Pageflakes 2.0 & Flock
Posted October 18, 2006Page Flakes, a very powerful, ajaxy portal site, just released version 2.0, adding a fresh new (themable) look and dozens of improvements! I very highly recommend checking out this site. View rss feeds, listen to podcasts, and so much more.I also wanted to mention a good tool that I forgot to mention in my previous two posts, yet it should belong in them! Flock is “web 2.0″ browser platform, based on the popular Firefox browser. With the latest release still pre-1.0, it is still a tad rough around the edges, but it has a number of nifty integrated features including blog posting, RSS reading, and easy Flickr photo management. It has a number of other innovative features as well.
Comments
I think the importance of PageFlakes (as well as many other Ajax based portal/home pages) is the fact that it can aggregate RSS in a very handy and accessible way. In the case of blogging in the classroom, students can have one entire tab in their PageFlakes site dedicated to their class blog feeds - something I encourage my students to do. So, when they pop open their browser, they always see the latest info from the classes.
And that is a cool feature, however, that is what you can do with Google’s customizable homepage, which is why I haven’t become attached to any other similar services. Maybe I’m just a Google addict! 
I use Flock on the Mac quite often, though it runs more clunker than Firefox (2) and even more than Safari. However, I constantly use the Flickr feature, and love the auto-login. I also use a plugin called Web Developer which puts a bar across the top of the browser with an amazing amount of analysis tools, options and functions. One of my favorites is a feature that allows you to hover over divs and get the readout of all the css stats, as well as where the box for that div is. It’s kind of like the Webkit’s “web inspector” except it only deals with one div at a time.
Since Flock is built on Mozilla, I don’t have to open Firefox for browser checks on my (and others) websites. It has potential….
Oh, and Web Developer is also (or was originally) availble for Firefox.
The Web Developer extension is great! Also, check out Firebug if you haven’t already. It is absolutely amazing for debugging html/css/javascript.
I don’t use Flickr, though… I don’t actually use Flock day-to-day myself, but I am looking forward to seeing how it progresses.
Flock is a fun browser. I like it, but its hardly will take the place of firefox. I agree with Adam, I do love firebug, its awesome. About pageflakes, its a fantastic item. Its collaboration tools along side their RSS is very handy. Plus I use their flakes outside of pageflakes. I use the message boards and some other flakes in my personal site. Its cool
I have been using Flock for a couple of months now on my PC, and it is a pretty solid browser. I still don’t think it will take the place of Firefox.
I tried Page Flakes early this year and I liked what I saw. I haven’t tried their latest version because I seem to be attached to Google Homepage!