Ok, so I've been pretty quiet lately...

As you may have noticed, [but more likely is that you haven't noticed] I've not found the time or enthusiasm to maintain my blog lately. In both writing my blog and reading others blogs it occurred to me that blogs fall into three camps; (1) those that summarise, review and filter content from other blogs with a smattering of commentary on personal experiences with software or other nerdy pursuits [in which category my blog falls], (2) specialist subject blogs and then (3) those who write original material, mainly based on observation of life around them.

Looking at my own blog reading habits and the blogs I now subscribe to, there are one or two A list "aggregator" blogs [Robert Scoble, Tom Peters etc etc], a bunch of blogs that cover specialist subjects which are of interest to me [so this covers a bunch of Project Management, Mind Mapping and Getting Things Done blogs] and then the rest of my subscriptions are to blogs with something original to say [dooce, wil wheaton, Trevor Romain, Thrusher, Susan Bernard etc etc]

I've kind of worked out in my own mind that I could not, and actually do not want, to be a Scoble or Tom Peters or Dave Winer, which is not to say that I don't respect what they do, because I do. I don't think I could write a specialist blog because I see myself as a kind of jack of all trades within my professional disciplines of IT and Project Management rather than someone with a definitive specialty [although I recognise that I might just be blocked here]; and my life just isn't interesting enough to sustain an 'original content' blog.

So I'm kind of stalled with what to do with my blog, although I do occasionally think about what to do next with it. If I ever work it out, I'll go back to posting more often.

Blog Writer Review

My trial of Blog Writer didn't last long. The image integration turned out to be a pain, you need to specify an FTP site that will host the images. I was expecting something similar to Hello [which in effect provides you with the image hosting] with added desktop publishing features.

The product linking functionality has the feel of a feature which is, or could be, used to provide click thru revenue to the software provider.

I've uninstalled the product.

Only in America - Part 2

A man in Utah is auctioning his middle name on eBay. So far, bidding indicates that this is not going to be as popular a sale as the lady who sold her full name (see Only in America - Part 1).

"Only in America" could turn out to be a long running series.

Meet the family - part 1

Meet Toby.

Is Marc Orchant the busiest guy on the planet?

Marc Orchant writes one of my very favourite blogs over at The Office Weblog. He also writes a blog called Marc's Outlook on Productivity (Cool tools and tips to get more done with Office!) as part of the Office Zealot team. And he was recently announced as the editor of the forthcoming book on blogging by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, which you can read about at the Red Couch blog.

I think what I most enjoy about Marc is that he is the A list blogger who most closely mirrors my interests. He's obviously into Getting Things Done and Mindjet's MindManager in a big way, which are two of my obsessions. As far as I can tell, he's into Gmail and Google's Desktop Search. And he's also into all the little tricks, extensions and hacks that make the life of a would be computer geek that little bit easier.

Today I picked up from him that Gmail are upping the storage limit on accounts from 1GB to 2GB for everyone (with plans to grow storage levels beyond that) AND that rich text formatting is available when you compose your Gmail. Google are definitely setting the pace in so many areas at the moment.

And I also discovered from a Google search on Marc's name that he created the Invisible PC project which aims to keep us up to date on the best ideas, practices, and free tools to help make your PC invisible to the bad guys and immune to the viruses, worms, and other vermin crawling over the Net. Which is very handy, as I've been hit with an annoying adware problem in the last 48 hours. I already use a combination of Ad-aware, PestPatrol and Spybot - Search & Destroy to protect myself from this kind of thing and based on Marc's advice I'm going to add Spyware Blaster to the mix.

The tools page on the Invisible PC site also pointed me towards the Gibson Resarch Corporation who appear to have lot of tools designed to improve pc security. I'm gonna go check it out now.

Blog Writer - WYSIWYG blogging editor

Now this sounds like an interesting product. Blog Writer mixes word processor and desktop publishing functions, making text formatting and image integration a snap. I've downloaded the latest version and will give it a spin in the next day or so. It's compatible with Blogger, and it's free.

Are you absolutely certain the Mac OS X is not susceptible?

I picked up a post on Aunty Spam's blog earlier in the week which is about a company (DVForge) that was offering a $25,000 prize to the first person to write an Mac OS X virus. I parked the post in my "Blog This" folder whilst I ruminated on whether to write something about the story or not.

The company involved cancelled the contest when they realised that there was a chance they were violating US federal law. Note they didn't cancel the contest because of the stupidity of sponsoring a contest in an area of computing life that has caused hundreds of thousands of computer users untold problems, heartache and loss. I don't much care if the logic is that the Mac OS X is not considered susceptible to virus attack and that's it's therefore really just a publicity stunt. That kind of logic is always flawed. As sure as eggs is eggs, there's always someone smarter than the people who unwisely declare with absolute certainty that they are right.

