The past two nights, I have awakened before dawn, driven from sleep by powerful dreams. The first night was awash with a harrowing hallucination of omniscient epiphany. Alas, the wispy wonders of conscious creation scattered from memory, shredded like mental cumulus as they retreated to my subconscious. Last night, however, a different cloud emerged.

Obscure Clarity

In stark contrast to that ephemeral first dream, last night’s episode was a concrete chimera. Formless yet solid, this dream anchored its presence firmly into my waking mind. Even as I write these prefatory statements, there rests a static front at the junction of my creative and analytical thoughts: ideas raining steady to the thunderous claps of jumping conclusions.

Photo by wili

I fear that mere words would fail to paint the pictures of these two dreams. Lyrics without the lyre, uttered without rhythm, perceived without power. Yet, words are all I have, and sentences are all I shape. Perhaps an impression will linger …

The Secret of the Seventh Son

The Secret evokes a land of abundance, wrought by active belief. Seventh Son builds a fantasy world abstracted from historical figures and folklore. These influential books tantalize in the truest sense: holding out delectable treats just beyond my grasp. Conscious creation is at the core of both and subconscious recollection has obviously colored my dreamscape.

Photo by berlin fan

Imagine a montage depicting frantic construction of a globe. Slow down the frames until you can discern each stage of the task. Now, watch as a scrolling marquee appears beneath your field of view, captioning the steps, from beginning to end. You are experiencing what I call omniscient epiphany. Whether it holds in the waking world is irrelevant – the dream is real and the power of knowledge inebriates you until, ironically, you no longer understand what is happening. Upon awakening, you have a virtual hangover; the fantastic revelation is all but blacked out. What remains is the essence – an ester – from the tree of knowledge in a receding pool of wisdom.

The Question Behind the Question of Getting Things Done

QBQ evokes a philosophy of personal accountability, attained by active introspection. GTD presents a system of personal productivity abstracted from countless refinements to techniques for planning and organizing. These concepts are empowering: pointing out not only the tools, but also the responsible party, required for producing whatever I need.

Chiaroscuro

There is no way to imagine a shadow after its maker has passed your line of vision. Yet, an after-image of a Titan is not soon forgotten. Much like adrenaline-powered visions after a near-collision with a tractor-trailer on an icy freeway, these concrete dreams leave a prescient stamp on my waking mind.

Photo by Josef.stuefer

Concentrated Apple Juice

Sometimes, it is better to abandon one dream in order to focus on another. Indeed, it may be the case that one dream provides the goal of the other. If I can have both while pursing one, then I need never thirst.

Here, for the first time since I indulged myself with a list of posts from my very first blog, is a folder dump of folderol that seemed like a good idea at the time. Some of the ideas appear elsewhere on my blog, hopefully in a more palatable format than this junkyard collection.

The dates in parentheses indicate when I created the drivel, proving that mediocrity is a full-time job!

Happy New Year!

Mitch

1. Heard Any Trees, Lately? (1/16/2008)
2. Thursday Treasure Hunt: Volume One Issue One (2/28/2008)
3. How to Chortle Like a Champ (4/30/2008)
4. Why I Suck At Search Engine Optimization (5/29/2008)
5. Celebrating the Sardonic Boo (9/25/2008)
6. Noise in Living Color (10/6/2008)
7. The Destructio of the Fourteeth Letter (10/10/2008)
8. Sarah PayPal (10/31/08)
9. Comment Power (11/28/08)
10. Web 3.0 Ushers in the Ideation Revolution (7/26/2008)

Heard Any Trees, Lately? (1/16/2008)

If you have a lot of software to keep track of your files, you are literally missing the trees for the forest!

From email to favorites, we live in a constricted tree-view of our data.

I suspect that we bring our physical world mindset into our virtual world of bits and bytes. If we misplace a piece of paper or the car keys, we may have to tear apart the home or office to find it.

Once we do find it, we resolve to “put everything in its place” so that we don’t have to suffer through such anxious episodes in the future.

With computer files, we take one look at the tens of thousands of file names in the thousands of folders and think, “I’ll never find anything in there!”

That’s just not true.

Sadly, we while away precious hours, organizing 1’s and 0’s into pigeonholes, failing to recognize two things:

1. We’ll probably never look at 80% of this stuff again
2. We can find the other 20%, no matter where we file it.

I can only speak for myself, but I know I’ve ignored 80% of the emails I’ve read, PDFs and free software I’ve downloaded. I am not talking about important stuff. Just dumb stuff like forum comment notifications, e-books and “productivity” tools.

