thecapacity

The always fabulous Louis Grey makes good points about using GMail in a corporate environment and got me thinking in a different direction.

I begain to consider: Why can’t I share emails the same way I can share RSS entries?

Google Reader allows you to publish all entries you tagged with specific keywords, or you can share entries on an individual basis. Yet, despite the obvious analogue, it’s impossible for me to share email messages or threads in the same manner!

I realize there are some privacy concerns, since RSS & Atom explicitly make things public and email does not. However, there’s no reading I couldn’t use an email to RSS gateway and violate expected convention easily.

I might also argue that by opening up email to the same type of social collaboration we get via Google Reader then the potential would exist to make things more secure.

For example, by adding a default copy-left style licensing, a la creative commons, or a per-email “off the record” flag like Google Talk. There could even be “free to share” delivery options rather then keeping everything on an “honor system”.

It’s not quite a detailed tutorial but I hope any budding ioBridge cardiologists will find my latest foray into web2.0 useful.

I’ve recorded a video of my ioBridge project and posted it on Vimeo in the hope that it will help anyone looking to do something similar.

Unfortunately, pasting HTML into a blog post usually isn’t successful but I believe my source and previous writeup should be simple enough for others to follow. The trick is to include your widget script in your page and wrap it with a “div” using a specific, ID. In my case I used “#content” and was then able to use jQuery to mark this as hidden, CSS “display: hidden” would also work equally well.

I could then use jQuery to parse on this div ID (rather then having to find out the ioBridge widget number), which isn’t hard either and convert the html content to a floating point value. It’s a straightforward query though you may have to play with the “split()” function depending on your layout and sensor.

If you’ve got any questions feel free to email me, jay, at thecapacity.org or find me via http://wjhuie.com

I love how simple the JSON spec is. I never enjoyed reading through all the XML closures, etc. JSON just feels more programming so you don’t have to shift your brain as much as you do with XML.

However, I hate that ” is the only quoting character you can use. I’ve come to love python’s equal tolerance for ‘c’ and “c”.

I like that JSON’s simple but wish it was simply more accommodating.

If you read this post on the site as opposed to via RSS you may have noticed the Theme change (and now be wondering why I changed it back).

The trial them was ASCII-one and other then not being able to figure out how to remove some of my sidebar contents I thought it was spectacular.

However, a friend informed me that he was unable to post a comment and I can only ascribe this to the update (or truthfully it could have been the migration to Wordpress 2.7-RC1).

So I thought I’d switch back to the old one for now and test things out and give things time to bake.

I know most of you don’t post comments here anyway so it likely doesn’t matter. I actual prefer it that way believe it or not. Well I don’t mean I don’t like the feedback and input but I get most of it via twitter and that’s just fine with me.

Personally I’d love it if WP just allowed pingbacks and no comments except via twitter. I mean that every post page should have a list of the times it was twittered and / or posted.

I just don’t think every WP should have to maintain it’s own user authentication system, and judging by the constant “new user registrations” which look like spammers to me, I’d be happy not to.

Time for a little bit of nonsense.

I was following the news that Pownce is dead and started reading some of Leah Culver’s blog entries, which I usually try to check in every so often but don’t have in my feed for some reason. Loh and behold I found that she’s been playing with CouchDB too!

It’s always rewarding to know that someone who’s made such a professional impact is exploring things the same as I am (although I’m sure her learning curve is faster then mine ;> ).

In one of her posts I stumbled across the “book meme“. I don’t really listen to music like I should or enjoy a lot of the “fill in this questionnaire” memes that go around, but books… now that I can get into!

So here’s mine;

“If the yeast is active, it will have at least doubled its volume with a frothy head.” – Caveman Chemistry by Kevin M Dunn.

Book meme:

- Grab the nearest book.
- Open it to page 56.
- Find the fifth sentence.
- Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
- Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Yay, I made it to Highschool!

No, I’m not really headed back to school, just enjoying a moment of brevity with the “Blog Readability Test”

I wouldn’t take it too seriously as I’m not sure how a “determination” is made, but that’s kind of the point sometimes.

Make sure to stay light and enjoy what you can!

I haven’t waded through all the implications of Apple’s event today but this in particular caught my eye;

“He’s picked up an iPhone. He’s going into contacts, calendar and
e-mail, and it’s all empty. Now he’s looking at settings, goes into
mail settings, and looks at an Exchange account that’s already set up.
He turns on ActiveSync for contacts, mail and everything, and now he
goes in and everything from the server has been pushed down to the
phone.”

Couple it with Google’s announcement today that they’ve opened their Contacts API and I expect that soon we’ll see Google contacts syncing with the iPhone. I’ve already started standardizing on Google as my “information backup” and think this would be great!

