Disruptive Conversations

What's the best offline blog editor for the Mac? ecto? (and some issues I've had with ecto)

Mac users out there... what's the best offline editor you have found for blogging? I've been using ecto for the past two weeks and started with it primarily only because I was familiar with it from the Windows side (where I'd actually moved to using Windows Live Writer almost exclusively). My trial period for ecto is winding down and so I have to decide whether to buy it or try something else. So I'm curious to ask you all:

If you are on a Mac, what do you use as an offline blog editor?

Are there other programs out there I should consider? I've actually been quite happy with ecto with only three smaller issues:

1. I like to include graphics at the beginning of my posts and like to right-align the images. If I put the image at the very beginning of a paragraph (which I often do with the first paragraph, but also may do so in the body of longer articles), the HTML code is initially like this:

<p><img ...... align="right">....

And this usually works fine if I just write the entry in ecto and then immediately publish it. However, if I save the entry as a draft and then re-open it, or if I open up a published draft to edit it again, ecto automagically changes the HTML code to this:

<p style="text-align:right"><img ...... align="right">....

which, yes, indeed, right-justifies the TEXT of the paragraph. If I click in the paragraph and press the left-align button, it goes back to normal left alignment - until the next time I open it up. I have, however, forgotten to do so several times and wound up with right-aligned text. Clearly a bug and one I'll be reporting to the ecto folks.

2. ecto does not support horizontal lines (<hr>) in its rich text editor and so if I want to use one (for instance, to separate an "UPDATE" piece of text from the main body) I have to switch to the HTML view - and remain in that view - or do the edit in TypePad's web interface.

3. At least with TypePad blogs, it seems to set the time of the article to when I start writing it. However, when I go to publish the article, ecto does not seem to update the time. If I'm writing and immediately posting an article, the time it took to write the article is not necessarily a big deal, although it certainly could affect the placement of the article in sites like Technorati or other sites that list current articles (i.e. it will show up earlier than it actually was). However, when I work on a draft, save it and then come back to it a day or two later, I've been bitten several times by the fact that it posts with the original date... resulting in my "new" article not appearing at the top of the blog. I now have to remember to click the "Adjust Time" button before I go to post an article, which is something I really shouldn't have to do. There should be some way to have it just automagically post with the current time. (And perhaps there's an option here I've missed.)

Those are the only real issues I've had beyond the normal having to learn a new interface, new keyboard shortcuts, etc. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the editor. It's worked well and unless someone can point me to something better I'll probably pay to continue using it. I would, however, be curious to know:

What do YOU use for posting blog entries from your Mac?

Technorati Tags: apple, blogeditors, blogging, ecto, macbook, macbookpro, tools

LinkedIn succumbs to the Facebook effect and adds a profile photo

One of the reasons some people have cited about going over to Facebook is that Facebook allows you to have a photo on your profile. LinkedIn always seemed to resist, with some people mentioning that it was more "professional" in that you weren't getting into seeing how people looked.

Whatever the past rationale, LinkedIn announced on their blog Thursday that users would be able to upload profile photos. The interface is pretty simple. In your "Accounts and Settings" area under "Profile Settings" there is a link for "My Profile Photo":

Add in a photo and you now have the option to display that photo to your contacts or to display it publicly:

The LinkedIn blog entry goes into more details. Personally, I'm quite glad to see it primarily because over time I find I've lost track of who some of my LinkedIn contacts are and it would be very nice to have a photo to remind myself of exactly who they are. Also, in a global namespace with people having similar names, it's nice to have the visual confirmation when searching that the profile belongs to the person you know. Now it will be interesting to see how quickly people do or do not upload photos.

Technorati Tags: facebook, linkedin, socialnetworking

This conference will be photographed and uploaded! (aka life in the always-on(line) world)

Being at a conference full of bloggers, podcasters, etc., one of the more subtle elements to be aware of is this:

There are a ton of people taking pictures - and uploading them all to Flickr!