Thursday Treasure Hunt: Volume One Issue One (2/28/2008)

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Thursday Treasure Hunt.

In this age of information gluttony, Google hegemony and misguided advice, I wish I had a hotline to a bunch of knowledgeable and resourceful folks who could just find stuff for me.

Sure, I could post the requests in forums and other likely locations, but then I have to monitor the posts or subscribe to email alerts. I’m trying to simplify the task, not complicate it. Besides, the requests are so varied, there is no one place that I can go, other than the (blechh) search engines.

So, I decided, why not ask right here?

To make it fun, you can post your requests here, too!

There are no rules, just the usual caveat: “Remember, my kids read this blog!”

Here is the first week’s Treasure Hunt item list:

1. Flat Earth File Theory: any web document that gives serious thought to pruning the ubiquitous tree structure for file management. Right now, I’m into naming files with prefixes that suggest subfolders. I used to abhor that, until the subfolders became so numerous that I could remember where to place new files! Really, what’s so wrong with 2008 02 28 Post – Thursday Treasure Hunt? Don’t answer that, I already know. I just need answers. Actually, deep down inside, I want a mind map for file management.
2. Proof that multi-vitamins are a waste of money.
3. A BS Hype-o-Meter: Imagine a reverse Alexa. Or an anti-StumbleUpon. If I created it, I would call it DumpUpon. I’ll settle for an aggregator site that pulls in posts from scam.com, snopes.com, 419eater.com, ripoffreport.com, etc.
4. A nifty logo for the Thursday Treasure Hunt. If I use yours, you’ll get a groovy link back to the website of your choice!

The Flat Earth File Theory has really become an obsession with me. Google Desktop represents a step in the direction I wish to travel. However, it doesn’t index everything. Besides, it is more helpful when you don’t know where you stored something.

I take a multi-vitamin every day. I feel great as a result of what? Overdosing on the RDA? Skipping breakfast? Placebo effect? What? Help!

The good thing about spam is that it is so blatant. Guru-generated hype, bolstered by hypnotic writing and slick copywriting, can trip up the best of us. Problem is, not everyone who gets burned will speak out. In Unleashing the Ideavirus , Seth Godin praised PlanetFeedBack.com as a word-of-mouth aggregator. The barrier is too high for instant gratification, though. I want to right-click on a sales letter and flag that puppy!

How to Chortle Like a Champ (4/30/2008)

Today, dear reader, come with me to explore the fine art of laughing through your nose.

Why I Suck At Search Engine Optimization (5/29/2008)

“The beginner who thinks he can play a game of chess after learning how the men move is like a soldier who believes he can lead an army after learning how to shoot.”
-Edward Lasker, in the introduction to Modern Chess Strategy

Celebrating the Sardonic Boo (9/25/2008)

Here is a bouts-rimés for your enjoyment
Front verse Mulan
[something about Ghengis Khan]

Noise in Living Color (10/6/2008)

I want to know why my brain insists on throwing up a purple haze whenever I think of the word chartreuse.
Did some well-meaning but uninformed adult define that word to me when I was a child? Did I somehow associate the word with the wrong color, due to the context in which I first encountered it? Did I fail third-grade Art? Over the past few years, I’ve made some discoveries that may answer this question:

• Neurobics
• Synthaesia
• Stroop Effect

The Destructio of the Fourteeth Letter (10/10/2008)

I sent a silly email to my friend,
Sharon Hurley Hall:

Hi Sharo,

I saw your commet o your blog ad o twitter.

I kew that you could ot have forgotte or, more correctly, mistyped those two words.

It struck me as slightly amusig. As a matter of fact, I immediately created the idea for a post:

The Destruction of the Fourteenth Letter

…

Sarah PayPal (10/31/08)

No, I’m not going on a political tirade.

I had an interesting experience with the 21st century equivalent of the famous ELIZA program.

Mitchell Allen

Thank you for chatting with Sarah! Here’s the copy of the transcript you requested

Transcript:

Sarah - PayPal :

Hello, I’m Sarah and I’m here to answer your questions about PayPal. Even though I’d like to be a real person, I’m not. I’m programmed to answer your questions. How can I help you?

You :

I want to instantly transfer funds from my PayPal account to my checking account

Sarah - PayPal :

Do you mean:

• How long does it take to add funds from my bank account?
• How do I sign up for a PayPal account?
• How can I make my transactions proceed faster?
• How do I withdraw money from my PayPal account?
• What are my funding options?

