You may or may not have heard that Google has been working on a new “collaborative tool” called Google Wave. I first heard about it this spring and have been monitoring news about it on and off. It’s not widely available yet, but I’ll be checking it out as soon as it is. If it turns out the way I suspect, I think it’s really going to change the way we use email and communications online.

So what is it? Instead of trying to explain it myself, here’s a video that illustrates what it does pretty well.

So what does something like Google Wave mean for you? Off the top of my head, there are a couple of situations I think it would be useful…

• If you’re a member or an organizer of a group or organization, then something like this could make communications between members a whole lot easier. I’m currently organizing a Meetup group and something like this would be a lot more useful than the regular back and forth emails to group members
• If you’re working on a project with a group of people (setting up a website, doing a collaboration, custom work, doing a large commission) something like this could keep exchanges between all parties from getting lost (and people getting ticked off)

Anyway…stay tuned.

Found this video while I was reading Seth Godin’s blog this morning. If you don’t know the difference between a web browser and a search engine, you have a lot of company. It seems like there’s a lot of confusion with these terms.

For the record, a web browser is a piece of software on your computer that allows you to surf the Internet, like Internet Explorer (the big E), Firefox, Safari, and of course Google Chrome.

A search engine is a website that helps you search the Internet, like Google, Alta Vista, Yahoo!, and Microsoft’s new search engine Bing. You need a web browser in order to get to a search engine. Most browsers include a search box tool that will allow you to use a search engine directly from the browser.

And what’s AOL? It’s an Internet service provider, or a service that allows you to connect to the Internet. AOL also includes it’s own proprietary web browser which allows people to surf the Internet. Other Internet service providers also includes Cox, Comcast, and Earthlink. You’ll need an Internet service provider in order to connect to the Internet.

Sooner or later, you may need to call up tech support to fix something. Perhaps one morning you get the blue screen of death, or you get one of those scary error messages on your screen. Or maybe you try to turn your computer on and…nothing. Perhaps it’s not your computer at all, but your website is completely down and you have to make that call to your web designer or web hosting company.

I’ve been on both sides of that panicky call that something’s blown up and it’s not working and there’s a couple of things that you can do in order to help make that tech support call just a little less stressful:

1. Don’t panic- This is easier said that done when you’re computer’s on the blink and you’re staring down the barrel of a deadline. But things will be less stressful if you don’t freak out. Chances are the problem is not nearly as bad (or expensive) as you think.

2. Check the obvious before you call- One of the first things that your tech person will have you do while you’re on the phone is to check out the obvious causes of trouble, mainly they’ll have you make sure that the computer is plugged in, or that the surge protector that your computer is connected to is turned on. They’ll also have you check to make sure that cables are plugged in and not loose. Or that you’re entering your password in correctly. Or that you don’t have the “CAPS lock” key on while you’re entering in your password. Or that you’re spelling the website correctly. The reason why they have you run through this drill is because a lot of times the trouble is as simple as the computer not being plugged in. So run through some of the obvious causes of trouble before you pick up the phone. If you still have your owner’s manual for your computer, take a look at that and see if your particular trouble has been addressed in the manual before you call.

3. Get prepared- If you have any warranties or service contracts on your computer gather up all of those materials before you call. It will save you a bit of time just in case your tech person requests this information. You may also need the serial number for your computer. These are usually located on a sticker placed on the back, bottom, or side of your computer or they are located in your computer registration paperwork.

4. Be as specific as possible- Simply saying “My computer’s not working” is usually not that helpful to your tech guy (or gal). They already assume that your computer isn’t working properly because chances are that you wouldn’t be calling if everything were fine. What they need to know is “in what way is your computer not working?”. So when you call up, you need to be as specific as possible. Will your computer not start at all? Is the problem that you can turn the computer on but it won’t go past the startup screen? Perhaps you can get past the startup screen but you can’t open up a particular program? When you finally get your tech person on the phone, describe your problem from start to finish, what you’re trying to do when you encounter your problem, if you were doing something before the problem occurred, what your computer does, and if there are any special situations that seem to go along with the problem.

5. Write down error messages- Usually when something goes wrong on your computer, you’ll get some kind of error message that attempts to tell you what the problem is. I not quite sure who writes these messages, but it would be helpful if they were written in something other than early “Geek” so that people without a computer science degree can understand them. But if you can’t make heads or tails of the message, take the time to write them down. While they look like gibberish to you, it may mean something to your tech person and knowing exactly what the message is may help them diagnose the problem just a bit faster.

