Paint me a picture, cut me a film

Riffing off of "the other" Chris Anderson, and his TED talk on video as the great enabler for new innovation in a broad sense, "the wired" Chris Anderson promoted the maker-agenda in issue 19.04 of Wired;

"There are also so many really great websites where people can share their projects. We have Instructables and iFixit and Etsy and Make and Hack a Day and our own Adafruit. So people who used to do this stuff alone now have even more community. It used to be just freaks in garages; now it’s freaks in garages working together." - Limor Fried of Adafruit

It is the same in web development - with new bite-sized video tutorials popping up every day, from the to the point experimentation of jQuery for Designers, to the slightly more quirky Rails for ZOmbies. With the ability to chose or mix and match between the written word (and most importantly copy the code) and the video presenting it gradually and immersively (not a word, but mayhap it should be?), learning picks up pace.

The video in and of itself is also good, because it can be consumed in a more "leisurely" way that a written tutorial, giving more room for reflection since you are listening rather than reading, often leaning back rather than forward. iPad and tablet based reading slightly excluded - whilst it is a more relaxed setting and mode, for code related tutorials it is less useful since jumping into JS Bin to test is a slight hassle compared to cmd-tab'ing or even ctrl-tabbing within the browser.


"We’re a tutorial company. We’re a project company. We do video shows and tutorials and teach people, and then there’s a gift shop at the end" [p2]

The sentiment in many ways mirrors some of the discussion regarding books and authors in the digital economy; you buy the e-version of a story for $4.99 - but if you really love it and want to display it (or simply support the author, be a patron of the arts), you get the $29.99 special edition hardcover with bonus short story and illustrations. I subscribe to this view, as promoted/explained by amongst others Michael Stackpole in his blog - and as 'lived' by both up and coming authors such as Scott Sigler with his Galactic Football League series, and truly established authors such as Tracy Hickman, doing a subscription based book with his wife.

On a side note I'm still a bit peeved with Mike&Mike at the Dragonpage for not pushing the guest authors about lack of digital version (like a Kindle version of Song of the Dragon, I'd have bought it last July, and pre-ordered vol2 by now!) - especially when talking so much about new models as they did with Tracy



- ...and the sun shines brightly, 'tis a feeling of summer in the embrace of May ...

Flashing design

Yes, another minor design tweak for the blog (shouldn't affect the RSS feed to much ;D)
Figured it was time to try out some webfont use, and to push up the font size a bit - ease of reading being a major point with me after using the iPad (and now the iPad2) for 3/4 of a year
Still using one of the predefined templates as a base - content is king here, I'll do my coding and CSS tweaking at work instead

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...

Gutenberg of Arabia - #18days

"Today, it occurs to me that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube may be the Gutenberg press of the Middle East, tools like his that enable people to speak, share, and gather"

Buzzmachine, Jeff Jarvis [Gutenberg of Arabia]

Interesting post, and the story plugs that it makes for are quite profound;

could the use of social media not only usher in a new wave of democracy to rival the "fall of the wall" in the late 80-ies, but also spark of a "reformation" type event for Islam as well? Bringing the religion and the region into the new millenium on our calendar and re-igniting the old scholarly culture of co-existence?

Show them the money?

How should you treat your best customers?:

"But what if you define 'best customer' as the person who brings you new customers through frequent referrals, and who sticks with you through thick and thin? That customer, I think, is worth far more than what she might pay you in any one transaction. In fact, if you think of that customer as your best marketer instead, it might change everything."

Great post by Seth Godin, simply putting another moniker on the segment or group turns the perception around. And thereby also the scope for what kind of activities to consider, the communication and then some.

-...and the sun is somewhere for 2011, but not to sure where...

I'll get to it

...one of these days, at any minute now, just as soon as I...

Yes, procrastination is a drag on productivity. But might it be more than that?
After some days I got around to reading this New Yorker piece on the subject (the irony is certainly not lost on me), based again on a book

Why do we put things off?
Is it just because we don't want to do them? Or because it gives a feeling of power to control and postpone?
Is it bad to keep things nagging at you, or good to enjoy your selected option all the more since it is "forbidden time"?
Let me get back to you on that... Tomorrow, or maybe next week - by New Year at the latest.

- ...and the sun Is sorely missed, as it has just turned around from the darkest and coldest nights of the year...

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.

Paint me a picture, sing me a song

Amongst other things the evening has been given partially over to reading up on some blogs, and a great post from Mitch at Six Pixels sparked of some ideas of my own;


When The Definitions Are Wrong

One of the biggest disruptions you may have noticed since the pervasiveness of Social Media is our definition of things

So what is a blog?

For me it is mostly a personal journal, that is available to me at anytime and any place. Yes it is public, but mostly only technically so as there are few links and prompts for readers.
It is a place to reflect, gather up links, insights and ideas. To make things clearer by putting them into writing, and to challenge myself in terms of concepts and ideas that need a bit more thought.

For a lot of people it is a way of life - the teen blogs and fashion blogs spring to mind. It is how they interact with their peers, how they define and shape themselves. It is about communication certainly, but also about building an image (or a brand?), shaping the story.

Above all it is everything it has ever been - meaning archives by date, tag or topic - a repository of collected posts, comments, links and media (images, video etc)

So what is a website?

Simply a subset of content, structured and presented at a certain time to a certain user. On a blog everything is (in principle) there for everybody, whilst a website might adapt to the user (dynamic content, personalized) and vary over time with out storing the older versions.


Just those two words give so much meaning and so many expectations when we navigate the web. Will the page be there tomorrow? Will it look the same, and will it give us the same information?

I took some time put to watch a video on MTV - in and of itself a rare occurrence these days, as the music videos have almost all moved to the sub-channels that are premium paid - namely Runaway by Kayne West (YouTube).
No doubt a video that stretches the definition and scope of music video, more like a mini movie or the visual equivalent of a concept album. Yet it was still clearly a music video. The visuals tied into and built around the music. The story was there but served mostly to lift the different segments (verses?) into their own setting.

Would it have been better at five minutes?

Maybe, but sometimes to change and evolve things we need to push it beyond the natural limits, cross into a different but related realm in order to get a new frame of reference. Disruption and discomfort breeds innovation and change. You don't change by looking closer at yourself, but by looking at other things, other fields, other industries, other people or cultures.


Or like a short but thoughtful post put it (talking about people first, then companies):

Brand-driven businesses are of necessity mired in the competitive trap of trying to be somebody. To be the biggest, loudest, bestest somebody on the block. Innovation-driven businesses are trying to do something: they win by making better, doing better and being better.

(unfinished business)

So if you are trying to BE a blog - how is that working out? And just what is a blog - for YOU?

- ...and the sun is so far away, and sorely missed - ten below for weeks now...

Storytelling, what is it really?

Interactive book
Doesnt work out so well, according to N.carr's post, inning off another 'story' on interactive storytelling.

"As soon as the reader begins to fiddle with the narrative - to take an authorial role - the spell of the story is broken"

But isn't that what immersive games are all about? And they are certainly "designed by comittee", yet the time apent with games for youths would seem to surpass the lovely old linearly novel.
So, it is possible to do way more in terms of story and involvement, butmere word are not really enough to "keep the spell" - it takes a full experience, and even then it is hard to do (but then again so is writing a really great novel as opposed to just airplane fare...!

Another angle I miss in the post is the bardic / fairytale angle, when an oral story was told and retold countless times and over a length of time - with the Teller adjusting to fit the audience reaction and sentiments.

- ...and the sun gives scant comfort, with solid ice and show on the grpund and 8-10 below, 'tis winter time again...