You :

How can I make my transactions proceed faster?

Sarah - PayPal :

PayPal’s Instant Transfer feature allows you to send money from your bank account instantly.

You will not need to pre-fund your PayPal account or wait for an electronic transfer. Use Instant Transfer to pay as much as you want, when you want, using funds from your confirmed bank account.

To use Instant Transfer, you must have both a credit card and a confirmed bank account registered with PayPal, and will need to choose a Back-up Funding Source. Once you confirm your bank account and add a credit card, Instant Transfer is the default method of payment.

Did I answer your question?

Yes

No

You :

No

Sarah - PayPal :

I may not have understood your question. Can you rephrase it? Anything else I can do to help you?

You :

instant transfer FROM PayPal TO checking

Sarah - PayPal :

I’m about to give you information I’ve already given you. Perhaps you need a more specific answer. Then is there anything else I can do for you?

You :

Evidently not. Thanks for trying

Sarah - PayPal :

You’re welcome. If you think of anything else I can help you with, I’d be happy to assist you.

Comment Power (11/28/08)

Snippet from cnyapse.com blog:

In a small survey that we did with a few of our customers,

80% of them believed that between 30% to 40% of their entire digital knowledge lies in the comments, 60% of them agreed that the number of comments in their cyn.in system is growing faster than the number of content objects being uploaded / created.

The worst of the worst is truly bad stuff. Road kill stench bad.

“Plan 9 from Outer Space” was better than this!
In order to appreciate how bad it is, you have to understand that I had felt the need to create some kind of framework for the ideas presented in Marxist Internet Propaganda. Without such a crutch, I was too chicken to post that “paper” as a main blog entry. Indeed, it currently lives as a page in the Fiction category.

Web 3.0 Ushers in the Ideation Revolution (7/26/2008)

Putting the Wide in World Wide Web


What a tacky title!
Headlines are so Web 1.0 – required to attract attention of eyeballs and search engines.
Would you have clicked on this?

The Higgins Project is Short-sighted

Well now that you’re here, I have less than three web 2.0 seconds to convince you to read this fantastical chronicle of the

“People know what they want when they search for stuff on the web.
Today’s search engines are laughable, because they assume the opposite.
Even the ones that pretend to be ’semantic’ can only guess at the searcher’s intent and, frankly, that wastes everyone’s time, including the engineers’, because they have to keep rewriting the code!
I watched my five-year daughter, Betsy, go to our bookshelf and grab her bedtime storybook in two seconds.
There are at least a dozen red, thin hard-cover books up there, yet she went straight to hers.
I remember lying in bed that night thinking, ‘What if folks could grab what they wanted right off the web?’

4 April, 20__
Ganda Research Unveils Hobble.com

At the annual conference of the Association of Influential Information Purveyors, Ganda Research demonstrated it’s new “Resource Locator” and the new website, www.hobble.com”
Once the implications of the Hextable Bookbinder Algorithm became clear, Ganda Research expedited the development of its latent semantic indexing engine. Expanding on the affectionately termed “Ignorance Function”, engineers threw out all keyword value indexes and focused solely on such attributes as previous search queries, geographical location of the client and server, and 57 other properties.
When pressed to disclose more details, the official Ganda Research spokesbot would only suggest that the attendees “do their own [expletive deleted] research.”

During the demonstration, the server crashed. However, before the connection failed, the presenter managed to find a pair of rare petrified wood bookends from TheEarthsTreasure.com, simply by clicking on an image of a tree.
Apparently, the search engine (we just can’t get used to writing ‘resource locator’) made a connection between the tree and the fact that the requesting computer belonged to Ganda Research, which is the leading company studying the Bookbinder Theory (get it?)

6 May, 20__
Ganda Research Suspends Work on LSI, Fires Engineer

The official Ganda Research spokesbot announced that the much-hyped Resource Locator was seriously flawed and further work would be suspended until “somebody figures out what the [expletive deleted] ‘tangential transformative taxonomical pattern matching’ even means!”
In an unrelated matter, Gerald Boxtopfield IV, senior project leader for Subliminal Studies, was fired after he tricked a secretary into behaving inappropriately with a pair of rare petrified wood bookends.

