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Throughout the last several years, programmers have developed WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Web design platforms, allowing everyone to take their piece of the Web. Among the most popular of those are WordPress, MovableType, and Wix.  I believe that of all of those sites that allow everyone their piece of the Web, one will revolutionize the way in which we interact with each other through social networking.

For the past couple of years, ever since the iPhone went on the market, everyone has wanted the latest app. In fact, the saying goes, “There’s an app for that.” A while back, Evan Williams (CEO of Twitter) referred to Twitter as being part of a social networking environemt. If sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others are part of a social networking environment, then people who use those sites and connect them to their websites responsibly are social media environmentalists.

During the evolution of websites that allow people to develop their own websites, third party developers have added apps and widgets that allow people to integrate their websites with various social networking accounts. Those third party apps must be supported by that site; though, people want more security in knowing that the apps and widgets they put on their sites won’t harm their sites or their computers.

Finally, one WYSIWYG platform (Squarespace) has developed their own apps, giving everyone the ability to design their own website and the confidence in knowing where their apps came from. And because of this innovative WYSIWYG platform, I believe 10 years from now, we will look back on the Internet in the 2^nd decade of the 21^st century as the decade of Social Media Environmentalism.

In the future, I hope to see Squarespace develop apps and widgets for various other social media sites. And I hope sites such as WordPress, Movabletype, Wix, and others will follow.

For now, we the people of the World Wide Web want apps for that and everything else, and we don’t want to have to worry about our security. Squarespace just started a new trend—Social Media Environmentalism—and those who build their sites using Squarespace can pride themselves on being some of the very first Social Media Environmentalists.

Let’s get a conversation going.  Let me know your thoughts.

Erick

Welcome to my final blog about open source for Mac. This week, I am going to look at two of the coolest open source programs for Macs. I am excited about both, and I am sure you will be also. So, let’s dive right in.  The first one (NeoOffice) is a great way for SEO content writers to write and check content at the same time, and DockSpaces will help anyone, including the social media marketer, stay ahead of the game.

NeoOffice

Yes, we started with an Open Source office suite called Open Office, and this week we’re going to end with another open source office suite. For those Avinash Kaushik faithful out there, I am sure you are at least familiar with NeoOffice. And for those of you who aren’t, I am going to give you a brief tutorial.

With NeoOffice users can create Text Documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, databases, formulas, and they can use templates. I’m going to go through each one and give you bullet points of the most significant aspects of each.

Text Documents

1. In the center of the Text Document pane there is an icon of a compass, which is under the word Neo. With that, users don’t have to search for various types of formatting throughout their docs. For example, if you want to find how many hyperlinks there are throughout your doc, just select Hyperlinks and the navigator will find all of the uses for you.
2. File > Preview in Web Browser: If you want to see what your document would look like live on the Internet, NeoOffice allows you to do it in a snap.
3. Tools > Add-ons > Grammar Checker: That’s right. With NeoOffice you can check your grammar, as well as your spelling.
4. NeoOffice Mobile: For some of us, we don’t necessarily care too much about this feature, but for those unable to do that NeoOffice does it for you.

Spreadsheet

1. Tools > Detectives: Okay, so I’m not a spreadsheet guy, but this is pretty cool. With this you can trace or remove precedents or dependents. One of these days, I’ll learn what that means.
2. You can also use NeoOffice mobile with this.

Presentation

1. Insert > Slide: Makes it simple to create a powerpoint type of presentation.
2. Slideshow: There’s plenty of things you can do here after your ready to test out your creation.

Okay, I am going to stop there, mainly because much of it seems redundant, and I don’t want to bore you. The coolest thing about NeoOffice is that it is available for your cell phone. For that, there is an Open Source version, and there is also a paid version.

Now, moving onto what I consider the Grand Finale of Open Source for Mac, presenting . . . wait for it . . . Dock Spaces! This is simply Awesome! Though, to tell you about it wouldn’t do it justice. Let’s just say that it will help you to organize your life. Simply said, Mac users can now have up to 5 docks on one computer to help them organize their days and their lives. With that said, here’s a pretty good vid that explains what Dock Spaces is and how to use it.

Okay, that’s it for my series on Open Source for Mac. I hope you’ve found software or apps you like and can use. For those PC users out there, NeoOffice, and of course Dock Spaces, is only available for Macs. Again, if you have any questions or comments about this or any of my blogs, I would love to hear them.

Erick

This week let’s look at a web site that allows the user to act like Google:  Botspot.com.  Google, and other search engines, use bots that scour the 5 billion web sites that make up the World Wide Web (that’s different from the internet).  Those bots read various websites and categorize them according to various algorithms.  While botspot.com doesn’t let individual users search and rank all 5 billion web sites for the world to see, it does allow users to search through various web site and their computer in much the same way that search engines’ bots do.

Botspot.com features various bots for Macs and PCs, of which some are freeware and some are not.  Personally, right now, I am a Mac man; though, I switch back and forth, depending on my current needs and whoever has the cooler commericals.  For Mac, there are bots in eight categories: Artificial Life bots, Download bots, Search bots, surf bots, Web development bots, File Sharing bots, shopping bots, tracking bots, and there is even a category for users to design their own bots.  There are 27 bots in those eight categories, and three design a bots.

Among my favorites are Htmlsearch Lite 3.1, which allows users to search the internet, an intranet, their computer, or a CD ROM.  There is also Glooton, which allows users to query several search engines at once.  Since Firefox has an app that can do that, I don’t think it’s worth it.  For those of us who are aware of the filesharing program LimeWire that is featured under File Sharing Bots.  LimeWire allows users to interface and share files with anyone else using a Gnutella file-sharing program.  Though, as a social marketer, I am going to have to give my kudos to Hotline Connect 1.9.1, which allows users to enjoy a more interactive way of sharing files through social media.  There are several other bots for Mac users; though, those are a few that stood out to me.

For those who work on PCs, or run windows on their Macs, there are more bots than I have time to count.  Those bots can be found in eight categories subcategorized into 35 sucategories.  Among a few I randomly picked, Genealogy Detective helps users search their family history, as well as it allows users to create a family website and host it for free.  Visual Web Task allows the user to search through websites by parsing HTML tags and searching the most relevant data and files.  Offline-Commander searches in a similar way, but it consists of a few more features that also help users protect their computers.

Since I had to undergo several months of therapy (not really) due to that infamous purple ape BonziBuddy (Whoever came up with him will probably revolutionize social networking 20 years from now), I am not going to suggest a virtual assistant who helps you keep your schedule or strips for you because she’s bored.  I am going to suggest Talking Translator Pro , which translates content and finds definitions of words.  While there are several more bots available for PC than Mac, the reality is Macs come equipped with many of those bots on their iMacs, so all of those extra-apps (That’s really all the bots are) are not necessary (Steve, can I get a free MacBook Air since I gave you some free advertising).

Among other features on Botspot.com, there are some books you can buy.  Honestly, they’re just links to Amazon, so nothing to get excited about.  For those who want to keep an eye on what Botspot.com’s up to, they do have a newsletter, and many of their editions are archived.

Botspot.com is a great site that allows computer users and internet surfers to take back control of their computers, thus making it more user friendly.  So whether you’re a slightly jean wearing, geeky guy who once appeared on a show about a small town lawyer who owned a bowling alley or you’re a nerdy business man who still thinks sweater vests will make a come back, Botspot.com has a bot for you.

Botspot.com is one of the many websites featured on my custom made search engine, along with various other sites I’ll tell you more about in the following weeks.  So, come back and learn about some other great websites in the weeks and months to come.  And be sure to connect with my on Facebook and Twitter.