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FriendFeed Filters Are The Star Of The Beta

Bwana — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 23:41:25 +0000

Yesterday, the team over at FriendFeed made a radical move to their popular website, friendfeed.com. They turned the website into a giant river of ever-flowing information. For those of us who are familiar with the term, “real-time web”, we saw this as a positive step towards it becoming a reality. I’ve already blogged about ways to truly harness the power of real-time FriendFeed, and this new beta emboldens my tips. While there is much controversy on the implementation of the feature, I found myself enthralled by something else they added: filters.

As many have realized, FriendFeed provides a rich source of information for all kinds of interests. Since it aggregates data from social services which originate from all over the web, there is little that you can’t find on FriendFeed. Now with filters, FriendFeed has empowered us to save powerful queries for later usage. While these filters are not real-time like other parts of the site, they will be eventually (and what a day that will be)

Here’s my video walkthrough of the FriendFeed beta:

What is a FriendFeed filter? My loose definition is that it’s a set of defined criteria configured by the user in order to obtain desired data from FriendFeed. The criteria looks like the following:

Name – This is the desired name of the FriendFeed Filter
Include entries from – This is the source of the data you wish filter. The choices are all friendFeed users, your friend and group subscriptions, a specific pre-defined friendfeed list of friends/groups, and names of friendfeed users and groups.
Keyword/quality filters – This is the filter criteria of the source data. There are several fields to utilize, but it should be noted that the “contain the words” field can utilize any FriendFeed search query string. I’ll explain later.

I found myself playing with these filters for most of the day yesterday and had a blast. I want to share with you some of the more powerful ones, but before I do, I will tell you the best way to create new filters. The basic steps are fairly straight forward:

Perform a search on the beta FriendFeed site – First, go here: http://beta.friendfeed.com/search/advanced and fill in the desired criteria. Perform the search and massage the search as needed. Some searches can be improved by updating the number of required comments and likes, so play with that a little bit.
Save the search as a filter – After a search is performed, you’ll notice a link that reads “make a filter”

Click the “make a filter” link
Update the filter name and adjust as needed – Change the filter name to something more descriptive than the default text. Click Save filter to commit the filter

This is a basic, yet powerful approach to creating filters. Once you become more advanced, you’ll recognize the search syntax and perform boolean operands. Here are some of my favorite FriendFeed searches that you can save as filters by using the technique above. I’ll start with the search string, explain what it means, and provide a hyperlink (note: most of these search ALL of FriendFeed:

Name: The FriendFeed Team

Search String: comments:5 likes:5 from:tudor, bgolub, ana, gburd, kfury, jim, casey, sanjeev, paul, bret, dhsiao

Meaning: Searches for all entries by the FriendFeed development team with at least 5 comments and 5 likes

Link: Click here to use this FriendFeed Search
Name: Hot Comments

Search String: service:(intensedebate) OR service:(backtype) OR service:(disqus) comments:1 likes:5

Meaning: Searches all blog commenting services for entries with at least 1 comment and 5 likes

Link: Click here to use this FriendFeed Search
Name: Hot FriendFeed Posts

Search String: service:(friendfeed) comments:50 likes:30

Meaning: Searches all native FriendFeed posts for entries with at least 50 comments and 30 likes

Link: Click here to use this FriendFeed Search
Name: Hot Web Links

Search String: service:(twine) OR service:(stumbleupon) OR service:(misterwong) OR service:(magnolia) OR service:(furl) OR service:(delicious) OR service:(diigo) comments:5 likes:10

Meaning: Searches social bookmarking services for entries with at least 5 comments and 10 likes

Link: Click here to use this FriendFeed Search
Name: Hot Photos

Search String: service:(smugmug) OR service:(flickr) OR service:(fotolog) OR service:(photobucket) OR service:(zooomr) OR service:(picasa) comments:5 likes:10

Meaning: Searches photo services for entries with at least 5 comments and 10 likes

Link: Click here to use this FriendFeed Search
Name: Thomas Hawk’s Liked Photos

Search String: service:(flickr) OR service:(smugmug) OR service:(fotolog) OR service:(photobucket) OR service:(picasa) OR service:(zooomr) like:thomashawk

Meaning: Searches for photo entries liked by Thomas Hawk

Link: Click here to use this FriendFeed Search
Name: Hot Videos

Search String: service:(youtube) OR service:(vimeo) OR service:(12seconds) OR service:(dailymotion) OR service:(joost) comments:5 likes:10

Meaning: Searches for popular videos with at least 5 comments and 10 likes

Link: Click here to use this FriendFeed Search

You get the idea? You can get very creative with these filters. I highly recommend you also review the advanced search operators as it will allow you to venture further:

If you have any questions relative to the FriendFeed beta, I recommend checking out their beta FAQ. Of course, you’ll find me on FriendFeed at http://friendfeed.com/bwana.

