www.gatheringgrace.org

Back from the dead

It is great to welcome back, as if from the dead, delicious. I'm not sure why but when it first appeared it was a wonder of simplicity (both in idea and execution), but then the big money kicked in and it got gobbled up by Yahoo! and it seemed they didn't have the foggiest idea where to take it. Sure delicious has its weaknesses - it always felt a real pain to go back through your links, but hey - you can't have everything.

Whilst in net-nostalgia mode I checked back on alta vista. Despite being really irritating compared the the cleanness of the upstart Google's interface, I loved trying to navigate through loads and loads of category titles to find what I might want. They seem to have dropped that now - shame.

Now all we need is for Yahoo! to similarly liberate Flickr and my joy will be complete. No I am not renewing my Pro account and thank you for making it such an enormous pain in the mouse to retrieve those photos of my trip to Lille.

The beginning of the end?

Some days I feel that I am starting to hate the internet...

I tried to do some online banking (as I have done many times in the past) but this time I have to download a programme first. I don't know what it is, I don't know if I like it, I don't know if I want somebody else's "smart" bit of software running on my machine - giving me a pop up box no doubt every time I want to do something, but I have no choice.

I want to buy some train tickets and I have to create another account with another company I will use only once. I then have to read another set of terms and conditions I will use only once. I then have to work out the correct answer to the question about getting mail from them, deviously phrased so that neither answer is the one I want.

Isn't it always the same when big business starts to get its claws into things.

Fascinating bit in Exiles by Michael Frost about corporations and corporate culture. Essentially if you look at the ways in which big businesses operate (avoiding responsibility, happy to tell untruths, manipulative and self-serving) then compare that with the comparable personality type in a human being then we'd lock them up and throw away the key.

Disappointment (and more than a little relief)

So Steve Jobs has finally unveiled the much-rumoured iPad. It looks gorgeous (as only Apple seem able to do) and it looks to be a beautifully designed thing to use as well.

But I am disappointed. Disappointed because I find myself not wanting one - although that comes with more than a little relief.

My problem is not that I need something slick and portable to allow me to access other people's media (web or books or music), but rather I need something slick and portable to allow me to create and present my own material, and the iPad (in its current incarnation at least) isn't there yet. I haven't seen enough of the presentation to see about things like output for projectors etc but that is more where I think I need to be going.

Sorry Steve. Next time perhaps.

Stupid small print

Stupid, stupid small print.

I saw this in iTunes...

... and thought of somebody who would like it, so I clicked it, then "buy series pass" here...

...then this...

(Its all going very well at the moment isn't it?)

But it wouldn't "gift all episodes" because the small print says...

...which I don't think is the impression given by my previous three clicks.

The trail we leave behind

I guess we are all aware of the power of the marketing which examines our purchasing in the supermarket or monitors our online buys. I got this email from Amazon today...

Dear Customer,

As someone who has recently browsed our selection of digital cameras, we thought you might be interested in seeing some of the new ranges and great offers going on in store right now:

...so all I had done is looked at some cameras and bang they are on to me.

I can imagine that I may soon stop using these sites - its like those shops where the assistants stalk you around trying to pressure you into buying the most expensive model.

My new computer

I love my iMac desktop. It does everything I need more or less, but I much prefer the user experience to anything I had in my PC days.

There is one situation where my iMac isn't giving me what I need. I want to be able to record information on the hoof - in meetings, during conversations/phone calls etc, so I need something immediately accessible.

I also struggle when my means of note taking is limited to a single method. Sometimes I need text entry and at other times I need something that will record mind maps or other more graphic means.

But there's no use making notes if you don't have an intuitive means of retrieving information. I try to use systematic file names and, obviously, on my iMac can pull off most things with Quiksilver and Spotlight plus the occasional bit of file tagging, but that can be time consuming to set up and if you are not pretty rigourous I find tags get out of control.

I need rugged, transportable and really good battery life.

So I welcome my new computer to my working life which seems to give me exactly what I need. Its an A4 book and a Lamy pen. The iPhone takes care of everything else I need when out and about.

Safari 4...

...is beautiful. Top Sites!

Do not disturb

I have been using a Mac application called Mailplane for handling my work email and my old personal email address which attracts a lot of junk, but the occasional bit of usefulness.

This morning I discovered the "Do not disturb" feature. Mail is received, but I don't get a "ping" or an unread count shown. Brilliant!

Steve Jobs: the Messiah?

Definitely not! But I couldn't help having a bit of fun seeing some similar strands in the stories.

Apple (yes, even the name suggests something going way back) is the minority player, but with a devoted following. Even Apple's survival as a minority player (albeit with some energy behind it) is remarkable, looking back over its history of division and internal strife. But then Steve returned and everything changed...

...which gets people anxious about what will happen when Steve inevitably (because he is not the Messiah) clears the scene. Would they miss him? Well they can't say that they won't, but they have to play down the problem of what happens next if he does...I liked this quote...

"But I see Apple after Jobs as Ford after Henry Ford," Gottheil said. "The acolytes have incorporated the main teachings of Jobs. He's created a process and a culture that will continue."

All very familiar?

Good news for the trees!

My long term justification for the iPhone was that when I go up to Board of Education trustees meetings I don;t need to print of reams of documents which are emailed to me.

So I can now download the documents onto my phone and read them "live", even without wifi access - even the dinky cashflow graphs

Just under 500K of data NOT printed out.