]]>Despite my laptop being on and connected to the Internet nearly 24/7, I really own no other gadgetry (save for a fairly normal cellphone and an iPod Nano).
My sticky notes are really and truly sticky notes, stuck on my laptop and scribbled on by hand.
Despite my laptop being on and connected to the Internet nearly 24/7, I really own no other gadgetry (save for a fairly normal cellphone and an iPod Nano).
My sticky notes are really and truly sticky notes, stuck on my laptop and scribbled on by hand.
Check out the whole post for a photo of her book plan written on stickie note, complete with "Sharpie rage." Like Julie, I prefer writing to do lists on paper rather than electronically-it's just more satisfying to physically cross off completed items than to erase them with a drag and click of the mouse.
What about you? Do you have an inner luddite? What gadgets or software or other technology do you resist using?
]]>]]>me: i spoke to a friend who just came back from eTech
me: he said almost everyone in the room had their laptop open
me: and no one was paying attention
me: he said there were even two guys who spent all their time on their laptop in the lobby
me: heh
my friend: wasn't this year's theme in eTech Attention Trust?
me: yah
me: hahah
me: which makes it even more ironic
me: i spoke to a friend who just came back from eTech
me: he said almost everyone in the room had their laptop open
me: and no one was paying attention
me: he said there were even two guys who spent all their time on their laptop in the lobby
me: heh
my friend: wasn't this year's theme in eTech Attention Trust?
me: yah
me: hahah
me: which makes it even more ironic
These days the big word in technology marketing is attention, yet no one seems to be paying any. In her reporting on SXSW, Liz Lawley mentions a Herb Simon quote from the 1970s: "A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention." Liz notes you can pull up a bunch of interesting commentary on attention by searching on that phrase.
I've recently been trying out the feed reader BlogBridge as a way of managing my attention to the sites on the BlogHer Tech & Web blogroll. BlogBridge is a Java-based desktop newsreader. It includes a SmartFeed capability that allows you to do keyword search across your feed subscriptions. Some other feed readers offer this capability also; Barb Dybwad points out that NetNewsWire for the Mac has it. This is helpful when you're writing an article on a particular subject and want to see if anyone else wrote about it recently. I made a SmartFeed with "attention" and found Liz's post that way.
What tools and techniques do you use to manage your attention?
]]>]]>Wired published an article about women and games, reporting how once again women who like playing games tend to be placed into two distinct categories, the casual gamers and the "rough" gamers. I still have quite a hard time trying to understand why someone even bothers to analyze the women's gamer market so scrupulously if the end result is so utterly lame.
Wired published an article about women and games, reporting how once again women who like playing games tend to be placed into two distinct categories, the casual gamers and the "rough" gamers. I still have quite a hard time trying to understand why someone even bothers to analyze the women's gamer market so scrupulously if the end result is so utterly lame.
As no generalization can be made for the male game consumer, so none can be made for the female one. Being a woman doesn't make you like a game genre more or less than another, though you as an individual might favor a genre over another.
Camilla doesn't agree with the Microsoftie quoted in the article who says that violence keeps women from playing certain games. Maybe some women don't go for shoot-em-ups not because of the violence but because they're just not designed to be played from a female perspective. From Guilded Lilies:
I like shooting stuff. The problem is that real guns make me a bit nervous, and I seem to lack the kind of enthusiasm needed to overcome my general dislike for loud noises, the smell of gunpowder, and the exaggerated masculine company that I find at the shooting range. Plus, it's expensive. On the other hand, for less than the price of 100 rounds I can get a First Person Shooter computer game and have all the fun in the comfort of my own home, PLUS the added experience of a consequence free environment. The problem with that is, even in the privacy of my own computer game environment I can't seem to get away from the exaggerated masculinity. What's a woman to do?
Guilded Lily has some ideas about how to make violent games more attractive to women, and it doesn't have to do with making them less violent. Read the whole thing for some insight from a committed female gamer.
Do you play any computer or video games? Which are your favorites? Does violence turn you on or off?
]]>The person most closely associated with OPML is Dave Winer, whose UserLand software company developed OPML as a file format for an outlining package. Now Dave's building the OPML Editor, a desktop tool for creating and manipulating OPML files. It's beta right now, but if you're interested in trying it out, download it now. The OPML Editor includes a blogging tool that allows for quick and easy mini-posts grouped by date. You can check out my OPML blog to see what such a blog looks like.