Translation... just remember that whatever shirt you are wearing or however you style your hair - it will be up on the Internet for all to see. Forever. (Or at least as long as sites like Flickr are around.) Or if you are doing something funny with all those bottles of beer.... or dancing on the table... or whatever.

You will be photographed (especially if it's funny). It will be uploaded. There you are. If you don't like that... if you want to keep pictures like that off the Internet... well, you're only real choice is to not attend a conference like this!

This conference will be photographed. Recorded. On audio. On video. And uploaded.

So it goes. You have been warned. Dress appropriately. Assume that anything you do could be online.

Welcome to life in the transparent always-online world.

By the way, if you want to see pictures from this show, the Podcast and New Media Expo, you can look at these links below. The tag the conference has been encouraging people to use is "newmediaexpo2007" but not everyone is using that. Here they are:

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/newmediaexpo2007
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/podcastexpo/clusters/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/pme/clusters/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/cc_chapman/

The last link is from C.C. Chapman, who is a great photographer among his many other talents. He took the picture I included above, which is of me and Terry Fallis of InsidePR fame.

Technorati Tags: blogging, conferences, flickr, images, podcasting, socialmedia

Almost to Ontario for the Podcast Expo...

Almost to Ontario... California, that is. It's been an absolutely exhausting three days here in Phoenix at AstriCon (coverage on my Disruptive Telephony blog), but now it's time to get onboard yet another plane and head over to Ontario, California. As you can see in the picture, I'm now at the Phoenix airport at gate A10 waiting to get on a US Air flight out of here at 9:41pm. We have a plane and a crew, so that's all good. We should start boarding in a few minutes. While it made sense to do these conferences back-to-back, it's definitely a bit on the exhausting side. I am, though, very much looking forward to meeting many friends in the podcasting community. Just one more flight....

Technorati Tags: conferences, podcastexpo, podcasting

Facebook brings the twin taboos of politics and religion into the workplace

Some time back I became a Facebook "friend" with someone I had known professionally for several years. I did not work with the person all that much, but had great respect for the person based on the several dealings I had had with them. However, now that we were "friends" I was almost immediately exposed to two pieces of information that they had included in their Facebook profile: political affiliation and religion. As it happened, this particular person's views were pretty much completely opposite to my own and before I could really think about it I experienced a deep knee-jerk reaction of "Oh, you're kidding, he/she is not really one of them?" For a brief moment, until my brain could re-engage, my respect for that person plummeted through the floor. A moment or two later, the rational side of my brain kicked in and reminded me that I had had a great amount of professional respect for the person 10 seconds before and nothing had changed that should have altered that. Still, there was that deep emotional response.

Politics? Religion? In the workplace? With professional colleagues? Huh?

At least here in North America, those are two topics that are generally taboo in the work environment. Verboten. In fact, in most areas you are not legally allowed to ask employees or potential employees about those topics. Within a work place there of course may be lunchroom discussions about recent politics and so you may learn of others viewpoints. Religion might come up, but again probably with people with whom you work closely.

But with customers? Or partners?

Never. At least in my experience.

And why should it come up, really? When you are buying a product/service from someone, or selling it to someone, what do politics or religion matter? (or gender or race?) If you are partnering with someone to deliver a service/product, again, why does it matter? What matters is whether both of you can work together and deliver the product/service - and presumably make some money through the deal.

Religion and politics should not matter in business dealings.

Now, of course, there are "business directories" that many churches offer trying to connect people within the church community, but that's a different matter as it is within that community and trying to help each out. There are also websites out there that can help you steer your business toward companies with similar views as yours. But in general, the political leanings and religious preference of a supplier or customer do not factor into the normal course of business.

Yet here we are in Facebook choosing (or not) to provide all that information to (potential) customers.

I recognize that there are a good number of folks out there who are apathetic about all things related to politics and/or religion. They don't care at all about what someone's religion is or what their politics are. I've met many. Often they say they don't care about religious/spiritual issues, haven't attended a church (or spiritual service) in years (or ever) and haven't voted in any elections. Religion and/or politics mean nothing to them and so they take no offense or don't even notice when someone states their political or religious preference.

