Author Archives: Karl

Tag mania sweeps the Web

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Tag mania sweeps the Web | InfoWorld | Column | 2005-07-20 | By Jon Udell:

When I first wrote about social tagging services last year, Flickr (for shared photos) and del.icio.us  (for shared bookmarks) were among a handful of tag-enriched applications. Nowadays you can’t turn around without tripping over a new one. Three newcomers are My Web 2.0, Rojo 2.0, and Swik.

…Is this a fad or a real breakthrough in information management? I say both. Tagging has attained the elusive cachet of coolness. New taggers feel an initial thrill of empowerment. Venture capitalists, sensing the buzz, are looking to amplify it.

When the novelty wears off, though, I think that tagging will have altered the information landscape in a fundamental way. Here’s an example: I’m often asked a question that begins with “Do you have any pointers to … ?” The answer to such a question is a set of URLs. Two years ago, I would have collected those URLs and transmitted them in the body of an e-mail. Nowadays I’d collect them using del.icio.us tags and send only the del.icio.us URL.

MWSnap is a great screen capture utility

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From its site:

  • 5 snapping modes.
  • Support for BMP, JPG, TIFF, PNG and GIF formats, with selected color depth and quality settings.
  • System-wide hotkeys.
  • Clipboard copy/paste.
  • Printing.
  • Auto-saving, auto-printing.
  • Auto-start with Windows.
  • Minimizing to system tray.
  • An auto-extending list of fixed sizes, perfect for snapping images for icons and glyphs. 
  • A zoom tool for magnifying selected parts of the screen.
  • A ruler tool for measuring screen objects lengths.
  • A color picker showing screen colors with separated RGB parts.
  • Fast picture viewer.
  • Adding frames and mouse pointer images.
  • Multilevel configurable undo and redo.
  • Multilingual versions.
  • Configurable user interface.
  • And more…

And it’s free.

Mom is out of ICU

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Mom is now breathing, eating and drinking on her own. While she is still fighting pneumonia, she is far more stable and can now communicate fully with us. Thanks for everyone’s well wishes and prayers.

When will blogging peak?

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That counts upon what you mean by “peak”. For Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo! (and I’m paraphrasing) its when blogging goes from being “the new thing” or “the thing that changes/reinvents X” to just another part of daily life for a bunch of people. He wants to know when you think that will happen.

My answer – and it will jar my DIY readers – just look at Xanga, LiveJournal, and MySpace. That day has already come for millions.

We may thumb our noses at those communities, but it is there you will find folks blogging as just another part of daily life.

However, I don’t think we are even close to peaking in terms of innovation or in raw numbers of adopters.

The Patriot Act and Philadelphia: what Reauthorization means to you

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Please read this important post (with tips on how you can make a difference) by Thom at Philly Future on the Patriot Act and Philadelphia.

Yesterday the House voted to make provisions of what was to be temporary in the Patriot Act permenent.

Here is how local Pennsylvania representatives voted.

No matter what your views on the law, you should get educated as to what it means – for our safety yes, but more importantly in my eyes – for our freedom.

Oh man, I wish I could go to this…

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It’s nice to be mentioned as one of “today’s leading online community sites” with such good company! But the session is in California Oregon and in just a couple weeks. There is just no way I can make it to this:

O’Reilly Open Source Convention: Open Source Community and Citizen Journalism Communities with Drupal – August 1-5, 2005 – Portland, OR.:

In the past year, Drupal has gone from a secret weapon used by those “in the know” to powering many of today’s leading online community sites. E.g. Spread Firefox, Planet Cocoon, BaitCar, Urban Vancouver, Philly Future, BlufftonToday, etc. At this BOF, learn from the Drupal community and Drupal entities like Bryght and Civic Space

about the Drupal best practices for creating online community. All are
welcome including Drupal users and developers and newbies. We can all
learn from each other.

via Roland Tanglao.

Some progress

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The amount of fluid in mom’s chest has gone down a bit so her doctor has considered against doing a Thoracentesis. During both my and Dante’s last visits mom was smiling at times, even laughing (and then coughing) at our attempts to cheer her up. Mom has a terrific sense of humor. I don’t know where mine is – but her’s is very healthy! She confirmed with Dante that what she really wants right now is a coffee. Being awake, she was really upset when I had to leave – it was tough to go home. No progress so far in removing the tube. I will have another update from her doctor today before visiting.

James Doohan, “Scotty”, Rest In Peace

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Yesterday afternoon I heard the news that James Doohan had passed. My wishes to his family, his friends, and to all my Star Trek buds out there.

CNN obit and Memory Alpha’s Bio of Montgomery Scott.

Previous employers have looked at me as ummm a “miracle worker” – and ahhh – I let on my secret once to my former boss, Rajiv: applying the “Scotty Rule” to project estimations. Never, ever, ever quote the time it would take to finish a project accurately. Pad it. Double and triple it.

From the TNG episode “Relics’:

Scotty: “Starfleet captains are like children. They want everything right now and they want it their way. But the secret is to give them only what they need, not what they want.”

LaForge: “Yeah, well, I told the captain I’d have this analysis done in an hour.”

Scotty: “How long will it really take?”

LaForge: “An hour.”

Scotty: “You didn’t tell him now long it would really take, did you?”
LaForge: “Of course I did.”

Scotty: “Laddie, you got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker!”

From “Star Trek III: The Search For Spock”:

Kirk: “How long to re-fit?”

Scotty: “Eight weeks. But you don’t have eight weeks, so I’ll do it for you in two.”

Kirk: “Do you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of four?”

Scotty: “How else to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?”

Kirk: “Your reputation is safe with me.”

God bless and God speed.