7 May, 20__
Jimmy Throckswattle Publishes Questionable Term Paper

James Throckswattle, son of the millionaire owner of the Daubers Paint-by-Numbers empire, was placed on probation, after he turned in a very sophisticated term paper in his twelfth grade Social Studies class.
His teacher, Imagene Splicer, had this to say:

“The little twerp never read a book in his life. Coming up in here with some Marxist propaganda, disguised as a term paper about the future of the Internet.
If you ask me, he’s just rebelling against his old man. Well, I’m happy to help him along by expelling his narrow, cheating behind!”

A copy of the term paper has been obtained by doing a search for marxist internet propaganda.

Web 3.0 will be an example of nervous consumption.

Connections to the WWW will be increasingly decentralized, with Local Information Brokers providing point-to-point data service.

The validation of the Bookbinder Theory provides the foundation for the implementation of a feasible semantic web.

No longer controlled by search engines, the WWW will feed off innovations in semantic engineering, which enable viewers to instantly retrieve requested content.

Pinhole heaped a heavenly helping of Honest Scrap Award upon me. Having mistook this for a Commemorative Metal of Honor for the erstwhile Rex 3000, I was not going to write this post until I learned that this is an award won before the recipient actually earns it! I’m supposed to “tell on myself” with ten juicy tidbits of truths known just by me. Frankly, I think these memes are an attempt to gain all of the possible information a home invasion crook needs to make it more difficult for me to signal my wife to not come home, but call the cops: “Darling, don’t forget the ricotta,” knowing full well from this meme that I never have called my wife “Darling.”

How symbolic! In naming the award “Honest Scrap”, one is pre-empted from absconding with said trophy prior to justifying its place on the bookshelf. Yet, like any good swindler knows, the hustle is only as good as the presumption of a guilty conscience. And therein lies my dilemma: if I don’t earn the Honest Scrap Award, I’m a swindler; if I do post, then I’m a wimp with a conscience.
This reminds me of the time when I told my cousin I would pay him to beat up Nate Blackwell’s little brother, Tony.

You may not know Nate, he played basketball for the Temple University Owls. Long before he became a legend in Philadelphia sports, he was just “Day-Day” from up the street. While he was a likable chap, his brother was a little snot. He actually spit on me once and ran into the house – as if the first order of business was for me to go chasing him, with flecks of saliva flying off my cheek!

Anyway, we used to play “street” football. Tony and I would play against Nate and my cousin, Peter. Sometimes, there would be other fools and we would have six or even seven of us (remember the “Steady Quarterback” who threw for both teams?) running, diving and recklessly endangering our skin and bones. Imagine a narrow street, just large enough to allow parked cars on one side and nothing larger than an ice cream truck to amble from Tasker St. to Pt. Breeze Avenue. A typical South Philadelphia cross street.

I stayed summers with my grandmother in this concrete jungle. While other little kids (including my wife) went “to the country” to be with their grannies and pop-pops, I tackled dirty street urchins on glass-strewn sidewalks. Well, we had the fire hydrant, you had the garden hose. Nanny-nanny boo-boo! You haven’t lived until you’ve run around in the blast from a fire hydrant. We didn’t bother with the soup can cannon, either! We just laced our fingers together and bravely “hugged the plug”.

Too bad the hydrant wasn’t running when Tony spit on me; I’d have dunked his little ass. That’s another thing. I cursed like a sailor.
Unless lumberjacks curse worse, in which case, I cursed like they did. My relatives thought I was crazy. I did, too. I was doing road rage before I learned how to drive. Hell, I probably invented it, although my late aunt gave as good as she got, behind the wheel.

We used to walk to school, then come home for lunch before going back. One day, a man nearly ran me over, coming out of a gas station. I gave him my best Rudy Ray Moore epithet and continued on my way. My cousin, himself a badass back in the day, was shocked. I know this is so because he has never forgotten this event. He brings it up at family gatherings, peppering it with all the little nuances that little cousins recall:

Mitchell raised his fist and called that man a #&@##!!-X$###@!

Then that man slammed on his brakes, jumped out of the car and said, “WHAT?!!”



Mitchell took off down the street! I laughed so hard.

Whatever, man.

Another time, we were playing wall ball, or pitching pennies. Maybe we were just standing in the middle of the street. Suddenly, one of the neighbors, who must have just gotten his license, backed his car into my leg. It didn’t hurt, but I was so startled, I yelped, “Sugar honey iced tea!” – pretty much the same way Ralphie said, “Fudge”. Pete promptly ran into our grandmother’s house, not to report the accident, but to tattle on me. Thankfully, the perceived trauma of having been struck by a moving vehicle was enough to grant me forbearance on what otherwise would have been a for-sure spanking.

