Drowning in Web2.0

… the web2.0 wave has hit me, and i'm not afraid to say i've got some water up my nose. I've been flickr'd, wordpress'd, flock'd, del.icio.us'd, kaboodled, netvibed, backpack'd, mylist'd, myspace'd, mapped, tagged, my box'd, pandora'd…. and a zillion others that i've tested and given up on.

Tonight i thought i'd try to find something that could bring everything together, in one portal, in one dimension. Nope. Nothing does it all. Google is close, Netvibes is close; I thought I'd hit the jackpot with suprglu, but no, no, no. So - now i'm back with 4 tools. GoogleStart, Netvibes, Flock, and my own blog. can I please implore someone to make something that will do everything? Am I going to have to do this??

I need to go and blow out some of the wave. Maybe I will take a closer look at Pageflakes.

Technorati : Web 2.0

making a change

… they say a change is as good as a rest, but is a rest as good as a change? is there anything as good as a change?

well - i’ve got the next 10 days off, to think and read and relax and paint.  And wonder and dream and sleep.  and have good conversations.  oh don’t worry - there is a whole sack load of things to keep me occupied…. my list is over in the whispers.

the good and the bad of web 2.0...

As I struggle with coming to grips with web2.0 and the myriad of options and new tools, I realize that staying abreast isn't nearly as difficult as trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. There really are 3 camps. Those apps that are indeed "lifehacks" and those that are "social networking". I'm all over the former, and fairly put off by the latter. And then there are the ones that try to mesh the 2 camps together. Let's call these the "relevent networking apps". Add a little wrapper of live, interactive focus groups, and you've essentailly got web2.0 all figured out.

Lifehacks would include the productivity suites, and nifty apps that actually can add value to your life: flickr, pandora.com, backpack , del.icio.us , linked-in , eurekster.com

Hard core Social Networking sites freak me out, and i tend to stay away from them, once i've poked at them a bit: Ning, MySpace. Trying to find value and relevancy is a whirlwind of chaos is easier said than done. I want relevancy. To *MY* life. I have a hard time caring about Beth in Montana's new sound collection, or where she's going on her spring break. If I could get a social networking app that managed to package what i'm interested in, with people who are similar, i could begin to see more value. It's simply a matter of time.

The relevant networking apps are a blur, there's the social aspect, but also a bit of value… Kaboodle is one of the good ones.

The fun part of web2.0 is the increasing movement for people to actually meet face-to-face. To talk and learn and laugh and experiment and gain and share ideas. This is perhaps the mist interesting componenet, and the part that seems to get me even more intrigued that the software. It's the humanware. BarCampTDot and Mesh06

People getting excited about exciting things. That's the real excitement. Collaboration and participation. That's the real twig of web2.0

Technorati : Web 2.0, backpack, kaboodle, pandora

blurring digital and analog...

i like the blur - and it appears i'm not the only one… tara hunt is quite impressive. yup.

i've got a blog; i put my christmas and birthday wish lists up and people actually take a look ;-) I can be reached on an IP phone, that knows that if im not at home, it will try my cell. I get voice mails in emails and emails on phones. I've got a digial wishlist of houses and books and music. I've got figital photo albums and musical playlists. I order groceries online, and take-out chinese as well.

You can IM me, ping me, pin me and google talk me. You can comment, suggest and slander ;-)

There are a few things I *wish* i could do digitally:

• program my PVR from work
• order cleaning service
• watch my dog from work
• skype my parents
  

All in all, it's not so very bad. It's quite good.

Technorati : analog, blogs, digital

the possibilities of the future...

i love Robert X. Cringely…. and so should you. He’s one well connected dude. And has some very interesting thoughts. Reading him is like a little spa for your brain.

Elephant - movie pick of the week

… one of those creative, dramatic, independant films that deals with the tragedy of columbine - interesting viewpoints and interesting angles.  If you can survive the first 30 minutes, you will find yourself involved, and wondering about your own highs school experience…. Elephant is indeed a good one.  Don’t ask the wiz tho - he gave up 18 minutes in, and is now snoring gently on the couch ;-)

i musta turned a corner...

… and be in the recovery stages of the winter blahs…. when i can look at this, and be cautiously interested in it;-)

 

there are days when mighty goods can save me from myself.

You have to know - those days are quite appreciated, all thing being equal.  In another hour, my blood will begin to rumble, and i’m sure I’ll be looking for pedestrains to take the edge off. Perhaps I will be looking to take the edges off pedestrians. :-)

spring in my step...

