Thursday, February 26, 2004Safari so far
I've been using Apple's Safari web browser since it first became publicly available. So how come only tonight I spotted the Activity window? How long has this feature been in Safari? It's incredibly useful. It lists all the components of a web page during and after a page is rendered. You can use the list of a page's objects to see where all the objects are stored (i.e on which web server – a feature useful when designing or debugging weblog templates for example) allowing you to troubleshoot slowly downloading objects. We've all seen web pages, particularly weblog pages, seemingly take ages to finish downloading, even after all the apparently visible objects have rendered. Well using Safari's Activity window you can see exactly what's going on. What's more, once a page has fully downloaded and rendered you can see that object's size (another useful feature when constructing bandwidth-conscious web pages) plus double-clicking on any object in the Activity window to open that object in its own window, or download it to disk. A very handy feature. Surprisingly Apple doesn't mention the Activity window on its own Safari web page. Anyway, now you know.
My blogging in-tray
Given sufficient time (but let's be realistic - it ain't ever going to happen) I'd like to have commented on the following topics:
- Why Orkut Doesn't Work
Following interesting pieces on the Corante weblog and in Wired I would have liked to comment on the trend for social networking services, and why ultimately most will fail because they're networking the wrong people.
- More about iTagg
A follow up to my earlier piece about this new service involving mobile phone shortcuts, automated text response & data gathering and premium-rate text messaging.
This learning object editor, content packager and SCORM player goes from strength to strength.
- The Internet as physician
A recent article in the British Medical Journal evaluates the efficacy of two Internet interventions for community-dwelling individuals with symptoms of depression. The results? Web sites that provided cognitive behaviour therapy were more effective than a control intervention in reducing symptoms of depression. Reason enough to keep on reading weblogs then.
- ePortfolios
An interesting community project on creating electronic learning portfolios by Chandler-Gilbert Community College. This site is interesting because the portfolios are reflective learning tools rather than the more common but less interesting performance achievement portfolios.
Hey, what do you know, Mark Forster's advice really does work. I feel my blogging blockage shifting.
