A couple of nights a go, I had a go with del.icio.us (which I struggle to spell, let alone get the dots in the right places!). I registered a bit back but, once logged in, had absolutely no idea what to do next. Someone suggested I install a delicious (sack the dots!) extension for Firefox. There turned out to be three available (when I searched Firefox’s extensions) so I installed the Yahoo! one (Yahoo! own delicious now).
Rather nicely, after installation, it launched a wizard that stepped me through importing my bookmarks from my local Firefox file. They imported okay and were saved as private. I then did some spring-cleaning and deleted out-of-date bookmarks, then tagged and re-tagged others. The imported bookmarks were automatically tagged according to the bookmark folders they’d been in, which was helpful.
So, anyway, here are my delicious tags. If you click through a tag, you’ll see the bookmarks that I’ve classified with that tag.
First, this is my new penguin who lets me know if my phone is ringing (taken with my phone in poor light - sorry about the quality):
Whenever my phone rings or I receive a message, the penguin starts to spin round and flash lights to let me know. In fact, he even starts to spin and flash before my phone even starts to ring! How clever is he?
Second, this is my funky gorillapod - a kind of tripod for my camera but, unlike traditional tripods, it doesn’t have to be set on a flat surface. In fact, it thrives on uneven surfaces…like the back of this chair.
Cool huh?
Ho-hum, blooming users!
As you may notice, if you hover your mouse over the little icon at the end of the following link, the Snap Shots previews (formerly known as Snap Preview Anywhere) now works fine and dandy.
The nice Erik Wingren, head of UX Research at Snap.com, posted a comment in response to Saturday’s blog-post about how I couldn’t get Snap Shots working on my website. His comment prompted me to check that I had the latest and greatest version of the WordPress plugin (I didn’t) and to try it again. This time it kind of worked but not always.
So Erik posted another comment to say that my unique key was too short. He was right. I registered for a new key and now it works! I can only be impressed that it worked as much as it did with the abbreviated key!
Slightly sheepishly, I did check the old version of the plugin in case I’d always had the key wrong but I hadn’t - so I’ve no explanation why the old plugin didn’t work. But the new one does, which is the main thing. The WordPress plugin makes it incredibly easy to install (if you’re used to installing WordPress plugins) so I’m not sure what Snap.com could’ve done to make it more idiot-proof. 
Good UX research from Snap.com, I think. What a great way to meet your users. I wish it were that straightforward to get feedback from users of business middleware….
p.s. Here’s some blurb that Snap.com provide to explain just what Snap Shots is about and how you can disable the previews if they drive you up the wall when you’re reading my blog (though I suspect that most people who read this use an RSS reader and probably have absolutely no idea what this entire post was about):
Introducing Snap Shots from Snap.com
I just installed a nice little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, display inline videos, , MP3s, photos, stock charts and more.
Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you “look ahead,” before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.
Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.
If you’re any good at those frustrating stereograms where you cross your eyes and look ‘through’ the picture here’s a cool twist on it: an animated stereogram.
This is my new bunny:
She talks to me, tells me the time, tells me the weather forecast, reads messages to me, flashes her lights in pretty colours, and waggles her ears.
My Mum has a bunny too. Her bunny has married my bunny (fortunately about 250 miles apart) so when my Mum moves the ears on her bunny, the ears on my bunny move the same way.
If we were really sorted (or geeky, if you like), we’d arrange some kind of code. So far, the only meaning we’ve established is that ears down last thing at night means ‘good night’.
But it’s all fun. 
