May 2005 Archives

Huh - just as I post a little criticism of Mena Trott for being too busy to blog, I go and (seemingly) stop blogging. But wait - it's not what it seems - I have been blogging - just not here: I've been busy supporting the Champions of Europe in Istanbul, and I've also been blogging inside the firewall - lots of exciting stuff going on, none of which I can blog right now...what a tease !.

I found the following just a little dissonant. Halley Sutt commenting on Mena Trott’s response to a post from Jason Kottke. Whew.

I think Mena's point of view is right on on many subjects. In response to a critique that bloggers who join Six Apart stop blogging frequently, I like her take on the simple fact that people are BUSY over there just running a company which happens to be growing at an incredible rate. Here's just a sample:

“I don't buy the idea that most companies are creatively stifling their employees. While it may be true for some companies, I think it's far more likely that, as you say, people with jobs are really, really busy. Frankly, I know that when my heaviest periods of blogging came when I was unemployed or not feeling fulfilled at work.”  Halley's Comment: Mena's Corner Of The Boxing Ring

It would be interesting to know if Mena is at least blogging internally, or if she has mostly completely stopped.

If the latter, then I’m not sure how to react if a senior executive interrupted me in mid-blogvert and said “But if the CEO of a company that is devoted to blogging doesn’t believe in it enough (as a communication tool, as opposed to a way of making money) to make time to blog, then why should I ?”

Maybe I’m reading too much into this – probably because I don’t have enough to do at work right now .

I've been thinking about posting something explaining more about why I don't think podcasting is all that. And then I see this: j|turn » Podcasting is a Bad Idea, and I realise that by waiting long enough I no longer need to do anything except point to the link and nod vigourously. [oops – and credit Fredrik Wackå for the link !]

The rather wonderful people at Headshift have unveiled a prototype showing how “social tagging might work on the BBC news site.”

Ajaxy interface removes apparent server lag, links, posts and pictures with common tags are pulled in from del.icio.us, technorati and flickr.

Whatever some people say about the rights of “content producers” to have their content kept inviolate and whole, this is the future – your content, my context.

technorati: bbc backstage

Following up on a previous post, I've been locked out of GMail 3 times now – twice in the last week. Starting to identify a pattern: whenever this happens, GMail will be open in a Firefox tab and refreshing itself every second or so. Don't know why it's doing this, but I've uninstalled the 2 Greasemonkey scripts I use for GMail, so we'll see if it makes a difference. The automated response from the GMail support team now invites you to send in some information:

If you feel that access to this account should not have been disabled, please respond to the following questions: 1. List the date and time of day when you were locked out of the account. 2. What task were you performing when you were locked out? (ex: sending an email, downloading an attachment, etc.) 3. Has access to your account been disabled before this occurrence? If so, when and for how long? 4. Indicate which of the following, if any, Gmail features you use: POP, auto-forwarding, or Gmail's Notifier 5. Are you using any type of browser extensions? If so, please specify. 6. Do you use any third-party software in conjunction with Gmail? If so, please specify.

I responded, and not surprisingly, heard nothing back. Still no official or semi-official response from Google – all we can do is examine their automated responses and infer what we can. Or read tea-leaves. [Update 13th May 2005 – locked out again. I probably GMail open in a tab at home – sent email to Gmail support, received automated reply. Account will probably be unlocked in a few minutes – but if that tab is refreshing itself at home may well get locked out again very soon. This is really really boring, and surely fixable by Google without resorting to lockouts.] Oh – does anyone know of a decent Ajaxy opensource webmail solution ? I used to use SquirrelMail, but it does feel clunky now I'm used to GMail. I utterly hate being in the situation of loving the interface and the space of GMail yet feeling utterly helpless in the face of their automated decision making. I understand that GMail costs nothing, but surely this is brand-damaging ? Come on Google/Gmail, someone talk to me. Technorati Tags: gmail, gmail lockdown

Met David Geller of WhatCounts yesterday – talked a bit about their new product – BlogUnit – which I think might be a good fit in some coporate environments (based on the paper specs and chat we had).

Interesting chat, could be an interesting product – I hope to get a demo sorted out soon.

Thanks for taking some time out to come and chat David.