Blogged with the Flock Browser
Thursday, March 27, 2008
What Google Apps need
A way to sync labels across applications: Gmail, GDocs, and perhaps Blogger. And maybe labels for calendar items (rather than Google's preferred way, which is to create separate calendars). That would go a long way toward improving its project management support.
Google Docs looking more like older versions of MS Word
If this trend continues, I expect it to start to look like WordPerfect 6 soon. Maybe we will be able to see the underlying HTML by pressing alt-F3.
Official Google Docs Blog: New Toolbar and Menus
Official Google Docs Blog: New Toolbar and Menus
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Clinton, snipers, YouTube
CDB dissects the current snipers-in-Bosnia story that is dogging Hillary Clinton. Like CDB, I don't take sides on the campaign. The more important and interesting question is how distributed tech will continue to disrupt campaigns and their attempts to build ethos.
Communities Dominate Brands: Truth police catch up with Hillary Clinton's Bosnia sniper story
Communities Dominate Brands: Truth police catch up with Hillary Clinton's Bosnia sniper story
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Archiving text messages
They're currently ephemeral, but at least one service aims to change that:
SMS: Archive Your Text Messages with Treasuremytext
As more important communications take place over SMS, SMS apps will inevitably need to improve text management and desktop backup. In the meantime, Treasuremytext fills the gap nicely.Yes, you should be able to get to your text message archives the way you do your email. Data storage is cheap.
SMS: Archive Your Text Messages with Treasuremytext
Blogged with the Flock Browser
The Lifestreaming Backlash
Via John Jones' friendfeed, an article on how we are (supposedly) drowning in activity stream data. The comments are interesting too.
My take: Lifestreaming apps need filters and visualization tools to produce aggregate views. Those tools should be able to summarize history and make comparisons across streams (users/personas).
The Lifestreaming Backlash - ReadWriteWeb
My take: Lifestreaming apps need filters and visualization tools to produce aggregate views. Those tools should be able to summarize history and make comparisons across streams (users/personas).
The Lifestreaming Backlash - ReadWriteWeb
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Phone bill turns into social network
This sounds fascinating and useful, though I am not willing to give up my Sprint login for it. Why don't telecomm companies do something like this themselves?
Skydeck Helps You Manage The Social Network Locked In Your Phone (500 Invites For Private Beta)
Skydeck Helps You Manage The Social Network Locked In Your Phone (500 Invites For Private Beta)
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Reading :: The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing
by Taylor Larimore, Mel Lindauer, Michael LeBoeuf
Professors like to believe that since we know a lot about one subject, we know a lot about other subjects too. Obviously that's not so. There's nothing more humbling than realizing that you're way, way over your head in a different area of your life, and at those times, it's a relief to find a clearly written guide to help you through those difficult concepts that everyone else seems to understand.
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing is one case in point. Investments confuse me. But the authors manage to lay out the basics of investing and a particular investment philosophy in clear, understandable terms that even a rhetoric professor can follow. The book is named after the authors' investment mentor, Vanguard founder John C. Bogle, who pioneered the no-load mutual fund and introduced the first index fund. Bogle's philosophy is fairly simple: rather than trying to beat the market and trust in active managers, buy mutual funds that represent the market index. The markets tend to rise over time, and active funds have trouble beating the market in the long run, so investors in indexed funds tend to come out ahead -- and they don't have to pay steep management fees.
The book also has a lot of advice that makes intuitive sense. Spend less than you make. It's not how much you make, it's how much you keep. Stay out of debt. Pay yourself first. Buy used items, including clothing and cars (this from three authors who are millionaires). Commit future pay increases to investing. Diversify, making low-cost indexed mutual funds your primary investment. Establish a stock-bond-cash allocation and stick with it, rebalancing every 18 months even when your stocks are going through the roof. Get a Roth IRA as soon as you can and let the magic of compound interest work. Put windfall funds away for six months before touching them so that the excitement wears off. Write down your major financial goals on one piece of paper.
Reading this book hasn't made me an investing expert. But it has given me some solid advice and some basic tools for managing my small investments, and some confidence in how to proceed. Check it out.
by Taylor Larimore, Mel Lindauer, Michael LeBoeuf
Professors like to believe that since we know a lot about one subject, we know a lot about other subjects too. Obviously that's not so. There's nothing more humbling than realizing that you're way, way over your head in a different area of your life, and at those times, it's a relief to find a clearly written guide to help you through those difficult concepts that everyone else seems to understand.
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing is one case in point. Investments confuse me. But the authors manage to lay out the basics of investing and a particular investment philosophy in clear, understandable terms that even a rhetoric professor can follow. The book is named after the authors' investment mentor, Vanguard founder John C. Bogle, who pioneered the no-load mutual fund and introduced the first index fund. Bogle's philosophy is fairly simple: rather than trying to beat the market and trust in active managers, buy mutual funds that represent the market index. The markets tend to rise over time, and active funds have trouble beating the market in the long run, so investors in indexed funds tend to come out ahead -- and they don't have to pay steep management fees.
