Category Archives: Science & Technology

All I need is this bowling ball. And this ash tray.

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Steve Rubel lists five ways in which he is simplifying his technology:

  1. Eliminating any bookmarks, software/webware that I haven’t used in the last seven days
  2. Cutting back to two devices for everything – a laptop and a cell phone. Period, end of story
  3. All critical data seamlessly syncs between these two devices. If a service doesn’t allow me to sync stuff via the cloud and access it both online and off, it’s toast
  4. He’s dumped tons of of stuff: RSS feeds and virtually every email newsletter
  5. Setting up lists on Friendfeed to help me find signals in the noise

That sounds really good to me. I’m feeling more cluttered every day. Too many atoms, too many bytes (bits?)

  • #1 will be a snap for the bookmarks. I’ll have to nut up to kill some of the software I’m not using. Wish me luck.
  • #2 is equally appealing. I could get by with my MacBook and my iPhone. But the big iMac at work belongs to the company, so… and the Mac Mini at home really gets very little use.
  • #3 The whole Mac/Mobile Me experience has made me very reliant on sync’ing. I have a couple of apps that don’t but not many.
  • #4 is pretty easy to do. Got my RSS subscriptions under 50. If I add one, I’ll try to find one to delete
  • #5 I’ve never been able to get with the Friendfeed thing. I’ll take another look but…

“100% User-Controlled Radio”

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Later this month (28th), CBS Radio will debut “… the industry’s first 100 percent user-controlled, on-air radio program” Sunday nights on KITS-FM in San Francisco. The website is called Jelli. [ADWEEK]

“A far cry from the days of phone-in requests, Jelli gives listeners complete control, just as if they were in the station studio. Using Web-based, real-time voting and other features, listeners create the playlist, determining what is broadcast over the airwaves seconds before it plays. The community can even vote to pull a song off the air instantly.”

I think I agree with James at Podcasting News. Feels a little gimmicky. I wonder if OFF is one of the options.

You can change everything

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In a recent post, Seth Godin reminds us we are not really stuck in a rut. We can, in fact, change everything and then lists a bunch of ways to do that. Some of my favorites: Move to Thiland; Become a vegan; Have all meetings in a room with no chairs, and everyone wears a bath robe over their clothes.

But as one who spends most of his days (and nights) working on websites, this one really spoke to me:

“Delete your website and start over with the simplest possible site”

Might be difficult to make this blog more simple. But some of our company websites could be a LOT leaner and cleaner. I’d love to flush ’em and start over as Seth suggests.

The reporter of the future is here today

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Micro Persuasion:

“The word newspaper is really a misnomer today. Or at least it will be soon. Increasingly news is delivered digitally and it’s interactive. People are certainly writing newspapers off for dead, but I think they have a bright future (in digital form) and it’s right in front of them.

Everyone’s looking for a solution to the newspaper problem. But the answer is right under their nose. The picture is slowly evolving through the breakthrough work of individual reporters who are using social media to build a stronger connection with their audience (and their own personal brands in the process).”

Read the post for the answer. If you work for our company and would like to know how to use any of the tools referenced in this post, I will be happy to help you get started. If you work for another company, we have a digital SWAT team that can get you started.

The next 5,000 days of the web

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The web has only been around 6,000 days. So Kevin Kelly reminds us in his presentation at the recent Web 2.0 Summit. In the beginning, we thought the web would be “TV only better.” It has evolved into something much different and Mr. Kelly takes a stab at what the web will be 5,000 days from now. “As different from the web (of today) as the web was from TV.”
Here’s what I jotted on my Coffee Zone napkin:

  • “If what you create is not on the web, it doesn’t count.”
  • “If it can’t be shared, it doesn’t count.”
  • In the next 6,000 days everything will move to the Cloud; move to Database and move to Sharing. (He explains in the video)

He ticks off several things that we now take for granted but would have considered impossible at the beginning of the web. Which, of course, means that things we now consider impossible, will be routine in 15 years. I love the idea of “Believing in the impossible.”

Still in love with my Tracfone

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I paid $19.95 at Wal-Mart for my Tracfone (sometime in 2005). A year ago I bought a prepaid card (1 year/500 minutes) that expires in a few days. I still have 172 minutes which I lose if I don’t purchase another card. Despite pressure from all quarters to get an iPhone, I picked up another prepaid card. 60 minutes/90 days. I just punched in the PIN number and I’m good till mid-December.

I gotta tell you… I love the Tracfone. It’s like a Bic pin or a Swatch or drug store reading glasses. Does one thing well. Demands no maintenance. Disposable. And I don’t have one of those little holsters on my belt. The Tracfone goes in the glove box or the laptop bag.

It has an ugly little LCD display and a charge can last me a couple of weeks (I only turn it on when I want to make or receive a call.)

What I really want is a Flip video camera that can stream live to Qik. Small, inexpensive, does one thing well.

Sports journo sees future on the web

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Sinkingship250Big time sports journalist Jay Mariotti has resigned from the Chicago Sun-Times:

“It’s been a tremendous experience, but I’m going to be honest with you, the profession is dying,” Mariotti said, “I don’t think either paper [Sun-Times or Chicago Tribune] is going to survive. To showcase your work … you need a stellar Web site and if a newspaper doesn’t have that, you can’t be stuck in the 20th century with your old newspaper.”

His bosses have a different take on things and you can read what they have to say at CBS2Chicago.com.

“web think”

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I don’t think I’ve come across the term “web think” before I saw it on a post by Terry Heaton. It describes a way of looking at information and media and, frankly, the world.

“Those who influence my thinking do not come from a media background, but are pioneers in “web think” and the running of web businesses. This puts me in almost constant conflict with the world I’m actually trying to serve and help and fuels the rolling of eyes I often witness in conference rooms or sense over the phone.”

My theory is “web think” is like learning a second language. You’re really “there” when you start thinking (dreaming?) in the new language. You internalize it.

Gnomedex 8.0

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Heading for Seattle tomorrow to attend Gnomedex. It’s a get-together for few hundred bloggers, podcasters and tech enthusiasts. I like Gnomedex because it is one of the smaller such conferences. And my pals Jamie and David will be there so it will be sort of "No Sex and the City." That doesn’t work, there’s only three of us. You get the idea.

Historically, I see or hear about things at Gnomedex that go mainstream a year or so later. But that lag seems to be shortening.

Blogging might be light for the next couple of days.

Web specs

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I stopped buying/reading newspapers a long time ago. But there are times –breakfast, for example– when it is inconvenient or impractical to open the MacBook. My solution has been to print articles I find online and take them with me.

KowonvideoglassesI’d really love to have a pair of reading “glasses” with some flash memory to which I could Blue Tooth these articles, including photos and video. I don’t see why that would be technically difficult and damned handy. This is close but likely to get my ass kicked at the local diner where I have breakfast. I’m thinking more along the lines of Clark Kent glasses.

No, I don’t need wifi access. That would be cool but would add a lot of cost. And, yes, I know there are all kinds of portable readers out there but I don’t want to tote around even a book size device.

What I haven’t tried is saving the text to my iPod. Not a great reading experience on the nano but it would work fine on the Touch. Hmmm. And if wifi was available… I suspect this wheel has already been invented.