Fragment my convergence

Mobile and digital is making everything possible, and breaking down boundaries between products, services and utility. And it is happening at speed.

This is not about media convergence. It's about something bigger. Things change. Things change so fast that sometimes, it's hard to see it. We tend to think about our businesses and our lives in terms of keeping up with change.

The New Convergence by Mitch Joel, ends on the question: what do you think?

I think it will go to pieces for a while

In that the world we've had for a few years now, with Google and Facebook dominating the web, and Apple driving mobile and apps forward is changing into a plethora of markets, devices, ideas and changes.

Kickstarter is one force driving that forward. Products like the Pebble e-paper watch sold for $10 million unseen, untested and with out reviews. It could have sucked. But it still got made and changed how a watch and a remote and a sensor display is viewed.

Sure it has a lot of potential for improvement, but compare the Newton to the iPad and add in innovation at a digital pace - and five or ten years down the road you might be able to "drag" any app from your main device onto one or more support devices, to show the data you need right now just right.

Platforms like Arduino and the Raspberry Pi are making the "somewhat smart" gadget even more affordable and providing a huge step up to total diy. We put up a Pi showing 3 twitter feeds on a dedicated screen, at a fraction of the cost of a whole laptop, and also a lot cheaper than trying to get a  better gpu. Because it was disposable, we might as well give it a shot.

Mobile is back in the trenches, Android gaining ground as the smart phones move into mass market and lower income brackets, and as the top of the line models outstrip the 5 for power, style and innovation. Microsoft still pushing, with some Nokia steam. Blackberry not so much in Europe, but die hards in the US pushing pushing. And Samsung? Making everything from TV to fridge, and a lot in between. Will they make a substantial move, or continue to play the horses?

And startups? With Amazon, Google, Microsoft and more pushing the cloud solutions onwards, upwards and all over every day, the barriers to entry are mostly about attention.

So, change is here.

It will be here for a long time.
It might not get faster - at least not on the same scale as the last two decades,
but it will certainly be stranger.

Unnamed idea

"I know who I want to be. Do you? An important part of discovering / creating your own future is to find out, or plan, who you are going to become."

From the aptly named Untitled Essay - by the foul mouthed media hack extraordinare, Julian Smith. Currently making the world (or at least the US for now?) a bit of a saner place with Breather, basically a half way house between hangign in the nearest coffee shop and taking into an hotel for a full day.

It all seems so simple when people like Seth spell it out. Be the linchpin. Make the purple cow. Fly high towards the sun.

Yet it is hard enough that most people never do, try or imagine a reality like that.

Then there are books like the last manifesto in the Domino series. Flinch by Julien. Still free for Kindle thanks to generous sponsorships. And listed as "best books of 2013 so far" - despite coming out in december 2011....

Walk the talk, and those who can do - are perhaps trite, but in this case it fits. Julien took his own advice to heart, built a future he wanted and a service he felt improves the world a little bit every day.

Sure, Breather might fail, or it might be a tiny tiny niche even years down the line. But he stood up, faced the darkness, the voices inside and said; lets do this.

How large of a buffer do you need?
How many hours of planning, dreaming and doodling?
How many stories of "rags to riches" to make it better than playing the lottery?


Along with Pressfield, Flinch is on my re-read for summer list. And pushing content here five times a week on average is a step on the way to that end.


Then, come summers end?

...?

idea?
plan?
action?
ship?

It's all about the execution, stupid

Not really, since Strategy matters more than ever:

When everyone is playing the same game, your execution is critical. [...] Not changing your strategy merely because you're used to the one you have now is a lousy strategy.

Yup, Seth again, this one from July 23, 2012 - such a treasure trove. The gift that keeps on giving.

Does digital open up for more copycats, or does it force us into our own path and localized maximum?

There are probably more Groupon clones, than there are active users of coupon services. But there are still more other start ups playing in the distribution, rewards and benefits arena. And as the different ideas gain traction, it makes a lot more sense to do it differently, rather than trying to "out Amazon Amazon"

Not even sure if Google or Microsoft* can do that in terms of cloud offerings - AWS is THE dog, it plays for scale and pushing costs to zero. Having services like Netflix does a bit for your volume and requirements.

Same way YouTube totally dominates in video hosting, distribution, monetization and partially creation. Pushing the scope ever outwards, doing hangouts on air, paid channels, longer clips, higher quality. Step by step eating up the niches. Vimeo made sense in a more constrained time for the "above average" video producer, but now?  

