I’ve never really been a fan of cameras.

Mostly it’s because I hate interrupting the flow of the experience. Instead of enjoying where you are and what you’re doing, you suddenly become there for the purpose of taking a picture. You make people pose and end up viewing your surroundings through a tiny lens. I never seem to look at pictures I took anyway.

When I got my Treo, I thought the VGA camera on it would be a superflous feature. But the more I use it, the more I like it. It’s quick to whip out and use. Of course the pictures are not great – it only has a 2x digital zoom and no flash, but it’s good enough for fun, casual pictures. I’ve been taking pictures of random stuff that I find interesting and diagrams on whiteboards at work.

In the meantime I wanted to see what all the Flickr hype has been about. I’m happy to say that it lives up to the hype. It’s very well done. I love the email posting interface that allows me to upload pictures from my Treo or from anywhere really with a minimum of fuss.

So, always available digital camera + Flickr = my moblog.

Of course, it’s got an RSS feed too.

All this technology is too much fun.

Instant message services have really changed the way I work. It allows me to have quick ‘casual’ conversations with people all over the place. This is really helpful in a large company when you’re working with people in different buildings and locations. It helps businesses work quickly and keeps me in touch with friends as well.

It can also be a tremendous waste of time.

Because you have no sense of what the other person is doing, it’s really easy to distract them with instant messages, to the point of zero productivity.

I’ve been meaning to write a instant messaging etiquiette guide for a long time. I’m sure not everyone will agree with these, but these are what I would prefer when chatting over instant messenger.

1. Just say what you want.
The first time you talk to someone, just like in real life, it’s courteous to introduce yourself before you start talking. But after that, just say what you want.

Here’s an example:

random_person: you there?
me: yup
random_person: how are you?
me: fine
random_person: what’s 10 x 3?
me: 30
random_person: thanks!

This conversation probably took 2 minutes to complete. Two minutes may not seem like much, but several times a day and with multiple people (sometimes simultaneously) can make it really hard to get things done.

As the recipient of the first message, you have two options – stare at the messenger window for two minutes while you wait for the other person to slowly peck out their message, or switch back to whatever you were doing while you wait.

In this example, if I were to switch back and forth, I would have been asked to switch four times. In computer terms, we call this context switching. It allows machines to run many applications effectively at once. Context switching is very expensive. It requires you to store (remember) and retrieve (recall) what you were doing in the previous context and this times and resources (energy). I have to try to remember what 10 things I was in the middle of doing before.

Here’s a much more efficient example:

random_person: what’s 10 x 3?
me: 30

Two context switches and 10 seconds.

If you send me a message with “you there?” or if you’re lazy “yt?”, I’m not going to respond to you even if I am there. Sorry, this just drives me crazy.

2. Use fewer, longer messages.
Another way to reduce context switching is to just use fewer, longer messages. This is what I tend to do. There’s little that’s more annoying than a barrage of “bo bee boops”.

random_person: hey there how are you? what’s 10 x 3?
me: 30
random_person: thanks!

Fewer context switches and less time.

3. Skip the acknowledgements
I really don’t need to be thanked for every message I respond to. Instead of typing pleasantries to me, give me the courtesy of saving my time and a context switch. “Ok” (or just “k” for the lazy) is even more annoying as it doesn’t even convey any useful information. It just makes my taskbar icon blink.

4. Know when another method of communication is better.
IM is good for rapid, time-critical communications, but it’s not good for everything. Longer messages or things that need to be communicated to multiple people are better via email. Sensitive or complicated topics are best face-to-face or over the phone. Just because IM is easy for you doesn’t mean that it’s the best use of everyone’s time.

Arguments are even worse – IM conversation just has too much latency. You end up arguing the same thing over and over again. Humans tend to assume the worst when there are no physical clues for conversation and that can start arguments in themselves. Emoticons help, but are easily overused and become annoying in their own right.

