As promised the other day, here are a couple of tech-related excerpts from the most recent edition of my RanchoCast podcast.
My take on Google Office.
My take on Nerd Camps & Dave Winer’s new Memeorandum plan.
There’s more tech talk and lots of good music on the full podcast.
I did a new podcast tonight.
The theme is the Young Bromberg Show. I played some great songs by Jesse Colin Young, the Youngbloods, David Bromberg, the Pixies, Dave Gleason and others.
I also talked about Google’s office application initiative, why all nerd camps are not created equal and my new Sprint mobile phone.
57 minutes of country rock, classic rock, tech and blues.
I named this post like an Isely Brothers song. I don’t know why I noticed and feel compelled to point that out, but there you go.
My original love of computers back in the 80’s arose via gaming. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent swapping out big floppies while playing Starflight. The first one is always special, and this still may be my favorite game of all time.
Now I love my computer because it makes me more efficient. At working, writing, communicating. There are so many things the computer helps me do better and faster.
Here is the first half of the 10 applications that help me the most.
1) Nero
Between my backup needs, my songwriting needs and my desire to take stuff with me when I go places, I use CD and DVD burning software all the time. Many years ago, I dumped that often pre-installed bloatware Easy CD Creator and started using Nero Burning Rom. Even Nero has gotten a little bloaty by adding in a bunch of ancillary stuff no one ever uses, but Nero is still the best at doing what counts. Burning CDs and DVDs.
I have been way into music since the late 60’s. I have over 26,000 songs (all legal; none shared) on my music server. I have tried every music library manager and player in the book. Winamp (killed by AOL), MusicMatch (killed by Yahoo), Windows Media Player (actually not a bad choice), jetAudio, Real Player (bloatware) and teens of others.
And the best one by far is J. River’s Media Center. It’s the best for large libraries, and for network use, and for playing. I love this program and cannot understand why it doesn’t get more run in the music space.
3) ACDSee
I love digital photography, and as a result I have a ton of digital photos. And the best photo organization and management program I have found is ACD System’s ACDSee. The batch renaming works great, and its lossless rotating is great. I like Paint Shop Pro (in the process of being ruined by Corel) better for pure editing, but for one stop shopping, ACDSee is the answer.
4) UltraMon
The only power users who don’t use two monitors on their computers are the ones who have never tried it. Nothing else, and I mean nothing, has ever increased my productivity as much as a second monitor. And UltraMon makes it even better. It allows you to move windows and maximize windows across the desktop, manage more applications with a second taskbar, use different wallpapers and screen savers and much more.
If you have multiple monitors, it’s a must have.
5) PaperPort
I went to a paperless document filing system for my personal statements and data years ago. I tried all kinds of scanning programs, but the one I settled on back then and the one I still use every day is PaperPort.
It makes scanning and filing a breeze. Combine it with a scanner with an automatic document feeder and the scanning job becomes much easier. It lets you easily scan 2 sided statements and is very reliable.
These are some of my most valued applications. Tell me about yours in the Comments.
Stay tuned for Part 2 in the next day or two.
This is part twenty-one of my A-Z review of Scoble‘s feeds.
Very few U’s, but I found a good one:
Unmediated (RSS Feed)
Unmediated is a very well written tech-oriented blog that focuses on citizen media.
Honorable Mention:
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (RSS Feed) (would have won easily if I’d used an Apple since the 80’s)
Dave and Scoble have been chatting up a storm about all of the things wrong with Memeorandum.
In last week’s episode Scoble takes a hiatus and Dave says stupid newbies have ruined the Memeorandum club.
Now Dave says he has figured out how to save Memeorandum. He wants to get rid of the left column, where all the topics and discussion clusters are located, and make the right column, where the new primary story links are, the focus. He wants the new links to flow by like a river. Like a river, hmmm.