One of the critiques on the iPhone was that since Steve loves music, it’s great for music. However, Steve doesn’t get “social applications” so it’s lacking in those capacities (e.g. no GPS and “buddy locator”). Personally, I’ve seen how painful iTunes can be syncing video and podcasts, especially when managing multiple phones from one iTunes, so I imagine Steve isn’t watching too many TED talks or iTunes U!

I believe linking Facebook & Twitter status with my iPhone would start a killer level of integration. Imaging scrolling through your contacts list to see what they’re doing. While we’re at it, why not fade out those people I don’t call frequently (or who aren’t “socially” active) as much, i.e. Vinny’s Pizza joint doesn’t need to weigh in my attention at the same level as my wife! Why is alphabetical the only visualization option. If we can get picture flow for music albums, why not for my closest friends!

Picture being bored and wanting to find someone to connect with and scrolling through your list and knowing; “Chris is heading to the gym” … don’t call him. “Kyle is cooking…” ok, he’s out. Then finally seeing “Peter is watching the rain come down” … *ring ring*.

It speaks to the growing level of integration I hope we’ll start to see from our products. The O’Reilly Radar has introduced software above the level of a single device, and this is my interpretation of that reality! I believe Web 3.0 is the social side of all this technology and it sounds like here we come!

I can’t swear, and I don’t want to jinx it, but I just ‘finished’ a big blog move and update and contrary to my recent technology experiences this seems to have gone well!

If there’s anything broken please let me know. I’m missing some plugins but I don’t think they were anything critical or maybe even anything used.

Hope your technology experiences are going as well!

With a wife with majors in Psychology and Counseling I’ve absorbed some of her skepticism of popular personality assessments. However, she and I both feel they’re interesting ways of starting a dialog about how people approach their environment.

I took a few assessments at work for a Teamwork class and remember myself as an “INSP”. Most friends are shocked at the ‘I’ because I seem to do fine around people, but I recharge best by having some solo time. For the Intuitive and Sensing I’m stronger on the Intuit side but was almost 50/50 between Sensing and Thinking. While I was midline on most of the traits, Perceiving (vs. Judging) was the trait where I was most strongly identified.

In their blog, dbug, Brian & Stephanie Reindel discuss the role of personality in “The Architect and the Mastermind”. In their examples I thought it was interesting the Thinking trait seemed dominant, however although I seem more of an ‘S’ I still sympathize with the article’s statement;

“I possess an insatiable desire to build something useful. The sole purpose of any system is to be the focus of my criticism, and suggestions for improvement are a necessary outlet. Any application I build, after finished, is undeniably worthless, and must be completely refined, streamlined, and re-built.”

I’m sure “worthless” was meant spiritually as in the ever pursuit of perfection, but I suffer from many forms of this flaw. I’m less fearful of something actually being worthless, because that would imply I finished. Perhaps a greater failing is creating something never shared, and thus worthless to the greater good.

However, this personality trait manifests in more insidious was, such as when I quit before I finish because I perceive flaws too strongly. Or I capitulate by investing too much upfront time, never actually starting and thus never technically failing, but the end result is the same or worse then having failed in the attempt.

That was one realization I had from reading their article. For some other interesting perspectives of your own check it out.

As I’ve been creating this blog I’ve been having major struggles with what seems like a relatively minor component; the “about you” section. Everything seems to request a description and it’s a sensible position to have, i.e. why should people care if you can’t even articulate who you are?

I was recently re-inspired to consider this point while listening to Carmine Gallo discuss his new book Fire Them Up!. I haven’t read the book, but was reading The Seven Secrets of Inspiring Leaders on BusinessWeek. The article is a good read and I was thrilled by the audio slide show at the end of page two.

Carmine talks about some aspects of management and the work force today, ones I’ve also been discussing with a colleague of mine. For example, Carmine mentions that “GenXers” are twice as likely to want weekly feedback vs “BabyBoomers” [in general I hate the generational labeling but it's convenient conceptually]. Another point I found insightful was the elucidation that GenXers aren’t driven by a “get rich quick” philosophy but rather crave empowerment. It’s a powerful distinction, and misunderstanding that I’ve often seen in my own career.

So how does this relate to “about me” ? Well, another interesting concept Carmine presents is that when he was learning to write he continually pondered the question; “Why do my readers care?“.

I’d like nothing more than to be able to finish this post with a witty and inspiring paragraph about why I’m so amazing that you need to care. Unfortunately, I think many bloggers over-hype themselves in this way.

I believe a single description is too simplistic an approach and that only content can prove value.

I do believe I can share value, that I’m intelligent and contribute insight and experience. However, maybe you care because you agree with my points, or maybe you care because you disagree. If I hold a single “ultimate hope” it’s that what might make you care enough is that I cause enough intrigue for you to consider things individually and to share those insights with us all.

Ultimately, I can’t tell you why you’d care, and I fear trying to do so would remove from you that sense of feedback and empowerment that I think we all crave.

What do you think? Is attempting to describe this activity an ultimate limit on why we all care?