The same digital flexibility is what you need to play around with, map out not THE path, but a set of options, interconnected or related, and figure out how you might need to pivot up front. Just like playing chess - if competitor X launches this, we'll do ..., but if competitor Y appears, we'll just ...

Run the scenarios. Describe the story. Map the future. 

Rinse, repeat. Because in 6 months there will be new players, models and options.



* love how the blogger dictionary doesn't see the need to capitalize Blogger or Google, but microsoft gets a red line

-...and the sun has been staying around in the early days of June, here's to hoping for many more lazy days and late warm nights...

This is MY place - for now

@avinash sharing Baekdal quoting Avinash,  with the subtlest prompt:

[If you read only one thing in Jan] *Rented or Owned: Where To Focus Your Brand Content*  

[src]

A good piece with some nice charts for illustrating how you can think about what content goes where, and why you should have a clear understanding of it. Still a must read for anyone doing more than "just" blogging for their own benefit.

As I've stated before lately, this blog goes back to pyralabs era, and the current google focus and understading leaves a bit to be desired. So I keep on pulling down a back-up, and playing around with WP options (occupational hazard at the moment as well) - and with a Kickstarter donation to Ghost (one of 5000 - yay!) I'll have to give that a spin in the fall.

27,000 code additions to the core repository in the last month (Ghost update)

Still it feels open enough at blogger, to let things roll along, at least the web interface works well enough for simple writing - and that should be the focus above all. Content, content, content. Then a sprinkling of links, and a small drop of design.

So the traction gets a bit harder, the volume a bit higher, and the swap is postponed once more. Until the fall at least, to see how far this "streak" of publishing can be extended. To see how "post Reader" Google behaves. 

Kindle Reads? Good Fire?

The post on Open City, and thinking a bit more about openness, insights and sharing lead to this little wish list. Namely, how I'd love for Amazon and Goodreads to play together - for my reading, sharing, exploring and remembering pleasure.

Idea 1: wish shelf

Having the option of syncing each wishlist with a shelf, so one for non fic want to read, one for general genre fic, and one for darker tales.

Ideally books bought would move to another shelf, or into the "to read" mode.

Idea 2: my good

kindle.amazon works like a charm for looking up highlights, and for quickly updating the status of purchased books. It should be opened up or merged into Goodreads. Perhaps in an IFTTT kind of way, opening up the API for other stores as well.

Idea 3: wish buy

Not really related to Goodreads directly, but I find it really hard to understand why Amazon at all times neglects my purchasing behavior and signaling intent by using wish lists. 9 of the last 10 books bought have spent time on my wish list prior to the sale.

Then it would make sense to use that list as a basis for recommendations  It works that way for the regular cart.

But Kindle books don't play nice with the cart. Which is in a way another minor gripe, as I often buy 2-3 at once; why separate check out and receipt mail, not to mention separate debits of my card?

Idea 4: good app

Reading with the Kobo app can be a lot of fun, because it binds together the social, the metrics and the reading. It is no big deal, but having charts like Runkeeper for books and pages read, quotes shared and discussed would be nice. And pushing it into Goodreads with an open API would make even more sense, since readers are a small niche to begin with, the more the merrier.

What would you like to see? #kindleGood ?

- ...and the sun was away as this got underway, a small evening shower on Monday (still doing that schedule thang, and loving it) - but still warm enough by far to sit outside on the balcony letting the thoughts flow ...

I want to do it all, and then some more

How do you decide?

Chances are there are more thing you want to do, than people to do it.
More ideas than project teams.
More bugs than developers, never mind testers.

Should you focus on those big things that "wake up the neighbors" - attract a lot of attention and flair, preferably within the niche or market you play in - or should you do a lot of smaller, unknown and unknowing tests? Build the future stepwise, or stay the course first and foremost?

How do we find a balance? 

Can we?

Should we even try?

One reason that incumbents are so often defeated by newcomers is that the incumbents put their best people and their urgent focus on the stuff they used to do (like winning Pulitzer prizes, selling ads to cosmetic companies and counting dead trees) while the new guys have nothing but the new thing to focus on.

[seth, who else?]


Are you doing it wrong if you do what you know, what makes sense right now, and what "everybody" else is doing? Is radicall innovation and transformation advisable, never mind possible? Is it right to say to your current customers "sorry, we want someone else, so you'll be getting an inferior product - but it will be a lot better in a while, albeit something completely different"?

