del.icio.us

Yesterday one of the guys I work with was showing me how to configure Entourage in OS X, and he needed some instructions from a webpage he knew existed.
He pulled up a browser window, typed in http://del.icio.us/hisname/ and was presented with a list of his bookmarks from which he selected the site he needed and we were done.

How strange to do that rather than go straight to Google?!

I'd heard of del.icio.us but never really thought about using it. Like most things online, I generally hold back until I'm shown something that impresses me, and yesterday was the turn of del.icio.us.

I signed up today, and have begun bookmarking my life:
http://del.icio.us/bendalziel/

I instantly installed the Firefox plug-in which makes everything so easy. It's such a clever idea; a way to explore the web without searching, a way to always have access to your bookmarks, another way to remotely hold data you need, another step towards the future of the net. It's a way to remember useful google search results I guess, and that's a good thing. I think I'm going to enjoy using it.

I always get the feeling though, that these applications should be interlinked. In a perfect world, I just want a single online identity, just one avitar, just one set of information. I'm fed up signing up to new communities and inputting the same data all the time. I want my Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, Bebo, del.icio.us, gmail, calendar, hotmail, webmail etc. to have a single me. I'm fed up signing in. Would it be possible to establish an online framework into which these communities, applications and tools could plug-in? I know it's not good for the industry, but I love google because from one sign-in I get a personalised homepage, email, calendar, documents... The list is growing. I have such a rich online experience, I want it to be centered on me. RSS is helping, and I love my personalised homepage, but its too much work!

I want my blog to allow me to upload presentations and papers on the day I give them or hand them in; better still, I want them to link to the document so that I can edit it online. Thinking about it, I probably can...

I'm reluctant to buy a new USB memory pen because pretty soon I'm hoping I won't ever have to move anything around on it. Everything should be stored remotely and be accessible anywhere. This is probably going to happen faster in San Francisco as Google makes the city wireless. Thinking forward to Vista, there is so much I'd change about the file system of XP, I hope they've nailed it. There's no need to have a "My Pictures" folder - we have Flickr. "My Videos" - YouTube. "My Documents" - Google Documents and Spreadsheets. Bookmarks - del-icio-us. The other stuff will soon go onto remote web space. There has to be an easy way to make money out of this big transition. I'll let you know when I have the million $ idea.

It'd be really nice to have Picassa online. Somewhere to put your pics straight from the camera, store the original, but then save off edited versions, again remotely. I've got loads of photos I want to put online but they're at home and I don't have the tools to edit them here. That sentence shouldn't be happening.