Archive for the 'Technology' category
The Xobni Outlook Plug-in has Released
May 5, 2008 11:00 am
Today it was announced that Xobni has released for the general public to download. Xobni is the best Outlook plug-in that I’ve seen in a long time. This sidebar allows for fast and easy email search, attachment aggregation, and thread compression. Another handy feature of the tool includes extracting contact information from email signatures - this is extremely handy for quickly finding contact info for folks that don’t yet exist in your contacts list. There is also a host of bells an whistles thrown in around inbox analytics (who you send mail to, who you receive it from, etc) and fun ways to drill through your network of email contacts.
Social Load Balancing
April 28, 2008 10:10 pm
Let’s Face it, there are far too many ways to keep in touch these days. Blogging hit the scene, but it appealed more to publisher types, not folks that just wanted to have a simple online presence. Then came LinkedIn, which is a cool portal for managing your contacts network (though I think if Plaxo had built out their feature set a little faster, they could have owned the LinkedIn crowd). That said, LinkedIn is a glorified address book with a little 6 degrees of separation cool factor and it didn’t pack the social aspect that Facebook and Myspace brought. Myspace went after a younger crowd that prefer websites to be completely annoying, auto-play music, and look like the 1996 Internet threw up all over it. Facebook brings a bit more sophistication… Folks who want to create a professional network but still want to let their hair down and slay some vampires every now and then. Eventually, someone realized that the world really needed a way to IM people in mass, and presto, Twitter was born. I’m not sure what will be next, but I suspect it will be shorter and easier than Twitter. Seven character Twitter perhaps (we can call it LicensePlater – CoolHuh? IthnkSo). But wait, all that is just the Web 2.0 stuff. Don’t forget you also need to stay sociable in the Zune Social and keep the points coming in on Xbox live.
On the surface, this evolution seems like a great thing. However, in this era of hyper innovation (and hyper distraction), the predecessors are not going away as new sites, services and technologies emerge. This means that folks like me are left trying to keep up the blog, build on the LinkedIn network, keep Myspace and Facebook reasonably up to date (and not let my vampire army get too beat down), and Twitter with whatever time there is left in the day. Whew – factor in eating, sleeping, working, and commuting and this starts to get pretty tough.
This is where one must decide to give up all together and go outside for a walk (yeah right) or become a master of Social Load Balancing.
Social Load Balancing (SLB) is a technique to spread content between two or more social networks or technologies in order to get optimal resource utilization, throughput, or response time. Managing multiple social networks and services with social load balancing, instead of managing a single social network or tool, will increase reliability and coverage in your social representation. Social Load Balancing is handled manually by many, others are beginning to adopt Social Load Balancing tools to simplify or assist in the SLB process.
Tools are emerging to make SLB easier to manage. For Twitter and Facebook users, you don’t want to be without the Twitter Facebook Application. This allows your twitters to automatically update your facebook status. Boom – just like that we are killing two birds with one tweet. There are also applications that will send your Facebook status updates to Twitter, but that doesn’t seem like the direction most users would want to go. For you bloggers – maximize your blogging by using a tool like Windows Live Writer. With Live Writer, you can write your blog posts (offline even) and then sync them to several blog posts at once. Other software that does this includes Qumana, ScribeFire for Firefox, and Ecto for the Mac. Still spending too much time bouncing between social sites? Minggl is a browser toolbar that concentrates Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Myspace into your browser toolbar. If you want even deeper integration, you might want to try Flock. Flock uses the Mozilla browser base and adds a ton of social networking capability on top of it (including Flickr and YouTube). Regardless of how much SLB you do, Twitter is hard to keep up with (especially if you are compelled, like many of us are, to follow as many people as humanly possible). In this case, you may want to use Twitt(url)y to keep up on what links are being shared in Twitter.
Above are just a few ways to start to load balance your social life. Of course, hopefully you also foster an offline social life and you will have to be the judge of how that fits into your SLB strategy. That said, be careful taking your online social life with you into your offline social life because your romantic evening will tank quickly when your date gazes across the table only to see you Twittering on your iPhone (if only she knew what you were Twittering: “dude, I’m on a date right now” – “She just ordered a double Vodka” - “She’s looking really pissed right now” – “Think she’ll go home with me if I ask the waiter to split the bill?”). Finally, I want to plug one more technology that has the potential to greatly simplify today and tomorrow’s SLB process: OpenID. It’s bad enough trying to keep up with your online social life, let alone trying to remember your login IDs and passwords on all of these networks. OpenID aims to drive all of these logins into a single ID system that all of the sites and applications can leverage. Will they succeed? Maybe not any time soon, but the goal is admirable.
And with that, I’ve got to wrap this up. I’ve spent far too long on writing this post and my status on Facebook has become terribly out of date.