I grew up all over Philadelphia, covering every region except the great Northeast. Good thing, too. I took an evening Real Estate Licensing class during a three month period. Twice a week, after getting off from work, I took the R8 train out to the end of the line.
This neighborhood, Fox Chase, is one of the most beautiful sections of the city (Chestnut Hill and Roxborough are the others.)
What was not to like? Well, for starters, the bus service stopped 15 minutes before my class ended. I had to walk for about ten minutes to reach the train station. The other thing, there was no good pizza for miles. Not that I tried all of the shops, I’m just saying.

The boardwalk at Wildwood, NJ had the best pizza on the planet. Except for that time when I grabbed the glass sugar container and sprinkled what I thought was some salt onto my slice. Not satisfied with the results, I liberally dashed sugar onto my pizza until it became inedible.

Well, that’s nine scraps and one fib (I didn’t really ask my cousin to beat up anybody. I did what any good boy would do when spat upon – I told his mother!)

The tenth scrap ties together my childhood memories of South Philadelphia and my emergent self-expression as a young adult:

Remember those scams where you received a letter in the mail, inviting you to send in a poem for a contest?
I sent one in, commemorating the innocent children gunned down during drug violence.
I got a form letter from the “Poetry School”, telling me that my poem was a winner. For once, I believed them.

How’s that for an Honest Scrap?

1. Breathe A Sigh of Relief

The vigil is over. The bloated registry, clogged Start Menu and ten thousand temp files have been silenced. Whip out the digital organ donor card and start planning the reclamation project. Somebody is going to be very happy with that extra RAM and creaky graphics card.

2. Seek An Impartial Advisor

Get an assessment of which goodies to hoard and which gifts to share. Relinquish total control of the hardware. If you’re the only person who can build or purchase the replacement, spend extra time on step 5.

3. Contact Loved Ones

With the immediate arrangements underway, borrow another computer and plug into your online network of family and friends. Inform them of your loss. Give them a remembrance of the old computer: a favorite photo of the time little Johnny spilled milk onto the keyboard; an ironic blog post of how you were finally gaining control over the machine.

Then, let everyone know that you won’t be in touch for a few days. The last thing you should be thinking about doing is tweeting, blogging and emailing as if nothing catastrophic just happened.

4. Acknowledge the Loss

Hopefully, the hard drive was not the fatal organ. If your advisor assures you that the old hard drive is okay, you’ve really only lost a comfortable habit and a familiar (inter)face.

A total loss of data is not as common as you may think. Between the backups that you’ve faithfully made and a skilled technician, you may yet recover your address book and fruit cake recipe.

5. Go Play

Wriggle around a bit. Imagine if this were your new life.

Go ahead, fantasize about all the things you now have time to do.

Play that game. Practice that guitar. Watch a movie.

Spend some time with real, living people.

6. Dare To Be Different, This Time

Old habits die hard but, since this one is dead, you may as well develop a new one. Be aware that it really doesn’t matter. It’s just fun to be different.
The goal here is to imagine a more efficient partnership with whatever machine comes to take your old PC’s place on your desk.

Why not use the old hard drive as a backup? Stick it in a USB-style enclosure and you’ll be able to run at least some of your old programs! Delete the operating system and use the space to hold downloads. Your new hard drive will thank you.

7. Experiment With Portability

Why go through this pain every seven to eight years? If your whole computerized life is on a flash drive, you can keep your sanity when the next PC kicks the bit bucket.
If you really want to live on the edge, cuddle up with Google and other web-centric enterprises.

8. Vow To Write Everything On Paper

Let’s face it, when the new computer comes, all you want to do is get up and running. As you start installing your favorite things, you’ll run into roadblocks like SMTP settings, proxy server URLs, that one password for StumbleUpon that never made it onto your RoboForm database because you haven’t logged out in three years!
Do yourself a favor, get a notepad and pencil and write down all the settings.

9. Take Chances

Okay, portable Firefox is installed. All those lovely extensions are going to have to be downloaded again, right? Nope. If you can find them on the old hard drive, all you have to do is copy them en masse (or piecemeal) to the same folder on your new hard drive and restart Firefox!

Other software may actually be transferable without reinstalling. Give it a try - if it doesn’t work, well, you were going to have to reinstall it, anyway.

10. Smile, It’s Behind You

As you begin working with your new iron partner, old memories will haunt you for a few days. Hold fast to fond recollections and forge ahead with a renewed sense of purpose.

Count your blessings: it’s just a computer.

