 to view photos and videos and listen to music on the television in your living room. Painless. Perfect.

The Best Email Client: GMail

I switched to GMail this year, using the aforementioned Fluid, and haven’t looked back. My main reason for switching was because Mail.app was slowing down a lot. On my first-generation black Macbook, using Mail.app with IMAP for 3 email accounts, Mail.app was incredibly sluggish.  I’m fairly certain I could have done something to improve the performance of Mail.app – and I do appreciate its synergy with the Mac OS – but GMail has won me over with its speed and operator searches. To be specific, I use Gmail for domains and so does Viddler.

The Best Messaging Client: iChat

I do not know why people on the Macintosh use anything else besides iChat. Not mentioning any names, most of the other clients do far too much or suck up too much memory or have features that just do not work. iChat works, is simple, has small foot print, and has generally every feature I could ever want in a messaging client.

The Best Keyboard: Apple’s wired keyboard.

How did a keyboard make this list of obviously Internet-related things? If you don’t ask, I don’t have to come up with an answer. My Macbook’s keyboard is crazy-fantastic. Since I connect to an external monitor while working in my office, I needed a keyboard that would offer the same level of crazy-fantasticness. Apple’s new wired keyboard does that. It has not only reduced the noise of typing – which I appreciate – but it has done it in a way that has not taken away from the tactile response that I have come to love.

In an effort to get this list out the door – this is not an exhaustive list. I didn’t keep a list throughout the year so this is an off-the-top-of-my-head list.  I fully plan to add a few more ‘categories’ to this list, especially if you care to suggest any in the comments, and will hopefully have a much more revised list for 2009.  I will do one of these every year.

Thanks to everyone who made the list this year because, in some way, you made my technology experience much more enjoyable. You probably already have my money – but now you have my public applause too.

Suggestions, comments? Add them below!

Is anyone else experiencing this? When I first load Google Reader, and I use Fluid to do so, it is showing me the latest post from my subscriptions (see screenshot) in the All Items list.  Even though I have it set to sort the order from oldest to newest.

To correct this issue, I only need to click on the View Settings… dropdown and select ‘Sort by Oldest…’ (which is already selected in the menu).

This has been happening for a few weeks now which is why I’m jotting it down here. Hopefully I’m not the only one having this problem, you’ll comment below, and the Google Reader team will see this post. One can hope!

Or, maybe it is just me?

“Since installing the app, I find myself reading news a lot more in bed, before I get up in the morning. I roll over, grab my iPhone (which is sitting on the nightstand because I used a podcast to help me fall asleep) and start rocking and rolling with the days’ news. By the time I actually get out of bed, I’ve already made a sizable dent in my feeds. This works only because the app is not annoying; indeed, it’s quite a joy to use.”

It should be noted that Justin does not use NetNewsWire on his Macintosh.  He and I share a love for Google Reader although we both have a lot of experience with NetNewsWire on the Mac.

Currently I don’t read any feeds on my iPhone. I have dabbled with Google Reader’s iPhone interface, but found it really hard to breeze through quickly for a number of reasons. However, his fairly thorough review of NetNewsWire for the iPhone makes me want to give it a try.

He is, as far as I can tell, omitting a huge caveat to using NetNewsWire for the iPhone and Google Reader on the Mac. Syncing.  If I read something on NetNewsWire, on my iPhone, in bed – will I have to read that same post again when I pull up Google Reader at my desk?  That’d suck.

Source: I ♥ NetNewsWire (on the iPhone).

… my main reason for not using some of the most popular web applications has been because I can not use them offline. I am a firm believer in having all of my data available to me at anytime. — Why I’m excited about Google Gears

Yes, I am. But there comes a time when you must give something a try, regardless of your preconcieved notions, even if just for the sake of trying something new. I had tried to switch to Google Reader, prior to yesterday, with no luck. But finally I took a few hours, yes – a few hours – and bit the bullet and switched because I was having a few problems with NetNewsWire.

My tags in Google Reader

My main reasons for wanting to switch to Google Reader, prior to actually doing so, were:

• It is free.
• I can use it on my iPhone. Again, for free.
• I can access it from any Internet connected computer.
• The interface is completely customizable.
• It makes good use of “tags”.
• The keyboard shortcuts are amazing.
• With Google Gears, I could use it offline.

I was having some trouble, only recently, with NetNewsWire where it would crash without generating a crash report. Normally I would have gone through the process of emailing the developers a copy of my .console log – but I decided to use it as an opportunity to try out Google Reader, and also slim down my number of subscriptions substantially.

As of yesterday if you had asked me how many feed subscriptions I had I would have answered you with “750+” or “too many”. As much as I enjoy reading, it was getting harder and harder to keep up with everything in my feed reader and I was finding myself unable to retain as much of the information because I ended up skimming everything.

As of today I would answer “less than 200″. In fact, until I went in and subscribed to a few “activity notification feeds” I was down to 157. That means I slimmed down my number of subscriptions by over 80%! Sometimes a fresh pair of clothes is all you need to really get something done.

I’ll check in on this subject again in the future (perhaps in a month or so)… but so far my experience with the latest version of Google Reader has gone swimmingly. Far better than it had in the past.

Web applications are different then the applications you run on your computer in two very specific and obvious ways. First, they are run completely in your web browser (Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, etc.) and you do not need to download or install any local files for the application to function. Second, the data that the application stores or edits is not on your local machine but rather saved “on the Internet”. These may seem like very obvious differences but I’ve mentioned these two reasons because the paradigm has shifted overtime and Google Gears almost completes that shift.

One of the many mantras of “Web 2.0″ applications has been to freely allow users of these applications to have access to their data both via an API and being able to “export” their data into various formats. These APIs afforded many developers to blur the line between desktop and web applications – such as being able to geotag your photos in iPhoto using Google Maps – but these solutions still required an Internet connection for them to work properly. Something also to note is the fact that these APIs are mainly used by developers and not by the users themselves so even though the data was portable, this fact hasn’t been exploited by the average user much, yet.

Enter Google Gears – which provides developers with the needed technology to make their entire applications portable not just the data. The first example Google chose to show off Gears with is Google Reader (a really great example). Google Reader, up until a few days ago, was a way to read your favorite sites by subscribing to their feeds but its use was limited to when you were connected to the Internet. Google Gears allows you to use Google Reader, at least most of the application, offline. You connect to the Internet, download your latest feed subscription’s updates, get offline, and you’re still able to read the feeds that you’ve cached on your local system. What’s more is that you are able to flag those items and Google Reader will sync with your Google Reader account once an Internet connection is available.

In short; Google Gears brings your favorite web applications to your local computer and allows them to run almost like desktop applications.

Why am I excited? Because my main reason for not using some of the most popular web applications has been because I can not use them offline. I am a firm believer in having all of my data available to me at anytime. Unfortunately in some cases, such as my photo and music libraries becoming larger than my laptop’s hard drive, I’ve had to make sacrifices. However, when it comes to much smaller yet more important pieces of data such as email messages, bookmarks, and important documents I can not afford to make those sacrifices. As Google Gears is adopted and implemented in more web applications I’ll be able to begin using them offline.