Image via CrunchBase

I am in love with a new browser!  I’ve been using Chrome exclusively as my browser for a few weeks now and could not be more pleased.  Here are some of the things that make Chrome my favorite:

1. Very fast.  It starts up faster and loads pages faster.  Yeah!

2.  Increased vertical screen space.  Because there is no top menu for File etc, there is a lot more space on the screen.  I also appreciate that the Tabs go way up on top.

3. Really clean design.  Very simple and uncluttered design that is like breathing fresh air after being inside for awhile.

4.  Great plug-ins that really work and are more easily installed than Firefox’s.  Plus some of the things you need to download on Firefox are already enabled here on Chrome.  This includes Netflix’s streaming software.  Yippee!

Now for some small touches that really make a difference:

1. When you open a new tab, it opens next to the one you are currently in.  Meaning that it does not open way at the tail end of all of the tabs you have open so you get to arrow right to find the tab you wanted to open.  Or if you are like me, so by the time you get to that tab you can’t remember where you found the link.

2.  Built in translator.  Very slick.

3.  Find feature is the best I have ever used.  Offers a small drop-down find box, a count of the number of times the term was found, and highlights all of the occurrences of the word.

4.  When you open a tab, it slides open.  When you shut it, it slides shut.  Small touch, but I noticed it immediately.

5.  Many extensions appear as buttons, making a lot of my bookmarks obsolete.  I love that.

6.  Home page can be set to a collection of the top most-used websites.  Plus you get a list of the most recently closed tabs.  Or you can easily view a full history from there. 

Have you tried Chrome yet?  What do you think?

Here is a screenshot of my cooking blogs (because the images are lovely) so that you can see what it looks like:

You just scroll through the various posts that you can see down on the bottom there and you can click on Read More to view the text of the articles.  The images on the upper portion can be clicked to move them into the larger view.

You can head into Google Reader Play without selecting any specific blogs you follow and you will get some of the most Liked posts of the day.  I find it most useful to select either a category of blogs or one specific blog to view this way.  To do that, you select the category or blog you want to see, and then under Folder Settings you choose View in Reader Play.

This is definitely the way I will view design and cooking blogs.  I’m going to continue testing to see how some of my less visual blogs work here.

Let me know what you think about it and what you find works best for you.

Update:  Just stumbled onto my first video on Play.  They play automatically on the big part of the screen.  Very nice.

TwitCritics offers real-time movie reviews and ratings compiled from Twitter.  The reactions to the films are scored as either positive or negative which results in a percentage score.  The higher the score, the more positive the reviews are.  Here is an example of what it looks like when you look at a specific title:

You can see that they nicely link to the official movie website, Wikipedia, IMDB, and Rotten Tomatoes.  You can then read the individual tweets about the movie. 

I’m looking forward to seeing more of this happening with Twitter.  How about book reviews?

Fotobabble offers an interesting mashup of sound and image.  Upload your photo and then record a short audio blurb about it.  You can share it on email, Facebook, Twitter or embed it on your blog or website. 

There are no fees, though you do have to register for an account to use the service.  It is entirely web-based, so no downloads either.

They also have an iPhone app that you can use and be able to Fotobabble your entire day.

I can see libraries using this to create an interactive tour of their facilities without a video camera.  All it takes is a digital camera and an online connection.

This is a great link for Friday, because you just might have time to enjoy it this weekend! 

Clicker is a website that serves as a guide to Internet television.  They index all broadcast programming online, creating a one-stop place to find all of these shows, including web originals. 

The site contains 450,000 episodes from over 6,000 shows.  Plus they have thousands of movies and 50,000 music videos. 

Their opening page is welcoming with a slideshow of new and hot shows.  You can easily search by title or browse by categories like animation, arts, documentary, kids and many more.  You can also limit your browsing to specifically TV, movies, music or web originals. 

Nicely, they have also implemented a wiki where fans like you can contribute content about your favorite shows.  You can also create a playlist of your shows so that you see new episodes as they are added.

Embedr is a free service that lets you create a playlist of videos from across the web.   The site works with YouTube, MySpace, Vimeo, DailyMotion and more.  This makes it more flexible than the similar YouTube feature that only works with their videos.

You can share your playlist on your blog or website with a handy widget.  This lets you embed multiple videos on a blog post without having them listed in one after the other, taking up tons of room.

Image via CrunchBase

Zemanta is a handy blogging tool that really helps you create links, find images and link to related articles in a fast and user-friendly way.  Simply install the plugin on your browser, and it interfaces in your blog.  It added itself to my Windows Live Writer with no trouble and to Drupal as well.

Zemanta watches what you are typing in your blog post and offers a menu on the side that has links and images.  You don’t link blind, you can also click to see what the link contains, what article it is linking to too.  It is very slick but still allows you to really know what you are connecting your content to. 

Beautifully simple and exceedingly inviting and easy to use, you really have to try this out if you blog.  I don’t have many blogging tools that I use, but this is one that I really recommend.  I will link to a couple of articles on Zemanta below so you can see how that looks.  It’s entirely built by the service as is the image above along with its attribution statement.  See, you know you want this! 

I am watching the live announcement of Google Buzz thanks to people posting about it on Twitter.  I am loving what I am seeing and hearing.

Buzz has five main features:

• Auto-following
• Rich, fast sharing experience
• Public and private sharing
• Inbox integration
• Just the good stuff (automated recommendations based on who you are following)

They are implying the service will be launched today, but I don’t know when we will see it as an option in Gmail.

Check out Techcrunch for detailed notes on the announcement.

Update: the service is launching today.  It will take several days for it to be rolled out to everyone.   I am also thrilled to see that Twitter is supported.

Embedit.in is a free service that lets you embed documents into your website.  You simply select the files from your computer and they are embedded.  You have the ability to choose how people can interact with your content, whether it can be downloaded or printed, depending on whether you want to protect it or share it openly. 

When you select a file, you will get a list of services to choose from, these allow you to login to embedit.in without creating a new username and password.  After that, you get a screen with the embed code.  You can decide whether it is to be a fully embedded file, a thumb that opens another screen to view the file, or a link to the file.  Then you can change the width and height to your liking as well as the colors. 

Very simple and easy to use and I love the customizable features.

My network admin husband shared this article with me about User 2.0 and dealing with them in a networking and security context. 

One section of the article really spoke to me:

User 2.0 has different expectations of their work environment.  Social and work activities are blurred, different means of communications are used.  Email is dated, IM, twitter, facebook, myspace, etc are the tools to use to communicate.  There is also an expectation/desire to use own equipment.  Own phone, own laptop, own applications.

This is true of library staff and library patrons as well.  Some libraries are not allowing staff to engage in social networking.  Some are continuing to filter access to social networking sites for patrons.

I have heard the argument that if people are allowed to answer their personal cell phone at work, there will be anarchy.  The same if staff are allowed to blog, tweet or do Facebook on work time.  Or if we allow all staff to update our websites!  Or take their own pictures and put them up on Flickr.  Or any other thing that we directors do not have firm control over.

Let me tell you, that ship has sailed.  You may think you have control over your staff accessing social networking, but you do not.  It is not something you can ever control.  So what choice are you going to make?  Are you going to try to control the uncontrollable?  Which seems madness to me.  Or are you going to draft those employees into advocating for your library via the tools they love to use?

As long as my staff are doing good work, putting in a strong effort and being advocates for our library, I have no problem with the tools they are using.  In fact, I’d love to have more of my staff using social networking and talking up our library…  But then I consider myself to be User 2.0 anyway.