vanderwal.net

Matt on Social Networks

Matt writes up this thoughts on the state of social networks. I agree with much of his frustration. I keep thinking many of these tools will provide some good value. The two that meet what I expect are Upcoming and LinkedIn. I like these are they offer small targeted offerings. Upcoming helps find and track events, while LinkedIn is a work related networking tool.

It seems a simple cross between LinkedIn and XFN or any metadata resource that can track relationships, trust, and taste along with tracking other items of interest would be greatly helpful. Matt does get the metadata problem included in his write-up, which is metadata is dirty and at best, biased (which can be good if you agree with the bias).

Amazon Wishlist is My Favorite Social Network

With the all the buzzing about Friendster and other "social network" site, I have lost nearly all of the interest I have had in most of them. I still have a couple that picque my interest, but the seeming most popular, Friendster, offers me nothing. There is one tool social networking tool that has never let me down and actually provides me a great service.

What is my favorite social networking tool? Amazon's Wishlist. I am always looking for new media (books, music, DVDs, periodicals, etc.) and I kept hoping Friendster and other social networks would do this I was let down. I kept wishing the seemingly simple tools Amzon provides would be incorporated by others.

One every month or two I cruise through my Wishlist, which I use from my Hiptop when I go to any book or music store to either add to my list or verify an items in front of me is actually the one I want. I also cruise it from a computer to remind myself of items of interest or delete them. I also browse those Wishlists I link to. I find gems I did not know about in others lists. I also have redeemed coupons from my Amazon Wishlist friends and forwarded to me when they make purchases. I was feeling bad when I forgot to click the send a link to a discount to your Amazon friends so that the messages would not be sent. I have been finding those I link to have been happy to receive the discounts and have actually used them. The e-mails have also promted e-mail conversations with friends I have not talked to in a while. This goes a long way toward a very good social network in my book.

Research Lab for Human Connectedness

The Media Lab Europe's research lab for Human Connectedness really has some great things in progress. The most news worthy of late has been tunA, which is a wireless sharing of your personal music device, which extends your personal info cloud and creates a local info cloud for others. tunA was covered in Wired News: Users Fish for Music article a couple weeks ago.

The group's focus tends to be connecting people by digital tools using aural and visual presentation methods. There are some very intriguing applications that could come out of this research.

Economy prosperity tied to doing what you love

I stumbled across the Richard Florida The New American Dream, which was published in the Washington Monthly. Professor Florida points to the Creative Class as a means to provide a successful community. One thing that really stands out in his article is reflected in the title's sub-heading, "The economy will prosper again when more Americans can do the work they love".

The best work comes from those that are passionate about that work they are doing. Are you passionate about the work you do? Do you enjoy the work you do? If not, why not? My common salutation to friends and co-workers is "enjoy". If you do not enjoy what you are doing, not only is it difficult for you to make it through the day and enjoy life, but the quality of what you produce is not going to be the best. People that care about their work and are passionate about it most often are the stars in their group.

Find what you are passionate about and dive into it.

More information about Richard Florida and his book the Creative Class can be found at Creative Class.

Catalog of the Cool

Wired's article on Kevin Kelley's Catalog of the Cool had me aching to get home and take a peek at the Cool Tools. I was a fan of the Whole Earth Catalog (now an online magazine) when I was growing up. I think we only had one copy that was bought when I was in fourth grade, but I always flipped through it. I was fascinated with all the different stuff that filled its pages. I was a particular fan of the log cabin and some of the other outdoor items.

I was very impressed with the Catalog of the Cool as it kept the same spirit, but with things I can find more useful. My only WEC did not have items that were of great use to me, but it inspired my imagination thinking of the adventures one would have with the items. It is even better than a J. Peterman catalog.

Jack into iPod

On the ride to work on the DC Metro today I read Feel Free to Jack Into My IPod from WiredNews and loved the story. Not so much for the sharing the actual iPod, but the later discussion of integrating Bluetooth and Rendezvous into the iPod. The "jacking" an iPod is a nice social idea, but the idea of being able to listen to another's playlist on the ride to work would be a great way to find new music, as radio sucks.

I would also love for an iPod to act as a source for my laptop or desktop machine. The technology of Bluetooth is relatively small and can fit in cell phones that are much smaller than an iPod. Rendezvous is a software application (if I have understood correctly). This combination should not be that difficult to produce.

This could lead to awkward moment where one person is following another person, not to cause harm but to listen into their iPod streaming. We could end up with random acts of Stream Stalking flooding the news.

Mac and Apple reseller in Gaithersberg Maryland provides a great alternative

The Washington, DC and Montgomery County, Maryland area has another great new Apple reseller, Absolute Mac, who has been doing business in the Washington, DC area for 12 years. They have been supporting small businesses to large businesses with technical services.

The retail store is in Gaithersberg, Maryland, just north of Rockville and Bethesda. The store is clean and bright with a great selection of hardware and peripherals as well as software and books. The store has a great audio and video selection and demo area, that flat out beats any Apple store in the area. The folks in the store were very knowledgeable, friendly, and kind. What makes this store very nice is they are near CostCo (less than a mile up Frederick Ave.). I really like supporting my local Apple resellers as they are the ones in the community supporting the faithful and helping others switch. Additionally the knowledge in local resellers seems to be better than the what many of the Apple Genius's provide (not to knock the Apple Geniuses, but the local resellers have been answering questions in the local community for many years.

iChat AV making our family closer

Tonight Joy, my Mom, Will and I had a video chat with my Dad from Maryland to California thanks to iChat AV. This was not only a great experience for everybody as it shortened the long distance between coasts, but my Dad stated that experience alone made the move to Apple worth it all by itself. He has already said that the Mac experience is so much better than the PC as everything is just easy.

