Well – I’m still not dead. I’ve had an extremely busy couple of months – exams, holiday, Christmas – but things are settling back into a routine.

I’ve just started a new job, working as the information manager for Krome Studios, and it’s providing me with much food for thought. Unlike previous jobs, it’s a challenge – a welcome one, but it’s unusual to have to turn my brain on when I go to work in the mornings. Mind you, I’m sure half the people here think I’m goofing off all day; I work on the same floor as a bunch of programmers, rather than admin people, so they doubtless see all the web browser windows open on my monitor [web-based task management, IA bookmarks list, usability standards, etc etc] and think I’m just slacking.

Still – it’s a great company, and it’s an interesting and challenging job. Possibly only short-term, but I’m hoping for more.

Technorati Tags: career, job, information+management

Got an old Fil-o-Dax or Day-Timer that you don’t use? Like the idea, but never found the right way to make use of one?

Worry no more – D*I*Y Planner has a range of free PDF templates so you can create your own planner inserts, sized to fit filofaxes, daytimers, bigger, smaller… there’s even a Hipster PDA variant.

If I’d had access to a resource like this when I was still using a Day-Timer – or if I’d thought of doing something similar – I’d probably never have ditched it. Now to see if I can find an old binder somewhere around here so I can try them out.

Technorati Tags: hipster+pda, productivity, pim

I’ve always struggled with to-do lists. I’m great at writing them, laying them out, prettying them up.

I’m really, really bad at actually crossing anything off them.

This is for a number of reasons to do with my psychology and personal issues that we don’t need to go into here, but what it boils down to is: I’m a really bad procrastinator. Or, to put it another way: I’m a really good procrastinator. I excel at it.

So I make my to-do list and feel all proud about how organised I’m being – but when it comes time to actually do any of the items? My mind skitters away from each task; it’s all too hard. Instead, I read another webpage, play another game of solitaire, watch another game of hockey.
And nothing ever gets done.

I’ve recently come up with a solution that I’m trying out, to fool my brain into getting stuff actually done, chunking down each task into mentally-manageable bits. It’s cheaper than therapy, and the results are a lot quicker.

I’ve been looking into GTD and other related productivity theories of late; they appeal to the crunchy-process-oriented geek in me. There’s been a lot of GTD-related talk in the sections of the blogosphere I find most appealing, too, which is where I stumbled across it in the first place.

I’m not entirely sure, yet, what links the two, but: the bloggers talking about GTD also talk about something that immediately struck a chord with me: life hacks. That’s the term for all those little life-managing strategies we’ve all developed for ourselves over the years; it originally started as a term for the scripts, hacks and workarounds that programmers developed as tools for themselves, but the phrase has since been expanded to apply to any productivity-enhancing strategy. Life hacks are really just ‘tips and tricks for managing one or more facets of your life’, and range from the really trivial to the brilliantly insightful.

The Baltimore Sun recently featured a somewhat patronising article on “Lifestyle Tips“, referring to the phenomenon. It does have a few links to the major sites; here are my favourites:

• Lifehacker and Lifehack, both of which feature hacks from the technological to the really, really simple. For my money I prefer the former, since it has a bunch of decently indepth articles and features.
  
• 43 Folders has a Life Hacks category, which often features the most innovative, impressive or useful hacks from the world of lifehacking. (My favourite recent hack is the Travel Tinker Trouble Kit, an Altoids tin packed with an impressive selection of tools and supplies.)
  
• For the latest developments, there’s always the del.icio.us ‘lifehacks’ tag page, and the relevant Technorati tags (‘lifehacks’ is the most popular, but there are some entries under ‘lifehacking’ and ‘LifeHack’ as well).

Now I’m trying to answer the question: what life hacks am I using? I know there are strategies and customised processes I’ve developed to deal with all kinds of little life challenges, but I can’t for the life of me think of any specifics at the moment.

Watch this space.

