Technology
Pownce == Perma Ackbar’d
It was not within the first fifteen minutes of my logging on that I heard the news from the (former?) !leahbasskitten, a friend of mine on Pownce. It was nothing but a sad face and a link to this rather disheartening post by Leah Culver, for sake of brevity this is but a section of that post;
We have some very big news today at Pownce. We will be closing the service and Mike and I, along with the Pownce technology, have joined Six Apart, the company behind such great blogging software as Movable Type, TypePad and Vox. We’re bittersweet about shutting down the service but we believe we’ll come back with something much better in 2009. We love the Pownce community and we will miss you all.
This came up just after I had thought that morning of ways to integrate Twitter into my own Pownce account, as Twitter had a plethora of external programs, some of which would allow me to post via SMS. Also, it was the few days after another friend, Neha friend asked me which I use more, Twitter or Pownce, and why that was.
I use both with Ping.fm. I much prefer the Pownce interfact and community and layout, but I use Twitter and all its mad gadgets. I prefer Pownce on its own, but Twitters’ uses
For months I have been praising the usefulness of Ping.fm, a service I got into a closed Beta a while ago that lets you post in an excess of 15 different services. But really, I used it for Twitter and Pownce, the extra were a nice bonus. In the back of my head, I was looking for a simpler method, and I guess this really does do it.
The aforementioned uses of Twitter are far from a mystery to anyone, I may cover them in a later post, but if you are wondering I am sure you can Google yourself a few dozen. The popularity of Twitter, and thusly the API, made it a very good idea for anyone with an idea to stick with, the ample audience.
So, it is on this day I remove myself from the Ping.fm bots and stop with my terrible netiquitte. Today I go from a former “Twitter is stupid”ite to a perma “Twitter is stupid”ite.
As Neha said in he reply to this fiasco, “I know that Leah will be a great addition to SixApart, and will create some social networking tool that is ever spiffier for all of us.” it will still not be the same. Pownce had the niche market that Digg used to, and Twitter never did. Perchance I was just lucky, but during my months on Pownce I met some really cool people, a majority of which are now pleading for some form of adequate replacement.
On my way out, I leave you with some links to websites for the troubled Pownce’r, hoping to keep in some contact with those we once did; Poll: Pownce Exile - Where To Next? and teh similarly named FriendFeed room, PownceExiles.
Remembering Your Milk
My sister was attempting to convert so-many-cups to so-many-milliliters for her class gingerbread house assignment. As I do to most questions in life, I advised her to ‘Google it’, she said she knew and I went back to wating spoonfuls of Nutella. Half an hour later, she asked me for some help with this conversion website she found, I felt ashamed that so many useful features (unit conversion in this case) were strickly of Nerd knowledge.
Like Google and Twitter, Remember the Milk is a website which fools the users with its deceptively simple interface as to how damn useful this bugger is.
As was exposed on my MacBook post, I got one, as as a nerd I just had to try every little thing out. This information tidbit applies only once in this article, so fret not John Hodgman. Since, and most definately not because, I got my Mac, Google has done some really great things with their GMail serivce — and I use the Graffiti theme.
And for the sake of laziness and for the fact that the list I half wrote was nothing but a crappy version of the official one, these are the applications I use for Remembering my Milk.
