Research tools

I've been doing a ton of research lately, almost all of it on the web. I'm really swimming in data and it is getting harder and harder to manage it all. To some degree my Radio aggregator is making it worse, in that it is bringing to my attention so much good stuff! So, I'm in desperate needs of some tools (preferably tool, singular) that can pull all of this stuff together. Here's what it needs to do:

1. Manage a variety of content (quotes, files, full web pages, URLs, etc.) and their bibliographic info (I don't need official formats, just the info on where I got the stuff.)
2. Manage downloading of full web pages to disk.
3. Allows me to apply keywords to all this stuff
4. Make all this stuff searchable
5. It needs to be fast (quick to launch, create new entries and search) and  lightweight (not take up tons of memory or create massive disk files)
6. It would be nice if it replaced bookmarks. I'm currently using PowerMarks and love it, but I'd like to search one place for all my stuff.

I've tried a variety of utilities that do pieces of this puzzle. I like eGems, but it is not very quick on its feet (slow to start and retrieve entries). I've tried SurfSaver, but doesn't quit match my needs. Any ideas???

2:36:15 PM     

Towards the ubiquitous internet

To deeply impact a society via virtual communities you need to have broad access to the internet. One way that his happens in indonesia is via internet cafes or warnets, as they're called here. Another way I believe that this will happen in the future is via wireless. Only 3 out of every 100 Indonesians have a phone in their home. Lots of fiber has been laid throughout Indonesia, but the last mile problem is huge. The last mile infrastructure will probably never support broadband internet or be broadly installed in homes. So, all the activity in the Wi-Fi area is very interesting. I love the warchalking symbol card that Jenny posted about. The idea is that as you encounter Wi-Fi access points you note them in a public way (via chalk on a nearby building). I hope that I can find some Indonesia ISP that is seriously integrating Wi-Fi access points into their strategy. It seems that the potential here is HUGE. Marry Wi-Fi, GSM, GPRS, internet cafes and small devices (something like Danger) and I think you start to get an internet solution that will really impact Indonesia.

You can download:
A PDF of the card to print out and use [31k]
An EPS of the card to download and improve [800k]"

10:43:51 AM     

categories: Virtual Communities