Apple could do the iPhone because they didn't have a phone business, didn't have telco relations to maintain, and an upgrade path to stick to. 3g, 4, 4s, 5? Incremental wrapping and icing on the cake.

Apple could also do the iPad, because they had 10% or less market share for laptops. Microsoft couldn't for the same reason. They had too many partners to placate, making the assorted touch screen laptops never-rans.

Facebook bought Instagram. Even if they had the bigger volume of users. Even if they had apps and were THE photo destination. But they didn't have or get mobile. As a core. As the only thing. Do they now? At least a bit more than before the 1 bn.

Just right, just so?

Consistency is a drag

"This is the best I can do" vs. "It's not good enough."

[seth]

Yes, it is another Seth Godin quote, there were a few in the draft backlog - deservedly so. Topic is failure to launch, innovate, improve and otherwise change.

For some it is due to a complacency - "if it ain't broke" type mentality. Change is hard and painful  Launching is scary. So it is a lot better to stick to the course, keep churning out the widgets / 30 second spots / 300 word pieces. We lull ourselves into thinking that we have tried and discussed other ways, but this is the best for the time we are in in, the people we have, the customers we serve.

For others it is due to perfection - it could be a bit better, the design needs some work, we have to get another blurb, run another focus group, wait for a better window, avoid this week, don't compete with that event. When there is no deadline, it is all to easy to let it be dead on the line instead.

The way to improve, is to change. And to change we have to get feedback. And to get feedback? Launch. Get it out there. Call it a beta or a soft launch, but get it out the door.


one caveat; make sure you set aside time to listen, evaluate and then re-launch or re-boot.

Summer reading - comic; Looking for Group

That’s right boys and girls, we are pleased to announce that LFG Volume 5 (in beautiful hardcover action) is now available for pre-order.

For the last books (vol 3 and 4) I re-read the previous collections before diving in. This time I've just left it a bit to really enjoy it during what will hopefully be some leisurely summer days. Have pre-ordered all five as they became available, so a signed collection

If you are new to Looking For Group, it is a webcomic, available to read for free - or you can pick up an omnibus edition for a mere $40 and support the artists. It is an epic fantasy comedy / parody / slightly twisted telling - and often "laugh out loud" funny, in a literal sense, not just LOL tweet.

wanting, needing, craving ...information is a goal

A piece on Nieman, a year ago more or less, but still as relevant. Three video lectures / talks, the first of which prompted the saving of the URL for a later day:

James Gleick ... bestseller, translated into 20 languages, is The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

Clocking in at 73 minutes, I have to admit that some of it has "flooded past" in the year gone by, but I still recommend it.

I group Gleick in with moderately large group of thinkers exploring the impacts of digital tech and content. Books like The Shallows, Hamlets Blackberry, Not a gadget and so on. And there is no doubt that digitization changes "everything". Would I have even heard about those books ten years ago before starting to blog? Maybe, but clearly not twenty years ago before seeing web and newsgroup content for the first time.

It is part magic, part wonderland 

- imagine that just about any speech or lecture can be preserved and shared globally. For no incremental cost on either end.

Rather than traveling to California I could sit on my couch, holding 10 inches of glass and watch the I/O keynote (first hour anyway...) along with A MILLION (!!!) other people. Working with thees kinds of things, it is useful to stop and reflect on just how far we've come every now and then. With hangouts on air and recording, you just need a webcam (built into any laptop and most mobiles) to invite the world in. Google handles the rest. Distribution, encoding, storage.

Just like that. 

Want to do a debate series, inviting two people from different countries each week? Just do it.
Want to do a class for school kids in your favorite subject? Press record.

Sure, there is something like a 100 hours of new content by the time you've finished reading this post. But that just means that the content that does resonate has the chance to spread that much faster, further and longer than before.


- ...and the sun is taking a short time out, so I can just about make out the text on the screen in my reflection .. brightness to the max, blogging from the balcony

Draft note - define the game before you play

The best creative solutions don't come from finding good answers to the questions that are presented. They come from inventing new questions.

[seth g - who else?]

This was up for a while before xmas 2012, but dumped and rewritten it fits nicely into the mid-May schedule here in 2013. Namely, dropping on May 17th, as we celebrate our constitution from 1814 (200 next year) and with some extra focus on woman suffrage (100 years). Both events signify a break from "how things are" - and the mental leaps involved for those pushing for the changes seem staggering even today.

