The Way of the Spoon

Note: This blog has been dusted off and started again over at http://thewayofthespoon.wordpress.com/. Check it out over there from now on.

   This cartoon is undeniably very true (and also serves as a wonderful reminder for the fact that I really do need to read the Onion right now)... from toothpastefordinner, a great collection of little drawings pointed out to me by Jon, rivalling Hugh MacLeod's gapingvoid, another blog I've added to my feed reader.
   In other news, part of -my excuse- the reason I haven't been writing much here lately is that I've been trying to get a new school blog off the ground. It's called the eXponent Online. I'm not even going to go into the problems i've been having with setting everything up, but do take a look at it even though it's still under construction.

   When I first got OneNote, I didn't use it much, mainly because I didn't like the way it handles ink. I used it most for keeping track of homework and the side notes feature (that was a great idea, very convenient), but after SP1 I began to use it more and I'm gradually "falling in love" with it. The more I use it, the more I realize what a great job the team did with it. It's a great tool for both notes and organization.
    I do have some suggestions though. First of all, I know it's not easy to do, but I would love it if words were grouped separately from each other. If I'm writing and want to move part of a line, I can't do it. That and the lack of color choices are what is keeping me from ditching Journal. Also, did love to see a browser with features like Maxthon's integrated with One Note, taking advantage of the multi-layer tab system, a built in feed reader, and maybe even that whole desktop search thing that's so popular nowadays. And how about some serious Outlook integration? I know I'm asking a lot and I'll probably never be content, but hey. these would make OneNote much better in my oppinion. Do you use OneNote? What would you like to see added?

   Is a constant flow of information addicting? Are you addicted?

   There are so many sources of information on the internet nowadays. Blogs are becoming more and more popular and feed readers are becoming more common as well, allowing you to subscribe to more and more feeds. The very nature of a blog, that which significantly sets it apart from a magazine, is the fact that it is practically a constant flow of information released at irregular intervals. Then when you add to that the fact that feed readers allow you to read more blogs more often (Scoble, I know you're blushing, Mr. Too-Many-Feeds-To-Count ;-) ), you get something that seems great at first, but then presents a possible problem. When I first started using a feed reader, boredom wasn't a problem I had to deal with. Got 30 seconds? Let me peek at BoingBoing. Done with homework? Why don't I sift through Scoble's link blog or check out Engadget and Gizmodo. I started reading more and more often. Now, i've noticed that I'm approaching the point where, if I have a minute and there's nothing new posted, I update my feeds again and again and become desperately bored. Thinking about things to entertain myself has become harder. Have I become addicted?
   I'm not entirely sure, but I'm definitely going to be careful with how I spend my time. After all. that big yellow thing they call the sun sure is shiny! I don't want to stop, no. but I don't want this to become a problem. Geeks have lives too, you know, they're just buried under nondescript CD-R's, papers, wires, circuit boards, etc. :-)
   This whole thing was once a fear many people had of television, and while you definitely can't think of blogs and TV as similar in too many ways (after all, blogs do require more thought), the results seem strikingly similar. And I don't even watch TV! Could this be a problem we'll encounter more and more in this time of broadband internet, WiFi, and SPOT watches? Are we all susceptible? Is there a compromise, a way to enjoy our blogs without becoming zombies? Can we have our cake and eat it too?

   I'm a huge fan of tabbed browsing. In fact, i depend on it. My tabs even act as a sort of task list for me, reminding me of things I have to look at, blog about, do, or who I have to email. When I'm doing research on something or working on a project, I often end up with the tabs from one project getting mixed up with another group of tabs. Rather than have one window per group of tabs, how about a tree-style tab interface. You could separate your tabs into groups. This is similar to what the OneNote interface has: You have a sub-page under a page under a tab under a notebook. I currently use Maxthon for my tabbed browsing fix, but I'll use anything as long as it's got the features I need (and it's free!). I'm not going to go into why I use Maxthon primarily over Firefox or Opera or any other IE mods (I use just about every browser that isn't IE), but if anyone knows about a browser that has this feature, or if any coders able to make a browser or currently working on one want to toss this in, please let me know!
   In other news, someone gave me an Apple Airport they didn't need. Anyone know how to make this a WiFi adapter and/or repeater (to increase the range of my current wireless network? The only thing I can think of is to buy a WiFi adapter, plug it into the ethernet in jack on the Airport, and set the Airport to operate on a different channel. Any suggestions?