Photo by Ruth and Dave

Here is my end-of-year self-evaluation. I look at all of the systems in my life and judge which ones have added value and which ones have been a waste of time, resources or both.

Paper

Paper is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, stuff on paper stays on paper – dogs and coffee cup rings, notwithstanding. On the other hand, stuff on paper tends to be forgotten, misfiled or added to a convenient nearby pile.

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

My battle with paper is on-going. I have abandoned sticky note proliferation in favor of jumbled notes in a spiral-bound memo pad.

I learned a great notebook technique from my former father-in-law. He kept his bankbook transactions in one notebook. I liked that idea so much, I still use it today. Lots of room, more pages and hard to misplace.

This is a victory: I have not wasted much time hunting for ideas from last week or bank transactions from 2006, because I know they’re in that memo pad or that notebook.

Files

No matter what you may think of Real Estate Guru books, the best advice I ever got from one of these guys is the monthly folder system. Twelve hanging file folders hold 90% of the crap I think I might need, such as receipts from that car repair shop. Every six months, I shred papers from the previous six months.
At the beginning of every month, I move last month’s folder to the back of the file cabinet.

The battle with my folders is waged over the 10% of paper that I think need to be kept more permanently.
I keep renaming folders and moving papers around until the aforementioned curse is upon me.

Photo by Tim Morgan

This is a resounding defeat. As of this writing, I have four folders for the car, three folders for credit history, three folders for insurance (not including the car), two cell phone folders, 37 client folders (80% of whom are former clients, boo-hoo-hoo!), a box full of real estate transactions (which I can legally shred in 2009!) and three portable file boxes with business records, board game designs, medical records and old Police Department certificates. Did I mention that the dog has a folder, too?

DVDs

Nature abhors a vacuum. So does my entertainment shelf. NO, I’m not talking about its dust-filled nether regions, I’m talking about any space that’s not taken up by a gadget, stray toy or remote control. DVD cases are squeezed into every nook, crack and cranny. And that doesn’t include the ones lovingly ensconced in my CaseLogic zippered CD holder. Or, the two dozen on a bookshelf across the room.

Still, it beats the days when we had half as many videotapes, taking up five times the space.

Photo by lostfate13

There is no logical system to our DVD storage. If it’s flat, it gets a stack. It’s a victory for chaos.

Tools

I used to obsess over storing tools, hardware and lubricants. Since the tools had no control over where I put them, they harassed me with commando raids: stripping nuts, gashing drywall, rending flesh, stuff like that.

The reversible drill once bested me in a hole-boring contest. I spent 45 minutes futilely pushing it into a wooden bookcase before I realized that the drill was spinning in reverse.

As I get older, these beasts don’t entice me like they used to. My boys get all the pleasure of misplacing them, now. Lest you think I’m being sexist, I’ll have you know that my wife and daughter always put the tools back where they found them. Which is usually on top of the fridge. (Oops? Did I just blow it?)

Photo by TOMTEC

Now, if I can find the nail clippers, I’m happy. This is a truce.

Electricity

Cables, uninterruptible power supplies, cables, phono plugs, phone plugs, extension cords, big bricks, cell phone chargers, little bricks, twist ties, cables, KVM switches, speaker wire. And cables.

Photo by unimatrixZxero

Massive fail.

Body

No booze, no cigarettes, no exercise. Do neck rolls count? I don’t have them, I do them!
Pop-Tarts®, coffee, my wife’s lasagna.

Photo doctored with PAM vegetable spray

All in all, a good year. My wife’s cooking has definitely added value to my life. (I will delete all comments referring to any other additions!)

Computers

What’s the point? No matter what filing system you devise, the next program you install will force you to make an exception. I heard Windows Vista has yet another default location for your stuff. Whatever.

I have won some hard-fought battles in this arena. In the old Windows 3.x era, I mastered the wagon wheel system of file storage. Some people called it a hub and spoke system, but that made me think of airplanes.
The whole idea of spending more than three clicks to get to a folder is repugnant. However, littering my hard drive with convenient shortcuts is just gross. Shortcuts eventually need to be categorized and you wind up with the stupid Start menu. Arrgh!

My solution is called Flat-Earth. Think of what happens when you chop down all the trees in a forest: it’s easy to see daylight! Basically, I recreated the Wagon Wheel in a folder outside of My Documents. I called the folder FlatEarth and dumped all spreadsheets into the Spreadsheet folder, all Word documents and text files into the Docs folder and so on. Just like my spiral notebook, I know that file is in there somewhere.