Technorati Tags: gtd, productivity, lifehacks

One thing I’m finding really annoying is the existence of sites with no RSS feeds. On personal and/or largely static sites, that’s forgiveable, but on sites where the bulk of information is dynamic or frequently updated? Especially if the site is blog-esque? It’s seriously irritating. Ignoring RSS feeds is ridiculously antiquated and is going to start costing serious readership.

Speaking of RSS (or Atom), I note Google has just jumped on the bandwagon with Google Reader, news aggregation for the masses. I have some issues with this – like the fact that the Tour doesn’t even mention that it’s an aggregator. I understand the idea of not wanting to scare the layperson, and I can understand that Google may have wanted to avoid mentioning the specific technology so as not to validate their competition, but really. All they had to do was say something like “Google Reader subscriptions are powered by syndicated feeds, so every time you see an RSS or Atom link on one of your favourite news sites, you can read that news feed through Google Reader!” and that neatly turns a threat into an opportunity, to use modern business parlance.

One thing where I think Google dropped the ball? Google Talk is all wrong. Sure, it’s nice that it’s Jabber-compliant, but really – who needs yet another IM account (and, in the case of Windows users, probably another IM client)? I think the thrust of Google Talk’s efforts should have been in making a web-based IM client (plus allowing standalone client access for those as want to, of course). That’s where Gmail’s strength lies – it’s not that it’s another free email service, it’s that it’s got a really good fast web interface. If that had been the Cool Thing about Google Talk, it would have been much more exciting – and successful. As it is now, is anyone even using Google Talk much?

Technorati Tags: rss, blogging, aggregators, syndication, google, google+talk

The main motivator for my upgrade to WP1.5 was the amount of comment spam I’ve been getting lately. Hundreds a day; thankfully, they’ve almost all been held for moderation, but it was still a pain in the proverbial to have to manually delete hundreds of comment spams every day. Wordpress 1.5 handles it much better, allowing me to handle all the spam in bulk instead of requiring a transaction for each item. It’s still annoying, but much less of a hindrance.

One thing it does still bj0rk up, however, is my stats tracking. I’m getting so many hits a day from the comment spams that actual site readers get lost in the high noise-to-signal ratio. So – if you’re still out there, still reading? Hi. :)

Technorati Tags: blogging, spam, wordpress, stattraq

In furtherance of my mission to acquire every shiny white piece of computer hardware ever, I bought an iMac a month or so ago, and I love it. I made the decision to upgrade when I realised that I was using my 12” PowerBook for everything, despite having a powerful PC sitting on my desk. I’d have waited to do the upgrade, but my full-time student status expired at the end of August, and I wanted to take advantage of Apple’s educational discounting.

So here’s Athena, my lovely shiny iMac, sitting on my desk. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so happy with a computer purchase; she’s a pleasure to use.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of my iPod. It ceased functioning a couple of months ago, and I shipped it off to Apple for a replacement. (Thank heaven for warranties.) I got the replacement back very promptly – I must say, I am impressed with Apple’s replacement process – and filled it up with MP3s. Several days later, my music hard drive crashed in a fatal way (bye-bye 90 GB of music!) and several days after that, my iPod stopped working again. So it’s time to send it off for replacement again. I’m thinking seriously about an iPod Nano at this stage; 4GB of music is plenty for a portable player, and I’m thinking solid-state storage might be a wee bit more reliable.

Technorati Tags: apple, ipod, nano, imac

So, it’s been months since my last post. I wasn’t lying then; I really have been in the wars. More so, lately – the day after I wrote that post, I came down with acute allergic conjunctivits, which has since turned into chronic allergic conjunctivitis. My opthalmologist is of little help. The gist is, I have constantly red eyes and, after about eight hours awake each day, they’re so full of goop I can barely see. Further, my vision’s currently impaired; I’m down to about 6/20 vision at the moment.

