I had a big presentation recently and I was quite apprehensive about it. I've probably done a lot of presentations during the course of my career, and more if you count the ones I conducted as a student politician in my university days, but each presentation never fails to give me the jitters.
It's even more difficult when the material you're presenting is not exactly yours...
This apprehension was quite evident to my circle of buddies and they were kind enough to offer tips. I can't say what worked because you never truly know how successful you are at achieving the goals of the presentation until much later, but listed below are some tips from friends and my personal observations:
1. If faced with a tense situation, don't flinch. The audience can smell fear, and it'll just lead to a feeding frenzy.
2. Assess the audience vs the material and predict the kind of questions they'll ask or issues that may surface because of the material.
3. Have a backup plan. Most presentations are done by a team, even if there is only one presenter. Kau tim with your team mates and your superior so that you can do a tag-team on the Q&A.
4. Know your material. This is stating the obvious, but some presenters take the gift of the gab for granted and end up lacking the in-depth knowledge to say things with conviction, let alone back it up with points that are not on the screen.
5. Do not read the text on the slides. In some cases, it's possible to keep the slides to concise and brief points. This keeps the audience's attention on the presenter. However, in some cases, it may be necessary to be a bit more verbose. In this sense, an assessment of the type of audience will tell you which method is better. But of course, if the presenter has a short attention span, reading the text off the slides may be the only option... ;-)
6. Take some time to indulge in witty banter with your audience. Getting to know them allows you to calm yourself down, and the presentation becomes a mere extension of your conversation.
That's the gist of it. As you can see, it's not exactly 'winging it' - there is considerable effort required in doing a presentation (something YOU TECHIES always belittle.. =P).
Feel free to dispute, comment or suggest other tips.
Over the weekend, I added a new gadget to my list. I sold off my Clie NR70 to a good friend, and have been patiently waiting on a good deal (and thinking whether I could live without a PDA).
Technically, I can live without one, but I often wondered whether the 45 minute ride on the LRT would have been more bearable if I had one. I missed being up to date on news available through AvantGo. I missed being able to reach for something and scribble down a thought or to-do.
The Clie served its purpose, but I made the mistake of forsaking a rule in engineering - minimise on moving parts. It may have been the accident (the very rare times I actually dropped the Clie), but the swivel screen design, while novel at the time of purchase, became an eyesore as I began to notice the way the two 'wings' didn't exactly align when opened. Either way, I came to the conclusion that the Clie was too functional for a user like me - it had a camera and an MP3 player I no longer used.
So I let it go for a STEAL (yes Ifwan, I consider the price I gave you a steal) and I'm happy to know that it has found an owner who knows how to appreciate it.
The deliberation for a new PDA began as soon as the deal with Ifwan was struck and I was torn between the HP iPAQ 1940, a simpler Clie or a Tungsten. Nevermind the last two, as soon as I touched the 1940, I realised that this was it. Its sleek design reminded me so much of my first PDA, the Palm Vx. Plus I've always been a Pocket PC person - my only gripe with the Compaq iPAQ 3650 was that it had a horrendously short battery life.
So I'm back to Pocket PC, I have a light-weight HP iPAQ 1940 and have configured it to work with my Sony Ericsson T610 (via bluetooth) and my Acer Travelmate 800 (that BEEEG notebook you guys saw here).
Enough gadgets for now. My handbag is luckily big enough for the phone, the PDA and the camera on loan. Plus my wallet and all the other stuff girls have to lug around. My only complaint is all those cables that I have all over my desk. Maybe it's about time I look out for a wireless mouse, headphones, USB sync and power cable... ;-)
[Low Yatt here I come!]
Addendum: Another girl with a gadget obsession (turn on your trackback woman!!!)
And some may yet take the bait.
I got an email this morning in my Yahoo! account from 'Citicorp'. I've heard about emails where they masquerade as valid businesses, give you a link to click to which leads to a site that looks legitimate. This one is impeccable. The logos, branding, language and layout could fool any Citibank customer.
[Click on image to view full site image.]