Then he says a couple of things that I find interesting and contradictory. The first:
Today I want my meme-tracker to get less discriminating. I don’t want to only see the stories that most people are interested in, I want interesting stories. More offbeat stuff. And I want much more than what I’m getting.
Immediately followed by:
I want the right column to move into the middle, and get rid of what’s in the left column. Once a day is enough to know what the top stories are. That’s why newspapers evolved that way because when you get a newspaper everything in it is new.
Here’s the problem with that. The right column that Dave likes only shows the primary story links, and none of the discussion links. The alternate viewpoints and offbeat stuff show up in the discussion links.
Under Dave’s plan, you’d have to make a choice from two bad options. Maybe you take away the discussion links and you have nothing more than a rotating list of links to the same stories that currently appear in the right column- like an automated Delicious links list. That would certainly look more like a river. A boring river that has no fish in it or boats floating by. Just some links you can click on as they scroll by.
What it would also do, of course, is get rid of those pesky newbies who show up first in the discussion links.
Or perhaps all of those discussion links go into the river too and we have one huge list of links flowing by in a random and chaotic fashion. I would never read such a page, but maybe others would dig(g) it.
What makes Memeorandum work is the very thing Dave and Scoble want to get rid of- the clustered, conversational organization that allows you to find and follow many perspectives at a central, intelligently filtered location. If there are a hundred links about Origami, that’s because a ton of people are talking about it.
So what’s really going on here?
First off, I see very little of all the flaming Dave keeps talking about. I’m starting to think flaming might be a secret word for the rising voices of the unwashed masses who don’t know enough to sit back and let the gurus run the show.
There seems to be a hidden conversation inside of the conversation. Manifest and latent. Like a dream. A dream of the good old days before the newbies started showing up.
Note to Gabe. If you want to destroy Memeorandum quickly and irreparably, Dave gives you the roadmap:
Flatten it out, get less picky, turn the ladder into a river, and I bet some of the magic comes back. I’m not sure it’s right, but the only way to find out is to try it.
I defended Scoble when he got flamed. I defended Dave when he says people are mean to him because he is a celebrity (his word, but I don’t quarrel with it).
But I’m starting to think a lot of this is because the voices that used to have the microphone all to themselves don’t like sharing it with the rest of us.
Rick Mahn has an interesting post on the whole Google Office thing we’ve been talking about.
I think he’s spot on that there will be a market for Google’s office productivity applications based on cost alone. It’s hard to beat free, and if I weren’t in a profession largely based on pushing paper, I’d certainly consider using a cheaper office suite. I haven’t used Writely, but Steve Rubel likes it, so it must be a good product.
But there are a couple of other issues lurking out there.
First of all, I don’t think it’s as much of a cost thing as it is a browser based online thing. If you only want close to free, there’s StarOffice. If you want totally free, there’s OpenOffice.
If you want online, there’s Google now. More players are on the horizon.
Sure, there is a slight movement towards online web applications, lead by email, online music services and, most importantly, online banking. I say most importantly because the banking industry has spent millions and made progress convincing people that they can bank online without getting robbed blind.
But here’s the thing. Until corporate America decides that it can create and perhaps store all of its important and confidential documents online, online word processing and storage isn’t happening. Not in the business world.
Add to that the strict confidentiality requirements imposed on doctors, lawyers and bankers and the market continues to shrink.
So while Google will get some mindshare because it is Google, I don’t see many businesses moving all of their document management online. For security reasons. Because of inertia by risk aversion. And because they would have to retrain all of their people.
That’s not to say this won’t hurt Microsoft, because the home and educational user base is important to Microsoft. Should some computer maker start giving Google Office as a cheaper alternative to Office or Works, then Microsoft will feel a little pain. Remember the Dell deal to put Google bloatware on new Dells?
It may even be forced to scrap the faux Office Live and do a real one.
This deal is going nowhere as far as business users go. But it will sting Microsoft a little bit.
And maybe that was the point all along.