5. Know when to turn IM off.
Sometimes, it’s just best to turn off your IM program. Maybe you just have a lot to do or you’re in a bad mood. Or maybe you’re giving a presentation. There’s nothing worse than to have your buddy’s IM window pop up right in the middle of a powerpoint slide. In that respect, it’s probably a good idea to consider that possibility before you send someone else a message. 🙂

So those are my selfish, borderline antisocial rules for efficient and courteous IM conversation. If you want, go ahead, tell me I’m wrong:

Just don’t ask me if I’m there first.

I was giving Signal a good workout with a feather on a string and then a laser pointer tonight. He was going crazy, jumping 4 feet into the air and climbing the walls. Then he started doing something I’ve never seen a cat do before – he started panting. Just like a dog, he stuck out his tongue and breathed heavily. Maybe he’s out of shape, but it sure was weird. It took me quite a while to get a good shot of him to prove it, so I kept having to tire him out again. Maybe he’ll be too tired to wake me up at the crack of dawn tomorrow.

What’s wrong with this picture?

The green line represents the fastest way to get from the peninsula to the north bay. Usually, the shortest distance between two lines is a straight line; not when San Francisco is involved.

We went up to Bodega Bay today and this was the route we took. The alternative was to go through the city and hoping there wasn’t any traffic or bicycles blocking traffic. Instead, we went miles out of way and wasted gas like millions do every year because San Francisco refuses to build a highway through the city. US101
actually goes from a highway to city streets and back to a highway once you get to the Golden Gate Bridge.

There should be a rule – if you establish a city at the end of a peninsula, you have to allow people to get through it efficiently, not cut off people on from the north and south of you by making them idle at 30 traffic lights.

But this isn’t the only example of how ridiculously self-righteous San Francisco is. They banned Segways and even smoking in public parks. I’m no fan of smoking, but even I’m concerned about personal freedoms when people can’t smoke outside. I’d rather have them do it outside than stinking up the insides of buildings and possibly setting them on fire.

In high school my history teacher taught me that the political spectrum is actually a loop. If you go far enough in either direction and you come out the other side. If you try to protect people too much, you end up making them prisoners. When will SF figure this out?

“‘Cool’ would be the last thing someone would use to describe me as I sit here on a Saturday night, quilting in my pajamas.”
— Anne, my ultra-cool wife

Just last night I talked about video search and how if Google did it, it would be all over the news. Today, exactly that happened.

Google announced a video seach product that doesn’t even search videos, but just closed captioning (poorly I must add) and it gets all kinds of press.

A search for Yahoo returns only ads. Useless.

Keep going, Google. Someday soon people will start to get the picture that you’re a company that did one product well but is simply an also-ran in every other category.

ABC decided to change their schedule this year so that Alias is opposite The West Wing. That’s unfortunate because we watch them both. What’s one to do?

One week we TiVo’d one while watching the other live. We found that we’ve become quite unaccustomed to live TV though. We found the commercials very annoying and the fact that it actually took an hour to watch a show felt very strange. I suppose I could figure out how to use the VCR again, but I just can’t do that on principle. VCRs are sooooo 1980s.

I found another option: BitTorrent. I found a site with links to pretty much every popular TV show. They’re high-quality files too, HTDV recordings, digital sound, with the commercials edited out. They take quite a while to download, but several hours is not a problem if I won’t watch it for a couple days anyway. I only needed to download DivX and the AC3 codec (both free) and the video files played flawlessly.

We watched one episode directly on the laptop which was OK, but not loud enough and obviously the screen is kinda small. I was thinking about how I might get the video onto my TiVo, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to do that. Then Anne suggested that I just hook up the laptop to the TV. Why didn’t I think of that? I don’t think she even knew how that would work, but it turns out the S-Video out on my laptop and the headphone jack worked perfectly. I could even plug them into the front inputs on my receiver.