Under the pretenses of security and housekeeping, the email, entitled "Important Information from Citibank Billing Department", asks you to go to a site to verify your account details. The site itself has a form that asks for your ATM/Debit Card number (CIN) and PIN number. It's even got real error-handling - it checks that your input for the debit card number is at least 14 digits long. After signing on, it leads you to a page that asks you for your credit card details, like expiry date and your card verification number.
Most of us rational thinking people may not fall for this scam. We would definitely wonder how the bank got hold of our Yahoo! email address, or why they would choose to do business with us via this method. We would question why a bank needs us to verify information that they should know better, because all the information requested by the email/site is required for us to do any transaction with the bank.
But like those Nigerian scams, someone will fall for this. Maybe even someone who transacted at a merchant I frequent. And the bank, being rightly paranoid, will probably end up blocking the whole range of card numbers, including mine, once they find out that security has been compromised. Sigh... here we go again!
Related Article: Virus Writers Getting Greedy
Being in a large city like Kuala Lumpur, one is seldom alone. Every waking moment of your life is surrounded by people. There were times when I stayed in the office till 10pm hoping for a moment's peace in preparation for a big task, and to my disappointment, even in the steel cage that is the Twin Towers, my solitude was interrupted - by security guards.
So we have to accept that to live in this city, we must accept that we can never be truly alone. Most city-dwellers (de-)evolve by building a wall around them - the 'I don't see you and you don't see me' look. This sheer, non-existent wall is all we can hope to have, we pretend that it's there so that we fulfill our need for privacy. Whether it works or not, is a totally different question.
KL-ites are often irked by the rudeness of people who don't realise that there are others whose feelings they have to take care of. Ringing phones in movie theatres, loud conversations in seminars, and private gossip sessions on the LRT are all part of living in KL. Admittedly, some people have more manners than others, but can we blame those who are impervious to our discomforts? After all, being a polite person is stressful too...
So what happens if we keep our manners, manage our stress, learn to tune out our thoughts so we don't hear about whose friend went out with which Datuk in the LRT or at a cafe. Does that mean that we are entitled to our own private space?
It seems not. Even social recluses who find solace in the electronic world can't stay private. We all know about the power of cookies, the irritatingly long memory of search engines (I have a friend who can't seem to erase her past on Google), and other trails left all over the place, like Instant Messaging archives, online purchasing history, comments in chat groups, old blogs!!!
So maybe we think that private things should stay off the Internet. Communicate by phone... well, we now know that it's not safe either. Technically, telcos can already track a subsciber's proximity, lucky for us that this is not so prevalent in Malaysia. I read this article today that talks about a new encryption mobile phone. Retailing at USD$2270 times 2 (because you need both phones to have an encrypted conversation), it's the best bet you have to have a truly private conversation, given how 'easy' it has become to snoop on other people's mobile phone conversation.
"Interception of GSM calls is illegal in most, if not all, nations, but equipment to sniff and decode phone calls is readily available. GSM spy gear claims to "auto detect," decode and record conversations and "target specific numbers or randomly screen GSM mobile communication." The GSM standard itself includes a limited form of encryption, but Israeli researchers recently discovered a basic flaw in it. "
And we thought we're the only ones who suka jaga tepi kain orang...
p.s. The next time you see someone irritating you with bad behaviour, don't just sit there, do them a favour and discretely tell them that they are being rude. After all, you can't be pissed off with something you didn't do anything about...
Molly is on Panther! Even without the memory upgrade, startup is noticeably faster. Loading applications and toggling the dock is not as sluggish on my memory-challenged machine, confirming that Panther is a much more efficient and lighter OS.
My favourite feature so far is 'Expose'. It allows you to unclutter your desktop at the touch of a button, something Windows is still struggling with. One key fits all active windows into one screen, allowing you to see what you're working on and choose which screen to go to. Another key darkens the background, highlighting which window is active. Nothing high-tech, but definitely useful.
For shared machines, Panther allows you to suspend your session and switch users. When this happens, the display turns into a cube and rotates itself. Cute!
I haven't had a chance to fully explore Panther. Molly's memory upgrade is postponed for a wee bit longer, but even without this, I can see how Panther is a seriously cool upgrade!
More: Panther Review here.