Deconstructing Dave
So Dave and Scoble (still on his Memeorandum hiatus) were talking. They agreed that the blogosphere has become as flammable as mailing lists and usenet newsgroups. I don’t really agree with that, but this isn’t a poll.
Dave says there are some topics that you can’t talk about without inciting a flame-war, and he does his best not to incite one by not mentioning what those topics are. At least not directly.
Then he says there aren’t many people doing the flaming, but that they control discourse because they control who gets to “speak at the conferences.”
Ah, conferences. Camps, mashups, gatherings, happening, Techcrunches. We’re back on the “my nerd camp is better than your nerd camp thing,” with an ironic twist of Gatekeeping thrown in for good measure.
I have some questions about these conferences that I hope someone will answer for me.
Maybe these Conferences are…Different
But let me digress just a little. I typically give between 15-20 speeches a year. Not in Mike Arrington‘s back yard- I’ll never make it on that invitation list. Rather, I speak at conferences, seminars and conventions about boring things like real estate development and the music business. These events are attended by people in the business, but not really because they are the place to be seen or because they are more fun than a party at Mike’s place.
The truth is that people attend them primarily to meet the continuing education requirements mandated by their licensing state. Sure, there’s a lot of networking at some of the big ones, but most of the time getting required continuing education hours is the focus.
Of course, this guarantees an audience as people who would prefer to be elsewhere have to get so many hours of continuing education a year.
I speak at these events not because I think they’re more fun than Disneyland, but because sometimes people hear me speak and then hire me to do their legal work. It’s marketing, plain and simple.
The Cost of Being Seen
Which brings me back to the conferences Dave is talking about. Since he is talking about flaming in the context of the blogosphere, I assume these conferences are related at least in some material way to blogging and the blogosphere.
Who goes to these things? Do they pay lots of money to attend? Is it like a geek Oscar party where it not the party but the being invited that counts? Are there actual customers in attendance or only vendors and journalist types? Who are the customers of a conference about blogging? Isn’t it a little like preaching to the choir?
How many people attend these things? Is there a big group of people who travel from one to the next like some sort of Grateful Geek nation? Are there Daveheads? Is Dave a bigger celebrity than Ken? If they played checkers, who would win?
Do the people who attend these conferences have jobs? Is going to these conferences a part of their job? Do their companies pay for them to go to these conferences? Can I get a gig like that?
OK, so a lot of that is tongue in cheek.
But I don’t get the turf wars that seem to be ongoing over these conferences, camps, mashups, whatever the unnecessary synonym of the day is. What is the turf that someone is trying to protect? And why?
And One More Thing
And here’s another thing, what kind of conference lets somebody flame someone else from the podium without giving the recipient a chance to respond? I’ve never been to nerd camp but I have logged hundreds of hours behind the podium and I have never once witnessed anything like that- and if you think the egos at nerd camp are bigger than the ones at law or music camp, think again.
In fact, I have seen sponsors make time for someone who wasn’t on the agenda to present an opposing view point. How can we triangulate from a single data point?
Unless these conference are more cage match than college, anyone who lets people stand up and trash someone else just because they don’t get along isn’t doing a very good job of running a conference.
I Know You Are, But What Am I?
I don’t understand about 80% of what Dave and Scoble were talking about that got distilled into Dave’s post, but I still agree with Dave that once the issue becomes one of personality instead of issues, the conversation has been irreparably tainted and it is time to find someone else to talk to.
I enjoy the conversational nature of the blogosphere, and I particularly enjoy hearing someone explain why I need to rethink my position about things. Otherwise it’s just one big echo chamber. But some people just can’t handle disagreement, and so anyone who disagrees must be stupid or evil. I just tune those folks out, which makes them even madder. Shake the scorpion a little and it will sting itself to death. And all that.
So Give Me the Goods
What am I missing about these conferences that gets everybody in a tither?
UPDATE: Christopher Carfi taught me most of what I have been able to gather about these conferences via this excellent post, which I came across just now. I still don’t really know what an unconference is. Is is like 7-Up?