Got Panther

I picked up Panther at 8:20 p.m. this evening from MacUpgrades, which was on my way home from work (yes I was there that late as my Win2k machine locked-up twice in a row and cause reboots as I was trying to get an e-mail off to India). The store was very busy with 20 or 25 people there checking out Panther, picking up a copy, or just enjoying the wine and cheese and cookies and beer. It was a nice little party and I wished I could have stayed longer, much longer.

I had a call after 9 p.m. from Fred and Paula, who are new Mac owners (iBooks) this summer and the first part of the month. They called to say the line at the Clarendon Apple store in Virginia had an insanely long line. This is their first experience with a release. I will have to find out in the morning how their wait in line went.

My dad, another new Mac owner (12 inch PowerBook) who has had his machine less than a week is going the delivery route as he is at a conference this weekend in a part of California without an Apple store in close (hour drive or less) proximity.

Welcome all to the world of Apple and welcome to the world of hype and delivery on that hype. It will be interesting to see if they are as side-tracked by the Jobs keynotes for major releases as many of the rest of us are.

Panther release party in Bethesda Maryland

Mac Upgrades in Bethesda, Maryland is having a Panther release party from 8 pm to midnight on Friday, October 24th. Mac Upgrades is a great small Apple store that has always been focussed providing great service to the Macintosh community. The folks at Mac Upgrade will give any "Genius" a run for their money.

If you pre-order Panther you get a free t-shirt. If you pick up you Panther on Friday night you get yet another free t-shirt. It sounds like there will be other fun and meeting others on Friday, with out the giant crowds of the Apple stores in the Washington, DC area (actually the Tyson's Store is currently closed for remodeling so the Clarendon store could be really packed).

Snapshots of Mac users

Robert Scoble (who incidently now works at Microsoft) ponders why most weblogers seem to be Mac users. This is a very good snapshot of Mac users. Webloggers are often considered word-based creative types.

Tim Bray observes nearly everybody at the O'Reilly Foo Camp weekend had a Mac (the Foo Camp was an event of some of the brightest folks in technology (not the richest, just the brightest) held at the O'Reilly HQ to share and expand understanding.)

10 year anniversary but still not home

Today was the 10th anniversary of my arrival in the Washington, DC area to live. I moved to this area from San Francisco, which I was ready to leave but always ready to return to, to go to Georgetown University for a Masters in Public Policy. I initially planned to get my masters in two years then give Washington up to two more years then move on.

Well it has been a lot more than the initial three or four years I planned on. Actually this is the longest I have lived in any one geographic area. I like and have liked where I live and have lived, the streets and areas, but the Washington Area as a whole has never felt like home. (Oddly I have New York and San Francisco categories for the weblog, but no Washington.)

I have great friends in Washington, well those that are left, but I also have kept friends from previous homes via the Internet and have made friends that I think of as close in mind and focus thanks to the Internet. Actually the Internet is what made Washington a place to live for 10 years. I guess most any place could be livable with the Internet keeping a community I know and trust close by.

Another asset of the Washington area is its proximity to other cities that do feel a little more like they could be home. Baltimore, Philly, New York, and Boston are all a relatively short trip away. Europe is about as far a the West Coast and that has made the experience here enjoyable too.

I am not sure if it will be another 10 years in Washington, but who knows. We enjoy our house, even in its disruptive state of updating and repair. We really like our neighbors and neighborhood (as much as I did living in Arlington, VA too). I guess it is all up to jobs, winds, and other powers that drive us and blow us as to where the next 10 years will take me.

WiFi in the Lecture Hall

WiFi in the lecture hall (in the New York Times) is the latest environment to add "back-channelling", which is members of the audience or class using instant messaging or group chat to discuss the lecture. SXSW a couple years ago was my first experience with WiFi enabled conference sessions and back-channelling, which was a little distracting, but at the same time provides another dimension to information input. Insta-fact checking would be very nice in work meetings.

Social Networks with InFlow

Steven Johnson examines Vladis Krebs' InFlow software to find social networks. This is a visualization tool that draws the lines that make up the connections in our lives and interactions. More about InFlow and information about Krebs will help you under social networking from an automated perspective.

Graphviz provides similar (yet simpler) output.

BBS 25th Anniversary

It is the 25th Anniversary of BBS. The BBS or Bullitin Board Systems were dial-in digital resources for software, discussions, patches, hacks, games, sounds, and other digital goodies. The BBS' were run by hosts that gave out the phone number to their service, some charged and others were free. These were great resources that offered a glimpse of what was to come with the Internet. The BBS' were all test based and companies grew up around providing software to run the services. One company Mustang Software (or Mustang Software description) seemed to have the corner on the hot and easy to use BBS' by the early '90s. Oh, those were the days, but do I want to go back? No, I like where things are now.