So… this was cool.
One thing about YouTube, much like the rest of the web: it’s really cool to see how many talented people actually have a way to get their creations out and seen in this way, whether it be video, music, or writing. Nice.
Monthly Archive for June, 2007
If you use Google’s documents and spreadsheets, you’ll have noticed today (earlier?) that they have a facelift:
What stands out right off the bat is the standard, left-pane, folder-tree navigation. Since Google docs is a little different than just a file-system, we have not only a file tree, but various other categorizations; you can see documents by who they are shared with, by type, and so forth.
While the main differences seem to be cosmetic, there’s something to be said for a great user interface. That’s not to say that this interface is anything groundbreaking — but it’s familiar looking, which is nice, and it is extremely usable.
It’s nice just to see change, also. We’ve grown so used to seeing “BETA” slapped onto every web application that is introduced, I think we forget that beta means we should be expecting new features; i.e., that they are still working on it. Mind you, I realize that a lot of development will take place behind the GUI, but it’s cool to see some changes make it to the public face of the application once in awhile.
Honestly, the Google apps (web apps generally) have actually changed the software I use. I have NeoOffice (a mac port of OpenOffice) installed on my mac mini, but I have used it… once? For spreadsheets, written documents, I invariably use the Google apps. I used to use 37Signals Writeboard, but Google won me over by having both apps in one spot. On my linux machine(s), I expect I will always have OpenOffice installed… but again, I use it very rarely.
I’m getting as tired as the next person of the constant, ubiquitous, stream of Google-worship… but they make the best web software there is. They were “web 2.0″ before it was a buzzword. They created the app (maps.google.com, or gmail, depending who you ask… maybe both) that popularized “Ajax” before the term “Ajax” was even coined. They are the kings of software on the web, at this point in time. Way to go, googlers.
I found the above sign priceless, so I just had to post it. Taken by my brother-in-law on a recent trip to India & Nepal. If you’re interested in photos (mostly of people, not signage) you can check his photos out on pixelatedimage.com.
A lot of what David does is humanitarian photography in some of the poorest nations on earth; if that’s something you’d like to help him out with, he is selling limited edition coffee-table style books of many of his photographs; the book looks gorgeous. More information here.
Engadget covered the expected costs of owning an iPhone, and it ain’t cheap. The good news is that other than the price of the phone itself, the costs of the plan are not much different than for a comparable smart phone, and by their calculations, users on a family plan would even save money — over the course of two or three years, that is.
I was contemplating buying one, but I’m now thinking that I’ll wait; six months, maybe a year. This is not due to the costs, which are to be expected, but to wait long enough to let them improve it a little, to let the price drop a little, and to hear some real world reviews of how good (or not?) it really is.
I began building a new project tonight, which I’m calling “microlinks,” at least for the time being. It will be a live experiment in building a simple web application for myself, and also an experiment in online advertising and internet marketing. Microlinks will be an online advertising solution; it will start out as simple as can be, and I suppose I’ll see what happens from there.
Does the world really need yet another form of web marketing? Well, seeing as how I’m not even ready for an alpha test, let alone a beta test, I don’t think I can answer that. The prudent, market-oriented, answer would be, if no one is interested, it will quietly and sadly fall by the wayside. Enough said.
Regardless of the actual success or failure of the venture, I look forward to the experience of building a usable web application from start to finish. Since I’ve already done a little development with Rails, I opted to use that as a platform.
I’ve been using vim as my editor, and I may yet return, but I decided to give TextMate a try with its 30-day trial, and see how I like it. It is a commercial product, not extremely expensive, but it will have to be pretty impressive in order to keep me using it after the 30-day trial expires; I suppose I’ll have to write a review of the editor sometime in the next 30 days. We shall see.
Lastly, I’ll be using subversion for the first time. Well, not the first time ever “using” it, but the first time using it for a project of my own. That in itself should be a valuable experience, as any future project of sufficient size or complexity will certainly also warrant some form of version control; subversion is by no means the only solution, but it seems to be a prevalent one, especially in Open Source circles.
If you’re interested in partaking in the initial beta test, when it’s ready, just keep an eye on this site or its RSS feed.