Leaving the completely apathetic aside, though, most people have some opinion about politics and some view about religion/spirituality. The stronger those views, of course, the more deep the emotional reactions. A hard-core liberal in the US may have (or at least appreciate) a bumper sticker "Friends don't let friends vote Republican". A hard-core conservative may view all liberals as traitors and the source of all the country's problems. A strong "born again" Christian may see that the problems of the world are because people have not accepted Jesus Christ as their lord and savior and need to do so. A strong atheist may see that the problems of the world are because of the very existence of religion and that it is the root of all evil. These are deeply-ingrained views:

Politics and religion are part of our core identity that helps form who we define ourselves to be.

When that part of our identity is confronted by a polar opposite, we naturally react. Conservative Christians will have second thoughts about atheists, and atheists will have second thoughts about conservative Christians. Ultra-liberal Democrats will instinctively distrust ultra-conservative Republicans - and vice-versa. It's just part and parcel of being human and building these beliefs into your identity.

Within the work environment, though, these twin areas of politics and religion have not been part of normal discourse... but yet, if you choose to fill out those fields in Facebook, they are suddenly exposed to all your "friends".

It works the other way, of course. Some time back I added another "friend" whose politics and religion closely aligned with me. Again, without any rational thinking, the thought popped into my brain "Oh, he/she's that. No wonder why we got along so well." In the mass of people out there, we seek out those communities of like-minded people... those affinities that we can use to build stronger connections.

Which is why having fields for politics and religion make so much sense for Facebook's original audience of college students. You are about to land in a campus of 10,000 people, of whom you know basically no one. How do you find new people? How do you find potential friends? Searching on "interests" is one way... but searching on political views or religion is another great way. Odds are that if they claim a similar religious view (or upbringing), they probably have a similar world view to yours. Likewise if they have similar political leanings, you probably have more in common upon which to potentially build a friendship. It makes total sense in that environment. Likewise, if Facebook is just used among your "friends", odds are that they probably already know these views about you. But today we are overloading the term "friend" and so now it encompasses true "friends", family... and business contacts.

So it's one thing to share political/religious info with friends, family and classmates, but in business? I don't know... on the one hand there is the greater "transparency" and the chance to make connections with other people. On the other hand, there is the strong chance of potentially alienating others.

In any event, the fields are there in your Facebook profile if you choose to fill them out (and many people seem to during the process of signing up). Of course, you are limited to the choices that Facebook provides for politics. They don't offer the "It's Complicated" choice that they have for relationships, which would be quite useful. The "Religious Views" field is free text entry, so you can really write whatever you want there. It seems to me that you really have four choices:

1. Leave them blank - probably the safest choice, but potentially then losing out on some networking possibilities.
2. Enter generic choices - you could be safe and choose "Moderate" and write in something vague for a religion.
3. Fill out only one - you'll see I have a political entry but not a religious entry.
4. Fill them both out - embrace full transparency and let the world know (or at least your "friends") your affiliations and beliefs.

To me this is just yet another one of those areas where we don't fully understand the full impact of the profiles of Facebook and, in fairness, all the other social networking services. In the rush to join these services, we just fill out all sorts of information, not necessarily taking the time to think about the potential impact exposing that information may have.

What do you think? If you are a Facebook user, have you filled out those two fields? Do you think people should in an effort to be more transparent? Do you think we understand the full ramifications of exposing information like this? (Or do you think the issue I raise here is really not an issue?)

Technorati Tags: culture, facebook, politics, religion

Facebook brings the twin taboos of politics and religion into the workplace

Some time back I became a Facebook "friend" with someone I had known professionally for several years. I did not work with the person all that much, but had great respect for the person based on the several dealings I had had with them. However, now that we were "friends" I was almost immediately exposed to two pieces of information that they had included in their Facebook profile: political affiliation and religion. As it happened, this particular person's views were pretty much completely opposite to my own and before I could really think about it I experienced a deep knee-jerk reaction of "Oh, you're kidding, he/she is not really one of them?" For a brief moment, until my brain could re-engage, my respect for that person plummeted through the floor. A moment or two later, the rational side of my brain kicked in and reminded me that I had had a great amount of professional respect for the person 10 seconds before and nothing had changed that should have altered that. Still, there was that deep emotional response.

