This morning I blogged about Swurl. I praised the tool. It has a clean, uncluttered interface and the timeline is stunning. The manner in which it updates is mesmerising. I was also impressed with the manner in which Jonathan, one of the developers responded directly via email to my problem regarding Flickr feed subscriptions. I added in my post that Swurl would not suit my needs and I was also concerned that anyone could comment, for example spammers, on any of your aggregated feeds as published in Swurl.

Both developers Jonathan and Ryan commented on my post. That is excellent. I am always impressed when developers respond in this manner. I would like to re-publish the comments here as a tip of the hat to Jonathan and Ryan. Swurl is a clean and easy to use tool and it deserves mention. The comments are as follows:

Jonathan Neddenriep Says: 

Thanks for the post about Swurl!

The badge idea is interesting – we’ve talked about that although up to this point we haven’t had time to work on things like that. We’d love to implement this in the future, although a third party developer could also use our API to do this.

As far as comments – yes, spam is an issue we’ve thought about. To this point we haven’t had a problem with it, but we have some safeguards in place to easily delete spam if it gets to be a problem. Also, you can simply double-click a comment to remove it.

Thanks for trying out Swurl and stay tuned, we have more cool stuff planned!!

My reply

Thanks Jonathan. I am incredibly impressed with your response and the promptness of it. I am glad to see that you have your fingers on the pulse. I shall keep an eye out for a badge. I like the way the Jaiku badge has been implemented ~ hint, hint. ^_^
Best wishes, John

Ryan Says

A badge would be cool, but right now we designed Swurl to become your main blog. You should try it out, Swurl is actually a pretty cool blogging system. If you totally wouldn’t do that, let us know why, we would love the learn how to make Swurl good enough to become your blogging engine. If that turns out to be unpopular we could always try another direction.

My reply

Ryan, Thank you so much for your comment. I hope I have not stirred the pot too much. Please let me know.

That is an interesting idea that Swurl could be your main blog. In my case I do not think I could switch over to Swurl entirely and allow it to become my main blog or gateway. Like many bloggers I have invested a lot of energy in my blog and its associated site. I have set up a self hosted WordPress blog and obtained a domain name, etc.

If Swurl was to become my main blog I would like to be able to post to it directly, just like a blog. Self hosting would need to be a consideration as well. I never considered Swurl as a replacement for my blog. I was hoping it could augment my blog and act as a junction point for all my activity on my site and blog, much in the same way as the Jaiku badge.

Personally, I am impressed with the Swurl interface and the the timeline. The manner in which blog posts, tweets and the like update is impressive. Your design is clean and uncluttered.

Swurl would be great for new bloggers, but they would need to be able to post to the Swurl blog directly. Yet, most users with Twitter, Flickr, and similar feeds probably already have a blog. There lies a conundrum. How to attract new users and existing bloggers to direct all their readers to their Swurl account as their main gateway on the net? Many probably will but not all.

Cheers, John.

During the last week read a few reports about Swurl. I have some good news and a point that I think is not so good. Some background, the good news and then some potential bad news follows. [Please not my addendum too]

The initial reference to the tool that caught my eye was made by Jane on her excellent eLearning Pick of the Day blog. I was then impressed with the screen shot on the Read/Write Web review of the tool. Since then Silvia Tolisano and Alan Levine have blogged about the tool.

I have been looking for something to replace my Jaiku badge as its servers are down quite often and I cannot perceive that any changes have been made to Jaiku since Google purchased the company last October. I thought that perhaps Swurl was the answer. As I mentioned I was impressed with the screen shot published as part of the report. I thought, “Could this replace my Jaiku badge?”

After reading the review I skipped over to Swurl and signed up. I was able to plug into my blog, twitter, del.icio.us and Last.FM feeds. That was all. For some reason I could not plug into my Flickr feed. I made several attempts. No luck.

So, I left a question on their suggestion page. More on that in a moment. Anyway, this morning I received an email from Jonathan Neddenriep at Swurl. He is pictured here with the other chap behind Swurl, Ryan. These gentlemen are real. Their feedback is excellent. This is impressive.

Jonathan mentioned in the email that they had added an additional feature that allowed you to enter the full url of your Flickr account. It worked for me. I could switch on Flickr. I think this level of support is brilliant. Simply outstanding. That is the good news.

Now, Swurl is good but it is not the solution for me. I was after a sidebar badge that could replace Jaiku but it was not to be. Perhaps one day Swurl will have a badge that I can embed on my home page. The Jaiku badge there takes in all my feeds (except Twitter ~ my choice) and it acts like a “What’s New” for my site and feeds. 

