Memento Browser for Android is available

I've just created a home for the Memento Browser for Android, a project I started working on this past summer. The free Android app allows you to view older versions of web pages by merely selecting a date. The browser uses the Memento protocol to find archived versions of the page and displays whatever page is closest to the requested date.

For example, the screenshot below shows the browser viewing cnn.com:



If you wanted to see what this page looked like on Sept 7, 2007, you could select that date, and in a few seconds be looking at this archived page from WebCite:



Note that the page displayed is actually one day later than the requested date. That's because the browser was not able to find an archived copy on the exact date requested. The browser is only displaying archived copies from Internet Archive, WebCite, and a few other archives. While they have a huge amount of the web archived, they certainly don't have everything archived.

You can download Memento Browser here. I am working on an iPhone version of the app with a colleague of mine, but I don't have an ETA for it yet.

If you don't have an Android device, you can still download the MementoFox add-on for the Firefox browser which does the same thing.

Finally, you can watch a demo of the browser in action here.

Loving my Droid X

I've had it less than a week, and I'm hooked. The Droid X's screen is large (4.3"), sharp, and bright. The keypad is easy to type, the touch interface is extremely accurate and responsive, and reaction times are quick. The video playback is fantastic. It's quick to connect to the Verizon 3G network or local wifi, and I've gone nearly 3 days without having to recharge. It's running Android 2.1, but Froyo (2.2) is supposedly coming out soon.

Below is a photo I took from chapel this morning using the Droid X's 8-megapixel camera. Not bad considering the lighting. I'm standing in the pit at the front of the auditorium with my fellow faculty members. (The singing, as you could imagine, is awesome with a packed auditorium.)


One small negative: When I first entered my Facebook account credentials, it sucked up all my "friends" and put them in my list of contacts. Now my 500+ contact list is full of people I haven't seen in years and certainly don't contact on a day-to-day basis. If I want to remove an individual from my list of contacts, I'm told I have to remove them from my list of friends on Facebook. Boo.

I haven't added many apps yet (the phone comes with approximately 30 apps pre-installed). But one I did add was the Bible app from YouVersion. It allows me to simply say "Genesis chapter five verse twenty", and boom, you're there. Won't this be fun to play with during Bible class on Sunday.

Hey Apple, when are you going to create an iTunes for Android? This is probably the only reason I will hang on to my iPod Touch for now. (Yes, I've heard of doubleTwist, and I'll give it a try soon.)

Any other apps I should install?