Politics? Religion? In the workplace? With professional colleagues? Huh?

At least here in North America, those are two topics that are generally taboo in the work environment. Verboten. In fact, in most areas you are not legally allowed to ask employees or potential employees about those topics. Within a work place there of course may be lunchroom discussions about recent politics and so you may learn of others viewpoints. Religion might come up, but again probably with people with whom you work closely.

But with customers? Or partners?

Never. At least in my experience.

And why should it come up, really? When you are buying a product/service from someone, or selling it to someone, what do politics or religion matter? (or gender or race?) If you are partnering with someone to deliver a service/product, again, why does it matter? What matters is whether both of you can work together and deliver the product/service - and presumably make some money through the deal.

Religion and politics should not matter in business dealings.

Now, of course, there are "business directories" that many churches offer trying to connect people within the church community, but that's a different matter as it is within that community and trying to help each out. There are also websites out there that can help you steer your business toward companies with similar views as yours. But in general, the political leanings and religious preference of a supplier or customer do not factor into the normal course of business.

Yet here we are in Facebook choosing (or not) to provide all that information to (potential) customers.

I recognize that there are a good number of folks out there who are apathetic about all things related to politics and/or religion. They don't care at all about what someone's religion is or what their politics are. I've met many. Often they say they don't care about religious/spiritual issues, haven't attended a church (or spiritual service) in years (or ever) and haven't voted in any elections. Religion and/or politics mean nothing to them and so they take no offense or don't even notice when someone states their political or religious preference.

Leaving the completely apathetic aside, though, most people have some opinion about politics and some view about religion/spirituality. The stronger those views, of course, the more deep the emotional reactions. A hard-core liberal in the US may have (or at least appreciate) a bumper sticker "Friends don't let friends vote Republican". A hard-core conservative may view all liberals as traitors and the source of all the country's problems. A strong "born again" Christian may see that the problems of the world are because people have not accepted Jesus Christ as their lord and savior and need to do so. A strong atheist may see that the problems of the world are because of the very existence of religion and that it is the root of all evil. These are deeply-ingrained views:

Politics and religion are part of our core identity that helps form who we define ourselves to be.

When that part of our identity is confronted by a polar opposite, we naturally react. Conservative Christians will have second thoughts about atheists, and atheists will have second thoughts about conservative Christians. Ultra-liberal Democrats will instinctively distrust ultra-conservative Republicans - and vice-versa. It's just part and parcel of being human and building these beliefs into your identity.

Within the work environment, though, these twin areas of politics and religion have not been part of normal discourse... but yet, if you choose to fill out those fields in Facebook, they are suddenly exposed to all your "friends".

It works the other way, of course. Some time back I added another "friend" whose politics and religion closely aligned with me. Again, without any rational thinking, the thought popped into my brain "Oh, he/she's that. No wonder why we got along so well." In the mass of people out there, we seek out those communities of like-minded people... those affinities that we can use to build stronger connections.

Which is why having fields for politics and religion make so much sense for Facebook's original audience of college students. You are about to land in a campus of 10,000 people, of whom you know basically no one. How do you find new people? How do you find potential friends? Searching on "interests" is one way... but searching on political views or religion is another great way. Odds are that if they claim a similar religious view (or upbringing), they probably have a similar world view to yours. Likewise if they have similar political leanings, you probably have more in common upon which to potentially build a friendship. It makes total sense in that environment. Likewise, if Facebook is just used among your "friends", odds are that they probably already know these views about you. But today we are overloading the term "friend" and so now it encompasses true "friends", family... and business contacts.

