vanderwal.net

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.

Moblogging and Joe Average persona

The Online Journalism review offers up Moblogging the next big thing, which brings "Joe Average" into play. I am not sure Joe Average would want a Hiptop or find a use for a Hiptop. I do like the idea of the Smartmobs, but it is not for everybody.

In a discussion at the DC IA book reading group (this time it was The Tipping Point) we ventured on the topic of using mavens as a persona candidate. The person said they were looking for somebody less adept at finding information, like a "Joe Average". This is often how many of us build personas we go for the less adept, or make sure they are represented across our personas. The discussion later came to how to keep the mavens intrigued, which is also a valid discussion.

Smart Mobs and the Man

Jeffrey Veen reports on the mobile technology at the San Francisco anti-war demonstration. It is just another glimpse that the Smart Mobs are taking hold here in the U.S. (the Smart Mobs site captures smart mob use at SF anti-war rally too).

In a quasi-related vein the U.S. Congress is fighting to keep its mobile technology. It seems that members of Congress and their Senior staff are hooked on their BlackBerry devices. The BlackBerry is caught up in a patent infringement case that may limit the use of the BlackBerry (yes there is irony here as Congress set the copyright and patent laws that are making this a problem for themselves). Congress was not smart in creating the laws, but wants to be a part of the smart mob. It seems like they need to figure out what they are doing before they pick up their pen to write any more laws and may want to undo some of the poor laws they created.

Trust in the Friendster and Ryze social networks

I finally got around to joining Ryze a social networking site. After just a few hours I find that I am more impressed with Friendster for many reasons.

Part of my preference of Friendster is the trust factor, which Friendster takes advantage of and Ryze has left off. When I go to add a person to my friend list in Friendster, Friendster sends a note to the person asking permission. Upon approval from the person I wish to link as my friend the person shows up in my friend list. Friendster also provides "introductions" through people on your friends list and people can recommend friends to others. The testimonies on Friendster are a valuable commodity as they must be approved by the person receiving the testimony (granted this can become rigged, but it offers the ability to give a better sense of the person). Friendster also shows the relationship to others in the whole network. These are assets that are very important to me when building trust and components that are missing in Ryze

The focus of the two systems is different. Ryze purports to be a business networking tool, while Friendster is a social networking tool. The lack of the above mentioned features for trust in the Ryze tool seem to make it more vulnerable for abuse or misuse. In a business context trust is very important as investment and decision that can have a determinant impact on success are made from information. People are one conduit of an information flow.

To me, it seems important to have the ability to have a some measure of trust built into a representation of a human relationship that then provides information the user may then act upon. It is also important to know that this relationship is approved or reciprocal People entering my page on Ryze from a Google search may see that I have Peter Morville as a friend. The Ryze tool does not provide a mechanism to verify this is the case. The only method one may have to determine if Peter and I are friends and there is a mutual trust that may be drawn from that relationship is to see if Peter has listed me as one of his friends. The Friendster model asks the person being listed as a friend if they agree to be listed as a friend. This model also makes it easier to find connections between people.

The Friendster tool can help people find others for various reasons or used as a tool to open doors to new music, movies, or interests. In the week or two I have been on Friendster I have found new music to dive into. I have been bugged by two folks to add my music preferences as they are looking for new music to explore. This would also be helpful for Ryze in a business context, but I don't see digital trust mechanisms that would ease this transaction. Ryze is more tool to provide links and correlations for serendipity then a quick way to find people of similar mind sets or people to expand intellectual and/or monetary pursuits.

I will stay with both social networking tools, but I know which tool I have more trust in at the moment. The trust factor is built over time through interactions that ring true to one's own meter or metric for judging. Friendster provides a step up on the trust meter. The best analogy is a sidewalk meeting: Ryze provides a glimpse of two people walking near each other (we do not know the relationship as it could be victim and stalker, friends, or two people that started chatting on the subway); Friendster classifies the relationships of the two or more on the sidewalk and shows the approved relationship as friends.

Ticketstub memory shares lives

Matt shares a little bit of what the Web can provide, a resting place for open memories. This medium provides a place for connecting people through common understanding and interests as well as shared moments.