eConsultant

Aardvark Firefox Extension

A perfect tool for web designers to check out the layout on sites.

Aardvark Firefox Extension

"The Aardvark Firefox extension is a tool for web developers/designers as well as casual users."

GTD with Gmail (Part I)

If you don't know GTD, you should.

GTD with Gmail (Part I)

GTD with Gmail (Part I)

I’ve previously mentioned that I use Gmail to manage GTD. I thought it would be appropriate to explain my implementation for others to utilize, comment on and improve upon the process. David Allen’s famous first step is collection. He tells us to use as many inboxes as we need, but as few as we can get away with. I use two: my Hipster PDA and my Gmail inbox. The Hipster is for collection when electronic means aren’t feasible, i.e., away from the computer or when a collection-necessary idea presents itself while I’m too busy to open my email. At collection-time each Hipster index card is converted into an email. Otherwise, the thought goes straight into an email to ‘Me’ for processing as soon as possible. Important Note: ‘Me’ is the contact that points directly to my Gmail account. If you use forwarding addresses to your Gmail, sending yourself an email using the fowarding address will only place the email in ‘Sent’ which is a pain for processing. My point in this first step is identical to David Allen’s: clear your mind of anything that needs your attention and put it somewhere you trust. Tomorrow: processing from Gmail’s inbox.

The bloggiest newspapers I found were ...

New York Times archiving on the articles is hurting them ... they should wise up and open it up.

...My heart's in Accra : Ethan's Weblog - My blog is in Cambridge, but my heart's in Accra

The bloggiest newspapers I found were:
Christian Science Monitor - 134.90
New York Times - 63.08
Washington Post - 58.44
San Francisco Chronicle - 38.32
Boston Globe - 29.80
Seattle Post Intelligencer - 18.56
New York Post - 12.48
LA Times - 11.21"

Online music lovers frustrated

The music companies will not do without DRM and a large set of people will not accept DRM. It's a losing battle for the music companies.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Online music lovers 'frustrated'

Online music lovers frustrated

UK music lovers are getting frustrated with restrictions placed on digital music tracks once they buy them from online stores, says PC Pro magazine.

The magazine reported that people are also being turned off net music stores because of pricing and disappointing sound quality compared to CDs.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said legal music downloads rose by 900% in 2004.

Last week, the UK's official singles chart included sales of legal tracks.

Yet legal downloads are still fledglings in the music industry, accounting for two percent of the market, according to PC Pro's Nick Ross.

"What people don't understand is that when they buy an iPod or other digital music player, they're being tied into a system," said Mr Ross, deputy labs editor at PC Pro.

Watching complex programs on TV is good for you ...

Watching complex programs on TV is good for you ...

The New York Times > Magazine > Watching TV Makes You Smarter


"According to television lore, the age of multiple threads began with the arrival in 1981 of ''Hill Street Blues,'' the Steven Bochco police drama invariably praised for its ''gritty realism.'' Watch an episode of ''Hill Street Blues'' side by side with any major drama from the preceding decades -- ''Starsky and Hutch,'' for instance, or ''Dragnet'' -- and the structural transformation will jump out at you. The earlier shows follow one or two lead characters, adhere to a single dominant plot and reach a decisive conclusion at the end of the episode. Draw an outline of the narrative threads in almost every ''Dragnet'' episode, and it will be a single line: from the initial crime scene, through the investigation, to the eventual cracking of the case. A typical ''Starsky and Hutch'' episode offers only the slightest variation on this linear formula: the introduction of a comic subplot that usually appears only at the tail ends of the episode, creating a structure that looks like this graph. The vertical axis represents the number of individual threads, and the horizontal axis is time."

MozBackup

Just like real estate, the rule of computer use should be: Backup, backup, backup.

MozBackup - A utility for creating backups of Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird and Netscape profiles

What's MozBackup?

MozBackup is a utility for creating backups of Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird and Netscape profiles. It allows you to backup mail, favorites, contacts, etc. This program is freeware.

Adding a View Source Menu item to Macromedia Flash Content

Flash designers can share their work ... if they want to.

http://www.markme.com/mesh/archives/007432.cfm

Adding a View Source Menu item to Macromedia Flash Content

Yesterday Lawrence Lessig gave a talk at the FlashForward conference titled The Cost of Copyright. In it, he stressed the importance and necessity of a culture of sharing. Of course, the Flash community has grown up on this culture (i.e. FlashKit, layer 51). However, all of the sharing usually goes on on a developer to developer level, as you cannot easily get the source from Flash content.

So, during the FlashForward keynote this morning, I put together a simple library that allows you to add a view source Menu item to your Flash content. This makes it easy to allow other developers and designers to view the source for your content (if you want them to be able to).

Beware unplanned SP2 downloads on April 12

Windows XP will be automatically updated ...

Beware unplanned SP2 downloads on April 12

Beware unplanned SP2 downloads on April 12

On Tuesday, April 12, Microsoft will turn off the blocking feature that has made it possible for some enterprises to block Windows XP Service Pack 2 downloads by employees who use Automatic Update. That means in companies that used the blocking tool, SP2 will be downloaded automatically to desktop computers that use Windows' Automatic Update feature.

In its April 4 report on business adoption of Windows XP SP2, AssetMetrix warned that a surge of SP2 downloads on April 12 could stress IT help desks and cause "productivity brownouts" among employees. But a Microsoft spokesman downplayed that scenario, saying fewer than 1% of Microsoft's enterprise customers ever used the blocking tool anyway. Small businesses and consumers will be unaffected by the change, he says, because the blocking tool was not available to them.

AssetMetrix advises companies that did use the blocking tool, yet now want employees to upgrade to SP2, to do so gradually before April 12 in order to avoid a big-bang support problem. It's worth noting that April 12, as the second Tuesday of the month, is the same day that Microsoft is scheduled to release its monthly software patches, if any are forthcoming.

Google increases the storage from 1Gig to 2Gig .... and promises more.

Google increases the storage from 1Gig to 2Gig .... and promises more.

Gmail: Help Center

"G is for growth

Storage is an important part of email, but that doesn't mean you should have to worry about it. To celebrate our one-year birthday, we're giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why stop the party there? Our plan is to continue growing your storage beyond 2GBs by giving you more space as we are able. We know that email will only become more important in people's lives, and we want Gmail to keep up with our users and their needs. From Gmail, you can expect more."