How To Install Windows 7 Beta From A USB Drive To An HP Mini 1000 [Without Vista]

Bwana — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:38:14 +0000

HP Mini 1000. Check. Windows 7 Beta ISO. Check. 4 GB USB thumb drive. Check. HP Mini 1000. Check. Google. Check. Windows Vista. Uhhh… no.

That was my issue. There are a lot of great tutorials on how to create a bootable USB drive from the Windows 7 Beta ISO which Microsoft recently released. This is primarily a good solution for those of us with netbooks without CD drives. Unfortunately, a majority of these tutorials utilize a program called “diskpart”, which is a command line utility for managing partitions and disks. Coming from a UNIX background, I figured it would be easy to accomplish, but I found out the hard way, that the “diskpart” that comes shipped with Windows XP is not able to perform the necessary tasks. Namely, you won’t be able to see the USB drives in the list of drives, and you can’t set the USB drive to be active. I’ve got a lot more long winded blah blah for you, but I’ll get right to the point. Here’s how you do it if you’re stuck with Windows XP like I am. These instructions are were conducted on and are for an HP Mini 1000, I cannot guarantee this will work everywhere else (but I don’t see why it shouldn’t):

Ensure you have a USB Drive with more than 3GB capacity
Download and Install Daemon Tools Lite (or your favorite Virtual CD emulator)
Download the Windows 7 Beta ISO
Download and Install the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool
Download and Extract MBRWizard
Insert the USB Drive
Launch the HP USB Storage Format Tool. Select your USB drive for device. Select NTFS for File system. Check Quick Format. Click Start to format the USB drive.
Mount the Windows 7 Beta ISO with Daemon Tools (make note of drive letter it assigns)
Set the USB drive to be the active partition with MBRWizard: Open a command prompt (Start -> Run -> cmd) and navigate to the directory where you extracted MBRWizard. Execute the following command: mbrwiz /list.
You should see your USB Drive in the list. Make note of the disk numbers next to the drives. In the following example, the HP Mini hard drive is drive #0 and the USB Drive is drive #1.
Execute the following command to set the USB drive to active: mbrwiz /disk=1 /active=1 In my example, the /disk=1 corresponds on the drive number of the USB drive. Make sure yours matches. Answer “Y” to the confirmation
Execute another list to ensure the active status has been updated. The USB Drive is now ready to be set to be bootable.
In the same command prompt, execute the following command to set the USB drive to be bootable: e:\boot\bootsect /nt60 D: (E: is the drive letter of the Windows 7 Beta ISO and D: is the drive letter of your USB drive)
Copy the contents of the Windows 7 Beta to your USB Drive
Everything should be ready. Reboot your HP Mini 1000, and on the boot screen hit F9. Select your USB drive from the dropdown list.

If it doesn’t boot, check the following:

The USB Drive is formatted properly.
The USB Drive has all the contents of the Windows 7 Beta ISO (including hidden files)
The USB Drive partition is set to “active” (mbrwiz /list)

Like I said earlier, it’s a much easier process if you already have Windows Vista, but I found there were a few kinks with Windows XP. I’m sure someone out there has found an easier process than this one, so by all means, share with the rest of the class in the comments. The fruits of ye olde labour:

3 Ways To Utilize Google Friend Connect

Bwana — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:00:25 +0000

The masterminds behind Google are pushing an initiative known as OpenSocial which aims to connect many different types of web sites using one single API. One of the fruits of OpenSocial is Google Friend Connect which seems like a technology demo on the surface, but I’ve found a couple of possibly useful gems to utilize. First off, to get started with Google Friend Connect, make sure you are logged in your Google Account, then navigate to http://www.google.com/friendconnect. If all goes well, you should see this screen:

Click “Set up a new site” and you’ll be presented with a wizard to set up your website. I don’t want to focus on this part, but the main four steps to creation are:

Add two required files to your web server
Copy “members gadget” code
Paste into a page on your site
Choose more social features as desired

The focus of this blog post will be step 4. I’m going to show you some of the things you can do with Google Friend Connect which may not be obvious.