All of this has conspired to rather disconnect me from the world. It’s surprisingly hard to operate when you can’t see far or clearly, and as a result I’ve been moderately depressed and inactive. I certainly haven’t achieved much in the last three months. I’m studying – currently enrolled in the Graduate Certificate of Information Management at QUT. My grades are good. I finished the Graduate Certificate in Business Administration last semester, with similarly good results – one pass, disappointingly enough, but the rest of my grades ranged from Credits to High Distinctions, for a final GPA of 5.65. I’m still hoping to go into information architecture as a career when I’m done; my goal at the moment (other than ‘getting better’) is to find an internship or work experience project of some kind. Better yet, a proper job over the summer break would be nice. The layabout student lifestyle is all very well, but my work ethic is starting to itch.

In the meantime, I’m going to be tweaking this blog a bit, and finally getting the rest of the site up and running. Things may go a bit wonky over the next few days; I’m hoping to upgrade to WP1.5, since I’m currently being deluged with comment spam. My WP plugins are stopping it for moderation, but I still have to delete hundreds of comments from the moderation queue every day, which is a bit excessive.

Technorati Tags: injuries, ia, information+architecture, education, careers

2005 is the Year of the Injury. First a case of cellulitis that caused a potential clot and a lot of mobility issues; then a range of allergic reactions to just about everything in the world; then a sliced-open finger that mashed up my nailbed and taught me new things about my capacity for pain.

Apparently I’m better enough, now, to injure myself again. Tonight at Marty’s I tripped on the inch-high step into the bathroom (gimme a break; it was dark and I’m not familiar with his flat) and cannoned into the room. I put out a hand to break my stumble and smashed it into the countertop.

I don’t think it’s broken, but oy, it hurts to type.

Technorati Tags: injuries, pain

LiveJournal, one of the web’s biggest blogging/journalling hubs, has just – finally – introduced tagging. This is something for which many LiveJournal users have been waiting for a long time, myself among them.

Now, however, there’s something of a dilemma. Using LiveJournal tags provides one with the fundamental functionality of tagging, and it will provide a quick-n-dirty way of categorising posts – a feature that’s integral to most blogging software, but sadly lacking from LiveJournal.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t directly integrate with Technorati’s tagging system, arguably the most useful public tagging protocol. Without this integration, LiveJournal’s tags are largely irrelevant in the scope of the wider web; it prevents Technorati – and other indexes using Technorati’s data – from using the massive content resources of LiveJournal in any fashion less haphazard than just ‘scrape and pray’.

What I would like to see is a LiveJournal “blogging extension”. It would be a set of customisations and tools that you’d have to switch on manually (saving the rest of the web from the vast majority of LJers who are distinctly journallers, rather than bloggers); once activated, it would allow you to send Technorati or Pingomatic pings for each journal entry, and would convert your LJ tags over to Technorati tags instead. (Or, better yet, they’d work as both.)

In the meantime, I’ll start using LiveJournal’s tags, for the categorisation if nothing else. And I’ll keep putting Technorati Tags in appropriate posts; I’ll just have to crank the font size a little lower to avoid spamming my readers with excess tags.

Hardly ideal, though. But it’s a step in the right direction, on LiveJournal’s part.

Technorati Tags: tags, blogging, livejournal, technorati

Ever since I realised that science wasn’t the career for me, about ten years ago, I’ve been cruising through life trying to find a vocation that would really grab me.

Thankfully, today, I found it. It’s a job I’ve wanted to do for the better part of a decade, but the last time I looked at the industry seriously the role didn’t even exist. But, thanks to an article Harmony tossed me today, I’ve been doing a lot of reading.

I want to be an information architect. Information architecture is basically the non-visual portion of web design; it focuses on information management, structure and flow to create logical and useful (and usable) websites.

It’s my dream job, and I’ve always thought it didn’t exist. I am, to put it mildly, rather chuffed.

I’ve been through a lot of highs and lows today, trying to decide how to approach this. I know what I want to do; now I just have to work out

In other words, basically, how do I get the damn job?

