Techpaulogy

All Your (data)Base Are Belong To Us

Online databases, be warned: you are mine. I just ran across a web broswer from Kirix, called Strata, that's really a "data browser". From their site:

Kirix Strata is a new specialty browser for accessing and manipulating data from the web. View and work with data from web tables, CSV files, and RSS feeds, integrate information from web services to create personal "desktop mashups," browse and work with MySQL, Oracle and other databases.

It's a pretty slick, based on Mozilla's Gecko engine, that's well integrated into the other tools I use (e.g. Office). Beyond being able to automate report creation out of web-based tools, it lets you mashup data from different sources. I am just beginning to test what I can do to (and stats I can generate). Get excited. Does anyone else use other data extraction tools for web-apps? (For example, Selenium IDE).

And, for old times sake, All Your Base... the original video, on YouTube.

Make a Desktop Application out of any Web Service

I've been using a program called Bubbles for some time now, and it's been extremely helpful in my daily routine at work. In a nutshell, it takes web pages and makes desktop applications out of them.

I'm keenly focused on reducing clutter and creating contexts around my workflow (GTD influence here!), so this is a great way to keep Firefox for browsing and research purposes only, and separate all the web services I have open for long periods of time (SalesForce, AdWords MCC, SlimTimer, etc.) into their own "bubbles" -- essentially, their own programs in the task bar that can be hidden and sized independently of the browser. This way I can Alt-Tab switch between applications just like they are separate programs, without cluttering up my browser, which inevitably has 34 tabs open already...

It's especially useful in an agency environment, where I am logged into so many different client accounts, and also my own accounts. With Bubbles, I can have both open at once an not interrupt the flow.  For example, I can have our Google MCC account open in Bubbles, while I have Google Reader open in my browser to read industry news.