The first of the three is done by default once your site is setup: Setup a members gadget. The members gadget lists current members of your website, allows you to view their profiles, and add friends. If this sounds familiar, then you’re not crazy because MyBlogLog offers a very similar service. You’ll find the interface to be similar as well:

Image taken from inquisitr.com
The second use is not obvious and is accessible by clicking the Social gadgets link in the sidebar of the Google Friend Connect site. From here, there are a few gadgets to choose from (and I do mean a few). Choose Wall Gadget from the list of options, and it will walk you through the process of adding this gadget to your website. What is a wall gadget? Do you remember Shoutbox? Well, that’s essentially what it is, but this Facebook generation calls it a “wall”. If you’re a fan of the Facebook wall, and want it on your site, you can do so with your Google Friend community. Google takes advantage of its Youtube power and allows you to also embed Youtube videos in the wall. Unfortunately, they’re not truly “embedded’ but offer a javascript popup window of the video. Good enough methinks. Once it is setup, it looks similar to this:
The third use is my favorite. It exists in the same section as the wall gadget and it is called the Review/Rate gadget. This gadget allows your Google Friend community to review or rate your entire site or individual pages.

I believe this is a useful mechanism to solicit feedback from your community. It offers the familiar 5 star system that everyone knows and loves and supports anonymous feedback as well (The wall gadget also has an anonymous option for the daring).

I’ve implemented all three of these social gadgets on bwana.org and will soon implement them on bwana.tv and see it how it goes. As with OpenSocial, the whole Google Friend Connect thing is still fairly new and rough around the edges, but I believe these three gadgets will add value for some of the early adopters out there.

Feel free to join my website by utilizing the members gadget in the sidebar. You can also rate this blog post if you feel it is useful.

Update: Here’s Google’s official video

7 Ways to Utilize FriendFeed Rooms

Bwana — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:53:08 +0000

Yesterday, FriendFeed launched a new feature called FriendFeed Rooms. Rooms allow you to create your own public or private area where you can post the same types of messages you can to FriendFeed directly. FriendFeed also introduced a “Reshare” feature which allows you to re-broadcast an existing post to your feed or to a specific room.

So what makes this so special? Jaiku offered channels a while ago and it didn’t work out to well, so why will FriendFeed Rooms make any difference? No one is exactly sure yet, but here are 7 ways you can possibly utilize them for your purposes:

Use rooms to reduce FriendFeed noise. If you do not want to utilize the existing tools for reducing noise (discovery + hide + filters), you can setup FriendFeed not to follow any particular person, but you can join a specific topic based room. This requires little effort and allows the user to get good content fed to them quickly. (This depends on the quality of the content of the room of course)
Use rooms as a discussion forum. The layout of FriendFeed is similar to that of discussion forums but lacking in many of the advanced features. But in essence, you have a topic, and comments about a certain topic, giving one a very basic forum. Rooms allow for these forums to be centered around a specific topic, and also make them public or private.
Use rooms for live blogging. Someone on FriendFeed suggested this and I thought it was brilliant. You can create a FriendFeed room for live blogging events such as an Apple Keynote, post updates, and have users comment on each update.
Use rooms for link aggregation. This is a direct result of FriendFeed’s “Reshare” feature. You could create a FriendFeed room dedicated for links found on the web surrounding a topic. Think of this as a del.icio.us but with discussion. Yes, I know this functionality is available in other places, but a FriendFeed Room could be used for it as well.
Use rooms for photography tutorials. Credit Thomas Hawk for this idea. If you combine the Flickr integration with discussions, it makes for a powerful means of providing tips surrounding equipment and techniques. Flickr provides this within their groups, but the strength of FriendFeed lies with discussions and I believe the combination creates something powerful. There are already rooms for DSLR, Flickr Central, and Photowalking.
Use rooms to plan events. If you wish to brainstorm ideas surrounding an event, each item can be a post within the room and members can discuss the pros and cons of each idea. This is an easy way to allow your group of people to plan and organize.
Use rooms for technical support. This ties into the forum idea, but for small projects, a FriendFeed room could be a great way to track issues with software. If your project is not big enough for Getsatisfaction or Bugzilla, a FriendFeed room could be a quick way to interact with your user base. FriendFeed is using rooms for direct feedback now.

These are just some of the ways I gleaned from conversations on FriendFeed and from my own brain. What are some ways you utilize FriendFeed rooms? Are my methods wrong? A waste of time? Let me know.