Did Jeff Bezoz start Amazon to own a database on movie actors? Or to sell computing power by the hour? No, but along the way it made sense to understand as much as possible about the content sold (dvd, now streaming movies, hence IMDB) - and also to take infrastructure to scale (first Marketplace, the AWS)

Did Netflix set out to ship more than a billion DVD's back and forth? No, but at that time and place it made sense. And now they've passed 30 million streaming subscribers. And are doing it atop AWS, a sideshow for Amazon but a vital foundation for a new wave of start ups and reboots.


When something seems impossible, it is probably because your are looking at the world as nails. Sure, that makes sense with a hammer, but the toolbox holds so much more. Take a step back. Reframe the issue, and start asking a different set of questions.

Hard?

Otherwise it wouldn't be worth it.

Online, now, last month or next year

"Banksy - kongen av gatekunst" aka Exit Through the Giftshop was shown on Norwegian public broadcast last fall. And that also meant that their (excellent) NRK TV site had it - but it was only online until November 3rd 2012.

It is all about the licensing.

...via image search - is a screenshot fair use when it is also art?

Sure, it might just be out there in some form or other - but for  using the subtitles and doing it right, NRK had to take it back down, or pay a lot more (speculation / assumption - they licenced it for one or two runs at off peak times on a small niche channel, and got x days of online as well)

Does that mean it will sell a lot of dvd copies here now, since the streaming is gone? Or will it remain more or less ignored in favor of Idol and Eurovison?

Since NRK doesn't do commercials, it makes sense to have it limited - and then hopefully get some cents on the dollar from YouTube ads or Netflix streaming. (They even had an ad for free trial - adwords for the win?)

But this isn't about a docu/mocu-mentary like Banksy, but about the global vs local distribution and licensing issues. Because when Facebook launches or test a new feature it is instantly worldwide, same for (most) apps in the assorted Appstores. Youtube same thing, no waiting for a localized Gangam Style, watch it right now now now. And once more. House of Cards blasted onto the scene as a worldwide event, for the tribes it targeted at least.

But still movies and regular shows have a lead and lag type cycle, selling and repackaging based on the initial viewership (mainly US).

Will this be what really kills TV? 

A lack of flow or structures for moving the smaller things globally, in the same manner that the Olympics manage? Imagine having to wait a day or three to see the 100m sprint from London 2012 - and yes, I know that some US channels actually time-shifted a few events and tried to do spoiler free news...

The changed landscape of conferences and information - JavaZone 2012

Outdated as it is in terms of news value of the video, the main point I never wrote is still valid;

Not only are conference videos great for catching that one session in parallel that you didn't get to see, but they are are great tool to help build a brand.

First of all a brand for the conference, in this case JavaZone - showing potential speakers and participants how good and professional they are.

Secondly for the speakers themselves, enabling them to get more gigs, both in terms of speaking, freelance work or when considering greener pastures.

But lastly, as this example shows - it is a great way for a company like BEKK to show their total commitment to sharing knowledge, to openness, innovation and community. By putting up a huge number of links/clips they "prove" their position as one of the top both java and dev consultancies. For clients, for leads and for potential employees.

Her er videoene av BEKK-foredrag på årets JavaZone. RESTful security – Erlend Oftedal from JavaZone on Vimeo:

[src]  via BEKK Open

And thus we reach the end of 2011. Or at least the bottom of the stack of Wired from last year. Still got a solid dose of 2009 prepped for future ideas. But it feels good to be blogging, having cleared out the draft pile and move the last issues from 19- into the basement.

Had a post on Hunch. And how they had ended up. This time it is Quora. The profile talked about the influx of users, the money raised and the addictability of pushing answers out there. And to loop it back Quara has some answers on Wired as well.

My take? A fun playground, mainly for friends of friends of friends - and for those that want a bit more opinionated 'facts' than they can get on Wikipedia, but without reading a handful blogg post to get it.

There is still a lot of start up, and by extension tech topics covered. But there is also a lot of "long tail" content, like where to get biltong in Amsterdam.

Not my first place to go to for information, but would and could probably be included when doing a bit more general research. Possibly also because it hasn't gotten any google love for the subjects I've needed additional details on lately. Blogs, groups or Wikipedia tends to cover the results.