.. it felt like it was really going to be spring this weekend… and it was well on its way.  It was a good chickadee weekend… full of long dog walks and rollerblading and shopping and hilarity. We even watched Labyrinth.  I’m getting a kick out of introducing the chickadees to the movies i grew up with… Nest weekend we will try Willow and The Neverending Story

I’m sure their biggest thrills of the weekend were being able to be outside without a winter coat, and shopping and getting fun stuff… and of course, eating home-made chinese stirfry with chopsticks.  Both the wiz and i had to refrain from being too shocked when the littlest chick actually mastered the sticks amazingly. I think we were put to shame ;-) It’s taken me 4 years to even get to "un-embarassing" with chopsticks ;-) 

Now we all have fun dressy stuff to wear out - we just need places to go ;-) 

a long and winding road

… it’s funny, i seem to have made peace with life, atleast work life.  since last week, i don’t think anything can phase me, or worry me too much… it’s just a job, afterall.

so - i am zen again. and besides, i’m always having interesting conversations with interesting people.  and when it comes down to it, life is all about interesting conversations.

telco zen. life’s like this. that’s the way it is (avril lavigne)

a cup of wireless...

…poured liberally over the downtown Toronto Core. But if you look at the map that Toronto Hydro has set forth, to blanket us in warm frequencies, the mesh doesn't slip past front street. Alas, I am a block south, and a block west of Hydro's new plan. Of course. In reality, perhaps it's not the residential market that Hydro wants, but all the workers, and corporate folks who jaunt from spot to spot, lugging laptops to coffee, that they are trying to snare. Or perhaps it's the smaller shops, the companies that are now fodder for the GBM space that telcos pay such poor attention to?

Whatever it is, it's started, and expected to be complete by December 2006. Now that's an aggressive plan, i hope they are successful! Now if only i can dump the boat anchor cum laptop and get something sexy and light and sophisticated, just so i'm ready for that next grande white chocolate mocha meeting.

Technorati : Toronto Hydro Wifi

love element

Your Love Element Is Earth

In love, you have consistency and integrity. For you, love is all about staying grounded and centered. You attract others with your zest for life and experiences. Your flirting style is defined by setting the scene, creating a unique moment in time. Steady progress and stability are the cornerstones of your love life. You may take things too slowly, but you never put your heart at risk. You connect best with: Fire Avoid: Wood You and another Earth element: need each other too much to build a good foundation

What Element Is Your Love?

weather...

You Are Rain

You can be warm and sexy. Or cold and unwelcoming. Either way, you slowly bring out the beauty around you. You are best known for: your touch Your dominant state: changing

What Type of Weather Are You?

Movements in networks....

Concepts such as net neutrality, and SOA Network Enablement are starting to pop up, and people are starting to take notice…

That being said, i'm not entirely sure that the 2 concepts have been linked together, and they likely should, you can't have one discussion without the other, and there are some mighty big players fighting for and against net neutrality. But if net neutrality wins out, what impact is that going to have on all these nifty soa enabled networks and service offerings that bigwhigs are toiling on?

If net neutrality means that carriers have to have blinders on, with regards to what sorts of bits are passing along their network, what sort of impact could that have on SOA architectures? Architectures that rely on bigger, faster, better network connectivity?

Of course, right now, the fight is between carriers and content providers, and the fact that content providers are using more bandwidth (though the mere action of their internet visitors), than what they are really paying for at their hub end… In theory, this is simply the cost of doing business, and the cost of creating a network that meets consumer and corporate requirements. Carriers shouldn't really be whining - they created the pricing model. They created the demand for more bandwidth. They just happened to create a model with very little margin, and too easy to commoditize. (For a really good read on the importance of net neutrality, check out Vint Cerf's Letter to Congress)

Being in telco, and seeing both the carrier and the content provider sides, and also having the luxury of having broadband access at home, the challenges are interesting. My gut says that, in theory at least, that content providers should pay for "premium" connectivity, and boy, they better buy ALOT of it, from many different carriers. Google would/should pay inflated prices for bandwidth from the tier 1 providers, and if tier 2 providers wanted to offer "private peering", they could do that to enhance their own customer's experiences on the 'net. That makes sense. That's likely what is not happening now, Google likely has the volumes to demand dirt cheap bandwidth. They can throw their weight around.

The alternative, which is sort of nasty, is that carriers charge their customers, not the content providers, for what data is transferred…. thereby creating a different, user=pay mentality. This drives up the cost of consumer internet connectivity, and simply increases the divide between who can and who cannot use the internet. We would end up with an ugly hybrid of the PSTN service in the UK, where every call costs.

