Angela Booth’s Writing Blog: Giggle of the Day: Acronym for Vista:

How unkind. From David Pogue at the NYT:


Vista is actually an acronym for the top five Windows problems: “viruses, infections, spyware, trojans and adware.

Technorati Tags: Humor, Microsoft

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Oh, Microsoft. Your feeble attempts at control are so cute. (Boing Boing)

Technorati Tags: Humor, Windows

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• Take a trip down 16K-memory lane with these scans of print ads for classic computers from Altos to Zenith.

• De.lirio.us is a social bookmarking clone of del.icio.us. The main differences seem to be the capacity for longer notes, annoying videos built in to the posts, and an open code base. I’m not inclined to switch from del.icio.us after already committing so many bookmarks to that site, but perhaps there’ll be some way to share links between the sites. It does seem like it might be useful to use Delirious as an alternate site for finding stuff I’m interested in. I’ve already found a few very cool sites by browsing through the tags. If you haven’t tried a social bookmarking site yet, I do highly recommend del.icio.us. Check out John Udell’s screencast to learn more about what it is and how to use it. Also, Beelerspace offers a nice tutorial for Del.icio.us beginners.

• Alright, Windows users. I know you’re tired of Mac fanatics, but this article by Mary Stamper on her conversion to the Mac world is one of the most lucid, cogent, and accurate pieces I’ve ever read on just what’s wrong with Windows and what’s right with the Mac.

• I’ve just discovered MyBlogLog.com, and I love it. For those of you with blogs, MyBlogLog is an enhancement to the stats from your web host, in that it shows you which links your visitors are clicking on from your site. It’s dead easy to get started, too. Just sign up for an account, drop a line of java script in your blog template and start obsessively checking the MyBlogLog page.

• If you haven’t noticed yet, Google has added movie times and reviews to their search results. In the Google search field, just enter “movie:” and a movie title and zip code to find show times in your area. “Movie:” and a zip code will give you a complete list of movies and showtimes in the area. (via Slashdot)

• Speaking of Google, Gizoogle is good for a chuckle or two. Gizoogle (tag line: Fo all you beotches who wanna find shiznit) translates any site on the web into hip-hop. Word.

• And, speaking of Google and Word, the Google Tutor and Advisor tutors and advises us on just what the heck Google Print is anyway.

• Oh, what the heck. Let’s just make this a whole Google subsection. Google’s mail service, Gmail (ask me for an invite!), just upgraded its free storage space to 2 Gigs. They also seem to imply that, as you need it, you’ll be able to have as much more storage as you like. I wouldn’t have thought this necessary for any normal humans, but one of my co-workers who apparently never throws an email away has over 9G of archived email. Imagine if it was all instantly searchable! Anyway, for those of you who’ve been hesitating, check Grant McCracken’s blog post about his conversion to Gmail. He’s hooked, and so am I!

• Web-based, sharable lists, from the makers of Basecamp.

• Via BoingBoing, we found this link to an interview with Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm Computing. I had no idea Hawkins also studied brain theory. His new company and his thoughts on computing are very stimulating.

• Via Slashdot, here’s an interview with Mac developer Jonathan Rentzsch. 90% of it is over my head, but I still loved reading it for the insight on the coding world and the dev’s perspective on the Mac OS. Lots of good stuff here.

• Wikimedia’s new venture, WikiCities, hosts community wikis for hobbyists, professionals, organizations, and more.

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...the only way to be sure that you have killed a kernel rootkit is to completely erase an infected hard drive and reinstall the operating system from scratch.

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I live without Microsoft Office for example, and I don’t miss Outlook for a minute. Instead, Neo Office, Aquamind’s Notetaker, and Apple’s built-in productivity tools take up the slack.

I’ve had to learn some new ways of doing things on the Mac—like using the Apple key instead of Ctrl, and understanding that closing a window doesn’t exit the program—but I’ve found that the Mac way actually makes more sense.

The only reasons I still have a PC are that a) there’s no cross-platform upgrade price for programs like Photoshop and Dreamweaver; and b) some websites, like the one my wife needs to use for her real estate business, absolutely refuse to work properly in any browser available for the Mac.

Still, I spend 90% of my time on my Powerbook, and I love it. The biggest benefit for me of the Mac over the PC is that I spend more time actually using my computer, and far less time fixing things. Wouldn’t you be willing to trade your need for an ultralight laptop or your addiction to Napster for more time to use and enjoy your computer?

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Well, other matters take precedence right now, but I did want to extend Gmail invitations to anyone who wants one. I’m showing 50—yes, 50!—invites available, so just send an email to stumaxis@gmail.com if you want in on the Gmaily goodness.

Love your bodies!

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[sigh] Back to work…

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Wicked cool way to browse the news. It’s beyond me to try to explain just now. Check it out.