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Now you can manage your Remember The Milk tasks alongside your emails. Available as a gadget (with Gmail Labs) or Firefox extension (connect your tasks with your mail, contacts, and events in Gmail). |
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Use Remember The Milk offline (requires Google Gears browser plugin). |
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Add new tasks to Remember The Milk, interact with existing tasks, and receive reminders — all via Twitter. |
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Remember The Milk for Google Calendar Use Google Calendar? Now you can manage your Remember The Milk tasks from within Google Calendar. |
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Manage your tasks from iGoogle. Review upcoming tasks and add, edit, complete and postpone your tasks with this handy gadget. |
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Manage your tasks from Netvibes, with handy features such as searching your tasks with Netvibes in-page search. |
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Dashboard Widget for OS X by Yoel Inbar Yoel Inbar created a cool widget that displays your Remember The Milk tasks on your Dashboard. Mark tasks as complete with one click. |
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Deskbar module by Sebastian Pölsterl Sebastian Pölsterl developed a cool Deskbar Module for GNOME users that lets you add and manage your tasks. |
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The folks over at IMified have made it possible to manage your Remember The Milk tasks via instant messenger. Review your lists and add tasks via IM. |
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Mind Like A Sieve Yahoo! Widget by Graeme McCormack Graeme McCormack developed a great widget that allows you to view your tasks in a flexible display, and complete and postpone tasks with a context menu. |
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Quicksilver plug-in by Brian Moore Brian Moore created a handy Quicksilver plug-in that allows you to quickly add tasks to Remember The Milk. |
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Tasque by Boyd Timothy and Calvin Gaisford Tasque is a very cool simple-yet-powerful task management tool for GNOME that integrates with Remember The Milk. |
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Twit2RTM Dashboard Widget for OS X by Takashi Nomura Takashi Nomura created a handy widget for sending direct Twitter messages to RTM from your Dashboard. |
Now, for what I know of, this step is only for the Mac, or at least anything with iCalendar (so the Mac). Although I am sure there is a myriad of Calendar programs that sync with atom feeds, your iPod does not sync with any of those. If you cant find the sync menu for your iCalendar, I borrowed this link from, again, the Remember the Milk website;
From the iPod > Contacts > Calendars section you can select to sync your iCal with your iPod, which then gives your iPod Calendar section an actual amount of use.
This post took way too long to write and re-write, so I wont bother with an ending, bye.
The Modern Blogosphere and the Specialization of Media
In ways that traditional print media was never able to, new media has used blogging and online communication to encourage journalists and other independent writers. This international digital phenomenon has given the reader choice as to what information they flood their minds with, as barriers have been torn down between nations. And besides being told news from an international basis, communication has become a most necessary aspect of modern independent journalism, giving both sides of the conversation insight on audiences interests, while also keeping journalistic motive with less a hindrance on creativity.
At the turn of the century, the newspaper was created in attempt to combat an informational ‘space bias’. When British colonies first found home in Canadian provinces (western especially) the entire extent of information, the world of those settlers did literally exist within a few dozen acres. In the late 18th and early 19th century, with the industrial revolution, worlds grew exponentially. Cities were situated around the, then new, Canadian Railway system, wherein the industries were within a convenient distance of its workers homes.
With the Railway, came communication between the workers that travelled, first vocally and then in written prose. That being said, the type of communication differed municipally and federally and paper was just that much easier to ship. With availability constraints such as these, there was never much choice and back then, there was never much knowledge of choice; worlds had expanded dramatically, but in comparison to the modern day information, it was still extremely limited. Receiving outdated updates on provinces on either side of you was, in retrospect, nothing but a glimpse of the upcoming global neighborhood soon to be catapulted a vast by technological advancements.
The year between the creation of the World Wide Web (circa December 25, 1990) by Time Berners-Lee and the Internet-age of lately has been often likened to the years the CPR was developed (1881-1885). With information in such an expanding and transportable form and especially with technologies like that of RSS (Real Simple Syndication) the collection has become even simpler. Opinions are made and sold internationally, wherein Journalistic integrity would writers against a code of conduct designed not to offend anyone, and that is where technology shows its most poignant, yet controversial affect on the world of independent journalism. There are legions of intelligent, rebellious and respectively entrenched writers all around the world.
In August 23, 2005, the United States of America was hit, especially New Orleans, with the record breaking and tragic assault by hurricane Katrina, reaping an excess of $80 billion US dollars in damages. One of the most criticized and a controversial subject about Katrina was the infamously horrible governmental response, taking at least 1-2 days to help anyone.