So it's one thing to share political/religious info with friends, family and classmates, but in business? I don't know... on the one hand there is the greater "transparency" and the chance to make connections with other people. On the other hand, there is the strong chance of potentially alienating others.

In any event, the fields are there in your Facebook profile if you choose to fill them out (and many people seem to during the process of signing up). Of course, you are limited to the choices that Facebook provides for politics. They don't offer the "It's Complicated" choice that they have for relationships, which would be quite useful. The "Religious Views" field is free text entry, so you can really write whatever you want there. It seems to me that you really have four choices:

1. Leave them blank - probably the safest choice, but potentially then losing out on some networking possibilities.
2. Enter generic choices - you could be safe and choose "Moderate" and write in something vague for a religion.
3. Fill out only one - you'll see I have a political entry but not a religious entry.
4. Fill them both out - embrace full transparency and let the world know (or at least your "friends") your affiliations and beliefs.

To me this is just yet another one of those areas where we don't fully understand the full impact of the profiles of Facebook and, in fairness, all the other social networking services. In the rush to join these services, we just fill out all sorts of information, not necessarily taking the time to think about the potential impact exposing that information may have.

What do you think? If you are a Facebook user, have you filled out those two fields? Do you think people should in an effort to be more transparent? Do you think we understand the full ramifications of exposing information like this? (Or do you think the issue I raise here is really not an issue?)

Technorati Tags: culture, facebook, politics, religion

"Hi, my name is Dan. I am a screen shot addict."

I had to laugh when I saw in my Facebook News Feed that several of my friends had joined a new Facebook group "I am a screen shot addict" (You must be a Facebook member to see the group). I laughed a bit more when I saw Betsy Weber's blog post which in turn pointed me to the creator of the Facebook group, Bryan Eisenberg, and his post "Confessions of a Screen Shot Addict".

You see, I am a screen shot addict. Always have been. Probably largely because I used to write a lot of courseware related to computer programs and so naturally I needed to illustrate those documents with screenshots. Now, I take screenshots galore for these blogs. I just like illustrating my articles with graphics... and screen shots are one of the best ways to do that.

On my Windows laptop, I was using TechSmith's SnagIt and loving it. I was also using TechSmith's Jing Project for quick screen shots that I wanted to reference in, typically, an IM conversation. Now that I'm on the Mac, I've got a wonderful built in utility (I love Shift+Ctrl+Cmd+4) and I'm also checking out Jing for the Mac.

So yes, I love screenshots... if you do, too, and are a Facebook user, feel free to "join the group".

Technorati Tags: facebook, bryan eisenberg, screencaptures, screenshots

Do you travel a lot? Joining Dopplr can help connect you to others in the same location...

Given that I tend to travel a good bit (and expect that to continue with most of the jobs I might take), I often find myself sending messages like the one I sent today to a group of people saying "Will any of you be out at the Podcast Expo next week?" Some of them answered... for others it was just an another annoying email in their inbox.

Wouldn't it be nice to simply know where your friends/colleagues are? (Assuming they shared that information with you?)

One approach is what you see with Facebook Events, where people can RSVP into the Event inside of Facebook. You can then simply look through the list and see who is there. Upcoming.org works in a similar fashion as do probably half a dozen other services.

The challenge is that they are all about events. But what if you are going to be in Boston for one event and a friend/colleague is going to be in Boston for another event? By these event-driven sites, you won't necessarily know that.

Dopplr, on the other hand, is location-driven. When you enter in a trip you are taking, it ties it to a standard geographic location. The advantage to this is that you can then look in the city you are going and see: a) who among your circle of friends lives in the city; and b) who will be traveling to the city (provided they are sharing their trip information with you. From their "About" page:

How does Dopplr work? It lets you share your future travel plans with a group of trusted fellow travellers whom you have chosen. It also reminds you of friends and colleagues who live in the cities you're planning to visit. You can use the service with your personal computer and mobile phone.