Only in America... Part 1

A mother of five from Tennessee has sold her name on eBay to Internet site Golden Palace Casino. She will officially be named goldenpalace-dot-com once the legal work is complete.

This could only happen in America.

An end to tyranny

I've been a big fan of David Allen's Getting Things Done approach since I read the book last year. Over recent weeks I was conscious that I'd fallen off the GTD wagon, but over the course of this week I've made a concerted effort to get back on track. Last night before I left the office I achieved an empty Inbox for the first time in several weeks and this morning I took the following steps to take even more control of my Inbox:

A. Open Outlook
B. Tools->Options
C. Click E-mail Options…
D. Click Advanced E-mail Options…
E. Uncheck:

(1) Play a Sound
(2) Briefly change the mouse cursor
(3) Show an envelope in the notification area
(4) Display a New Mail Desktop Alert (default Inbox only)

Scary stuff!

No more e-mails interrupting my chain of thought or the task on which I am currently focused.

I picked this advice up from the "What's the next action" blog, which is a weblog totally devoted to Getting Things Done, but it originally came from Microsoft blogger Omar Shahine. Omar recommended reading an article called "The Tyranny of Email" which I intend to do when I get some time later this week. For now, having created my list of next actions, it's time to get focused on them.

How very sad...

Wil Wheaton writes an excellent blog at WIL WHEATON dot NET. He's posted a very moving tribute to "The Bear", a family pet who is about to be put to sleep.

A difference of opinion about desktop searching

Yesterday, Marc Orchant pointed at an article in The Washington Post about the state of desktop searching. When I read the article I must admit to being pleased that I'd chosen Google as my desktop search tool as the article pretty much validated Google as, currently, the best of the options.

Today, Chris Pirillo, has entered the fray in defence of Copernic. Chris made some thoughful points about Copernic and I might have another look at their product as a result, at some point in the future. Chris goes on to argue that the line between local and network data should not be blurred.

I'm not so sure. I like that a Google web search reminds me that I have data locally about the topic I'm interested in. I have over 175,000 files on my laptop. If an issue comes up at work I'd like to be reminded that I have several documents on the subject I've used before and filed away, ready to be brought out and used again, whilst I'm searching the internet for topical information on the subject at hand. I'm not sure if he meant it or not, but Chris makes a veiled suggestion that in using Google as your Desktop tool you may end up with your chat logs (or some other locally held personal information) on the internet by mistake. Or perhaps Chris was only suggesting that less geek like users just might not get that some results are being returned from local sources.

I think that users will view the issue in terms of the criteria they might have for selecting the tool in the first place: Does the tool make searching ALL sources of data easier? Are the searches accurate? Are the searches fast? The criteria will not include: "does this blur the line between local and network data?" I guess this is fine whilst you trust that the providers of desktop searching will not trespass onto your local data and load it onto their servers. I trust that Google, Yahoo and MSN won't do that today. But will it always be that way?

And they said it couldn't be done....

Yesterday, Linda and I celebrated eight years of marriage. I just wanted to take a moment to recognise that none of what I do would be possible without the love and support given so generously by Linda.

We celebrated with dinner and a movie - Miss Congeniality 2 - which was not as good as the original but nevertheless an entertaining diversion.

Blogger's solo bid to climb Everest starts this week

Gavin Bate begins his solo attempt at Everest this week (he leaves the UK for Nepal on Easter Monday) and he's blogging it.

I've subscribed!

The website is here and the feed (which isn't obvious) is here.

Would you trust the hospital that buys your pacemaker off eBay?

The Tuscon Citizen is running a story about the purchase of a pacemaker on eBay. And I quote:

"A stolen pacemaker bought off eBay and implanted in the chest of an Arizona heart patient is raising questions about the burgeoning online market for medical devices and the regulations designed to keep patients safe."

This is raising questions? I should hope so. I thought of a question of my own: would you trust your hospital if it bought your pacemaker off eBay?

Lawyers acting for the medical group hospital who bought the device are quoted as saying: "There was nothing unethical about this purchase". I tell you what guys. From now on all the bloodsucking lawyers get the used pacemakers off eBay and the rest of us will have new ones, if that's all right with you.