(this is also the last "back dated" post - filling in the gap week and making June-12 a truly all time high in terms of posts, 22 and counting - passing October of 2004)

The insights of Khan

Another back issue of Wired, another post based loosely on a theme explored.

Education - and how we can change it using digital tools.

Nothing less is the driving force for Khan Academy, featured in 19-08 (link added):

Khan’s videos are anything but sophisticated. He recorded many of them in a closet at home, his voice sounding muffled on his $25 Logitech headset

The piece also had an overview of some other edu sites, on the second page online. But with John Resig aboard the Khan team I can't help but but hope for and expect (more) great things from them in the years ahead.

It must be exhilarating going into school now - knowing that if you don't really get things the way the teacher tries to explain it, there is Wikipedia, Youtube and dedicated sites for most things to give you a second shot. And most of them for free (well, provided you have a computer and internet connection - or can access one at school, the library or similar)


see video in context and with links to the "rest" of Art History collection

Aside; noticed now that the piece was written by Clive Thompson. No wonder it resonated, love the writing style, even if a few of the regular columns seems a bit rehashed. Guess it comes with the turf, and is the reason I try not to reread to much of my own old stuff.

If you see it, can you DO it?

Small hassle with going backwards through the stacks - this post was a draft initially put between two other ideas, that have sort of evolved into something else. But there is still a link of some sort to the topics of how we can learn so much more with digital access - and at the same time how machine learning is actually starting to pan out. Not as the AI of old sci-fi, but as topic masters.

Wired 19.01 was the issue that originally covered "the other" C:A and his musings on "computer assisted innovation" (CAI) - as seen on the TED stage when the LXD kicked it. [wikip] Dance is just one of many fields where the ability to instantly and repeatedly view others across the globe has turned up the speed of innovation, change and adaptability.

My initial response on reading the piece on CAI, and watching the video, was "VIEW SOURCE".

For myself and a lot of others picking up web development in the early to mid nineties consisted of a few books, some newsgroups and mailing lists - and a lot of 'learning by looking'.  "View Source" - it was how the web was built; share the insight into the code, then deconstruct it, comment it and do something more.

Video means that ANY skill or niche can "play" along - and thereby get "innovation at net speed" - no printing time, no time to wait for the traveling freak show or circus to amaze you, no waiting around for the start of season 2 (or for season one to get to Norway in the first place...)

Instant access, instant gratification. Instant inspiration.




And the other noteworthy subject was a part of the AI package - on stock bots, going too fast and too large to be understood? Far way from the early 90-ies comp sci I read at university. Memory and disk space was still at a premium. Java was starting to turn up and promise a bit more hassle free environment (hello Applet!), but for hard core coding there was C++

...and for the most dedicated even Assembly was taught, used and discussed.

Thankfully (?) the iOS success has raised awareness of a stricter coding paradigm and the need for more than just a casual understanding to do dev.

Sure, you can whip up a simple hello world without more than skimming the tutorials. And you can wrap your web app into a native powerhouse using Phonegap and the likes. But as soon as you start into the more complex functionality performance and structure is taking a solid hit from messy code.

Yes MItch, there is a long tail...

Post by Mitch Joel, lamenting the lack of long tail or democratic split of ad revenues; Your Media Is Controlled By A Handful Of Companies (Yes, Even The Internet)

October 3, 2011, worldwide digital advertising accounted for about $64.03B. Google generates approximately 364% more revenue from advertising than it's next closest rival, Yahoo! With Facebook at $1.86B in advertising revenue (excluding virtual currencies/goods) for 2010

For once I have to disagree with the point he is making. And the reason is quite simple; Google doesn’t generate all of that on google.com or from their own sites as such– quite the opposite;

Google Sites Revenues - Google-owned sites generated revenues of $6.74 billion, or 69% of total revenues, in the third quarter of 2011. This represents a 39% increase over third quarter 2010 revenues of $4.83 billion.
Google Network Revenues - Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.60 billion, or 27% of total revenues, in the third quarter of 2011. This represents a 18% increase from third quarter 2010 network revenues of $2.20 billion

Taken from http://investor.google.com/earnings/2011/Q3_google_earnings.html - which was the current one at the time. 

So in their Q3 for 2011 alone the Google network revenues were above FB for the whole of 2010 (2.2 vs 1.86) – and that money IS the long tail! Sure some of it also goes to big media companies from the NYT down to our fvn.no – but it also goes to blogs and small niche sites.