It’s time for Round 11 in Newsome.Org’s Web 2.0 Wars. The contestants and rules are here.
This is the final heat of the first Round. The playoffs will be next.
Other Rounds:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20
Here are the contestants for Round 11:
Streamload
Ta-da Lists
Feedsky
JellyBarn
Nativetext
Congoo
Podzinger
RSS Mad
FeedTier
Phanfare
Wikipedia
Fruitcast
PubSub
Streamload is a place to store, orgianize and share audio and video files. It also provides a way to backup files and access them from any internet connected computer.
Ta-da Lists is a place to make and share to-do lists. I hope my wife never finds out about this site. There’s a free version and a more powerful one that’s part of the Backpack service.
Feedsky shows up in gibberish on my computer. It looks like it uses a font I don’t have or something.
JellyBarn is a photo sharing service. It’s still in invitation only beta.
Native Text translates RSS feeds and podcasts into foreign languages. The main page says the translations are done by humans. It’s not yet open to the public, so no RanchoCast in Russian.
Congoo says it is a premium content search engine. It looks like it will index subscription content. Neat idea if the publishers will go for it.
Podzinger is a podcast directory with a twist. Podcasts are transcribed and searchable by word. The transcription is not perfect, but it’s good enough to be very useful. I’ve used Podzinger for a while and really like it.
RSS Mad is an RSS feed archive and an online feed reader. Looks sort of interesting, but no Newsome.Org in the database.
FeedTier says it generates web feeds for web pages without existing syndication. This is a great idea and I’d use it all the time if it worked. I couldn’t get it to work, but I will certainly go back and try again.
Phanfare is a photo and video storage and sharing site. It allows you to make online photo and video albums. $6.95 a month after the free trial.
Wikipedia is a free, collaborative online encyclopedia. I use it and link to it all the time at Newsome.Org.
Fruitcast is a podcast advertising network. This is the first one of those I have seen and, sadly, ads in podcasts are probably inevitable.
PubSub is a content matching service that instantly notifies you when new content is created that matches your subscription.
Before Today I’d Heard of:
5 out of 13.
And the Winner of Round 11 is:
A very hard draw, as there were number of good contestants. I really dig Podzinger, but you just can’t not pick Wikipedia
Technorati Tags:
newsome.org web wars, web 2.0
Om Malik reports on rumors that Google is in talks to buy Writely, an online word processor. Acquisition of Writely would give Google another arrow in its quiver of applications aimed directly at Microsoft Office.
Om has a chart in his post that compares the prospective office productivity offerings of both Microsoft and Google. The only one that matters is the bottom row which is the price:
Microsoft $350-$499……Google Free.
I know Google has a ton of money. I know they have to find a way to justify the still lofty stock price. I know they are building internets, giving ad-serving computers to the economically disadvantaged, and tossing $90 million of chump change at a click-fraud lawsuit.
But what I really, really, really want to know is how Google intends to make money off of this stuff.
Because I’ll tell you what. If the only revenue stream they can come up with is selling more ads, there’s a world of hurt waiting out there somewhere. The online ad game is cyclical, fickle and cannot support the billions of dollars of capital investments that Google is making.
The whole free web application business is becoming a dangerous house of cards based on a faulty premise- the continued flow of online ad sales.
So I’d like to know exactly how Google expects to make money off of this stuff. That’s all that matters.
Traffic without revenue is meaningless.
Jim McGee talks about triangulation and the citizen media movement represented by the blogosphere.
I have always tended to believe the consistencies that arise among competing forces, particularly when those forces are non-cooperative with each other and have non-parallel goals. Jim talks about how a wide and diverse collection of viewpoints can help you navigate through the often noisy and conflicting blogosphere.
Jim’s post is thought provoking, and the article he wrote for the Enterprise Systems Journal (linked in his post) is as well.
Newsome.Org 