It's an interesting idea to me, given how often I'm going places. To be useful, of course, it needs to have a certain mass of people using it. If you do use it, my URL is http://www.dopplr.com/traveller/DanYork If you would like to try it out, drop me a note and I can send you an invite.

P.S. Congrats to the Dopplr team for receiving early stage funding from an impressive group of investors!

Technorati Tags: dopplr, location, socialnetworking, travel

Google's "Shared Stuff" lets you share web sites/URLs publicly, or with Facebook, del.icio.us and others (review with screenshots)

Google yesterday quietly rolled out their "Shared Stuff" social bookmarking/sharing service and predictably there were a slew of postings in the blogosphere. Here's my little quick tour for you. First, you add a link on your bookmark bar:

Now you just click on the bookmark whenever you are on a page you want to share, very much like you do with del.icio.us, Facebook, digg or any of a zillion other services. The result is a popup page that looks like this:

Once you do any of the optional things like add a comment, change the picture or add tags, you simply hit "Share" and you get a page telling you of your success and giving you the link to your Shared Stuff page:

Clicking on the link brings me to my own private version of the "Shared Stuff" page (because I'm logged in with my Google account):

which looks sort of like the public page you all will see (which I get by clicking the "As everyone sees it") link:

You'll immediately note that the page everyone sees only has one of my two items on it. I can't explain why... and I've forced a browser refresh multiple times to try to see if it was a browser issue but that seemed to do nothing.

Now I could not for the life of me figure out any way to edit the listing I had on the page, but by simply sharing the same URL again, it seems to have corrected the issue (and I also could change the picture associated with it).

It is somewhat annoying that for the "article preview", it grabs the blog subtitle instead of the first bit of the actual post text - and there seems to be no way to change that, although you can add a comment. However, I have the same problem with Facebook "Shared links" and its preview.

Speaking of Facebook, the Google Email/Share feature has a "More..." link that brings you to a second page where you can share the link on Facebook, Furl, del.icio.us, Social Poster (which I'd not heard of), Reddit and Digg:

I clicked on "Facebook" and got the standard Facebook sharing screen:

You also can email a link (and add it at the same time) which is naturally integrated with Gmail:

The "Shared Stuff" feature does have some other interesting aspects, such as RSS feeds, the ability to see stuff shared by others (based on your Gmail address book) and the ability to search for stuff shared by other users based on domain or tag. However, as I discovered, there is this minor detail that tags must be separated by commas although it doesn't tell you that! Being used to del.icio.us, I put a space between my tags, with the resulting amusement:

It is looking here for the most popular stuff tagged "pme podcastexpo podcasting socialmedia" all as one giant tag. Oops. I shared it again and inserted commas, after which it worked fine. However, I did have to change the image again as it defaulted back to the first image (my picture) instead of the one I had chosen.

Given that I am a heavy user of del.icio.us and am already all set up to use that, and that I'm also sharing stuff within the walls of Facebook, I'm not really sure how much I'll use this new Google service. However, given that it's Google and one might expect that some of this information might ultimately show up in search rankings (or at least affect search results), there's a good chance it might be worth at least continuing to experiment with it.

What do you think? Will you use this new service? Or will you stick with the others?

Some other articles:

• Read/Write Web: The Best and Worst Things About Google's Shared Stuff
• Google Operating System: Google Shared Stuff
• Marketing Pilgrim: Shared Stuff is Delicious
• Guardian Technology: Google Shared Stuff slips out, disappoints

Technorati Tags: google, sharedstuff, tools

Heading out to Podcast and New Media Expo next week...

I'm delighted to say that I'll now definitely be at the Podcast and New Media Expo at the end of next week (and into the weekend) out in Ontario, California. I was debating whether or not to go because I'll be at AstriCon the previous few days in Phoenix, Arizona. Originally I was intending to just do AstriCon, but I've changed my schedule a bit so that I'll fly from Phoenix to Ontario, CA, on Thursday night so that I can participate in PME events on Friday through Sunday. Taking the good old red-eye home Sunday night.