The book also has a lot of advice that makes intuitive sense. Spend less than you make. It's not how much you make, it's how much you keep. Stay out of debt. Pay yourself first. Buy used items, including clothing and cars (this from three authors who are millionaires). Commit future pay increases to investing. Diversify, making low-cost indexed mutual funds your primary investment. Establish a stock-bond-cash allocation and stick with it, rebalancing every 18 months even when your stocks are going through the roof. Get a Roth IRA as soon as you can and let the magic of compound interest work. Put windfall funds away for six months before touching them so that the excitement wears off. Write down your major financial goals on one piece of paper.
Reading this book hasn't made me an investing expert. But it has given me some solid advice and some basic tools for managing my small investments, and some confidence in how to proceed. Check it out.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
I don't want to punch the monkey
The problem with MySpace -- and Facebook, and Drudge Report, and many other sites -- is that they seem so ad-heavy. Especially MySpace. I'm really tired of those Flash ads that invite you to punch the monkey or take a picture of the girl in the bikini or whatever. Not only do they distract me, they slow down load times.
One great way to handle this issue is to use the mobile version of the sites. Facebook and MySpace both have decently featured mobile sites with no Flash, few or no ads, and less superfluous contextual information than the full versions. I access both sites more through my mobile phone than the desktop client anyway, so I'm familiar with them. Take a look and see what you think.
One great way to handle this issue is to use the mobile version of the sites. Facebook and MySpace both have decently featured mobile sites with no Flash, few or no ads, and less superfluous contextual information than the full versions. I access both sites more through my mobile phone than the desktop client anyway, so I'm familiar with them. Take a look and see what you think.
OpenSocial is live and on MySpace
We've been hearing about OpenSocial for months -- Google announced development not long after Facebook rolled out its Facebook Apps, turning it from a mere social network into an application platform. OpenSocial aims to do something similar, but truly open, so web applications across the Internet could share information with each other. One of the first big names to sign on was MySpace, the largest social network.
Yesterday, MySpace quietly added the first batch of apps based on OpenSocial. I added a couple of them for fun, but they are really not much to look at -- very simple, similar to the first Facebook apps. Perhaps they'll get more complicated, and we'll see more full-featured utilities such as Facebook's MyOffice app? Perhaps not: one developer says that OpenSocial is still mostly vaporware, without the sophisticated guts to handle rich social graph interaction and messaging.
Yesterday, MySpace quietly added the first batch of apps based on OpenSocial. I added a couple of them for fun, but they are really not much to look at -- very simple, similar to the first Facebook apps. Perhaps they'll get more complicated, and we'll see more full-featured utilities such as Facebook's MyOffice app? Perhaps not: one developer says that OpenSocial is still mostly vaporware, without the sophisticated guts to handle rich social graph interaction and messaging.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Zephyr
Zephyr is a test management system -- a project management and collaboration system for the Quality Assurance crowd. I've blogged about several PM systems in the past, but this one seems specialized for QA and might fill a niche that the more general PM systems don't. Currently you can get a free download with three licenses.
Unlike most of the PM systems I've discussed, "Zephyr is a Windows-based server with rich interactive clients that run in any web browser." So you keep your copy on your own server, eliminating the security concerns that people have with hosted PM applications such as Basecamp and TeamWork Live. On the other hand, you need a Windows server. Since we don't have one here at the CWRL (we're using BSD), I have not tried the product. But if you do, and your team does QA, check it out and tell me what you think.
Unlike most of the PM systems I've discussed, "Zephyr is a Windows-based server with rich interactive clients that run in any web browser." So you keep your copy on your own server, eliminating the security concerns that people have with hosted PM applications such as Basecamp and TeamWork Live. On the other hand, you need a Windows server. Since we don't have one here at the CWRL (we're using BSD), I have not tried the product. But if you do, and your team does QA, check it out and tell me what you think.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Seven new deadly sins
Compared to the old ones, these seem a little faddish.
Pope identifies 7 new sins, including pollution, drug abuse
Pope identifies 7 new sins, including pollution, drug abuse
Blogged with Flock
WAVE toolbar for Firefox
WAVE is an accessibility checker. Now it has a Firefox toolbar as well, and a WAVE blog.
WebAIM: Blog - WAVE toolbar and blog available
WebAIM: Blog - WAVE toolbar and blog available
Blogged with Flock
On the decline of the office phone call
The author mourns what is lost when email supplants phone calls, including ways to gather office lore and mentoring.
The Office Phone Call Was Music to the Ears - New York Times
The Office Phone Call Was Music to the Ears - New York Times
Blogged with Flock
Thursday, March 06, 2008
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