A Day in the Life / Iclectic Podcast
Random events of a semi-boring blogger
Monday, February 27, 2006
NPR story on the New Library
Nice story from today's talk of the nation about library and technology
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5235518
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Saturday Linki
Listening to Podtech podcast with Ross Mayfield of Socialtext. He talks about mashup camp and video. I am a big fan of the wiki and his company has a great enterprise level solution.
Boing Boing points to the new episode of The IT Crowd. This UK TV show is brilliant and funny. They give suggestions on how to get the download outside the UK.
Technology is a great thing. Being able to hear interviews with industry leaders and hearing sessions from conferences is a great benefit for those who can't make it out. In addition the explosion of video on the net is letting us choose what content we want. I like that producers are embracing the technology and allowing some content to be downloaded.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Write to write
I read Dave Winer talk about blogging and how wonderful it is to jot down what you are thinking and put it out there in the world. Today was a good day in blogging. I felt the creative juice and so I ran with it and posted some stuff tonight. I am trying to keep up and blog more often than once a week and it feels good. The few people that read my blog may not know what I am talking about half the time, but to be able to write is a great feeling. Everyone should do it.......
Now if I can just get time to work on some fiction I have been trying to write, life would be nice.
Technorati Tags: Blogging
Googel Does good with Video
Google Video has partnered with the National Archives to host some of their many films stored in the Archives.
Like the google print project, Google does good by providing access to historical documents. I went to a lecture last week at the Getty about the national archives. I was thinking what good bedfellows google would make be digitizing the national archive. If you have a chance check out the google set and the archive site for more information.
I want my Google Office or Google live or whatever you want to call it now!
Ok so I am posting too much about Google, but it is about time we talk about what they are doing. It appears with every little app they release, they get closer and closer to a office suite that would bring all the elements together.
Richar McManus writes about online office suites in his zdnet blog, and makes some good points for an online office productivity suite. We know Microsoft is developing office live and there are tons of web 2.0 companies that Techcrunch can point you to in this space, but I want an integrated application, that does everything. Mail, Calander, bookmarks, photos, blogging, RSS Reading, Wiki and chat.
Yes this is a big task and many companies do some of these things really well, but I hate going from one service to the other to get things done. Call me lazy, but in this wonderful world of web 2.0, I want to have my lazy Sunday, (because NBC has evil lawyers, the took down the NSL version so I linked to the Amature version) Lazy Monday and chill in Lazy Muncie.
The question is now how but when
Everyone knows google will take over the world eventually, so lets open up the Google piggy bank and buy all these best of bread services. Mix in some crazy glue and you have your web 2.o suite that require 1 login and all interact with each other and of course use offline cacheing just incase you are not connected to the googlenet.
This of course will put Mike out of business, but maybe he can join valleywag and stalk billionaires.
Technorati Tags: blog, google, office suite, web 2.0
Blogger Widget
Those who are blessed with a mac can now use the official google widget to publish thier blogger
post. This is a nice feature for thos quick posts, but lacks the WYSIWYG features of applications like ecto or performancing FF extention.
For quick bursts, this is good, but most of my posts require links and quotes. If you want to link you will have to hand code your html like
Google me
Nice to see Mac Development in the empire of "do no evil"
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
comment tracking bliss
Last week there was buzz a blazing about comment tracking in the blog-o-sphere. Something that was long overdue and yet we get a few options kicking up dust.
COcomment - adds its own comment button to post a comment on blogs that have their blog configured as such. The problem I see here is that the blog owner may need to add code to their blog for it to work. Also it only tracks comments of the users of cocomment and not all commenters. This product lacks the features you need to track the entire conversation. Sorry but you need to do better than that in this space.
co.mments.com - uses a simple bookmark, like other bookmarking services, to track the conversations you want. The obvious advantage is you can see the entire conversation. With cocomment you only see comments by those who use the service. For me this is a deal breaker. I want complete tools that will give me the entire conversation. So co.mments is my choice to track my comments.
Some things I would like to see from co.mments.com:
- A way to drop comments tracked. Most conversations become stale after a week or so. It would be nice to have a user preference to archive tracked conversations after a period of time.
- Service seems to be slow sometimes. As with most startups, the limitations of infrastucture is always an issue. Acceptable whilst in beta, I hope this service can scale, because I see it to dominate the space in the nexgt few months.
- A feedback channel or forum. Blog seems sparse with only a few post since opening up.
, is the best option.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Quote
"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth."
- Umberto Eco
Wikipedia
In this months Wired magazine, they ask "Is wikipedia too vulnerable to pranks and errors?"
I have never seen a mainstream media article about Wikipedia that didn't itself contain errors. What's the retraction time for those errors? Wikipedia works because it's dynamic and alive and doesn't require the same structures as old fashioned slow media.......I wish people would stop comparing a living organism to deadwood.
Joi Ito - TechnologistI can't agree more. With all debate over the authority of wikipedia, you need to step back to see what rules do we use in the new game of the dynamic web. The structures of old media and gatekeepers need to adapt or they will face the fate of the dinosaurs.