The “dramatic chipmunk” (Prairie Dog) is making the rounds of Ye Whole Internets as the “funniest 5 second video on the web.”
I am unable to dispute this:
From the fine folks at Boing Boing, surfing the web, so you don’t have to.
If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders.
- Hal Abelson, MIT professor.
Abelson, along with Gerald Sussman, was an author of the celebrated Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.
It was almost two years ago, I think, that I first read David Allen’s Getting Things Done. I got pretty excited about it, at the time. There was (and is) a great deal of buzz about it, about the promise of better organization and more productivity, and time management that actually works, the result being that Things actually Get Done.
It’s gotten to the point that I really need to shape up and pay some attention to “re-organizing” my stuff, but I want to make sure I don’t repeat the same Sudden Flurry Of Activity followed by the Gentle Decline Into Chaos And Procrastination which seems inevitably to follow in its wake.
To that end… a few thoughts which I’m going to try to use as a guide this time around the Organizing Trip:
- When Allen suggests — nay, mandates — that you need to get organized at work and at home at the same time, I’ve begun to think that he actually means it. Looking back, I think a contributing factor to the slide back into disorganization was the fact that I became very organized at work, but still completely disorganized at home. I’m not sure exactly why, but this does make a difference…
- Really, really, really, just have ONE source of lists, to-do items, projects, etc. This worked for me for awhile, but I eventually found myself tracking tasks in several different places: some would be in a spreadsheet, some in a planner, some in an online ticket system, and so on. Again, just as everyone from David Allen to Tom Limoncelli advises, this Does Not Work.
- Create a plan, and stick with it. This almost seems too obvious to write down, but again, I’d trace some of my failure to continue being organized to either a) Not taking the time to make a complete plan, and/or b) Not sticking with it. There’s a saying that goes something like, “If you don’t quit, you win.” That borders a little bit on the side of Pollyanna-isms, but the converse is definitely a truism: if you do quit, you can’t win.
None of these deal directly with the actual mechanics of being organized or managing time, but at the same time, I don’t think any organization/personal management efforts can succeed in the long run without them. At least, in my experience.
Now, speaking of Getting Things Done, I should study for my Calculus mid-term.
The title of this post might be a good title for this blog, not to mention countless others. When I pulled all the content over from my obese XML file which bore every post and comment from the previous host I was on, I was only able to copy chunks at a time; 50 or so at a time, I guess. That took a little while, but it was worth doing, as everything is Back As It Should Be. However, in the process, I got to glance over the titles of all the posts I’d written on this weblog over the last two+ years.
And… yech. I wrote all that? For what? Now, partly this is just the common trait of being one’s own worst critic, partly it’s because some of my views have either changed or softened in the last few years, partly it’s just… well. I observed a few things that embarrassed me about my own posts (to the point where I questioned, a few times, whether I really wanted to save all this dreck for posterity), so here are a collection of thoughts, conveniently phrased in the form of Old Testament commandments, a la Scroobius Pip, or, if you prefer… Moses:
- Thou Shalt Not Say Things About Opposing Political Viewpoints that you would not also be willing to say to someone’s face if that person happened to be of that persuasion… and a friend. That is, people we disagree with are still people.
- Thou Shalt Not Peruse Digg And Del.icio.us for the sole purpose of finding some neat thing to put on your blog with a two-sentence summary, the same two-sentence summary (basically) as you will see on five thousand other blogs.
- Thou Shalt Not Parrot the exact same thing as some other large herd of the “blogosphere” is saying, the only difference being that you happen to be saying it on your website.
- Thou Shalt Not complain, whine, moan, and/or sulk in public.
- Thou Shalt Not Write about what does not interest you.
- Thou Shalt not write about movies, books, games, software, comics, memes, etc, unless you have an actual review or meaningful insight or opinion to put forth.
Hrm. Some of these I have violated worse than others. Some (the complaining) I have (hopefully) done very rarely, because I don’t really like seeing that sort of thing on a weblog.
Above from the Yahoo User Interface Blog; a presentation about Javascript at a Konfabulator developers meeting/conference. I haven’t watched it in its entirety yet (40 minutes long), but Crockford is among the best sources I’ve found on Javascript.