Lisa Williams and Amy Bellinger are two women to watch in OPML. Lisa blogs at Learning The Lessons of Nixon; H2otown.info, a blog devoted to issues in her local community of Watertown, Massachusetts; and at OPML Fan, her OPML blog. Amy blogs at learnandteachonline.com and on her experimental OPML blog. They're both working hard lately to help get the OPML Editor ready for a Version 1.0 release, complete with video tutorials, community blog, and user documentation.
The OPML Editor is not by any means the only tool available to manipulate OPML. OPML is a text format, so you could always create and modify it using any old text editor. But a host of other possibilities exist. Towards the end of last year, Amy Gahran of Contentious wrote up her own thoughts on OPML in Using OPML for Thinking, Writing, Publishing, crediting BlogHer Feminism & Gender editor Koan Bremner for introducing it to her. Shortly thereafter, Amy discovered the OPML Manager. She calls it "a pretty easy way to put your OPML files online in a web-rendered form. That is, you don't just see the ugly code - when you upload your OPML file, you actually see topics and subtopics that you can click on to expand or collapse."
Bela Labovitch of RSSLabs helps develop OPMLSearch and OPMLWorkstation, two other tools that are useful if you want to use OPML. OPML Search provides for a Google-like search of online OPML files while OPML Workstation is a Web-based application for managing and publishing OPML files.
Have you heard of OPML reading lists? That's just a way for people to subscribe to a list of feeds rather than the feeds themselves. It's implemented as a dynamic OPML file living at a URL. Though this isn't well-supported by current newsreaders (BlogBridge is one exception), it's an exciting possibility for the future. I'd love it if I could subscribe to the BlogHer Tech & Web blogroll as a reading list, offered as an OPML file located at a specific URL. Then when new blogs were added or defunct ones removed, my news reader would automatically see the changes without my having to do anything.
]]>Yesterday Kathy published her Clueless Manifesto, something to soothe and encourage anyone who's ever asked a dumb question or wondered why other people said something couldn't be done. A brief excerpt:
Here's to the Clueless Ones
The ones who see things differently
They're not fond of rules (granted, that's because they don't actually know about the rules)
They have no respect for the status quo (see previous statement)
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
If you like that article, check out Kathy's riff today on cubicle-related brain damage where she discusses research on neurogenesis (i.e., brain growth) completed by Princeton's Elizabeth Gould:
It would appear that blowing your own mind on a regular basis is not just a good idea, it's a key part of neurogenesis. One of the conclusions [Gould] came to is that "learning heals the brain." And again, we aren't talking emotionally or psychologically, we're talking physical structures. She believes that even those who have been in a stressful environment can undo much of the damage by not just removing the stress, but actively introducing enriching and stimulating things.
Kathy's made a passionate reader out of me. I don't know of another blog that offers such inspiring and well-grounded ideas about learning, whether it be about technology or any other subject.
]]>I'm also inspired by women who work in technology and find time to make it better for other women in the field. It's not always pleasant to take a stand regarding women's presence or visibility in technology. Some people feel that doing so only further marginalizes women. Others might argue that women aren't in technology primarily because they don't want to be, that societal factors play a minor role. No matter the truth of such positions, I know I appreciate it when other women and men as well take little and big steps to promote women in technology.
Here's just a small sampling of women managing technology careers who find time to make it better for all women working in technology:
I may be exaggerating when I say that blogging in tech sometimes feels like an out-of-control run down a steep and icy mountain. Still, I find courage by modeling myself after Lindsey Kildow and after my sisters in technology who take action to promote women's visibility and presence in technology.
Rebecca MacKinnon of RConversation discusses these issues in The Future of Your Digital Identity. Last week, she attended the two-day Workshop on User Centric Identity and Commerce hosted by the Berkman Center. She looks at the issue from the perspective of human rights:
Despite my horribly over-committed state I felt this was an important meeting to show up for. I wish they had invited political dissidents from authoritarian countries to provide their perspective on how some technological scenarios would play out in places where free speech is not protected, privacy laws are weak, and where corruption is so serious that criminals can access most user data accessible in-country.
