Filed under: bookmarks, feeds
Within SupraSphere you can have fairly granular control over different notification and alert levels. You can decide that in certain spheres, you want to have a new tab open when a new message arrives (push) or that you want to be able to check messages only periodically (pull). The latter is particularly useful if you subscribe to numerous mailing lists and want to check them only every couple of days or so, but also want to make sure that you have a readily searchable archive of the the list in the event that you don’t check them for a period.
In the event that you haven’t checked messages in a long time, there is a convenient directory that shows, for every sphere, how many new messages since you last checked, with the ability for each sphere to “set all read” as well as “show all new” across all spheres.
For desktop notification, you can also set system tray preferences, with parameters such as “notify to the system tray when someone replies to one of my messages” or “always notify to the system tray for the first message opened in the sphere when a new tab is opened”.
How does this relate to RSS and filesystem monitoring? Well, these are two areas of the application where we are working diligently to improve notification and alert preferences. We are currently developing a mechanism to monitor all assets in a given sphere for keywords or keyword tags. When RSS is selected as an asset type to be monitored, we will poll feeds (or sets or sub-sets of feeds contained in a given sphere) for new messages that contain either specific keywords or sets of keyword tags. Because we have historical tags (and keyword searches saved as tags), we can do queries such as “monitor my top 5 most used spheres and only notify me if an article matches at least 2 recently created tags from any of my 5 most recently created contacts”.
Furthermore, once we are monitoring RSS, we will also be able to search RSS feeds. While this is a more common capability of many RSS readers and services, we don’t want to add that capability until we add more powerful mechanisms to manage the large volume of new information that it will create.
As far as filesystem monitoring, we are adding the ability to monitor a specific directory for new files and have them automatically transferred securely to the server, where they will get indexed if they are PDF or common office document types. Furthermore, SupraSphere will prompt for a new file dialog where tags can be applied and where the sphere can be selected.
We might eventually allow transferring the contents of an entire directory, but this will not be a high priority for the coming release. There are already products that will index the contents of your a hard drive, so we are focusing on areas where we can create immediate value. Furthermore, this will create a strong temptation for me (and others) to use SupraSphere to share media files files, which I don’t want to do until we have the economic model a bit more figured out. :)
Filed under: blogging, bookmarks, commenting, messaging, sphere
It’s ironic in a way to be using SS to write about it. However, it kind of serves as a practical application of SS’s uses.
Like any typical article that gets written, there is a planning stage. So, usually that begins with a startup of SupraSphere. I have a sphere set up called “Supra Blog Team” which is where I usually post ideas for the next couple of posts. David will usually refine the ideas via terse. After I have a set topic to write about, I *usually* will write a message outline, which I’ve not really gotten into yet with the posts here, but that’s going to be the next one. Commenting on it, it will receive some tweaks, and then I will start the writing process.
From right within SS, I’ll hit <crtl-t> which just like Firefox, opens a new tab, and I log into the blog and start writing. I should mention here that Wordpress is fully functional while in SS as well. Extra tabs also mean it’s easy to search for more information so I can flesh out ideas.
After I get a rough draft, I save the preliminary version, and preview it in another tab. Using the bookmark feature, I then post the bookmark in the Blog Team sphere. David will read it from there, and then using the comment feature to tweak it some more, editing it for grammar and the like. Then, finally, I’ll get the green light to click on “Publish” and another post goes live.
Filed under: bookmarks, commenting, messaging
Most mornings, I get up and go through my routine, which usually ends with me drinking Mountain Dew, and sitting down at the dining-room table. Substituting the normal coffee intake and newspaper reading, I opt for soda and news via the web. My generation is the one that wants and usually gets everything that they want instantly. That being said, usually after about a half-hour of reading various CNN, Routers, Lifehacker and Wired posts, I begin to get a positively torrential amount of mail in my inbox with people cyber-shouting at me: “Quit sending me the same link over and over again! You sent it eleventy-seven times already!” To which I usually reply with: “But did you read the different comments I left for you?” *puppy dog eyes* Call it the caffeinated rush, but I have a lot to say, and to make matters worse, I expect comments back.
…Well, scratch that. That was before I started using SupraSphere. I’ve told you about spheres, terse messaging, and the supra search features. With the terse/bookmarking feature I alluded to, you can visit sites just like any other browser (tabbed no less) or insert bookmarks in terse messages an d in your different spheres. When you bookmark in a shared sphere, things get very cool very fast: everyone can comment on the bookmark.
One cool thing is that you are able to tell when someone reads the message. Their name off on the left hand “people” bar will go from blue to green. That way you won’t have to beg them to read it. ;) Of course you could prod them with a terse message to the bookmark, but once their name goes green you’ll know that they are reading it. You can simply reply to a bookmark via the terse messaging system, although there is another really cool feature to utilize.
What if there is a specific thing on the website that you want someone to see? In shared spheres, there is this big space where most of the time it shows terse messages in-line. However, when you click on a bookmark, a preview will show up in that large space.* At this point, you can still reply in terse, but the feature here is that while looking at that page, you can highlight just about anything and contextually select text to comment on. Simply highlight, right-click, and comment on the content you want them to read. A window pops up, allowing you do do that. If someone comments back, you can read their comment and reply to it. Contextual commenting really makes for some interesting conversation!
In SS, this comment feature is not just limited to bookmarks; email and messages can be commented on too! This along with the many other features of SS make it a truly innovative environment to work in!
*double-clicking on a bookmark will open it up in a new tab.
Posted on March 3rd, 2008 by David Thomson
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