Now, flip the coin…. if there is no differentiation between content, and all bits are created equal, we are going to find outselves in hot water when we want to start adopting SOA services… services that are going to DEMAND QoS, and reliability, and availability. Services that aren't going to be very forgiving about latency and jitter. Skype comes to mind. Vonage, Microsoft Live Office. Anything internactive in Web 2.0

There has to be a happy middle ground between blind bits and visible bits. I want my Skype traffic to have QoS. I don't want to pay for QoS for my google searches. Make sense? I can't possibly have been the first person to say out loud that QoS and the need to have it as a nice paying option is a good deal for the internet.

Say it together everyone - MPLS for all!!! I'll gladly pay for that. So would content providers, so would carriers… you can discriminate - in a good way.

Oh yah, while we're at it - I also want to be able to tag my own bits, and some days i might want to have QoS on my Google destined bits. Some days maybe I want it on my shockwave gaming bits ;-)

See, easy. No more fighting about net neutrality.

Technorati : Net Neutrality, SOA

nothing chases the sh*t away faster...

… and clears the mind as taking a time out and writing something good…

*grin* 

3rd attempt...

despite my utter desire to write about the day that was, each attempt is too open, too revealing, and too close to the surface. suffice it to say, it ranks in the top 5 worst days ever….. ever…. ever….. i can still hear that echo in my head.

for anyone who knows me, and knows where i work, likely you understand, nodding your head. for the rest of my viewers, my apologies at the vagueness i have to cover everything with. it’s difficult to be in such an odd industry. especially in times as they are. 

 … i struggled home at 7, and was never so happy as to get a good lick from the smapp dog. with furrowed brow, i imagine what life would be like without the continuing saga of [the company that cannot be named].

in the wee hours...

… it’s the only time i have - to sit quietly and contemplate on life, on my own time, and at my own pace.  It’s also the only time that i’m not completely exhausted, or thinking about a myriad of difficult things. the universe is complicated, to be sure, and my little slice of it is seeing more complications than i’d usually like.

we are now going into month 3 of insanity. not sure how sustainable this is. gulp. 

Tags and clouds...

Whether we like it or not, or notice it or not, our lives are quickly being defined by tags and clouds. As information becomes available, and relavent, we are doing everything in our power to keep track of it, and make note of it. There's nothing worse that 1000's of links in your bookmarks, or unorganized email, or a list phone number for an important contact.

The concepts of tagging, and the related cloud aspect do indeed bring to mind the concept of "6 Degrees of Separation", and the social aspects of finding people are are interested in the same off-beat things you are. Perhaps there is a small comfort in knowing you aren't the only person who likes the idea of little coffe cup jackets ;-)

Still, as we struggle between more knowledge vo more information, tags seem to be one of the more interesting ways to keep trakc, and organize what we want to know about. I find myself organizing things in the analog world, based on tags, as well. My bookshelf, my analog mail, even my wardrobe. The struggle seems to be in unifying tags, and ensuring that what i mean when i say sweater, is consistent whether it's monday or whether it's March. And therein lies the trick to tagging in the blogosphere. Because of the unpredictable nature of humans, not everyone has the same meaning for the same word.

I did a tag query on shopping over the weekend…. (i get all twiggy when i find a unique on-line boutique)… and yet, the results that cam back, tagged as "shopping" where bizarre, and only a handful of on-line boutiques came back to me. The vast majority of the results were related to XLM and creating shopping cards… not necessarily what a gurl wants to do on a sunday morning…especially when she's thinking of real shopping ;-)

regardless of what you tag, consistency is key, i am learning, as is the nesting of tags… after my dismal attempt at shopping, i added boutique to my query and magically got rid of the coding results. still, nesting only adds another layer of complexity to a situation that is tenuous at best…. and introduces yet another opportunity for humans to be obscure. my tagging expertise is limited, but i've figured out, if even I want to find the stiff i've squirreld away, i have to be vigilent with my consistency. And with my spelling.

Once i tagged something with "tek" - and could never find it again.

;-)

Technorati : clouds, relavence, tagging

it's all well and good...

… to have a blog that meanders and waves, with spices of work and life and hopes and dreams.  Methinks that there is more afoot to the blogosphere than simple natterings.  Hence, the better organization along the left - go - look - see - some more content, that likely won’t be as personal as this, but might be just as rewarding ;-)

anyways, it’s a start. 

rss and readers...

… are so damn impersonal…..

my gut says that if you want to read me, go the whole way into the site, don’t just dip your toes at the edge!!

;-) 

one more for the road...

.. do you hate the way your hands get burned holding a triple triple, or the cramp you get trying to keep your fingers on the top and bottom of the cup, rather than securely in the middle?

 

don’t pop your head off, it’s very cool, in an utterly bizarro sort of way. Cup Couture is here….

and the grins just keep on coming.