It's time to break the news. I have a Mac!
Happy Happy Joy Joy!
I've had it for 2 weeks now. It's a 2nd hand iBook, a cute little 12" piece of laptop art, with 384MB of RAM, running on a 500Mhz PowerPC G3 processor and just enough hard disk space. It's running Mac OS X, with all the MS Office suite, Adobe software and other must-haves (iTunes, Safari etc).
They say Macs are idiot-proof. Meet the ultra-idiot. I managed to crash this machine twice. The good thing is that when a Mac chooses to crash, it just freezes. No funny hex code error messages, no english-sounding goobledygook. It just freezes. And all I had to do was press the power button long enough to shut it down. Restart, and it works like a charm (if I'm doing this wrong, someone please tell me now!).
I haven't had the chance to fully test this machine. There's still a couple of things I need to fix - like the loose power connector and additional RAM requirement. The machine currently takes a while to start up, but once it's up and running, I have no complaints.
There are two modes of display on my iBook - thousands of colours and millions of colours. At first glance at the former setting, I was already hooked. Then I saw what my plain old website looks like in millions of colours. Wow!
I ran Safari and IExplorer side by side. I also ran Safari against the IE on my office notebook. Yes, there is an obvious difference in how both browsers load pages. Safari is by far a faster and more elegant way to surf the Internet.
I've been playing my songs while I surf - no additional speakers required. The sound that comes out of little 'Molly' (temporary name given by Meesh until I decide to keep it) needs no retuning and no reinforcements.
Molly has built-in wireless that takes no effort to configure. One other Mac feature that impressed me was how simple system preference options were, and how well the OS protects your installation (any modifications can be password protected).
As for the perceived hassles of switching between the two environments on a daily basis? I know heaps of people who toggle between Windows and Linux everyday. Windows and Mac is much easier to manage - all I have to remember is to press that little 'apple' key instead of 'Ctrl' for my shortcuts.
p.s. As with all things this beautiful (I can't stress the word enough!), we must learn to take care of it properly. I've enlisted the help of Mac Master, Hadiee, to teach me the ins and outs of Molly. =)
p.p.s. Selamat Berpuasa Everyone. And to the non-Muslims, enjoy the empty food courts while it lasts! ;)
Take your left hand, pull it back around your head, wrap it around to your right side and touch your nose.
That's how the Malaysian internet infrastructure works. Roughly.
Dinesh posted on this recently. That traceroute does look da** familiar.
A while back, we looked at how to make certain local corporate online services more 'efficient'. Short of butchering the code of some pre-built portal products, other choices that needed to be made seemed logical - sourcing the best internet service provider. We asked around other large companies and found that the ones with the best response times hosted their sites in Hong Kong, the US, basically anywhere else but Malaysia.
The answer was unacceptable and test after test was conducted. The most disappointing moment was on a Tuesday morning, a little before lunch time, we dialled into TMNet to access our dummy site in Jaring and we got a 404 error. A traceroute yielded something like what Dinesh has on his site, only that the packet was dropped somewhere in LA while trying to get from a direct dial-up connection in Brickfields to a site only a couple of physical kilometers away.
Funny how we consistently got through using our lame free TimeNet account - 9 hops, via Singapore and back into Malaysia.
Yes, some things don't make sense...
Related: Dinesh on Jaring CEO Response
A long time ago, we were lamenting on issues to do with how people are at times too slow to adapt to changes, and the destructive behaviours they engage in as a response to uncertainty and the perceived impending doom to follow an unwelcomed change.
A brilliant colleague of mine pointed us to the theory of cognitive dissonance. As usual, I dragged my feet with regards to what he meant by it, until it hit me in the face - a day of case study behaviours lead me to Google it.
Aesop tells a story about a fox that tried in vain to reach a cluster of grapes that dangled from a vine above his head. The fox leapt high to grasp the grapes, but the delicious-looking fruit remained just out of reach of his snapping jaws. After a few attempts the fox gave up and said to himself, ‘‘These grapes are sour, and if I had some I would not eat them."