(Sidenote; does blogger.com count as “google owned” in this split? If so the the actual long tail part could be even bigger)

So, if you go beyond the headline, into the numbers, there is proof positive that this wealth at least is “trickling down”!

Hunch'ed up

Do you remember what you read last summer?

Well, here are some things from Wired 18.08 to jog the memories... even if by now that is the summer before last. Just goes to show, digital is almost forever.

First just a quick note - on the major piece regarding infrastructure: Iphone use 15 times more data than other subs? Even other smart phones? ATT numbers: $37 + $13.5 bn used to build the infrastructure needed. Wonder how much more it is now in 2012. And how much they've made up for it in terms of overall revenues, which will keep on coming after the network is in place.


The, the main topic:


HUNCH - was mentioned as a major part in the profile of Caterina Fake (gotta love that last name for verified online profiles).  I was planning on making some snaps from my profile, but it seems I've gone and gotten it all lost (or better, I had used Twitter initially, but probably revoked access at some time, so after reallowing I got in, but to a more Pintrest looking site. Guessing they've had time for a pivot or two in four years - even ended up as part of ebay I discovered in the Faq). So the old reflections will have to serve as a basis for now.

The main key here is social insights - the same thing that Facebook is betting the farm and then some on in terms of ads and like-mining the graph. And it is a difficult challenge to tackle, since most of the time we don't really know how or why we make our own choices.

My impressions of Hunch was that it was fun to build the basic profile, real nice use of gamification to get the answers flowing quickly. But a lot of them were very US centric in terms of topics, be it TV shows that never made it across the seas, or rituals like dances. So the overall feeling was a bit narrow in terms of recommendations, even after 182 questions answered. Heard the same about a year later from someone else.

Overall it seemed a pretty decent hit in terms of TV and magazines that I might want to look at.
Book? Not so much. Frankly hopeless compared to Amazon, and even they tend to get distracted and have a one track mind unless you go digging a bit across a set of tabs. Stuffing a large number of books onto four different wish lists has helped a bit with that.
The London TODO suggestions was abysmal - no Lonely Planet competitor to be sure. Not even on par with the free give away guidebooks from the local tourist office.

Perhaps the had some of the issues facing Wolphram Alfa going in - need a lot more raw data and basic information to populate the profiles. Either that or be bought by Facebook and assimilated - they might just have the raw data in terms of certain areas, and could quickly incentivize for more - ebay and paypal not so much, might help for discovering auctions and sellers you could connect to.


(man I miss the word count in WP... make progress so much more measurable and rewarding, even now when just dumping in the drafts to go)

Godin goes aquatic - like an eel dodging an octupus

The starfish and the long tail have trouble getting along:

If you're a starfish, then, don't sign up with the long tail guys. Build your own universe, your own permission asset. Find a tribe, lead it, connect with it, become the short head, the one and only, the one that we'd miss if you were gone. The long tail is for organizations that own warehouses.

Great short post (as most of his are) by Seth G[1].

And what beautiful imagery, going aquatic. You don't get to meet the whale of your dreams by being a krill. Or as Cory Doctrow has put it - piracy isn't the enemy, obscurity is.*The huge number of books in Kindle version, or the number of podcasts in iTunes, the number of television channels or websites, the FB groups, pages and like-a-thons.

How can and will your content break through, connect with the readers, fans and co-creators it deserves?

Can the content stand on it's own, or does it have to be about YOU - the creator, the brand, the genius behind the mask?



* or as he quotes; Like Tim O’Reilly says, “Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.

Easter hacking nights

this is an extended draft and sort of placeholder posting - it started off with just getting the basic points in before chrome did a belly up, or the mbp gets a reboot for system updates - still to come is a bit of background and some meta

So, now that Easter is coming to a close here in Norway as well (yes, we all take monday off as well - another public holiday to tide us over after winter, and part of the reason we have no official breaks between summer and xmas) - it is time to finish off this post on the subject of easter hacking.

I've spent a couple of hours some days over the last week trying out some different techs, sort of an extended but split up hackday. I guess that is part of the reason I enjoy working in my current job as much as the previous consulting gigs - spend my days doing and learning things that really get the juices flowing.

