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Monday, September 02, 2002

Al Macintyre, Meet Rick Klau

Rick's solution, based on Marc Barrot's activeRenderer, won't answer all of Al's needs, but it looks like a great start and an excellent improvement in Radio navigation. It would take very little to add all your Categories to the OPML file and have them show up in the menu.

Al, I think you're going to find lots of useful tips on Rick's site, and I suspect you'll be adding him to your excellent Radio Doc Sources page.

Now, if I can just get over the browser hurdle so I can use some of this outline stuff...

Radio Wishlist - Help me resize the edit box, manage WIP, and navigate categories.. From Al Macintyre:

[...]Help me Navigate through my Categories.

• Top Command Menu include Categories.  Or perhaps make this a menu selection in the Cloud Links Status area down right side.
  • When I click on it, would take me to something structured like Stories.  A chart of all my Categories, like the Categories Page.
• Calendar addition of a phrase to tell us which Category we navigating through.
  • Use Calendar to navigate through posts to a particular Category post on a particular day, or that of the Home Page.
  • When I learn how to have Navigator Links to my Categories, on right side below the Calendar, I would like an interconnection between Calendar and Categories.
    • For example, suppose I am looking at Calendar for posts made to Home or a Category for Aug 20th.  I might want some icon to appear beside some other Categories to show that THEY also had some posts on THAT DAY.
    • Or, suppose I am looking at Calendar for the month.  I might like some indication associated with individual days to show that there were posts those days for categories other than the home.
    • Perhaps an expanded chart available that shows week horizontally and categories vertically and in the spread sheet intersections are links showing that for that day and that category there was one or more posts.  Click on the link to get to them.

[A cool visualization of where the author's attention flows over time.] [ Source: a klog apart]

And here's the final shot of Rick's work. Read all three posts at tins::: for the full story, and mine the site for all manner of Outliner tricks, as well.

Screenshot of the activeRoll with Radio NavLinks.

Here's a screen shot of what the desktop website looks like now that I've got the Radio menuing added as an activeRoll. (It's too small to see in this snapshot; click the image to see it full size.)

Thanks go to Marc Barrot for making this so freakin' easy.

[ Source:  tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog]

The Word Is: Guarantees

It does matter that those same Americans are standing idly by while a series of ill-conceived laws are passed by over-zealous, self-aggrandizing politicians, often at the behest of corrupt business magnates. But as long as the Constitution still stands we have a chance at getting this mess straightened out... eventually.

Something else to get angry about.

CBS News: "Support for the First Amendment has eroded significantly since Sept 11 and nearly half of Americans now think the constitutional amendment on free speech goes too far in the rights it guarantees, according to a new poll." [Scripting News]

» There is only one word that seems out of place in that quote:  think about it. [ Source:  Curiouser and curiouser!]

Attn: Bloggers For Hire

Blog your resume. This is how a typical resume looks like. My opinion is that it's impossible to tell anything from a typical resume. [...] Blog your resume.

[insert] In addition to a standard resume keep a log of all the stuff you're learning and doing. E.g. if today you wrote a 5k lines perl script that spiders the web and extracts interesting info, you would to your log a dated entry:

Finished 5k line Perl script to spider the web. Used LWP::Simple module...

etc. Maintain focus and balance. We assume that this information will be read at some point in the future by someone who'll want to hire you. Don't put irrelevant information like what you've eaten for breakfast (maintain focus). Also don't post trivia like wrote 5 lines of Perl code to display "Hello world" (maintain balance).
[/insert]

 It's a win-win situation. Potential employer has a much better chance to assess your skills and experience. You'll have a better chance to showcase your skills and you'll have an edge over resumes that only say "Programming skills: C/C++, PHP". Of course you should start now, the day you're out of work is probably a few years late. [...] [Krzysztof Kowalczyk's Weblog] [ Source:  Seb's Open Research]

Radio Macintyre

Al Macintyre's Radio Doc Sources.. A great collection of links to Radio documentation, tips, tools, experts. I keep finding new, juicy things and ripe, proven resources. High editorial value. Thanks, Al. [a klog apart]

I like the way Al makes the identity of authors stand out. It helps you get a feeling for who knows what. [ Source:  Seb's Open Research]

Why Does MacOS Get A Pass on Stuff Like This

I've installed Jaguar on my iBook. Love the new features, especially the mail application. I've been reading about the spam filter and must admit I'm duly impressed!

Of course setup wasn't without problems. Minor issue: While setting up an IMAP account, I deleted 3 years worth of carefully stored and archived email. I was so confused by this event, that I just closed the machine and went upstairs to take a shower. [...] [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

Three years! Three friggin' years of e-mail gone during an install and the guy goes to take a shower. [more...]

The Intranet as Living Community

A different view on intranets: Cities of Text. Marc Demarest writes an often amusing, but always thoughtful, article on intranets as data junkyards. He draws parallels to city planning, and uses this to highlight common problems with corporate intranets.

He identifies a number of common intranet myths:

• Intranets are just a matter of technology
• Intranets have nothing really to do with technology
• If we give people an intranet, they will spontaneously share knowledge
• Intranets deliver huge ROI almost immediately
• Intranets are a new kind of IT system, and don't require the definition, design and implementation discipline we employed with OLTP and DSS systems
• The IS organization can run the firm's intranet
• The IS organization has nothing to do with the firm's intranet.
• Intranets are self-organizing
• Intranets are knowledge management
• Intranets are cheap

What is really interesting, is that this article was published in 1997. What has changed in the last five years? Nothing. [Thanks to the Guide to Ease weblog.] [ Source: Column Two]

Demarest goes on to speak clearly about issues that affect virtually every intranet project, and how looking at the lessons learned in building physical communities are equally applicable in virtual communities:

[...] Unfortunately, the average firm's intranet is typically based on none of these real-world forms, with their histories of successes, failures, limitations and advantages. Instead, the typical intranet looks, if anything, like Tombstone, Arizona: a boom-and-bust, clapped-up, clapped-out frontier town, a buildings-now-rules-later, caveat emptor shoot-em-up wild west town. [...]

In the comments section of Column Two, Denham Grey adds the following:

Marc's "Knowledge management: an introduction" also 1997 vintage, is still a classic:

http://www.hevanet.com/demarest/marc/km1.pdf

One of the best KM / intranet books I have read is is "The 21st-Century Intranet" by Jennifer Stone Gonzalez

I've not yet read these two, but have no doubt they will be well worth the time.

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This Page was last updated: 11/28/2002; 6:10:15 PM
Copyright © 2002 Terry W. Frazier