Technology As Innovator

shop360.vn, thugian360.com, yeah1.com are apologies to domain selection.

Why? Many Vietnamese computers have UniKey installed to type Vietnamese with accents. If the users prefer VNI method, when they type the domains in the address bar:

• shop360 becomes shôp
• thugian360 becomes thugiân
• yeah1 becomes yeah1

yeah1 has a cool notation: it looks like <strong>yeah!</strong>. But with the mistake above, efforts to create a brand are wasted.

Why did Yahoo! 360 make it? Because the number stands alone: 360.yahoo.com

Another issue is with hi5, but since the service is not originally from Vietnam, they’re not to blame.

In Vietnam where I’m living, Yahoo! Messenger is the most popular IM service. Like most Vietnamese, I started communicating through IM with Yahoo! Messenger.

In 2006, my account has reached its maximum number of friends an account can add: 300.

My Yahoo! 360, Yahoo’s blogger service also limits to 300 and I always have a hard time managing my friend list. I had to work around by configuring registry to allow multiple Y!M instances to run at once.

So my concern when registering for any social network or IM service is the maximum number of friends an account can add.

And here’s the current data:

5,000 for Facebook. This is sufficient for me, till now.

600 for Windows Live Messenger. Still not enough, as my connections now have passed 1,000.

300 for Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! 360. I can’t live with this cap.

No statistics for Gtalk

1,000 for Yahoo! 360plus Vietnam. However, “add friend” in this service doesn’t work in the standard way since friend adding is one-way: doesn’t require confirmation, doesn’t show vice versa.

2,000 for Twitter. I haven’t planned to reach that number just yet.

So what platform are you on? Have you reached the cap in your friend list? If yes, what have you done to solve the issue?

I’m on Firefox 3 too, and I utilize addons to enrich my web experience too, like most of you there.

There have been countless of entries to useful Firefox addons, but what’s different about this post is that it measures the costs that can be saved for users when using these extensions.

What are the costs of usability and how much are they?

The descending order of severity of the costs are

1. Screen loads: this is a pain when internet connection is slow. It usually takes most time of all interactions with the computer
2. Mouse movements: mouse movements severely damage the wrist and this should be minimized
3. Mouse clicks: mouse clicks are less severe than mouse movements, but are also expensive
4. URLs: an URL takes time to type in
5. Enters: it hurts the little finger
6. Hot keys: hot keys usually consists of at least 2 keys, but are regarded as less expensive than Enters because they are mostly done with the left hand, reduces damage to the right hand

Now, let’s start with the addons!

The first six in the batch: Google Toolbar, Diigo Toolbar, StumbleUpon Toolbar, TwitterFox, CustomizeGoogle, Better YouTube

Google Toolbar for Firefox

Google Toolbar provides search, “I’m feeling lucky” and images search functions without having to go to Google.com

It also supports Gmail notifications and Google PR check

Diigo Toolbar

I have used Diigo as a replacement of delicious (I still love the old brand del.icio.us)

Though delicious tagging is smarter and usability is better, Diigo supports web-highlighting which makes it an advantage.

Diigo toolbar allows user to bookmark their favorite web pages for later reference. With Diigo, all bookmarks are centralized when users move from computer to another.

StumbleUpon Toolbar

StumbleUpon works on an interesting concept: when you hit the Stumble! button, the addon takes you to a random interesting page that matches your preferences.

The StumbleUpon toolbar makes it more convenient for you.

CustomizeGoogle

This powerful addon modifies Google search results and display preferences. It supports options for Web Search, Images, Groups, News, Products, G Answers, G Books, Gmail, G Galendar, G Maps, G Docs, Video, Reader, Cache, Blogger, History, Privacy and Filter

Twitterfox

Better YouTube

This Greasemonkey-based addon loads the YouTube video faster and allows downloading the video. Generally it saves me half an hour per day for one video.

Conclusion

With the intensity of these service I use everyday, these addons easily save at least one hour each day for me.

I can use this one hour for other business purposes which can generate other benefits.

What is your experience? What do you think of my approach when analyzing these?