Another part of the 'goal' for my part, was the same as during the official company hackday #2 earlier this spring; getting to know the Macbook Pro a bit better as a working tool - outside of testing and learning a bit about iOS development that is. So setting up things like homebrew, finding out how to play nicely with Terminal, getting !# working in textwrangler and discovering the outliner in xcode were as important as the coding in and of itself.


The most direct inspiration for actually exerting some mental energy over the holiday, was the latest "manifesto" from the Domino Project - "Do the Work", which is basically a short and intense version of "War of Art" also by Steven Pressfield (and finally available as a kindle digital version - need to get one and replicate my highlights to store them, so I can relend the book)

Have been doing quite a bit of Java work lately, but with a solid dose of jQuery and CSS thrown in. But being raised 'multilingual' - started off with Pascal and C++, later spent quite some time with both VBA and Java - the allure of jumping into something new was strong. And with so much talk about both server side javascript (node) and jQuery coming to Rails 3.1, the scene was set.

There are some long planned wired posts coming up as well - several small stacks of back issues just waiting to be 'processed' so they can head down into storage.



First off;

some server side javascript - node.js

Experimenting With Node.js And Server-Side Javascript post from Ben, I ran through the basic set-up from another tutorial, then re-wrote his code to work for node 0.46 version -had to make some minor changes to the code to get it running on node version .46 (response.writeHead and .end rather than -close)

possible next steps include looking into more framework type solutions, like geddy, and getting npm up (after reading up a bit on the brew 'controversy' background)


then on to a long planned excursion

testing nosql style database solutions - couchDB

This kicked off with the Nettuts tutotial and some background info, got the system up and running quite easily, before getting sidetracked into organizing and cleaning up my iTunes library. Thus ended trip the second a bit on the early side, but the iPad still has the O'reilly book all prepped and ready to go. Planning to do some small jQuery based test before calling it good, but we'll see what comes first.


the final lap was,

traversing the maze of information to get Ruby and Rails on track

The best info seems to be the 2008 mac dev article, even if rails 3 differs in some ways (action script/server no good, had to use /rails and server as option), it was a nice read. Really useful advice for using xcode as well. It gives you syntax highlighting, but also quick access to basic rails commands along the way including DB migrate.

So now the expense app is taking shape, planning on taking some time for webcasts later - and maybe even read up a bit on ruby in and of itself... not so much learning these tools to use them right now, but more to understand a bit better how the work, and get a glimpse into what it would take to learn them more fully for everyday use.

One thing I really enjoyed was the ease of switching output formats - sure the scaffolding puts up default html output, and includes an xml option. But one single simple line of code got me full json export. Not such a big deal in and of itself, but it sure makes it easier to see how we could plug a small rails app into a bigger java/jsp based site - care of a simple jQuery call. Sweet!



All in all I'd say it had been a productive easter so far. Probably helped a bit to be out of it for the days leading up to the holiday, thereby cleaning out the mind in terms of daily tasks (pushing the task list back a bit once more, but only one real task from my planning board that is still open going into the next sprint)


NOTE; lots of localhost links - for my own reference, remembering what goes where in terms of ports, but if you follow the tutorials they should work in part along the way


...and the sun feels great in the afternoon, almost like summer already...

Once upon a time a new technology cut the price of books by 90%, flooded the market with many times as many as before crowding out the real classics, and supposedly cut into the quality and care given each book.

Ebooks?

No, still just the Gutenberg and moveable type innovation.

The literate classes experienced exactly the kind of overload we feel today — suddenly, there were far more books than any single person could master, and no end in sight. Scholars, at first delighted with the new access to information, began to despair. “Is there anywhere on earth exempt from these swarms of new books?” asked Erasmus, the great humanist of the early 16th century.

[Boston globe]

And yet we still read. In fact most people can read in the Western world, even if they chose not to buy prose books all the time.
So the market is "flooded" with readable content;

296 newspapers in 2003. These account for a combined circulation of more than 3 million.

Wikip

Would the world suffer if there were fewer printed options?
Is online and digital a viable substitute? For news? prose? Poetry? Facts?

Apparently it might look like the politicians here in Norway will have to make some educated guesses along those lines - the main ruling party (labour, social democrat) is more or less pushing for sales tax to be applied to electronic books (but not printed) and the discussion is on for the future of media support (currently newspapers get no sales tax added, magazines do get the full 24%) in general and for digital in particular.

Fun times ahead. Might just need to look into an US or online based payment solution for my Kindle needs.