If anyone has any relevant experience, or suggestions for where to look, I’d be muy appreciative. I have a lot of research to do, and personal input is always welcome.

Technorati Tags: ia, information+architecture, careers, education

In the words of the internet’s intellectual elite: I WIN AT LIFE OMG.

In other words, I managed to get the Airport Express base station set up. Admittedly, it did require a bit of bodging, which I’ll detail below. But now it’s happily extending the range of my wireless network (yes, it’s encrypted; yes, it’s private – what sort of nitwit do you think I am? :)) and streaming music to my stereo. Thumbs up.

How to Set Up Airport Express When You Have An Existing Airport Network
by Eleanor, aged 3 1/2.

Once you’ve got all the bits and bobs plugged in, fire up your wireless Mac. Don’t bother trying to install off the disc that comes with the Airport; it’ll all be outdated and won’t install anyway. Just run Software Update and make sure iTunes and Airport modules are up to date.

Then run Airport Setup Assistant. Don’t bother trying to connect your new Express to your existing Airport network. Apple says you should do it this way. They lie. It won’t work. Instead, set your new Express up as a separate new wireless network.

Once that’s done, run Airport Admin Utility. Go to the config for your existing network (not the Express-based network) and set it up to use WDS (Wireless Distributed System). It’ll ask you to add extra stations to the network – pick your new Express and away you go. It’ll reset and rename and reconfigure both the main base station and your new Airport Express hub all ready for you.

Bingo. One nice neat wifi network.

Technorati Tags: apple, wifi, airport, itunes, network

I’m trying to decide whether Disquisitions deserves to live, or not.

On the one hand:

On the other hand, I most definitely get the feeling I’m talking into the void, here. I get a few hundred hits a day, but virtually no comments. This is not to say “OMG COMMENT ON MY BLOG OR ELSE”, just an observation. A blog’s not much fun without audience response. It may well be for me, but if I didn’t care about other people wanting to read it, I may as well just write it all down in a pen and paper diary.

Just musing. I’m not trying to whine for attention, just pondering the best course of action at this point.

On the way home from Uni I dropped into the Apple store in the city – NextByte – for a bit of a browse. My resolve is weakening, but I managed to resist the lure of the iMacs – but only by distracting myself with an Airport Express that was just begging for someone to take it home and love it.

I was that soldier.

I wasn’t, however, any colour of impressed with NextByte. First, they gave me an Airport Express brochure with an academic price, but refused to offer the academic price when I was actually making the purchase. Given that the brochures were only colour laser prints, you would think it wouldn’t be that hard to correct your advertising bumf.

Then I open the packaging to find that this Airport Express looked distinctly… used. Oh, the unit isn’t scuffed or damaged in any way, but the box was a little tatty around the edges, and there was none of the characteristic Apple overpackaging – no wrappings, no shrinkwrap, no nothing, in fact.

And then I got the unit home, plugged it in, and not only was it used, it hadn’t even been reset. It still had a network identity and was still password-protected.

Now, admittedly it takes about 15 seconds to wipe the passwords, but still. If it’s that easy, why didn’t they do it? That’s just tacky, in my opinion. So, three strikes and they’re out – I won’t be giving Next Byte any of my money in future. Apple resellers wail about customers shopping via Apple directly, undercutting them? This is no incentive to behave any differently. If I’d shopped with Apple I’d have saved $25 and got a new unit for my money.

Still – it’s plugged in, it’s set up, it’s working*. At least Apple got their end of the deal right.

• – Mostly. I can’t actually get the damn thing to join my existing wireless network, which is, shall we say, frustrating. I shall keep prodding, though.

Technorati Tags: apple, nextbyte, airport, wifi

So, I’ve been idly poking at Backpack all day, loading various bits of data into it wherever I’ve figured they might be helpful.

I just discovered the coolest use of it.

