Category: Technology

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Technology

Books and Stores

Seth Godin’s latest manifesto was rejected from the iBookstore because he had links to Amazon within the pages of the book.

While I am sympathetic to what he says, I think there are many differences between the “traditional bookstore” and what he is running into at the moment.

  • Traditional bookstores have had a LONG time to get their policies in place
  • Authors did not submit their books to the bookstores … but the publishers
  • The iBookstore acts not just as a store but also a publisher in this case … does every book from every author get published?
  • Traditional books did not link directly to a competitor’s storefront

Also not mentioned is whether a book would get rejected from other e-bookstores if they had explicit links to competitors. Here are some other general thoughts about his entire predicament:

  • He has a generic ePub available online that is easily loaded into iBooks
  • Why are you linking to a 3rd party page that could always change without you knowing?
  • The Domino Project, where he posted his thoughts, is “powered by Amazon” … conflict of interest?

Is Apple wrong here? It’s probably leaning toward probably, but there are always problems in trying to draw direct lines between the physical world and the electronic one. Yes, we would all love it if we could do whatever we want wherever we want and people would just let us do it … and to an extent Apple is! You can load that ePub into iBooks simply by clicking a link on a website, and in many ways it is easier to do that than find something in the iBookstore.

Right now EVERYONE is trying to see how much control they can keep on their independent stores and trying to lessen the number of people you need to interact with in order to get in front of people, but that also means that some traditional roles are being mashed together.

In this case we see bookstore and publisher get smashed into one and it is causing people some headaches. With the App Store Apple mashed together the software publisher and big box retailer. As we consolidate in this way, the method of control (the publishing level) is being moved closer to the customer so we hear about it more.

No one likes seeing sausage being made.

UPDATE: Brian Ford has some thoughts about this whole thing over at Me & Her and I found it enlightening. Sounds like laziness to me.

Categories
Life Technology

Classroom Seating for Today

Thanks to Nate Beran for pointing me at this video.

It is node by Steelcase and it is just about exactly what I would wish for seating in a classroom today. Flexible, designed with technology in mind, it moves, and you can store stuff below the seat and it comes with you. SUCH A GREAT IDEA!

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Technology

Stepping Away from Google

I’m beginning a long process of trying to move away from as many Google services as I can. Here is what I am now using:

Email – Atmail Cloud

I was lucky enough to stumble upon their offering right around the time I was really looking to move my personal and business email accounts elsewhere and they fit the bill. I can host many different domains from the same account, take care of forwarding accounts, and a lot more.

They offer ActiveSync and IMAP (which were requirements) and a lot more that I don’t use. So far besides some growing pains with the new service they have been working very well. Support has been great and I have even had the pleasure of talking with a real human being so far.

Would recommend.

Calendar & Contacts – iCloud

I was going to switch everything over to MobileMe, but Apple changed everything again and now I’m working with iCloud.

I keep my personal, business, and work calendars within iCloud and sync everything between my MacBook Pro, iPhone, and iPad. Along with that I share calendars with my wife. I’ve never had any issues, plus it is now free.

I do the same thing with my contacts and it works the same way. I’ve never had any issues and I hope they don’t now show up.

Search – DuckDuckGo

Sadly, this is the one place where I will probably not be able to get away. While DuckDuckGo has worked pretty well, the lack of image search and the slowness of the queries really is hard to swallow. There are things that I like, and it is really clean and infinite scrolling can be nice, but the deficiencies are enough to likely push me back to Google.

Telephony – Google Voice

Is there anyone else that can just give me a forwarding number for free?

Closing

In closing, I’ve been relatively successful so far in moving away from Google’s other services, but there are areas where they really excel (and search is the main one). I’ll keep looking, but right now I’m happy that my email, calendar, and contacts have now been moved away.

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Business Life Technology

Keeping Track 2

I’ve experimented with the best way to keep track of “stuff” for a long time and I have never settled into anything for even a semi-permanent time. Most of the time I drift between  different programs as I try and find something that sticks with me.

I’m no closer right now, but I’ll go ahead and document what I am working with right now.

There are three categories of “things” in my life right now: tasks, lists, and projects. I’m using three different ways of keeping track of everything.

Tasks – Field Notes

I have Field Notes notebooks both at home and at work at Martin Luther College. The brand really doesn’t matter, but I use those notebooks to keep track of the little tasks I need to complete each day and to take stock of what I will need to complete right away the next day.

It really is that simple.

Lists – Reminders

I’ve settled on Reminders for now even after trying Clear for a week or so. Clear was cool, but Reminders really has three things going for it:

  • iCloud integration
  • shared lists
  • standard application

I use the iOS applications exclusively right now and share a list or two with my wife so she can have access to them on her phone. From there, I’m excited to get my hands on Mountain Lion so that I have access to those same lists on my Mac as well.

Projects – Things for Mac

I’m being very specific here. I’ve removed the iOS applications for the moment because they don’t serve any purpose when Things is used only for larger projects.

I keep three “Areas” for now and then add projects to each area so that I have some semblance of structure to what I am doing. I try to make sure I have a due date for every project and then add tasks into the project and work from there.

I’m not sold on this right now, but each category has its own special needs and I really don’t know if a single program can really beat any one of the above methods … but I’ll keep looking.

Categories
Technology

One Needed Thing

If I was going to recommend a single piece of hardware for every person to have (who owns a computer system), it would have to be an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) or battery backup.

I don’t really care as far as the manufacturer goes (I have two APC devices in my basement office), but you should really plop down the $50 or so dollars on even the smallest one and hook up your computer and monitor at the very least.

If you are in an older house with poor wiring, it is maybe even more important.

Go out there and get one. There is going to be a time when you will be happy that you did.