Watching Alias with this setup was a whole different experience. The HDTV quality was far better than what I get with my regular analog cable and lossy TiVo recording, even if I don’t have an HDTV. The sound was notably better as well. It actually felt like I was watching a movie, not a TV show. I think this actually affected the emotional impact of the show as well. Anne ran away a few times more than usual during the suspenseful parts. 🙂

Next time I just need to turn off Yahoo! Messenger before I start playing. I kept getting little notifications on the TV when people signed off and on. Funny at first, then just annoying.

This kind of usage really does point to the next generation of TV. What if my TiVo could run BitTorrent? Then again, why should I bother to set up a device to record something or even spend time downloading files? I should just be able to watch anything I want on-demand. Of course I’ve been watching on-demand video for nearly a decade on the web. But it’s an entirely different experience when it’s high-quality content playing back on a big TV with good sound.

This is definitely the future, but it’s unclear to me how long it will take to get through all the issues from the content creators, advertisers, TV networks and cable companies. Advertisers should just give in, forget the 30-second ad, and fold their advertising into the content. Maybe not as blatently as something like The Price is Right, but something along those lines.

The MPAA is currently on a manhunt for these BitTorrent sites though. One of them was shut down a few days after I discovered it and I’m surprised the others are still up.

There’s no reason that I shouldn’t be able to legally watch anything on-demand in the future. Broadband penetration is finally above 50% in the US. Telephone service is getting folded into broadband with VOIP. Video is definitely next.

Coindentally, Yahoo! just put video search up on the home page today. (BitTorrent files aren’t listed.)

Now if Google did the same thing, then every media outlet would be declaring the video revolution has begun. Maybe it’s just an undeclared revolution. It’s working for me!

So Yahoo’s got a Desktop Search product, joining Google, Microsoft and others. It’s pretty good. It takes a while to start up, but searches are quite fast. These tools are of limited use for me since most of my data is not on my desktop (or laptop), but stored on some server somewhere.

What would be useful for me is something that would search my actual desktop. You know, find that project schedule on the bottom of the pile of papers sitting on my desk. Now that would be the killer app.

One app I have been growing to like is AppRocket. It’s like the the Mac applications LaunchBar or QuickSilver. It’s basically a command-line interface to all your files, URLs, Apps and Music.

For example, if I want to run Excel, rather than digging through my hideously messy Start menu, I just bring up AppRocket with Alt-space and type “excel”, then return to launch Excel. It autocompletes and remembers what I picked last time when I typed Excel.

It’s also great for on-demand music since it indexes all your MP3s too. I just just bring up AppRocket, type “Springsteen” and it start playing Bruce songs in iTunes. Quite a time saver.

I’m a self-admitted emailaholic. But something strange has happened recently. I turned off my email.

Thunderbird doesn’t seem to like it when I switch from the wired network to the wireless network, so I end up having to quit and restart it. The thing is that sometimes I forget to start it back up again. This has turned out to be a boon for my productivity.

I just can’t help going to see what’s new in my email if I see Thunderbird down there in my taskbar or the mail icon in my tray. I just have to see what’s new. I literally get thousands of emails per day, many of them from mailing lists and automated alerts, so I can easily be constantly alerted to new mail. But if Thunderbird isn’t running and I’m not getting any notifications, I forget. The result is that I get long periods of actual work done – amazing!

What’s also nice is that when I do check it, I can power through a bunch of mail, shut if off again and go back to my work, interruption-free.

It’s a brave new world. Maybe I’ll kill messenger next. Then I’ll move to a cave.

I saw this on Google today:

Advertising Programs – Business Solutions – About Google

©2004 Google – Searching 8,058,044,651 web pages

Google thinks it’s still 2004. Maybe it’s time to use a search engine from this half-decade. If firefox didn’t keep switchhing my search bar to Google, I might not have ever noticed. I wonder how long it will take them to fix it. Maybe if they wait another 362 days they could double their productivity!