Blog deprecated

In case you're still listening, you may have noticed that I haven't posted here for a while.I've started a Tumblr blog called "It feels better to share." It's really an experiment to find out the best way for me to publish things in my head.

So far, a month into Tumblr, I don't really like it. Tumblr seems focused on small posts, and my thoughts don't fit well into small posts. But I'll continue using Tumblr until I find something better.

Please continue reading the stuff that leaks out of my head onto It feels better to share.

Using Jabber Accounts in Adium: Error Socket Not Connected

Use Adium? Having trouble getting Jabber accounts to connect? I found a workaround.

I discovered that Adium was not logging in to my Jabber account on startup. It was in an endless retry loop with "Error Socket Not Connected."

I googled it and got some results telling me to change the port number. No joy.

I happened across a bug report for Adium saying that you had to click the Register button even if you've already created your account. Yep, that works.

Here are the details:

1. Go to Adium > Preferences > Accounts.

2. Right click (or control click) on the Jabber account. Click Edit Account.

3. On the Account tab, click Register New Account.

4. Everything should be all better now.

As the Internet Rewires Our Brains

When you have about 10 minutes to focus on reading and considering something important, take a look at this: As the Internet Rewires Our Brains by Kurt Cagle at O'Reilly.

Over the past decade a whole new field of study has evolved on the topic of neuroplasticity - the idea that our brains literally reprogram themselves ("re-wire" themselves in a very physical, physiological way) based on external stimuli like physical activity, reading, playing games, etc. It's a very real, scientifically measurable effect.

Given that, a very good question to ask is, "What effects are the Internet and all its associated activities and modalities having on our brains?" It's not just children's brains that will respond to Internet use; adult brains are plastic as well.

You can find all kinds of dire warnings in the media about how the Internet is dumbing down human civilization. Some of that may be true. In his article, Kurt Cagle offers a little bit of balance to that.

On the whole I think Cagle's article is fair and does not get too excited on either end of the argument. There's lots to think about there.

Cloud Computing Bill of Rights

James Urquhart proposes a Bill of Rights for vendors and buyers of cloud computing services.

I think this is a very intriguing idea, even if it may lack practicality.

The thing I missed in it, though, is that there are several references to "the community." But who and what is "the community?" I believe I understand correctly that he's referring collectively to all the people who use and/or purchase cloud computing services and deliver value-added services based on the same.

But so far I see no reason to call that collection of people and companies a community. A community has shared norms, values, language, history, and/or mythology. A community has ways of establishing and maintaining relationships between members. I don't see that users and purchasers of cloud computing services have enough of those things to be called a community yet.

Free Association

Am I the only one whom the Google Chrome Logo reminds of the Martians in the original War of the Worlds?

Tomorrow is C Day: Google Chrome, September 2, 2008

Rumors have been around forever but finally Google has publicly announced the release of Chrome. It may well fizzle but it could really change the game entirely for many, most, or all web companies.

Sometime tomorrow, Tuesday, September 2, 2008, www.google.com/chrome will become live and you will be able to download this cool new toy. Google described Chrome in a 38-page comic book that is part marketing spiel and part "Introduction" chapter to a technical reference guide.

This comic book itself is pretty revolutionary. I'm guessing we'll see a lot more "documentation" like this from many other companies in the future.

I'm bummed that the first release of Chrome will be Winblows only. By itself Chrome won't be enough to bring me back to Gatesland, but I don't like it when something really cool isn't available to me :(

Google Notebook for GTD

A while ago Lifehacker suggested that Google's Notebook could be used for GTD. It may work for some, but not for me.

Google Notebook is a nice little app. It has some convenient features and I use it now and then. Most recently Notebook has been integrated with Google Bookmarks which gives it a real purpose in my book.

But I tried to set up Notebook so that I could use it for GTD. For me, Google Notebook eleminated itself as a GTD tool within about 20 minutes of experimentation. Here's why:

1. I can't drag and drop items from one notebook into a section within another notebook. This seems to me like a really, really poor design, but there you are. I can drag from one notebook to another, but it won't let me see the sections in a second notebook when I'm already in the first notebook. Fail.
2. No way to do recurring tasks. There's also no way to mark a due date on a task that is Pending. Fail, fail.
3. Can't email into Notebook. If I were driving down the highway and suddenly remembered something very urgent, I couldn't use Jott to transcribe my voice note and email it to Google Notebook. I'd have to have Jott email it to my mail box and I would have to manually convert the email to an Inbox action item. Fail, fail, fail.
4. No keyboard shortcuts. I have to take my hands off the keyboard and search for the mouse to do almost anything. Fail, fail, fail, and FAIL.

So I keep looking for the perfect GTD tool . . .

MonkeyGTD

Well, I continue my search for a GTD tool that meets my needs. Today I looked at MonkeyGTD.

MonkeyGTD is based on TiddlyWiki, which is essentially a self-updating .html file. TiddlyWiki uses some scary-smart JavaScript to let you make your own wiki, along the lines of Wikipedia and such. It's meant to be used to build and maintain your own personal knowledgebase.

MonkeyGTD starts with TiddlyWiki's scary-smart JavaScript but pumps it full of steroids and trains it in the fine art of GTD. The result is some truly stunning technology. The people who built this are simply geniuses.

However, MonkeyGTD doesn't meet my needs for a GTD tool. Essentially it's just too complex to use.

If I jumped into MonkeyGTD I think I'd figure it out in not too long. But that's beside the point. By figuring out MonkeyGTD's view of the world, I think that my mind would set up a whole translation schema and I would be constantly (subconsciously) translating or mapping my natural, stress-free way of managing tasks into MonkeyGTD's paradigms. And I think that would introduce stress, even subconscious stress, into my task management. That means I wouldn't use it effectively and it could no longer be my *trusted* system.

That's a (hopefully) thoughtful and elegant way of saying I'm too lazy to figure out how to use MonkeyGTD.

Key requirements for my GTD tool(s): simple to use, easy to adapt, and little or no need to read the documentation.

Maybe that's why there are so many different GTD tools out there: Everyone looks at task management differently and therefore everyone needs different tools.

I would really recommend MonkeyGTD to other people looking for GTD tools. It's just not the one for me.