Thursday May 05, 2005

Personal log stardate... I've kept a dead tree journal for some time now. Its an on again, off again sort of thing. Recently I've really been itching to keep the same thing on my thumbdrive where I can store images, sounds, data, etc. along with my entries in a form factor I can carry with me anywhere. So as a first try I looked around for software that would allow me to keep a personal log in html. Most of the things I found didn't really fit or were for hand held platforms (low datarate entry devices). One thing I ran across is elog. From a shared lab log type of thing it sounds like a cool tool. But still didn't quite meet my needs. Just as I was about to hack something up with Ruby on Rails (I'd already decided whatever I did should be in Java/Ruby/something I could run on a variety of platforms) I ran across Pimki. Pimki is a wiki/weblog/todo list/RSS feed generator package written in Ruby. Its not really meant as a personal log but provided me most of what I wanted in one fairly simple package. There are a few things it lacks in the security area. I would like to be able to logout without shutting down the server and I would like to be able to keep the data encrypted. But all in all its a fairly reasonable package. I suspect my personal log will be electronic from now on. ( May 05 2005, 12:53:01 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

its all about the content

In Getting Flat, Part 2 Doc Searls makes the comment

Though I doubt I'll live to see it, I am sure some day we will look back on massive TV consumption the way we now look back on drunk driving and ubiquitous cigarette smoking: as an unhealthy practice that, for a few dumb decades, was the norm.

The whole article (part 1 and part 2) makes some good points. But this one jumps out at me. My first reaction is "Yah"! Thats right! But hold on, I think maybe Doc is giving into blaming the media instead of the content. Much like most of radio programming today, which wouldn't have gotten my grandparents to wait expectantly for their favorite program, TV today lacks good programming. Maybe when the tools¹ and bandwidth are available video podcasting will provide some real diverse content for TV. I have hope for reasonable use of broadcast video media. I have little hope that the companies involved today will make the transition without a lot of external prodding.

¹ I'm not talking about production tools. They exist today and are getting better. For example my sister-in-law produced a workout video for my wife in an evening with her digital camera and some DVD authoring software. No, the barrier for both audio and video is search. Until its easy to search both won't be able to scale very well. ( May 05 2005, 12:35:25 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]