I went to last year's PME and very much enjoyed spending time with all the various podcasters and bloggers that I've come to know. Should be a good bit of fun this year as well, although my focus will be a wee bit different. One of the various new paths I'm very seriously considering is to head into consulting and may do more with social media work. I've already been advising several companies about podcasts, blogs, etc.... I may turn that into something more formal. So my trip to PME will be much more business-focused than last year... and I'll be looking to talk to a number of folks about potential partnership opportunities. (Are you interested in potentially partnering with me? or engaging my services? Let's talk. ;-)

In any event, most of all it will simply be just plain fun to reconnect face-to-face with so many of the other members of the social media community whom I know now as friends!

If you read this and are going to be out at the PME, please do drop a line as I'm always interested to connect with folks.

Technorati Tags: pme, podcastexpo, podcasting, tools

Why does the MacBook Pro camera give you a mirror image picture? (and a solution)

I have to blame Chris Brogan. Some time back he had a picture in his left sidebar of him with some other people, and in that picture, his hair was parted on his right. However, above that, he had a picture in his banner with his hair parted on his left (as you can see in his banner now). Other pictures he put in his header were also different from his left sidebar picture. Now, realizing that people do change their hair parts, I asked him this when we were in the middle of some other other conversation. His answer was something like this:

No, the issue is that the MacBook camera reverses the image.

So naturally when I bought a MacBook Pro, one of the things I did check out was the camera and it's image. Sure enough, it gives you a mirror image. For instance, here's the picture I just recorded in a Facebook video:

Note that my hair is parted on my right. Now, if you were to see me, or take a digital picture of me, you would see that my hair is normally parted on my left:

So this latter one is a more accurate representation of how I look.

Now, the issue with hair parts is not really a huge deal (at least to me), but where this gets more of an issue is with words. For instance, here's some piece of advertising in my hotel room, shot through the normal MacBook Pro camera:

Do we see a problem here? In fact, the image should really be:

How did I correct the image? Well, it turns out that there's a great little piece of software from ecamm network called (of course) iGlasses. For $9.95 you can download this little piece of software that will work with iChat, Photo Booth, Skype and pretty much any other Mac apps that work with the embedded camera. (Except, I discovered, for Facebook video, which seems to use some Flash applet that doesn't appear to make use of iGlasses.) Here's the control panel:

Note the nice little check box at the bottom for "Mirror". Ta da... words read correctly (and hair is parted correctly :-).

Now the question for me is why this isn't something that Apple can just do automagically inside their software? Who at Apple decided that we ought to see mirror images through the camera? Very bizarre to me that they would make that choice. Hopefully sometime they'll fix it.

In the meantime, I've paid my $10 and can show my image correctly (outside of Facebook video).

Technorati Tags: apple, blogging, macbookpro, video, images, tools

Why is Facebook's Application Directory Search so incredibly broken?

One of the greatest bits of buzz around Facebook these days is the application APIs, the "Facebook Platform".  It's also one of the most frustrating aspects from a user perspective.  Very often I'll see on my News Feed that someone installed an application and I'll think to myself that I should check out that app.  However, if I don't do it right at that precise moment, well, the odds are that I won't... because it seems next to impossible to find apps in the directory!

Has anyone else been able to successfully use the "search" feature in Facebook's Application Directory?

Take today... I saw on my Facebook News Feed at some point in the day that someone I know had installed the "Appsaholic" application.  Subsequently in a lunchtime conversation I wound up learning about this app enough that I got curious.  So I went to my Applications page inside my Facebook account and entered "Appsaholic" in the search box.  This was the result (click on image for larger version):

Oops.  I tried several other variations on the name to no avail.  Finally, I just went to Google and searched on "facebook apps-a-holic" which brought me to this article which gave me the application URL inside of Facebook.

Crazy.

Why should I have to go outside of Facebook in order to find an application? 