Three years later, China was hit by the nineteenth deadliest earthquake in human history; the Wenchuan Earthquake. Before Katrina received any help, there was a myriad of ‘on-site’ reporters covering the story. Likewise, Wenchuan had even more passionate coverage, but not from representatives of some major news conglomerations; homes that had Internet connection sent the world’s largest assembly of independent journalists of all time.
I really do like this MacBook…
Go ahead and ask me wh I enjoy my school. My answer will be as positive as it is biased. I went in a while ago, asking about my classes and the like.
“So, how is your laptop?” the disability assistant asked.
“Its falling apart” I answered.
“Want a new one?”
I would write my response, but decided to spend more time explaining that doing so would be an ironic waste of time, as the answer would be horribly obvious.
Okay, fine, I said yes. After much delaying, I did finally get my not-as-alluminum-as-thought MacBook. Aluminum looks better than plastic, but plastic looks better than nothing at all.
When I first accidentally (I had my Twitter account synced with my Facebook status at the time) told me FB friends that I was getting a MacBook, I was greeted with less than gratious greetings. But screw that.
I am a nerd, I am a geek and I am a loser, everyone knows this. I spend a lot of time on my computer, more than I spend not on my computer. I know what I want and I know how to do it. In my past few years on my HP Pavillion dv1000 with Windows XP SP2 on it, I came to realize that of the things I use my computer for, I have not seen any particular exclusivity on the PC. Namely; I don’t play PC games, and of the ones I am looking forward to (StarCraft II and Diablo III) they are all going to be on the Mac. That was when I chose to articulate and ponder the option of a Mac I was given on that fateful day after class.
Over the past while, I have become more interested in Micro-blogging services, and on one (Pownce) I met a friend, referred to as either !leahbasskitten, @leahbasskitten or just plain Leah. She is a Mac fanatic, and it was from her that I got a closer look at OSX.
So I have decided to compare the programs I use on Windows and their Mac countperparts, hopefully convincing my friends that this was not just a blind choice.
Skitch – this is a great little program, letting you take snapshots of a desktp or even the included webcam, caption it and upload to a Skitch server. This program intruiged me because for the initial same reason I was using the clunky imageshack.us progam on Windows. Imageshack let me upload either a desktop or a program window. Skitch lets me clip any portion of anything I want, and then caption it and then upload it.
Adrium – after giving up on the, although useful Digsby social-network-IM-service-micro-blogging program, I reverted back to Pidgin, something I also used when in Linux. Neither are as nice as Disbgy, but niehter take 500mb of RAM. Adrium is 90% Pidgin, or rather, Pidgin is 90% Adrim. They even have the same icon. Adrium just does what the plugins I installed wer supposed to, but didn’t do well. Ie: Facebook IM.
Quicksilver – when I showeod my friend the program I still adore, Colibri, she noted it was exactly like Quicksilver. Up until the day I installed it, Quicksilver was never anything more than the bastard child of Magneto and the bastard brother of the Scarlet Witch. It runs just like Colibri, but admittedly (which] is odd in the case of a MACOSX comparison) doesn’t look at good as the Windows one.
I am also at a bus stop right now and an old Chinaman just sat down, he is about 55+ and is wearing a toque with a skull and crossbones made out of glitter.
Finder – this would be the Mac version of Windows Explorer. It is actually less a Mac thing, and more just a standard UNIX thing. For thosoe using Vista, UNIX is whats different between Explorer in XP and Vista. I just like it, I got used to it with Linux, but still cant admit favour in either direction.
Widgets – Mac did em, then Google did em, then Yahoo and Vista did em. In noo particular order. Much as with the MP3 player, I am not sure if Mac invented the idea of Widgets (or its various names), but they did it best. Now, the iPod is a strange case, because the popularity of the system has squeezed out any sellability from any other companies variation thereof. But I digress, Widgets are just better done, and this is entirely due to the fact they are put straight into the OS, and not outside of it.
ecto - Be it well or not, I have been blogging for a while, and in doing so, have tried a few (dozen^pi). Windows Live Writer was seen by most tech-heads as the flat out best blogging software out there, as well by I. After a bit of research, I fell upon etco, a blogging program that has even more supported platforms, a nicer layout.