Her lengthy and thorough article provides a useful primer on digital identity, especially for those with a global sensibility. Rebecca wonders whether identity management systems for non-commercial activities are necessary or desirable:
After listening to a lot of discussion and disagreement over two days, I can see why we need better identity management for commercial transactions, but I am utterly unconvinced as to why it's necessary for the web in general. I can see that there is a serious problem with fraud and trust in the commercial space. I do not see a the same problem in the non-commercial aspects of the internet - or at least, I see problems whose solutions are more social and political, not technical. Having any kind of "identity metasystem" that might link into a Tunisian dissident's anonymous blog (even to that person's chosen "anonymous identity"), or to a college student's del.icio.us bookmarks, or a 15-year old's LiveJournal blog, still strikes me as far too dangerous, with far too many unintended consequences.
Another woman concerned with digital identity is Identity Woman Kaliya Hamlin. After sharing her own work on identity twice last week at the Open Source CMS Summit and at Moose Camp, she wrote up a resource list on digital identity. If you, like me, don't know much about digital identity, you may wish to start with Wikipedia's article. Kaliya includes a link to XmlGrrl Eve Maler's post The long identity tail that covers the identity panel that Eve and Kaliya served on at the Open Source CMS Summit. Eve describes many of the technologies you might come across in the digital identity space like OpenID and LID, two systems that establish identity using URLs.
Lauren Wood of Anyway blogged Learning Identity back in January:
One of the things I've found about trying to figure out identity management concepts and technology is that there are lots of nuances, lots of things to worry about, and it tends to make you more wary (which I guess is all to the good). I now am more careful about whether websites have believable privacy policies before I sign up for them, I have a number of free email accounts for the sole purpose of getting newsletters or registering at websites, and I more often figure the information on these websites is unlikely to be worth the effort.
It's exciting though, being part of something that is important and where people are realising the importance more day by day, sort of like XML in the early days where people starting saying, yes I do have that problem and maybe this technology can help solve it.
Digital identity is one of the most important and exciting subjects in web technology today. But it's not amenable to simple solutions, given the complexity of technical and social questions it brings up.
Antonella Pavese writes about iPod bliss, in which she finds "perfect if ephemeral moments of happiness" through listening to music on her iPod. I think Antonella's right when she says that music is a quick route to a feeling of being in the moment, similar to what you get when you enter flow as described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's or develop equanimity through Buddhist practices like meditation.
iTunes, Apple's music store that works hand in hand with the iPod, is not just for music. Emily Chang reports that Stanford University has introduced Stanford on iTunes, a collaboration with Apple that provides public access to audio content like faculty lectures and sports reports. I took a quick browse through their offerings and found a few things I'd like to listen to, including a lecture on strengthening the connections between math learning at home and school and another on stress and coping that considers the biology of baboons. I had to upgrade to iTunes 6 to access the Stanford offerings, so if you have problems and haven't upgraded lately, download the latest software.
Technology rarely works just the way we want it to. Kasia relates how she can't charge her iPod at work on her Windows machine because with Windows, charging and using the iPod are mutually exclusive, unlike with Macs. Personally, I'm hoping someone will buy me a Bose SoundDock, a sound system with remote control for the iPod that charges it while you listen to the music through high-quality speakers.
Thinking about what the future may hold for iPods, Sramana Mitra offers an article called simply "PalmPod," where she discusses the potential for an Apple acquisition of Palm. Palm makes mobile devices like the Treo, a so-called smart-phone that combines mobile phone capabilities with email, calendaring, and other features. I would like a phone that was also an iPod; what about you?
Melanie Swan of Broader Perspective, contributes to podcast mania by describing some of the fascinating podcasts you can find in the iTunes podcast listings, including possibilities covering everything from wine to scuba diving to anesthesiology. Thanks, Melanie, I didn't even know iTunes had podcast listings. (In my next installment I'll admit to my ignorance about Skype and instant messaging... maybe my Tech & Web co-editor can give me a tutorial).
Are you wondering, like I have, if there is something unsavory about iPods and iTunes, perhaps the Fairplay digital rights management (DRM) technology Apple uses, or the fact the iTunes only works with iPods? Then get yourself over to Elisa Camahort's personal weblog, where she clears it up for all of us. Elisa, I like your practical, no-nonsense approach, especially because it makes me feel okay about continuing to use iTunes and my iPod.