To read more, click here. The article covers:
Dissonance: Discord Between Behavior and Belief
Three Hypotheses: Ways to Reduce Dissonance Between
Hypothesis 1: Selective Exposure Prevents Dissonance Attitudes and Actions
Hypothesis 2: Postdecision Dissonance Creates A Need for Reassurance
Hypothesis 3: Minimal Justification for Action Induces a Shift in Attitude
Will it help me deal with 'bang-my-head-against-the-wall' situations in the future? Maybe not. But at least the next time I'm confronted with such a situation, I can keep on chanting this mantra: "This will be good material for my thesis one day..."
Footnote:
Change Management Resource Library
A colleague of mine told me that Streamyx's authentication server behaves in funny ways. During one downtime period, he tried logging in with his ID and used a mock password (he used bulls***) and managed to get through. This strategy, if true, is great for availability (as users wouldn't know if the authentication server was down), but terrible for security. On another occassion, someone who claimed to be from TMNet called his house and asked for his password. He dodged the question a couple of times and finally told him that it was set to default. He changed the password shortly after. A third instance of dubious security practices is when his password expired and he called the helpdesk to reset it. The helpdesk staff asked him what password he wanted, saying that it is more convenient for him to tell then, rather than go to the designated website to set it himself.
I wonder if this is TMNet's standard practice. Technicians and engineers should know better than to ask someone what their password is. Password retrieval should be an automated task between the customer and a system, especially in this case where the customer is actually paying for access.
Related links:
1. Sample Corporate Basic Password Policy
2. What is Social Engineering and how it relates to Computer System Security
3. Of Digital Identities
Thanks Haza for the link.
"As it happens, the bloggers already function as a kind of kitchen cabinet for Google's relevancy ranking algorithm. Google measures relevancy by determining how many other pages link to a given page -- the more people point to your "Remington Steele" tribute site, the more likely it is that Google will recommend it to someone searching for info on '80s detective shows or Pierce Brosnan or Henry Mancini theme songs. Those pointers are themselves ranked by Google: If a lot of highly linked-to pages link to your page, you'll rise even higher in the rankings.You'd be hard-pressed to design a system that gave the blogging community a greater impact on Google's results. Because bloggers by definition link far more than your average Web page, and because they also tend to link to each other's sites (most blogs feature a now standard list of comrades in their margins), a page that attracts the attention of a few bloggers will quickly shoot up the Google rankings. Do a search on Larry Lessig's book "The Future of Ideas" -- a hit with the blogging community -- and a review from a blog called Sopsy Digest shows up 15 notches higher than an article from Business Week. (Or at least it did the last time I checked; Google rankings are hardly set in stone.)
This is the Blogger Effect. It's what happens when the arbiters of relevance in the "attention economy" shift toward a bottom-up structure."
I have recently started looking at blogging in a more commercial application. Previously, I started discovering through my own experiences what others who have blogged realised: that this is a powerful (and democratic) tool for the propagation of ideas.
I know of at least 2 others who are looking at implementing this technology trend as a marketing vehicle. Those who are familiar with knowledge management in the enterprise will also start seeing the power of how blogging in enabling a 'different' level of interaction and hence, churning out more meaningful content and better content organisation.
What we are seeing is the evolution of a technology that thrived because of the masses (personal bloggers), developed and tested in a scale that is staggering, and adopted by the corporate world - similar to how some of the key concepts and technologies behind e-commerce was spawned out of the pornography industry.
I found an egroup that discusses k-logs and its various applications. The group is "dedicated to the discussion of Weblogs for Knowledge Management and collaborative groupware within corporations and non-profit organizations."
Related Links:
1. A critical commentary of Blogging and the eCommunication Paradigm
2. A Shared Space for Discussion on Blog-related Research
3. Links and Power: The Political Economy of Linking on the Web
4. For Blogging Fanatics Only
This is an open call for BETA testers for Project Petaling Street version 1.5.
Project Petaling Street (PPS) is a blog-tal that seeks to aggregate Malaysian content into a single space. Learn more about PPS by visiting the About PPS Wiki. Currently, PPS aggregates content from a limited number of Malaysian bloggers; we started with the core team submitting their content and that is what you see on PPS today.