However, the files and programs fight back. They know I have several blogs and ezines. These web-centric entities are stored in a Flat-Earth folder called Websites. The files and programs always make me choose between saving to the project within Websites or to the Docs folder.
Since I also develop software, which contains documentation and possibly spreadsheets (for those burning calculations), the files and folders gleefully force me to decide where all this stuff should go.

Deep in the so-called Flat-Earth folder

This is a stand-off. Flat-Earth has made it simple for me to do backups, since it is outside the toxic dump known as My Documents. However, it has cost me much time in deciding where to store files, with the result being that I spend more time looking for files that I haven’t used in a while.

It actually looks like the forest floor is slowly filling with new-growth trees.

My Blog

Speaking of projects, this baby has been a total victory of substance over form. It started out as a confused jumble of tentative and tepid posts and burst free with a declaration of independence.

I learned about Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images. That has made a big difference in the presentation.

(Thanks, Skellie!)

I battled with WordPress’ default image upload location, and won that, too! Not only did I turn off the date-based organization, I stopped using their uploader altogether. I just use FTP. This was such an important win for me, that I pulled out all the stops when the system threatened to reclaim its territory.

I was working on a new blog and had totally forgotten how to keep the uploader from storing the images in month and year folders. Unfortunately, I was outflanked by that blog. But here, I control the organization.

Photo by Hey Paul

Hot Buttered Blogs

The Web

Of all the systems affecting my life, the web is the easiest to evaluate.
I think that is because I have only one point of entry: my satellite modem.
Sure, there is the constant battle with Firefox bookmarks, RoboForm passwords fighting with FireFTP Passwords, TweetDeck fighting with Twhirl, coComment fighting with my own *cool system.

But, unlike file cabinets and Wagon Wheels, I can make the web disappear with a click.

Photo by gabesk

Victory is mine!

My friend Brian Clapper sent me a link to a post about a safe made from Lego® building blocks.
I laughed so hard at the comments, I almost forgot to look at the video!

Photo from www.bouwvoorbeelden.nl

SlipperyBrick.com

I KNOW This is not Safe!

Failblog.org is all about communication failures. Perhaps that explains the stream of consciousness comments.
Still, hilarious nuggets can be found amongst the decidedly sophomoric static.

see more pwn and owned pictures

Comment SOAPBOX

Our lives are filled with vignettes, flavored with views that scintillate our senses.

One of life’s pleasures is recording these treasures.

Another pleasure is sharing them with others.

We have cameras, videotapes and scrapbooks for personal audiences.

We have Flickr, YouTube, podcasts and blogs for wider audiences.

But, while multimedia content can exist in repositories, out of their original context, comments require their frame of reference to be truly enjoyed.

Like a punch line delivered without a joke, a comment without context is lifeless.

Are blog comments doomed to the relative obscurity of dimly lit cobwebs in the cupboard?
Will there always be a nebulous gap between a speech and a post, swirling with silent static and punctuated by pithy prose?
Or will the day come when comments can shine as viable vignettes, worthy of capture, classification and conversation?

What to do - Buy now or wait???


click to read conversation

Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in the activity of turning a profit.

Take some time to reflect on the true meaning of being helpful.

Thanks go out to Brian Gardner for giving me permission to share this with you.

I’ve been writing a fair number of posts about social media. I never expected to come up with a new way to use it.
Now, I’m not saying I created this concept. In fact, what I’m about to describe happens all day, every day on social media sites.

I Wrote Something!

I use Twitter. At least once per minute, someone will send a message like this:

Just updated my blog: 5 Reasons to (not) Drink Coffee, http://snipr.com/5k4xb*

If I want to follow along with that blog, I have several options:

• Add it to bloglines.com
• Stumble it
• Add it to Feedly via Firefox
• Bookmark it in Firefox
• Tag it with my PhraseExpress *cool autotext keyword

While any of these will link the blog to my thought space, they are not really effective at pushing future posts onto my radar scope.

The Bookshelf or the Coffee Table?

When I consider the large number of blogs that I have found interesting, I realize that they fall into two categories: authority and personality.

Blogs with personality are saved using the same bookmarking schemes that I use for authority blogs.

The problem is that authority blogs are more like reference books. I’ll keep them on a bookshelf until needed.

Personality blogs are like my favorite magazines. I want to keep these on my coffee table, within easy reach from my comfy sofa.

This Blogger is Cool!