My most recent music single download for my iPod was Natasha Bedingfield's Unwritten, which offers inspiring lyrics for writers like us:
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
But not unwritten for long, if we BlogHers have anything to do with it.
The RSS Advisory Board publishes the Really Simple Syndication specification for the branch of RSS promoted by UserLand Software. Confusingly, this branch includes versions numbered 0.90, 0.91, 0.92, 0.93, 0.94, and 2.0. RSS version 1.0 is developed by the RSS-DEV working group and is based on a metadata specification known as RDF.
For more background on syndication feeds, you might like to check out Shelley Powers' What Are Syndication Feeds, published as an O'Reilly eDoc. Shelley blogs at Burningbird.
]]>Drupal, the system upon which the new BlogHer website is based, is a content management system. If you have your own blog, you're using a content management system. For example, Blogger and TypePad are content management systems combined with web hosting. Movable Type and WordPress are content management systems that you run on your own web host.
If you've spent even a few minutes browsing BlogHer's new site, you already know that Drupal offers extensive capabilities including forums, a variety of syndication feeds, user authentication, and my favorite, the recent activity display. This power isn't easy to harness, but Laura Scott of pingVision has done a tremendous job putting it together and patiently answering questions about its use. Check out Laura's personal blog rare pattern and photo blog scattered sunshine for more on Laura.
Another woman who knows her way around content management systems is New Zealander Rachel Cunliffe of cre8d design. Rachel has just written a terrific and thorough article discussing blogs vs. forums: how to architect them, the differences between them, and what CMS packages you might choose for implementing them. Rachel gives high marks to Drupal:
Drupal is brilliant in that you can categorise blog and forum content using the same taxonomy if you like, there's RSS feeds for taxomony terms, or forums, or blogs - whatever takes your fancy. You can also promote stories from the forums into the blog - and comments are all kept together. One user system for both, one theme, one lot of software to maintain. Drupal is a lot more flexible than Wordpress but has a steeper learning curve at the beginning.
When Rachel says "taxonomy" she just means the categories that are used to organize the site. Do you have categories on your blog? If so, you have a taxonomy. The per-category and blogger-specific RSS feeds available here should be very useful to those of you who use newsreaders to read all your favorite blogs in one place.
If you have particular acronyms you'd like explained or technologies you'd like me to discuss, send me a message or leave a comment here.
Dori Smith of Backup Brain, Nancy White of Full Circle Interaction Online, and Liz Lawley of mamamusings attended and blogged about Search Champs, Microsoft's meeting of the thinkiest thinkers on the topic of search. Nancy blogged Microsoft demos of their new efforts including Windows Live Local, Live.com, AdCenter, and Expo Classified. Sanaz Ahari, Microsoft PM for Live.com demonstrated Live.com. Dori heard much discussion about tags and suggests why they might not work so well. Dori asks "what's the difference between Microsoft's start.com and live.com?" and points to Sanaz's answer for those of us who weren't so lucky to attend Search Champs. Liz Lawley has the best story from Search Champs, where she called Robert Scoble an edge case because he follows 840 feeds. Scoble replied that "today's edge case is tomorrow's mainstream user."
ETel covers IP telephony or, in plain English, talking on the telephone using the Internet. Think Skype or GoogleTalk. These services offer free long-distance phone calls; you just download the software, plug in a computer-compatible phone or microphone and talk. Debi Jones, a.k.a. mobile jones, blogged the conference. Debi has a great blogroll of women in mobile, so if you're wondering where the women blogging about mobile tech are, check it out. Identity Woman Kaliya put together a Birds of a Feather sessions at ETel called "Identity Speed Geeking." Speed geeking is like speed dating except the focus is on making five minute presentations on some subject of interest. Christine Herron of Christine.net also provided interesting coverage of ETel.
I'm anticipating loads of tech & web blogging from SXSW Interactive scheduled for March 10th to 14th in Austin. BlogHer is producing a panel titled "Increasing Women's Visibility Online: Whose Butt Should We Be Kicking?" as well as co-producing four other panels.
UPDATE 1/28/05. Gina Trapani of Lifehacker also attended Search Champs and provides her report here. Scoble has more to say about edge cases.
UPDATE 1/29/05. Here's Emily Chang's report on Search Champs, including a list of attendees.
]]>Happy blogging, everyone.
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