This will change very soon. In line with the vision and objectives of PPS, it will begin accepting content from across the Malaysian blogosphere. The development team has been working hard to make this happen since the launch on 12 June 2003, and now we are ready to test the system. For the test to proceed, we will need a team of 20-30 BETA testers who will be willing to devote some time and effort into making it happen. All BETA testers will receive public credit for their contribution when the next version is launched sometime in mid-July.
We are looking for a cross-section of Malaysian bloggers (or non-Malaysians living in Malaysia are also invited to apply) to make up this team. When you email us your application to be a BETA tester, please include the following information:
Full name (real name please, no pseudonyms)Email address
Your blog name
Your blog URL
Age
Gender
Location (you can be a Malaysian living overseas, no problems)
What type of blogging tool you use? e.g. Movabletype, Blogger, LiveJournal
In a word or two, who would you describe the majority of the content of your blog e.g. current/affairs news, personal journal, technology
Approximately how long have you been blogging i.e. we want a cross section of new and long-time bloggers - the new version has some technical aspects that we want to make sure everyone of all levels of blogging experience and technical capability will be able to use.
All appllications should be written to beta@aizuddindanian.com. The closing date for applications is 26 June 2003. Successful applicants will be informed 28 June 2003. BETA testing will commence 30 June 2003 and last for 7-14 days, depending on how long it takes to iron out all the bugs.
Thank you in advance for your applications and support for Project Petaling Street. We expect a large number of submissions for this test. Please understand that we won't be able to accomodate everyone for this round of testing and we sincerely apologize for any possible disappointment that may result from an unsuccessful application.
For further information related to PPS, join the Kota Raya egroup .
Fische pointed me to this news piece on Microsoft and how it's handling blogging employees. It's encouraging to see that the company has not clamped down on these sites. Of course, there line has to be drawn somewhere and employees who blog find themselves have to be very careful with the things they say.
"Noted Microsoft employee Scoble in his blog recently: "I think executives who weblog (particularly at Microsoft) are between a rock and a hard place. If they say anything interesting, they'll immediately get picked up in the press and their comments will probably be taken out of context."If they give away strategy or product plans, they will help out competitors. If they talk about competitors, they'll be welcoming lawsuits. If they give people insights into what the business is doing, they could be hit with shareholder lawsuits, or other governmental actions," Scoble acknowledges."
Related articles:
1. Microsoft: Bullish on blogging?
2. The Day Blogging Went 'Legit'
3. Post Modern Knowledge Management and Social Enterprise Blogging
4. Blogging and Lurking: eBusiness and the Enterprise
5. "There will always be a need for automatic ways to propagate awareness within and among corporate teams. With "k-logging" (knowledge logging) -- the enterprise flavor of blogging -- knowledge that is not explicitly shared can nevertheless be found and made available."
We've been deliberating back and forth on what constitutes a blog, and the odd debate keeps on popping up. Not wanting to dwell too much on the past, I'd like to pose some questions to you people.
Random Questions on Blogging:
1. Will blogging and its associated tools be an effective medium (or the killer app) to bridge the digital divide and contribute towards better social inclusion? (credit: Haza) ()
2. Will the blogging culture evolve into a new form of journalism and expressive art? ()
3. Will blogging contribute significantly to the evolution of knowledge management as a whole? ()
4. Is blogging seen as subversive? ()
5. Do you think bloggers are exhibitionists at heart? (credit: ZAB) ()
6. Do blogs make the internet a more interesting place? ()
7. Will blogs die? And if you have any idea what it will be replaced by, please comment. ()
8. If you are a blogger, has your 'quality of life' increased in any way since you started? ()
9. Has blogging helped to develop you as a person? ()
10. Does blogging have an adverse affect on your offline life? ()
In case you missed the PM survey, click here.
(ed.:It's raining, it's pouring and I feel like snoring. That damn Blue Bar CD is fast becoming my daily anthem. Martine Gerault has a way of teleporting me from the square cubicles of Tower 1 to a 'smoke-filled room with an amber glow'. Beeeg 10Q to Fische.)
I started typing this as a response to T-boy's objection to my use of the term 'blogosphere', but since it extended to 2 paragraphs, I decided to make it into a post (hey! It's my blog!).