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Michael B., I think that it will be a while before the mainstream press truly understands what’s going on in a way that they can write coherently about it. It’s one thing to notice that technology is creating a revolution. It’s another thing entirely to really embrace it, understand it, and use it to the fullest. Just in the last few weeks, my understanding of how to use technology has shifted dramatically. RSS, Gmail, Flickr, del.icio.us, and desktop Wikis have all caused me to rethink my options for collecting and managing information. I’ve said for years that we’re still in the dark ages when it comes to computers. I think we’re a long way from living in a mature world of computer and network technology, much less really understanding it. I’m not sure many people really can see where this is going.

For instance, I’m working on a new project. I’m attempting to create a new kind of online history book. I’m developing a wiki where the narrative and encyclopedic entries about characters and events will be developed simultaneously. I’m doing this on my own right now, but will soon open it up for others to contribute, much as Wikipedia has been built by the efforts of a large community. As I develop this project, I realize that there’s really no limit to what can be included in or linked to from this wiki. My long-term goal would be to have original source material for every aspect of the period I’m studying available online – a one-stop-shop, if you will, for people interested in this historical event.

Now, I’m not way out there on this. Others (like Michael Brooke, it seems) are working on similar “deep resource” projects. How will this impact culture? We’re going to move from the idea that knowledge is something filtered and parsed by individuals to something that is created and managed by the group. I think this core idea has always been true, yet the methods we’ve had to deliver content – books, radio, television, and so on – have mostly been filtered through the narrow perspective of one person or one organization. It hasn’t been practical in the past to develop and disseminate group-think. Once a book is printed, that’s it until the next edition, if there is one. Any mistakes remain; ideas aren’t reconsidered in the light of new evidence. Moreover, sources remain unavailable to the media consumer in many cases, so independent evaluation of an author’s conclusions are impossible.

However, group-reviewed, dynamically updatable resources are available now, the tools to create these are starting to mature, and more of these resources will come online when people start to see how powerful and useful they are. Libraries are starting to digitize content like Shakespeare’s quartos and Lewis Carroll’s scrapbook. The balance of power in cultural filtering is shifting. It’s as if gold went from being something only prospectors could locate in far-off locations to something anyone could create with their own personal alchemy machine.

(I’m also seeing a shift in the way we perceive top-down hierarchies in general. In business, for example, there are some who suggest that the wisdom of the group is more valuable and “right” in many cases than the wisdom of the manager or the CEO.)

Culture will change – back, perhaps – from something you consume to something you participate in. I’ve already seen a couple of wikis that attempt to facilitate group-created stories. More will follow.

Technologically speaking, we are in the midst of a mini-revolution in which computers move from being separate machines with discreet installations of data and programs (analogs of our personal experience) to “network appliances” connecting us to a world where applications data, and experience reside on the network and are easily shared. Everything will interconnect, and we will develop tools (like RSS readers) to help us manage the torrent of information. Experiences, expertise, and ideas will be shared freely.

Raymond: What can digital do? It can make all this possible. People won’t simply consume. Portability and interconnectivity will open humans up to a level of collaboration that was previously impossible. Wikis and social bookmark sites like del.icio.us are the tip of the iceberg. This isn’t a subtle shift. Once people start to grasp what’s possible in an interconnected world, the sky’s the limit. It’s no small thing, for instance, to consider digitizing the Library of Congress so that the information contained therein is available instantly and everywhere.

Perhaps I wax rhapsodic. I tend to believe that people will use new tools in the best, most culturally enhancing way possible. It’s just as likely, I suppose, that people won’t. However, I am optimistic that once the infrastructure and tools are built, creative people will be called upon to use them. Culture will grow, as it always has, in the proper medium and conditions, and I like to imagine that this new medium is fertile indeed.

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It’s a fine argument, but I must say that if Windows users don’t care about their neighborhood, they also act like cheap whores. I’ve used a fair number of different operating systems in my day, and I currently have a Mac PowerBook, a Windows XP box, and a couple of Linux boxes. My XP box is on 24 hours a day, and – knock on wood – I have had to deal with viruses exceedingly rarely, perhaps once per year or less. I have had to remove spyware on occasion, but for the most part my machine has remained clean. I don’t even run anti-virus software (mostly because Norton completely sucks, but I digress…) though I do have a ZoneAlarm firewall installed. Mostly, though, my defense is to be exceedingly careful about what software I install and what email I open.

One of the major problems in the Windows world is the appalling lack of sophistication among the users, and the even more appalling necessity that Windows demands they be sophisticated to use all the whiz-bang software Redmond keeps saying is good for us. (And if you can parse that sentence without getting a headache, you get a cookie.) Mac shows us that it’s possible to make an operating system that doesn’t take a genius to understand and use while providing excellent security. To keep Windows working properly, however, requires years of experience with its quirks and tendencies, and a tenacious attention to maintenance. Most users assume that they can’t break their computer, and that software should “just work.” Unfortunately for them, they’re only right if they’re working on a Mac.

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