This is what I was trying to say on this posts intro; I really dont do much more than (not doing my) homework, blogging, Internetz, stealing music and stealing movies that aren’t even in theaters yet. There are many, but particularly emeek77 on YouTube, are convinced the apparent vast superiority of the Apple computers, even in gaming, apparently. I admit this, and I really don’t give a crap. The aforementioned are a list of programs I use every day, both in XP and on OSX, and that is generally all that I use it for. Its cleaner, its neater, the keyboard feels great. On of the smallest but favorite features is the MagSafe connector; it holds the power cord with a magnet (thus the Mag part of the name) so it will pop out if someone steps on it. But really, the main reason I love this thing is that, without spending much time on OSX prior, the GUI is layed out the way I would anyways. It is just damn pretty.
YouTube killed the Blogging star?
The suffix at the end of the modern age of Internetz, 2.0, was originally coined as the second version of the Internet. But alas, it has been taken, not in a chronological sense, but in the speed of which time apparently passes, I even read of the apparent Web 3.0 coming up soon. This speed, it seems, is effecting even the media on the Internet.
Paul Boutin of Wired Magazine is one of that ideas RSS subscribers. Except it doesn’t have a feed, its just a bad pun.
“Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.”
Paul Boutin @ http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/16-11/st_essay
The original idea behind blogging was the simplicity behind it, most everyone (even a few monkeys) were able to easily type and publish their own commentary, “part of that simplicity was a lack of support for pictures, audio, and videoclips” claimed Boutin. Take any look at the currently thriving blogs and you will see that is no longer the case. Blogging was a recycling of old trends, as radio was replaced by television for similar reasons. Unlike The Buggles would have you believe, however, video did not kill the radio star, it just had him slim down a bit and move from family rooms to their minivans.
But what do you wake up to? What do you not wake up to? What do you smack every morning, only to smack it again in 8 minutes? For this questionnaire to work, if we remove spouses from the equation (and annoying birds/ children) we are left with the answer: radio. Video is an ironically horrible killer.
I use that example because I like the song, its catchy, poppy and covered more often than Britney Spears is not. I do agree that blogging will not stay a dormant idea, as was the case of radio and theatres, but similarly, they are going nowhere. As with the move of radio from family room to car, movie from theatre to family room, blogging is just going to specialize itself.
As with most ideas, especially Interweb ones, blogging has been done to death. LiveJournal was the first one I remember hearing about, and looking back on my old (and since deleted) accounts, I thought myself actually retarded. To a pre-teen, blogging was just a rant and a rave and a tear-fest about how horrible their parents are, and either ridiculously long diatribes, or short, mid-tear posts of gloom. But really, near the end, LiveJournals were either abandoned or just a painful spam of few-sentence rants. The idea of a micro-blog was ripe for the picking, and although I am sure they were not the first, Twitter really got the cheese roll of that idea some mad speeds.
But that is how the Internet seems to work. The idea of blogging has been, for the past few years, overused, and in the past fewer years the idea has been specialized and socialized. You ever watch movies based in the past? Say, one of the bi-yearly racial-issue-football movies? Or even so, the war movies? Back in those days, radio was the form of communication and media. But then TV came out and took the majority of the radio market, and what did it do? It specialized itself, and moved the radio into a commuter media. Micro-blogging is the specialized turd-blogging.
Twitter — which limits each text-only post to 140 characters — is to 2008 what the blogosphere was to 2004. You’ll find Scoble, Calacanis, and most of their buddies from the golden age there. They claim it’s because Twitter operates even faster than the blogosphere. And Twitter posts can be searched instantly, without waiting for Google to index them.
This argument reminds me, but with a little bit more credibility all of the * killers. But alas, Digg is still around, the iPod is still around, Firefox is still around. And y’know what? Blogging will never die, just like how Newspaper never died. It changed, not died.