T-Boy wrote:
"I don't use the word ‘blogosphere’. It sounds pretentious — not as bad as including and excluding people from the “Real Blogging Community”, but still. Hell, is there such a thing as a ‘blogging community’? It all just rubs me the wrong way."
T-boy, I have no intention of excluding anyone by using the term. I personally believe that the distinction has to be made between internet content of the previous era and those produced via blogging technology i.e. microcontent.
This is mainly due to the implications of such content. Previously, where internet content were churned out by 'gatekeepers' - marketing ppl, tech-savvy individuals, traditional news organisations, the rules of the game was not that far off from print media. Now that the technology has made it easier for the lay-person to publish, content has become more diverse, and in some cases, less reliable.
Rather than putting your trust (or what's left of it) into the organisation that produced the content, more and more of us are starting to rely on information from individuals. Yes, free speech is great, but the danger comes when the less sceptical of us put too much weight into content from blogs, rather than traditional or more 'official' media sources. In essence, blogs now have the power to provide validation to what used to be heresay.
Blogs also differ from the usual website in that it places some reference to a piece of information. e.g. this site is affiliate to another site because of my relationship to that person via this organisation which also produces this piece of space which has contributions from someone I know who helped out with this. All this will help create an Internet that is more relational and semantic.
I could list all the factors that makes blogs different from the usual website, but suffice to say that it's enough to necessitate a different search category in Google, because when I search for "How to Deploy Linux in an Enterprise", I personally would like to differentiate between personal content (typical of sites in the blogosphere) and corporate whitepapers.
Having said that, I am not contradicting myself in my belief that the lines WILL be blurred as the other side start moving towards blog-style content creation. However, the ultimate distinction between the old internet and the 'blogosphere' (with both as subsets of that space we know as the Internet), for as long as the distinction can be made, should be the rules which we publish by.
More info on blogs as a phase in the evolution of the internet:
1. Deep Thinking about Weblogs
2. Blogs as Disruptive Technology
3. Portals, Blogs and RSS: Why They Are Your Future
Hmmm... my short study of identity management has a dotted line to idenes, which has a dotted line to memes, by virtue of this book. I also started blogging, which is now pointing me back towards memes and on to identities. Hmmm...
Have-to-put-in Links:
The Liberty Alliance (identity management standards and application in tomorrow's Internet)
Got this link from Fische. Check it out. Do you want one too? ()
Why I would Sony: Because I've already got this and this. Which means I can reuse my Memory Stick. Other than that, no real compelling reason. If I want to stick to the PC world, I think this would be a better choice.
Why I would Apple: Here's one reason that most Mac people would agree with. Personally, I'm all for aesthetics. Other reasons: This is on the wish list. And all these people can't be wrong...
On a side note, I really really do want to do something with this blog.
- That cute micropoll thing.
- The audio thing. Live audio feeds of Noreen's desk for Mat Piah's daily ramblings.
- If I had a webcam, I'd put it on the Tweety sitting on my desk at work so that I can be sure that she's ok at night.
- A really elegant photoblog for my candid shots of funny-looking people at KLCC.
- A private bitching blog (members only - will consist of about 3 people).
- A whiteboard, instead of the tag-board.
- Change the template so that this site looks ok on my Clie.
- Fix the problem some people who are using Mozilla are so irritated about (look left.. no, the other left!).
Good News! Another handsome dude has agreed to be a panelist. Waiting on one more...
Panelists confirmed so far:
Dinesh Nair, founder of Alphaque.com (and how do we pronounce this again?)
Oon Yeoh, founder of Transitions
Aizuddin Danian, founder of VOI and GMBL
My network got hit by a virus called Pinfi. It's classified as a low risk virus, although it is nowhere near 'low impact'.
The thing about viruses is that most people don't care about it until it hits them. They put too much trust in themselves, in the people they work with and even in their support organisation, as it's always someone else's job.
I felt the same way, until my notebook got hit with Nimda last year when I forgot that I had enabled IIS to run NetIQ's demo software. I didn't even think I need a personal firewall back then!
