Review: Flock, Social Firefox In A Box?

Is Flock really a new web browser?

Flock, a new browser that is built around "social" browsing, is an interesting alternative to the mainstream Internet Explorer and Firefox.

It pitches itself as a "social web browser"

Actually, you could argue that it's not a new browser at all because it's built on Firefox technology. Look closely and it's really just Firefox with a skin. It's a mash-up. A good one.

Firefox has been successful because of all the custom "add-ons" that you can choose to use according to your needs. If you a developer for example, there's great tools to help check code, optimise for SEO, and many more. Firefox has succeeded in this area because it has an open source development community that continuously add to the features available without adding weight to the basic browser. You can download the basic version which doesn't have too much complexity and just add on the bits that suit you.

Flock however could be seen as a "social Firefox in a box". Take all the great web 2.0 add-ons for Firefox, package them up in a neat user interface, and it actually looks like a different product.

What sort of features do you get?

Neat sidebar options, for example for your favourite RSS feeds

Add feeds by just clicking an icon in the address bar

People sidebar: If I sign into my Facebook account, all of my friends appear in my sidebar with easy to access actions such as send a message

A clean homepage "My World" that includes your favourites, your feeds, favourite media

Web clipboard, so you can copy as store snippets from useful web pages

Instant blog posting from your browser

Coming soon: webmail in the browser

Yahoo! search in installed by default, there's tabbed browsing. It's all good.

Well, it's good to a point.

If I only used one computer and one web browser, I could easily see myself being a fan of Flock. The trouble with Flock is that you need to configure the browser on each machine you download it onto. So - say now I start getting all of my favourite RSS feeds in one place, I have to do the same thing again on each browser that I download and configure.

Also, I have to work for a living. Going to a web browser pre-loaded with a whole load of distractions isn't great for productivity.

I can see myself using Flock at home and Firefox at work. To keep my favourites in one place I'll probably still use Google bookmarks, that way I can access them on any machnine. If I had a Flock account where I could store all of my settings in one place, now that would be better.

It goes to show: in the future, any successful software needs to be truly portable.

Free web-based mind mapping software

I do a lot of my thinking and work using Mindmaps.

Drop an idea on the screen, move it around, connect it to other ideas, and eventually build a map of how all the ideas fit together. For someone like me with a conceptual organisational mind, it's much more useful that just using Word, Visio or Excel.

I tend to use MindManager, a licenced application that is installed locally. A full licence is a hefty £199, although there is a Lite Version for home use at £49. If you want to send your maps to others you can export to PDF, and there is also a free MindManager viewer which others can install if they don't have the full software.

Recently however there are a couple of web-based alternatives to choose from.

Mindmeister and Mind42 are 2 web-based mind mapping tools which you can use for free. The big advantage of these is that you can collaborate with others and build maps together and store the map on the web.

Personally I found the user interface of MindMeister to be better. Neither are as smooth to use as MindManger, but of course - they are free!

Another free option is FreeMind, a free application (installed locally) written in Java. I haven't tried this as I already have MindManager, but it looks worth a look.

Get mapping! It's a great way to structure your thoughts and organise ideas.