Giving is more important than taking…

Today I’ve been enjoying some of the free stuff the Internet “gives”.

Google Reader
I started my day reading on TechMeme about the updates that Google Reader has gone through. Just stunning as Richard MacManus puts it. I’m considering reading my RSS feeds exclusively in Google Reader, up to now I used Thunderbird for that, but there isn’t any thing keeping me from fully switching anymore. I already imported my Thunderbird OPML list into Google Reader. I love the import function, you can reach it by clicking “manage subscriptions”. But be advised, there might be no way back. Time will tell whether I get stuck to Google Reader as my RSS aggregator… I remember sceptically importing my University class schedule into Google calendar, believing that I would only give it a try, I haven’t used any other calendar since….

BTW I liked seeing that Google points to wikipedia for further information on OPML, gives me some reassurance that I’m not the only-one putting trust in wikipedia. If the wikipedia defines things wrong, at least where all using the same definition.

tsWebEditor
Today I was working on a Windows OS and needed a PHP editor. Normally I use Quanta Plus for KDE. But since Quanta Plus only works in Linux, I had to find a Windows compatible alternative for this job. Editors enough, but I was looking for a minimum set of functionality; syntax highlighting and the option to directly work on FTP files. Luckily I found tsWebEditor. tsWebEditor comes with excellent:

• syntax highlighting
• code completion
• function hints
• a code browser
• … and much more

Evoluted.net directory listing
Today I found this directory listing script. Makes listing the contents of a folder a piece of cake, works real sweet. Here’s an example. Installing the script is just a matter of copying it into the directory where you want to use it.
Evoluted.net struck me with a real simple, maybe even cliche, quote “Giving is more important than taking …”. They’re explaining that they do an effort to share scripts with the community of web-developers as a return of the favor the community does so often for them. (Evoluted is using free scripts in their websites too.)

Giving is more important than taking…
I’ve been thinking about how to contribute something back to “the community” as well. I figured I could do my little share of sharing by writing a post on my blog giving credits to those websites and webservices that benefited me today. Is this generous of me? Well…., I’m a generous guy, I won’t deny that, but all this sharing and giving credits might have a ego-centric component as well, giving might be the new taking, chartreuse (BETA) does a good job at explaining with an example involving Paris Hilton why outward linking, linking, linking and linking could be of great benefit to all of us, and how it can create real value.