I’m going to start following bloggers on Twitter. Whether you are an authority or a personality, I’ll be more likely to read your post for the simple reason that I’m on Twitter far more than I’m on Feedly or Bloglines.

If I don’t follow you yet, Six Degrees of Separation, Cosmic Karma or Google will probably connect us, somehow. That’s how I found @UMLGuy, who inspired my post, Racing Around the Office.

I’m not advocating that bloggers start tweeting about every single post. I think that just seeing your regular tweets will be enough to prompt a visit now and then. After all, magazines don’t need to put their entire table of contents on the cover!

Coffee Table Rules

Although reference books can languish, forgotten, on bookshelves, old, tired magazines get tossed out.

Here’s where Twitter beats the pants off of feed readers like Bloglines and Feedly. I don’t have to literally sweep a ton of unread posts into the “Mark All Read” trashcan. Nor do I have to cancel any subscriptions. I simply ignore the tweets!

Browsing the Magazine Rack

I’m continually looking for fresh stuff. While checking the games and entertainment directory on JustTweetIt.com, I discovered Never Unplaying, a blog written by @tailsmarik.

I also check out some of the @ links, whether I see them on Twitter or on blogs.

Becoming a Discriminating Reader

Twitter is what it is and, sometimes, there are just too many tweets flying by. Third-party tools like TweetDeck and Twhirl are indispensable for managing my Twitter experience. In particular, TweetDeck allows me to group my followers, while Twhirl gives me a great pop-up notification of tweets. I’ll probably switch to TweetDeck, because of this:

Good looking out, @iaindodsworth!

Blow Ins that You’ll Read

I love serendipity! I just came up with this today, so I wanted to see if one prolific writer, Jessica Hagy was on Twitter. Her blog does have a Twitter link; she is @jessicahagy.

Here’s what makes her cool: her blog is printed on index cards.

The serendipitous part involves one of her tweets:

So, Jessica, if I’m not too late, here is my idea.

Check Out This Magazine!

Follow me.

The free version is more than enough for 99% of us.

I spent a few minutes searching Google for a software program that would allow me to save text snippets as soon as I read them.
Portions of email, web pages, PDF files and any other interesting document should be highlighted, copied to the clipboard and pasted into a central database. Finally, retrieval has to be drop-dead simple, otherwise, I’ll get lost in a maze of arbitrary tags and meaningless labels.

After looking at the results, it dawned on me that I already have such a program. It’s called PhraseExpress. It is a text macro utility which organizes frequently used phrases into a single database. This text can be retrieved later and pasted into another Windows application.

One of the ways to retrieve text is by using a keyword, which PhraseExpress refers to as Autotext. For example, when I type reg and press the Enter key, PhraseExpress replaces it with

Regards,

Mitchell Allen

Normally, I want a unique keyword for each phrase. However, if I assign the same keyword to different phrases, PhraseExpress will display a description of each phrase and ask me to choose one! This has the effect of providing me with drop-dead simple retrieval.
I decided to use the keyword *cool for all of my interesting text snippets.

Saving text is a 4-step process:

1. Highlight the interesting text
2. Press the hotkey combination (Ctrl + Alt + C) to create a new phrase
3. Type an arbitrary but hopefully meaningful description
4. Type the keyword *cool in the Autotext field

Retrieving the text is even easier, assuming I can type the keyword somewhere:

1. Type the keyword *cool
2. Select one of the phrases
3. Press the Tab key to paste it into my current document

If I’m not using a text editor, I can right-click the PhraseExpress tray icon and view the snippet with the program.

Now, when I don’t have time to visit an interesting web link, I’ll save it for later, without worrying about trying to locate the document containing the link. I like to save interesting blog comments and, with PhraseExpress, I no longer have to store them in Microsoft ® Word.

Between PhraseExpress and Jing for grabbing screen shots, I can capture everything on my screen but the dust.

I found a fantastic example of this whole-brain thinking on HubPages.com. While updating one my hubs, I noticed that I had a new fan.

more »
HubPages

solarshingles is an Internet Marketer, so his left-brain activity shapes the hubs for maximum effectiveness. His Solar Power Shingles -Tiles hub clearly shows that he provides valuable content, understands SEO, writes in a clear style suitable for hubs and makes use of nearly every tool provided by HubPages page builder.

What fascinates me the most is that his fan base has grown to over 800 in only seven months. It seems that one of his strengths is engaging his readers and commenters. That is the social aspect, which his right-brain handles admirably.
His self-deprecating profile puts a human feeling to go along with his pleasant photo.

This stuff is really starting to click …