Mindjet Blog

Marc Orchant at The Office Weblog has picked up on the launch of a Mindjet Blog. Mindjet are the people who make MindManager, one of my favourite desktop tools. It's a shame that only Mindjet personnel appear able to comment. And if anyone at Mindjet picks this comment up, it would be great if you could make the full posts available in your XML feed rather than just the headlines so that I can read the blog in my aggregator.

Type A personality

I stumbled over a blog this morning written by a mother who self-deprecatingly describes herself as someone "who used to have an exciting job". Her most recent post contained the phrase "getting things done" which is my Technorati watchlist for all things David Allen related.

The post also referred to "type A personality". Ok, so I'm [mostly] a type A personality too.

Answers.Com defines type A personality as: "A temperament marked by excessive competitiveness and ambition, an obsession with accomplishing tasks quickly, little time for self-reflection, and a strong need to control situations."

Type A behaviour is: "A behavior pattern characterized by tenseness, impatience, and aggressiveness, often resulting in stress-related symptoms such as insomnia and indigestion and possibly increasing the risk of heart disease."

Now what do I do?

Embarrasing facts about me, number one

I hope I don't have to write too many post in the series entitled "Embarrasing facts about me..."

So I'm a fan of American Idol. There I said it. Actually my wife, Linda, is the really big fan but I can't help getting wrapped up in the shows as well. At least I'm not one of those sad muppets who get caught up in Big Brother!

We both really enjoyed The X-Factor as well. I got caught up so much I was very aggrieved that G4 didn't win the first series. We bought the album the other week when it was released and we are going to see them in concert at The Royal Albert Hall in June.

Anyway, my Technorati feeds this morning found me a really well done blog called "American Idol Rantz". Given that in the UK we don't get the shows [on ITV 2] until the end of the week, sites like this one are a good way of keeping up with what's going on without all the PR fluff from the "official" site.

StatCounter

I just keep finding things I can do with my blog that:

(a) sort of make me look like a liar or a fool
(b) are incredibly cool in the nerdy sense of the word.

Was it only the day before yesterday that I wrote:

Interestingly, being semi-Scobleized does not appear to have brought any traffic to my blog, based on the only measure I have on Blogger which is whether anyone leaves comments.

So this moring I find StatCounter. Check out the sidebar on my blog. I have stats!

The process of setting up an account, configuring options and modifying my blog template was all very straighforward. I think the whole process took less than 20 minutes. The stats provided are comprehensive and easy to interpret. And it's free, up to a point.

The only "catch" is if you start to get over 9,000 pageloads each day you are outside what they can sustain as a free business model and they we will then ask you to either remove the code or upgrade.

Of course there's not a lot of point in getting hung up on stats on a blog with an rss feed. If anyone did decide to subscribe to my feed, then I will get the traffic count from the visit they make where they subscribe, but the website may never see them again.

So now I'm going to say that whilst my blog is hosted by Blogger there is no way to get statistics on my subscribers or readership. Let's see how long it is before I find out that isn't true either.

NASA is going back to the moon.

NASA has a new Vision for Space Exploration: in the decades ahead, humans will land on Mars and explore the red planet. Brief visits will lead to longer stays and, maybe one day, to colonies. First, though, we're returning to the Moon.

In my other life I'm a project manager. I'd love to be a project manager at NASA. Not because I don't like my current job. It's because I want to be a part of something that changes the world. And these are the people who put a man on the moon. Not only did they change the world but they changed the profession of project management, and they still do so today. There are few project endeavours of the size and complexity of launching people into space strapped to rockets. Well, not if you want to bring them back, that is.

I think that thinking like this is my mid-life crisis. It's the nagging thought about the legacy I might leave. I'd like it to be more than I made it through. I want to matter. Is that heroic aspiration or a selfish thought?

News at Ten. Semi-Scobleization to end!

So I get semi-scobleized (see my post where I think I invent the term for appearing in Robert Scoble's link blog) and within hours Robert announces the link blog is to be no more. It is ceasing to be. It is an ex-blog.

Whilst I will miss it as a resource we should not overly mourn it's passing. Personally I pay more attention to the Scobleizer than the link blog and as Robert himself points out there are many more ways to find things of interest to you in the blogosphere than when he started up the link blog. I've written about two of them myself in the last week: PubSub and Technorati. Learning about Technorati Watch Lists and PubSub Subscriptions is one way that we can all fill the void for ourselves.

And to be fair what I really like about Robert Scoble isn't his link blog. It's what he writes. And the way that he writes it. It's the passion and the humour with which he writes. And the basic humanity of the man. Long may the Scobleizer continue.

Robert could always export his list of newsgator subscriptions to an OPML file and make the file available to any masochist who wants to take up the challenge of reading 1000 blogs a day.