   I usually don't have much time to blog, what with school and side projects and such. However, I am still a rabid internet addict, so here's some of the stuff I've been diggin' lately:

• GBlog: a new blog program, finally launched. Looks like it's got tons of features and is simple to use. Until now, I've been eyeing NucleusCMS (found it through Open Source CMS, another great site for trying out content management systems) as the blog software I'm going to install on my server (once I get it working...), but I'm definitely installing this as well. More information is yet to come on their site, but so far, it looks delicious. Also, soon to come is Collablog, apparently powered by or by GBlog. It's a collaborative blog, should be a cool new twist.


• Speaking of delicious, look at del.icio.us and Furl. Haven't had a chance to dig in more, but they seem to be link lists you can publish.


• I don't remember how I came across this, but GeoURL must have struck me as interesting. If I remember correctly, it's a way to link your URL to your location, allowing you and others to look at your "neighbors" on the internet.


• Just remembered something I came across a long while ago, but since forgot about and should check out: BlogShares - a sort of blog stock market that assigns monetary values to a blog's incoming link. You use virtual money to invest in blogs. It's a pretty cool idea; Technorati meets stock market simulations (also very fun, there are tons out there, just search for them).


• And now for some interesting open-source approaches to note-taking or text management in general.


• --- Notebook: a wiki-like tool on your computer. So far, I haven't found a good use for it, but being the packrat that I am, I'm keeping it to play with.


• --- KeyNote is a tabbed notebook with a file-tree-like interface and tons of other features including fairly heavy encryption, one file with all your notes in it, and more.


• The Geek Chart [PDF]: very funny.


• Strafe's Guide to Streetspeak: funny and useful. I'm trying to incorporate (some of) these in my daily speakage to maximize confusion and show off my geekiness.


• Nowadays, when everyone ('specially us geeks) has so many shiny toys that need batteries. And since everyone likes rechargeables more, those are spreading more and more. The Battery University will teach you how to make the best of your batteries and make them last longer.


• For you morbid folks out there who are "children on the inside" (whatever that means...), dig these!


• --- The Unfortunate Animal of the Month Club (via the J-Walk Blog)


• --- Plushy death art (via BoingBoing)


• The Free and Legal Music Wiki


• George Soros blogs


• Peter Rysavy is blogging again! Yay! If you don't know, Peter's Tabula blog is about the tablet pc. Definitely worth a subscription if you're into tablets, but do check his other blogs out as well regardless.


• A real lawn chair

   That's it for now! Enjoy!
PS: This may happen more often, because I often don't have much time and it also lets me store links with my own descriptions. I'm not a fan of "bookmarks" or "favorites."

   I am excited. Why, you might ask. Well, let me tell you. Someone I admire named (Robert) Scoble, who has a section of virtual space on a large networked collection of computers that covers the entire planet earth, has added to his section a small collection of typed characters unlike many of the others on his "site" or "blog" as some call it, in that these letters are blue (rather than black) and underlined (rather than not), and has set these characters up (with HTML coding wizardry) in such a way that when others on the " 'net " click their pointing devices upon these characters, they are whisked away to my small and rather unknown corner of virtual space. (That was one tremendously long sentence!)
   In other words, I got "Scobleized," as they say, though I find the word "Scobleized" somewhat inferior to my decription of the process above. ;-P In any case, I would like to welcome new readers, and (in a typical self-plugging fashion) urge them to check out this little bit of blog I've got going here. In fact, I realize, that I have forgotten to post this, but:
   For your convenience, www.BurningFlare.com leads to this blog, as well as http://thewayofthespoon.blogspot.com.
   I also realize that my template is somewhat... default, for lack of a better term. This is because I had to delete my last one and kept putting off the modifications on this new one, including links and maybe even Technorati integration. No worries, I'll eventually find time to work on that as well. And yes, I do have a feed (Atom) which I'll link to as well.
   Finally, I realize I need to clarify something. I wasn't clear in my letter to Scoble about this, but I didn't single-handedly get the school to start using tablets. At the time I got mine, Learning Unleashed was already seriously thinking about using tablets. I only provide input and ideas as well as a student's point of view.

Oh yeah, and before I forget, is there a way to get traffic information from Blogger? Right now, the only way I've got of seeing the effects of my "Scobleization," if you will, is though Technorati. Drop me a comment if you've got a solution.