Each page has a unique email address, and anything sent to that address is squirted straight onto the page. If your email has “note: [foo]” in the subject line, then it becomes a note called [foo] where the text is generated from the text of your email. You can upload images, files, and to-do list items like this, too.

Well, Backpack also stores the actual text of the email, too, in a series of accessible links on the relevant page.

So, I’ve set myself up a page called “Registrations”, and I’m forwarding all my emails with forum registrations, web service signups and the like, to that page via email. Presto, wherever I am in the world, I’ll have access to all my relevant user names and logins.

Bravo, Backpack – yet another handy feature. No piece of software is going to be everything to everyone, but Backpack’s coming awfully close. It’s a well-balanced mix of structure and simplicity; it seems to have the flexibility to handle whatever kind of content you want to include, while providing more structure and indexability than a blank text document would – or any other solution I’ve seen so far, for that matter.

Now all I need is for it to accept XML file imports and I’ll be happy.

Technorati Tags: backpack, 37signals, gtd, pim, organiser

I suck when it come to organisation – I always have. I’m trying to remedy that, though, and there’s a suite of online tools I’m finding kinda helpful. They’re from 37signals, a bunch of talented and visionary people. I see these tools as being part of the Web 2.0 revolution – the web as platform, not just content.

• Ta-Da List: Simple to-do lists, well-implemented and easy to use.


• Backpack: A web-based PIM/organiser intended for individuals and small business.


• Basecamp: A full project-management tool.

Ta-Da List is totally free, and Backpack and Basecamp have some free access (with Backpack it’s five free pages; with Basecamp it’s one free project).

All three are incredibly cool tools. I’m already using Ta-Da list for various lists of stuff, as you can see from the pic. I was always going to take to it like a duck to cocaine anyway; I’m a compulsive list-maker. When I happened across Basecamp I set myself up my free project and started using it to manage my entire life – it’s a bit of a kludge, but it works.

But then Backpack happened, and the cognoscenti are leaping aboard the bandwagon, which leaves me with something of a dilemma. Basecamp has some really swish features – publishable iCal calendars, templates for frequently-used lists, and so on – which Backpack doesn’t have. But Backpack is the popular kid, and it’s going to have the better third-party support and extensions. (It’s already got a public web services API, and 37signals are running a contest to develop Backpack widgets for OS X 10.4 Tiger.

So, I’m still trying to decide between Backpack and Basecamp, a decision not made any easier by the fact that data’s not currently portable between one service and the other. Yesterday I was leaning towards Basecamp; today it’s Backpack. Decisions, decisions.

Technorati Tags: tada+list, backpack, basecamp, 37signals, pim, gtd

From Wikinews: Particle accelerator reveals long-lost writings of Archimedes.

Scientists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park, California are analyzing a 174-page text. The book had originally contained a copy of Archimedes’ writings, but had been erased by a monk in the 12th century and reused as a prayer book. The particle accelerator is able to see small iron particles that were in the original ink.

Mind you, the unpleasant applications of technology like this are equally worrisome. When they (oh no! it’s the dreaded they!) can trace writings erased seven hundred years ago, one rather starts feeling that there aren’t many bastions of privacy left.

Technorati Tags: history, technology, privacy

Creatures in my Head is a fantastic selection of quirky little characters. From the malicious to the woebegone, these illusory beasts come to life on the page – or screen – and are oddly compelling.

The store sells T-shirts, and I really want one of the Butter Knife Fight shirts. Tempting, tempting.

Technorati Tags: t+shirts, creatures

I just wrote up a Ta-Da List (more about these later) covering ‘Topics I Must Remember to Blog About’.

And now I’m blogging about that. This has to be the height of recursion, or onanism, or something.

Technorati Tags: basecamp, 37signals, blogging

Whether you’re designing a website or repainting your house, the Online Color Schemer is pretty handy. It lets you select from a colour palette and generates 16 toning and/or complementary colours, along with their RGB and hex codes; you can make the whole scheme darker or lighter, too. Quite nifty.

Technorati Tags: colours, design