6. Make note of any recent changes or incidents- Sometimes the cause of your computer trouble is something that’s changed on your computer or some incident that has happened recently such as:

• the addition of new hardware (printer, scanner, hard drive, memory, etc)
• the addition or deletion of software
• a power disruption or power surge
• the addition of deletion of a service
• software upgrades or security patches

Sometimes changes like this can cause some unforeseen problems with other things that may or may not seem to be related to your problem. When you’re talking to your tech person, make them aware of any changes or additions that had occurred before you started having problems. They’ll be able to tell you if these changes are related to your trouble.

7. Keep notes- A lot of times a call to the support department means that you’ll be spending a lot of time on the phone being sent from one person to another. If you can, keep notes on who you talk to, when you talked to them, and what they’ve done to help diagnose the problem. If you find that you have to keep calling the support department or if you have to a repair person fix your computer in person, these notes will come in handy.

So what tips to you have to survive a call to the your computer support department? Leave a comment and let us know!

The newest test version of Tweetdeck now integrates your Twitter stream and your Facebook updates! If you’re not familiar with Tweetdeck, I’ve mentioned it a couple weeks ago in a blog post about how to keep up with your social networking without spending hours every day. In that post mentioned that I used Tweetdeck to help me keep up with the people I’m following on Twitter. The ability to group the people you’re following into categories was one of the things that initially attracted me to Tweetdeck. But it was still lacking some of the features that I liked in another Twitter tool that I used called Twirl, so I often bounced from one tool to the other depending on what I needed to do.

Well, earlier this week, the folks at Adobe (the creators of Tweetdeck) came out with a new test version of Tweetdeck that’s quickly made it my favorite Twitter tool.

Here are some of the features in this version of Tweetdeck

• It integrates with both your Twitter and your Facebook account, so you can monitor all of you Facebook friend updates as well as those on Twitter. You can even start a Facebook Chat through Tweetdeck.
• It has a search function built in so you can search for specific topics that people are twittering about. Plus you can save the search and monitor new tweets as they come in.
• You can easily reply, send direct messages, and retweet interesting tweets from the people you’re following by clicking a single button.
• You can read the individual profiles of the people you’re following including when they joined, their website address, and the last tweets that they sent.
• You can mark which tweets you’ve read.
• You still have the ability to group your Twitter followers in categories you define. It’s now easier to add new people to your groups by clicking on the [+] on one of their tweets.
• It now has link shortening tools built in (yay!) and you can choose from a ton of different services like Snipurl, is.gd, bit.ly, tinyurl, and more.
• It also has pop-up notifications. So if you have your Tweetdeck window minimized in the background, you’ll get a pop-up update and sound alert every time you get new tweets.
• It’s also has integrated with some other Twitter services like Twitscoop (what topics are hot on Twitter now), 12seconds (12 second video posting), StockTwits (stock information via Twitter), and TwitPic (posting photos on Twitter).

Now because Tweetdeck arranges all of your information in multiple columns, it still takes up a lot of space on your screen. Plus, it’s important to remember that this is just a test version of the software, which means that there still may be some bugs in it. So far I haven’t run into any problems, but always be aware of the fact that test software isn’t going to be perfect.

If you want to check out Tweetdeck, visit the website at: http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/

Yesterday was the 20th birthday of the World Wide Web. It was March 1989 when an English physicist called Sir Tim Berners-Lee wrote a proposal that was the outline for the World Web Web, the structure which has formed the Internet as we now know it.

I tweeted about this yesterday morning and wondered out loud what we would do without it. So of the responses I got was pretty interesting:

Noirist @nikolena be bored to death, not have a life…need I enumerate all the scenarios? lol

fernfiddlehead @nikolena I can imagine a world without it.

ilovemakonnen @nikolena I CANT EVEN THINK OF THE WORLD WITHOUT IT!

Just the mere fact that I was able to communicate that bit of news, wonder about it, and get a bunch of responses within 5 minutes shows how much the world and the the web itself has changed in the past 20 years. When I was growing up I couldn’t have imagined that I was going to become a web designer because…there was no such thing when my teacher asked me what I was going to be when I grew up. But for my 16 year-old god daughter, there really was never a world without the web and it’s entirely normal that she talks to me through instant message and Facebook as much as she does over the phone or in person.

Could I have imagined when I was making my first web page back in 1995 that the web would the first place I go to for news, movie times, and how to spell a word instead of the television, the newspaper, and the dictionary? Could I have imagined that I would have made a small career out of helping artists make their way around the web? Or that I would use it to watch a historic presidential inaugaration as it was happening while monitoring what other people where thinking and feeling on Twitter and Facebook? Could I have even imagined Twitter and Facebook?

Nope…I sure couldn’t imagine what it would be like back then…and I can’t imagine life without it now.

Happy birthday World Wide Web! Can’t wait to see what you’ll be like in another 20 years!

What do you think of the web and where we are now? What do you think life would be without it?