Kawasaki and Ballmer at Mix08
March 6, 2008 6:16 pm
Mix08 is in full swing and it’s all about Silverlight! I just got into town today, so I missed the first day of sessions, but today was already worth the trip. For today’s general sessions, Steve Ballmer and Guy Kawasaki had a great conversation that spanned topics ranging from the Yahoo acquisition bid to Vista. they take turns jabbing each other, but ultimately - both were great sports and the conversation was very intersting. Click here to view the on-demand webcast: 750k, 300k.
Virtual Macy’s Exceeds Capacity
December 18, 2007 6:15 pmEver plan to go shopping at Macy’s, get to the mall, and then find that a security guard is standing outside asking you to wait until other shoppers have cleared out because they’ve reached capacity? Neither have I. The same can’t be said for Macy’s online store. Below is a screen shot that shoppers were presented with when Macy’s website got a little too crowded for comfortable shopping this season. Just goes to show that regardless of whether you take the Brick and Mortar or the Click and Mortar approach this Christmas, you’re still going to be stuck in the holiday crowds.
Cool Error Message
November 12, 2007 2:29 pmI just wanted to share this error message I received on my machine today. I don’t even recall what threw the error, but I love the way it’s worded. I wasn’t trying to destroy anything at the time…
The CrapMonkey Does Podcast Expo 2007
September 28, 2007 8:12 pm
The Podcast and New Media Expo is in full swing in Ontario, California. I’ve been down here since Thursday and have not had time to do a CrapMonkey Podcast as of yet. That said, I am making regular podcast updates to the Seattle Podcasting Network site. Feel free to check it out and see what’s new on the podcasting landscape!
Amazon Launches mp3 Download Service
September 26, 2007 9:57 am
Amazon recently launched Amazonmp3, a music store without that pesky DRM. For my first dip into the Amazon pool of digital music, I purchased Retox, the latest album by Turbonegro. This album has proved to be challenging to find in my local music stores so I was glad to find it here. For under $10 (after tax) I was able to download the entire album in unrestricted mp3 format (encoded a 320kbps). The process was simple, especially since I am enrolled in Amazon’s One Click service. I searched for the album, found it, previewed some tracks, then clicked to purchase. An Amazon MP3 Downloader application needed to install on my system, but it is a pretty small and lightweight application (especially if you compare it to an iTunes front end). Within moments, I had the album on my local machine, completely DRM free. Granted, the overall selection of the store is still quite limited since not all labels have chosen to climb on board the DRM free train… but I suspect they will have to before long. Due to Amazon’s dominance in online retail, the broad device compatibility it affords, and the overall ease of use of this service, I think this will become a pretty popular music store fairly quickly (provided they convince a few more labels to sign on). Watch out iTunes, you’re in the crosshairs of the world’s largest “Internet Bookstore.”
Silverlight Makes the Monkey Dance
September 22, 2007 5:59 pmPOC 12 - LightSnake USB to XLR Cord Review
September 13, 2007 9:18 pm
My friend Drew loaned me his latest purchase, a LightSnake Luminescent USB to XLR Microphone Cord. I figured that the best way to test it out would be to record a podcast, so that’s what this Piece of Crap is all about. You can’t get much better than this when it comes to simplicity. Plug-n-Play ensures that it is instantly recognized on the computer and installed so that you are ready to record in a flash. For a podcaster, this is great as it easily lets you plug into your home PC or laptop without additional equipment or even a sound card. If the simplicity and sound quality is not enough to sway you, perhaps the green glow illuminating from the USB and XLR connectors at either end will provide enough cool factor to win you over. At only $40 on Amazon, I’d say this is a worth while addition to the podcasters’ tool kit. (Beware though, no phantom power means this may not be a universal solution for everyone). Click below to listen to the podcast recorded using the Lightsnake:
Gnomedex 2007: Day Two
August 11, 2007 3:08 pmNot to say that yesterday was a bad day at Gnomedex, but the content today was truly outstanding. Though a bit complicated to grasp right away, the open money presentation given by Michael Linton was compelling. Following that presentation was a series of very interesting short presentations delivered by Ignite 
Seattle MVPs focusing on topics ranging from Internet Art to not being bored.
After Lunch, Gregg Spiridellis (the Jib in JibJab) gave an informative presentation about monetizing the long tail of media in the “post-hit” era. It was truly awesome to learn the lessons that the JibJab brothers learned the hard way over the last decade. JibJab makes an excellent case study in how to run a flexible business, how to operate on little capitol, how to invent and reinvent business plans, how to identify and capitalize on opportunity, and more.
In the early afternoon, Derek Miller joined us from Canada via videoconference. Derek is a regular Gnomedex attendee also known for crafting the Gnomedex theme song each year. Derek was diagnosed with Cancer since last Gnomedex and has been blogging his experiences. He popped in to share those experiences and was very humorous and upbeat. His story and is attitude are inspiring and I look forward to his presence again, in person, at a future Gnomedex.