The agony, frustration and effort was enough to turn me around. I now understand my machines better than I understand my own health. The hum, the response times to my mouse clicks, the programs that should be running, and how 'heavy' something should be are all observed and catalogued, forming a snapshot of how my machines should be performing. At the slightest change, I quickly run task manager and netstat (ok, limited methodology here, based on crisis alleviated previously...). And I have become vigilant about personal firewalls, password protection, that padlock at the bottom of my browser and my own behaviour - where I log in from and what I do on other people's machines.
I don't want to sound smug - considering that I couldn't even log in to 'local' on my workstation all morning - but while everyone else is still running around with tens and hundreds of infected files, my anti-virus scan showed up clean. (OK, so the PC is relatively 'new' but still...). My only problem, apparently, was that as the infected server was being cleaned up, the sysadmins blocked all logins. Once I managed to get in (it pays to be persistent... and patient), it was smooth sailing all the way.
If you do, and you're reading this, chances are you'll already have a blog or personal web site, or will be thinking of doing one.
Aiz had a post on web usability a couple days back which is useful for people who wish to be kind to their potential audience. I have recently found an interesting article would-be serious bloggers should read (serious = putting $ into the blog).
It basically talks about the repercussions of 'bad' planning. Personal websites can quickly gain cult status, so it's worthwhile to check out the hosting terms and conditions *just in case* you hit the big time. reminder to self: take own advice...
MORE from Dot.life:
"All it takes is the forwarding of an e-mail to your friends or the mention of a good idea and suddenly you can find yourself the leader of an international movement."
"Often blogs are as far from journalism as it is possible to get, with unsubstantiated rumour, prejudice and gossip masquerading as informed opinion."
I read the manual. Tried following it a couple of times and managed to import blank entries. Why?
The more services a company wants to offer, the more consolidation is required. With consolidation, one will have to find a way to tune the technology to suit information protection policies and its associated risks. I've summarised my task for this week into something that's jargonless. Found a good place to start.
I am becoming quite addicted to blogs. It is quite an exquisite form of expression. I am so smitten that I am enlisting the help of a blog master to revamp this site.
Stuff I've been looking at:
MediaNews Weblog - A journalism school paid Jim Romenesko to produce his site
kottke.org - I like the green and white 'crisp' look of this site. Going through the links makes for interesting learning!
The entry below was the result of me doodling on the PDA. Yes, I have found a way to blog while on the move and managed to upload it via AvantGo. And here is my favourite question: But what does this all meaannn?
This means that I can while away my time during a boring meeting AND look like I'm paying attention and taking notes. Gone are the days where an intense stare into the PDA meant that you just lost your way through Solitaire. My meeting-mates will see blurry text, which looks sort of like meeting notes, but are in fact... ta daaaa... my blog entry!
There are various ways to do a blog. Some people tend to ramble on, not unlike what one does when writing a diary. Only difference is that with a blog, it's easier to type and retype your words, making it easier to get lost in your thoughts.
Others choose to organise their blogs in concise topics, focusing on specific areas instead of summarising their daily activities. Since I've chosen to take this path, I'm finding that this is becoming very much an exercise of extreme concentration. Even while talking, I find my mind wandering from one thought to another, much to the confusion of the listener. Blogging should turn out to be a good therapy for this!
Something else I learned when I was looking around for tips on how to set up a blog. I learned about other people, the way one should - pure and unadulterated. I learned about their inner thoughts, what they really want to project out to the world, rather than what the world chooses to see. Interesting how technology changes things around, isn't it?
Go somewhere else (the blogs I visited today):
Volume of Interactions (from the founder of GMBL)
Blog, she said
Stuck in a Moment
if only it could fly...
I'm a huge fan of PDAs. In the last 3 years, I have owned a Palm Vx, a Nokia Communicator 9110, a Compaq iPaq 3650 and now, I've settled on the Sony Clie NR70.
Ever since the news broke out some years back that it was possible to make a computer the size of your palm, I was intrigued at how fanciful the whole idea was. I was one of those people who thought to myself 'Why would anyone need a computer that small?'. Now, I can't seem to function without one. A fact that I am not at all proud of.