Category: Web work

These days, most of my work is very related to the online world. Building web sites, reviewing web applications, integrating with web services, coordinating people who are far away from each other, etc. Whenever I find a new tool or service or an innovative, interesting idea about working online, I share it in this category.

Odnoklassniki.ru – Russian classmates

I’m always amazed and shaken when ugly things work. I know they often do, but every time it happens, it’s like the first time for me.

There are many examples around, MySpace.com being the most well known. The idea behind it is nice – to provide a place for youngsters to communicate and share pictures and music. But the way it is implemented is truly ugly. Yet, MySpace.com is one of the top visited web sites on the Web.

Odnoklassniki.ru is another example of this. (Odnoklassniki is a Russian word for “classmates”.) Again, the idea was pretty good – create a way for people to find their classmates and all friends easily. 10, 15, 20 years later names and faces tend to fade out and we don’t remember them all that good anymore. So, those of us who want to get re-connected with friends from the old days have some troubles locating those. With Odnoklassniki.ru it becomes pretty easy – pick the region, area, and school or college where you studied, specify the years during which your were there, and you’ll be shown other people who are registered on the web site, who studied at the same place during approximately the same years. Names and pictures are there, and those help a lot.

The way the whole thing is setup is terrible though. First of all, the web site is horribly slow. Always. I’ve been registered there since forever, and I was checking it out once in a while – always slow. Secondly, it tries to be everything – a contact manager, a search engine, people directory, photo sharing and rating service, messenger, forum, and so on. Needless to say, it sucks badly at most of these. There is not a single function that works properly.

But, the main thing is that it works. The web site is very popular in Russia and lots of people register there every day. I myself managed to find and connect with people who I lost and forgotten a long time ago.

When I think about how these things work, this quote comes to mind (from Pirates of Silicon Valley movie):

Steve Jobs: We’re better than you are! We have better stuff.
Bill Gates: You don’t get it, Steve. That doesn’t matter!

Looking forward for new Gmail

Mashable mentions that a new Gmail is coming. And I’m eagerly waiting for the new version, because I really, really want these changes:

One of the features is pre-fetching of messages. This means that when you load a page that has a list of messages, Gmail will fetch them in advance, so that they will be available immediately, when you decide to click on one. This goes along with the new JavaScript architecture that’s expected to bring improved performance. There will also be a new contact manager, which will be shared with other Google Apps, including Docs and Calendar.

More Gmail space?

Today I noticed that I have more Gmail space than I used. Here is a screenshot:

Gmail space stats

I don’t check these numbers every day, but I was under the impression that I had somewhere around 3 GBytes just a few days ago. Now I have more than 4 GBytes. I looked through a few news sites, but haven’t noticed any related headlines.

Anybody has any idea? Is it for everybody or just a few random users? Will it stay or will it go? Will we get more? (as you can clearly see, I don’t need more just yet, but I’m still interested).

Confession of an RSS junkie

If you’ve been looking for something to add to your RSS feeder, then look no further.

It’s almost impossible to be a functional RSS addict in our society. RSS has become so pervasive there’s simply no way to escape it. Everywhere I look I see those damn orange icons.

From My Life As An RSS Junkie | Medialoper

GMail – changing attitudes towards HTML email

So far I’ve read that one of GMail‘s goals is changing people’s attitude towards their email storage. With huge, and evergrowing, inbox sizes people don’t have to delete any messages anymore. They still can, if they wish so, but they don’t have to.

After using GMail for some time, I noticed that one of my other attitudes is changing. I’ve always been on the opposite side of HTML email lovers. And I still believe that HTML email is evil. But there is a but.

With GMail, all email is HTML. I mean you’re already in the browser, aren’t you? So, how does this affect things?

GMail rich content

GMail can be used to email yourself some pretty looking HTML emails. Things like lists, highlighted text (think: yellow marker), and links with descriptive captions instead of Really Long URLs ™ can really enrich your email experience. Notes, outlines, and shopping lists are among some really frequent content.

And the beauty of it is that with GMail you are always sure that it will display exactly as you wanted it, and that you won’t get complains like “Send me the text version of that”, granted that you only email yourself and other people who use GMail (except those psycho geeks who use GMail via POP access only, with a text-only mail client).

If used appropriately, this can make world a tiny bit better. And you know, I’m all for that.