I came across a couple of more interesting than usual articles this week about big events and trends: the decline of the U.S. Empire, and the attack on Estonian cyberspace by Russian nationalists.
I’m on my second new keyboard at work. I had asked for a narrow ergonomic one as the wide ergonomic one was giving me a shoulder ache as the mouse was out to the side (and non-ergonomic ones give me aching fore-arms). First of all I got a sleek black one which looked great and was lovely to type on, but was just as wide as the first one. Then I got another one which has soggier keys, looks very broken but is nice and narrow and so the mouse is much handier.
In order to help my self-control where it comes to web browsing I installed Meetimer, which seems to be having the desired effect, although I’ve been in a couple of interminable meetings this week where I turned it off and browsed in order to keep my sanity.
Our office move (the thing that in part prompted us to move house) is finally happening after much delay! So by mid-October my journey to work will be shorter, to a swanky new office with VOIP phones, but precious few facilities nearby (we are spoiled where we are, and I confess I’ve got used to it).
A has mastered dribbling, occasional bubbles and the sounds bllllllth and :frog: (that’s the standard issue raspberry). She continues to explore tooth ownership and so likes wooden spoons. J has been going to a holiday music thing in the mornings which seems to have been good – he comes home singing a new song which he tries to teach us. He mentioned that someone had been playing the oboe, so K decided he’d like to play it but a music teacher friend helpfully told us that it’s something for about 10 year olds. The big three made some nice lasagne – Katy produced all the elements and then they constructed it in the dishes. I’m sure more things have been happening too, but that’s all I can remember. Oh, we’ve all been rained on a lot.
Something that’s really annoyed me this week is Twitter. I finally gave in, and often it’s fun (Nic and I had a rather fun exchange in the style of Dr. Seuss) but in general it’s pants: the site is slow, you ask to follow people and then click somewhere else and suddenly you’re not following them after all and if you’re not following both sides of a conversation you still get one side. The thing that really annoyed me is groups – I’d really like to set up the equivalent of a Yahoo email list, where anyone in a group can send a message to a central address and then have a copy of the message sent on to each member of the group. Despite having tried a lot I cannot get the thing to work. I know it’s free, but then so is Remember the Milk but it just works.
The interactions between all the web 2.0 things did my head in so much I had to draw it all in a diagram (which I obviously put in my Facebook account 😉 ). I missed lots of things out like blogs, and included some things that I don’t use myself. It still does my head in, but at least I can see why.
Ooh! You’re on Facebook! Is that you with the beard?? Old photo or new beard? I’ve added you as a friend. Then I might have, ooh, 9 friends! (Is this a record?)
keyboard looks very odd but hey, if it works does it matter? Like the look of remember teh milk – can see the use in taht whereas Twitter isn’t useful, just a bit of distraction
Well, Twitter can be useful, the camp Twitter was useful, though as bob says, a way to have a group where you can anyone could send messages in and get them distributed would be even better, without necessarily haveing to be following everyone. And yes, the site is pants in various ways. i like it when I’m away, but I’ve turned off text notifications normally, in the end I got tired of the it. and i’ve hardly been looking at the site lately. Mostly pointless was my first thought on it, I’m probably stil of that view.
I’m intrigued by the business model, whatever it might be, there is no advertising, as well as the normal website cocts they are sending out lots of text messages. Maybe they get a cut everytime someone texts in a Twitter.
I reckon they hope to be bought out by someone else to incorporate it into something else.
If you fancy borrowing a clarinet for a while in lieu of an oboe I have one gathering dust you’d be very welcome to borrow. Could couple it with trip over the border and cups of tea maybe??
One of the best ways of using RTM is via Twitter!!!! You can post tasks to it, get list of tasks by category, today’s tasks etc etc. I use it that way a lot.
Jaiku (http://jaiku.com/) is an interesting alternative to twitter. It works in much the same wayand I think now sends text notifcations (which it didn’t tos start with). You can aggregate all sorts of feeds under your timeline (flickr pictures, blog post, twitters etc). Personally I think it looks much slicker too. It also has in post comments.
It costs more to text I think as the number is a finish one and therefore an international text. You can get round that by twittering and letting jaiku pick your feed up. I quite like a combination of the two.
You can set up channels that people then join. I am pretty sure anyone can post to a channel they have joined.
http://mazportico.jaiku.com/
You should have a look.
Elizabeth, Bob has a beard (post-Kentwell – gone now!) and a baby in his profile pic. Mine has A in a rainbow sling 🙂 Can’t find you – too many of your name to choose from!
Em – thank you. That would be great sometime – although I think we’ll try recorder for a bit before moving on 😉