Meme Tracker test
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Random thoughts today
I have been thinking about blogging on a daily basis. There are many stories for me to talk about on a daily basis, but I just don't put enough time to my craft. I have been wanting to blog about new services out that i have been trying for my blog and productivity. Services like co.mments.com and Rojo's new feedshare deserve a full write up. Some times I feel like jotting down an initial reaction and then a full analysis later. Then I get busy or lazy and time goes by.
I am truly passionate about blogging and I read too many feeds about blogging. That is one of my problems is that I read, but don't post. It takes time to sit down, put the words down and link back to all the goodies I see on the net. In any event, I hope to bring more to my blog than the once a week or twice a week posting frequency.
Switching topics--
Been watching the Olympics on the telly and enjoy the freedom Tivo brings. record all the coverage and scan through the stuff I like. Only problem is I can record HD yet so the quality is not the best. The Olympics have been good, but Soccer has been great the last few weeks. Serie A in Italy is top notch and there have been some great matches on FSC showing the EPL.
I went to the Getty museum on Thursday evening to catch a lecture on the National Archives and the conservation of our national treasures. Getty does a great job by inviting interesting speakers to talk about art, research and conservation. Those who live in the Los Angeles area are lucky to have the Getty to host these events. The speaker was a director at the Archive and she gave a great lecture on the history of the Archive and how recent conservation efforts unfolded. I am a big fan of art and often sign up for these free lectures. You can see what's going on in the next few months by visiting the getty web site.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Business trip to Scottsdale
So I am in Scottsdale for a few days on business. The flight was short and uneventful. Renting a car was easy and we were off from the airport to the resort in town. Nice Great rooms (with Wifi) and beautiful weather make this trip fun, but I am on business so there is only a little time for cultural events. Doing a search for things to do in Phoenix, I found the Lonely Planet recommended a visit to Taliesin west, Frank Lloyd Wright's summer compound and school. A big art fan, I am always looking for opportunities to see art in cities I would not normally visit if I weren't on business.
Taliesin west is at the base of the mountains in North Scottsdale, AZ in the beautiful sonoran desert. It is a very worthwhile trip to visit and take the tour of this magical place. A still working school and architect center, the place has a small campus vibe with natural integration of writght's great buildings. If you are ever in Phoenix, it is worth a look.
On my way back today, I stopped in to browse at the airport borders bookstore and was surprised to see these. Playaway is a self contained audio book within a digital audio player. So you have a audiobook that is ready to listen to, no CD's, no downloads, no ipods and for Dave Winer no Audible.com. A great idea for the traveller and the price seems to be right around the cost of a audio book CD. The web site even has ideas on how you can share your playaway when your done with it. I can see a great web 2.0 business sprout up by providing an exchange program for these audio book digital players. I am officially calling it Playawayr. I am glad to see the digital audio player technology get cheep enough to have essentially throw away players.
Technorati Tags: Travel, audio books, audible
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Football American Style
So the Superbowl is done and as predicted Pittsburg won. I was watching ELP on Fox Soccer Channel during the game. I switched back and forth between the two using my trusty PIP on the telly. The comercials were ok this year. Nothing too exciting. This was the first football game I watched this season. The Chelsea v Liverpool game looked interesting and the Italian Serie A league is heating up. My teams won and AC milan seems to keep sliping. Anyway I am testing out the FF plugin Performancing blog post. Good bye flock.......
Technorati Tags: bloggin, football, soccer
Technorati Tags: bloggin, football, soccer
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Wonderful world of PBwiki
I love the implementation of online tools that help us all get organized. The Wiki is the new collaboration tool that is easy to use and very functional. I have been evaluating wiki's for work and personal use and found many good options. Both hosted and do it yourself models are available from Free to industrial strength versions of pricing. For my personal use, I want a hosted solution that is not too limiting on page allocation (a la Jotspot) and has all the functionality of a collaboration tool. I saw PBwiki while looking at options a few months ago. At that time I did not try it because it was either not ready for prime time, or I just missed the boat. In any event I wanted to see what they have to offer, so I set up my free account in the amount of time it took to change the channel on the telly to Fox Soccer Channel.
The set up was easy and once I clicked the magic link on the confirmation email I was up and running. This lightweight looking wiki sure packs enough features under the hood to make a fan of PBwiki soon enough. I was able to add pages using the usual Wiki syntax and all the features were available to me that I was looking for:
- RSS
- Easy formatting (WYSIWYG would be nice, but at least I can edit in any browser -unlike Jot)
- Backup - You can download your wiki as a zip file (nice feature)
- No MAXIMUM PAGE LIMIT for free account
- Simple look that can be customisable (3 templates are available for free users)
- Good Search function - this one has an auto create link if the search phrase is not found
- Index or sidebar - Did a quick serch of the FAQ to get it up
- Good support - FAQ and Wiki explain it all