Now, for the not so good point. There is one thing that concerns me about Swurl. When you mouse over any post or entry on your Swurl page a hidden comment field appears. Anyone can comment. What if spammers get a hold of this? It could become a nightmare. Even each individual Twitter post allows for comments. See below.

The comment feature needs to have controls not unlike that of a blog in my opinion. This has been raised on the Swurl suggestion page.

Addendum. Now for some more good news. This blog post has received a comment from Jonathan Neddenriep at Swurl. These guys are brilliant! Please read Jonathan’s comment below. Excellent.

Just completed an iChat with Westley Field. He is a much traveled chap. He is in London doing this and that. Anyway, here he is, having breakfast with Richard Millward, an educator delving into learning, technology and its development through his research and development work with Core Education UK and the IDIBL project in the Institute for Educational Cybernetics at the University of Bolton.

Good morning gentlemen

Richard and I laughed about our foreheads. I then sent Westley, via iChat, the link to my previous post about QR Codes and asked Westley and Richard to check out my forehead replete with my blog’s QR Code.

I explianed QR Codes to Westley and to my surprise Richard grabbed his phone which had software capable of reading QR Codes. He pointed his mobile phone at the QR code on my blog and, on cue, my blog appeared on Richard’s mobile phone. Now, I think that is quite neat.

Proof of concept ~ the QR Code pointed to my blog

We chatted a bit and I provided Westley with some pointers for a presentation he must be doing later. I have a knack at being in the right place at the right time when it comes to Westley. And vice versa.

How did I create this post? I took the screen shots of the iChat session using SharpShooter. I imported the images into Comic Life and added the word balloons, etc. I exported the Comic as a jpeg image and then resized each image it in Adobe Photoshop Elements and exported it using the Save For Web… option which allows you to fine tune file size and quality. I used CyberDuck to upload the two images.

First learnt about these a few weeks back. Read about them in a newspaper somewhere and then made a mental note to follow it up. Well, an article in the Sydney Morning Herald reminded me about the QR Code so this afternoon did a Google search using these terms “QR Code your own”. Came up with a  few sites and selected this one: Kaywa QR Code Generator. There was also a generator at Winksite.

One can generate a code badge of varying sizes together with embed code and a permalink. The QR Code for this blog is displayed above.

QR Codes are not unlike bar-codes and were originally developed in Japan for use in manufacturing. Now, how can you use this code? Well, imagine this… you print a large version of your QR Code on a t-shirt. Someone points a mobile phone equipped with a camera and the QR Code reader software and scans your QR Code on your t-shirt. Then your web site, text message, mobile business card, image or whatever you create the QR Code for will appear on their phone. No searching or typing required. You could print QR Codes on your name cards.

QR Codes will appear in adverts, on billboards, CD jackets, books, restaurants, catalogues and elsewhere. I have visions of the codes being used on motor vehicle registration plates, license papers, ID cards, etc. They have been used in Japan for sometime where they have become popular among Japan’s highly mobile youth. They are now being used in Australia.

Exclusive QR Codes may be published at concerts, performances, conferences and even un-conferences. Point your suitably equipped phone at the QR Code and the relevant data will appear on your phone. QR Codes could be used in museums and other exhibitions to send data regarding displays and exhibits to the patrons’ mobile phones. It may give the term ‘point-of-sale’ a whole new meaning as you point your phone at QR coded merchandise and purchase it on the spot.

Perhaps you could your QR Code tattooed on your arm or on any other part of your exterior. The mind boggles.

Now, I wonder if I go to a different QR Code generator and attempt to create another QR Code for this blog will it be identical?

From time to time as I scan the Twitter feeds I see the adjective ‘cool‘ pop up in reference to this application or that tool. Now, because I am actually a Grumpy Old Man, I must admit that I feel annoyed when I see the term cool to describe every new tool or app that appears on the horizon. They cannot all be cool.

Yet, I do believe that some applications are deserving of the adjective cool. I will list three.

1. HyperCard. Apple’s authoring tool that spawned an entire generation of educators willing to give technology a go in the classroom. HyperCard changed my life. HyperCard and similar tools led to the origin and growth of research and development laboratories such as EmLab at the University of Wollongong. Sadly, HyperCard is with us no longer. Link: Apple’s New Hypercard 2.4.

2. KidPix. Excellent software for kids that integrates multimedia elements and a variety of publishing possibilities. It is fun for everyone. Available here.

3. Comic Life. The team at plasq created Comic Life not long back. An incredibly easy application to use  with a diverse range of uses and a plethora of publishing possibilities. This is a fun application as well. I am yet to try out Comic Magiq Life. Mac | Win

Now, I think blogging, wikis and podcasts are also excellent developments.

It is now over to you. Would you like to suggest an application that is worthy of mention?