Unfortunately, this has been my experience several times on different days, and I find it a bit of a concern.  So much of developing an app for Facebook is about being found.  Obviously the viral path through newsfeeds is one way to be found, but the application directory is an obvious one.  If you make it to one of the provided lists, you'll be found, but searching should work, one would think.

Have others experienced this problem?

(Now I would note that I couldn't find any of the applications I've already installed when I searched in the directory - perhaps the issue is that the search engine is down itself.  If so, it would be best for Facebook to put up a statement that the search engine is having problems rather than just saying "No applications found.")

Technorati tags: facebook, facebook platform, search, facebook applications

Offline blogging with ecto on a Mac

One of the immediate challenges with moving over to a Mac was the fact that I needed an offline editor for blogging. As readers know, on my Windows PC, I've been a huge fan of Windows Live Writer, but obviously that doesn't work natively on the Mac. My next thought was to use Parallels in Coherence mode to use WLW, and I may still ultimately do that, but right now I need to get XP running on Parallels first. And meanwhile I want to blog!

So I went back to a tool I used to use on Windows, before I become a fan of WLW..... ecto.

I have to say that I was immediately impressed by the fact that it went to TypePad and brought over the settings for all my weblogs. With WLW, I had to add each weblog individually. This was much nicer. Now I'll start putting it through its paces.

Technorati Tags: blogeditors, blogging, ecto, tools

Heading up to Ottawa tomorrow...

I'm Ottawa-bound early tomorrow morning for two days of closing off my activities with Mitel. Heading back to Vermont on Thursday.  If anyone reading this wants to connect with me in Ottawa tomorrow or Wednesday, please do drop an email, contact me on Skype ("danyork") or leave a comment here.  I will be staying out in the Kanata area.

What should I get for my next laptop? What's the best "social media laptop"? integrated webcam? Apple Macbook with Parallels? or Windows PC?

UPDATE - I gave in and bought a MacBook Pro (with 4 GB of RAM!).  More on that later...

---

With my impending change in employment, I need to get a new laptop and, given that I'm thinking strongly of going the consulting route, I'm going to pick it up myself right now (versus waiting for an employer).  Obviously I want a laptop that works very well for participating in the world of social media.  An integrated webcam seems to be an absolute must.   People involved with video tell me that Apple Macbooks have the best quality video cameras and, being relatively agnostic toward operating systems, I'm open to Macbooks.  I'd love to get a laptop with a built-in camera that can rotate so that you can face it away from the user and toward the other people in a room, for instance.  But it seems that the current crop of laptops no longer have that - they all seem to have fixed cameras. 

Another "must-have" is the ability to work with a second monitor, but that's usually simple with a laptop.

So I've got a couple of questions for those of you working out there with blogs, podcasts, flickr, etc.:

• Do you have any specific thoughts on the best laptop for "social media" participation?
• Any recommendations about specific laptops with integrated cameras?  Know of any that aren't fixed?  (I've looked at the major vendors and they all seem to now be fixed.)
• Mac versus PC?  Mac users who still have to use Windows apps, have you been happy with Parallels? (Or vmWare Fusion?)

Any suggestions would be appreciated.  Thanks.

Technorati tags: laptops, apple, windows, parallels, vmware, social media

Facebook fuels student revolt (and eventual victory) over new logo for Middlebury College

Seems the students didn't quite like the new logo their school came up with - and took to Facebook to mount a campaign against it! Today's Burlington (Vermont) Free Press ran this article: "Middlebury Facebook revolt contributes to college logo revision".  Unfortunately, the online version of the article doesn't include the graphics, (Huh?  Free Press staff - why couldn't you put the logos there?) but the dead tree version that I got this morning did... and I can see the students concerns.  The new logo, shown on the right, is much more "corporate" and looks like something more Canadian.  But I'm getting ahead of myself... here's the background from the article:

In fall 2006, as they began to plan for a major fund-raising drive, college officials thought about coming up with a new logo. A review committee was formed, 10 design firms were considered, three finalists were interviewed, and the winner -- the New York firm of Chermayeff & Geismar, which boasts a portfolio of prominent corporate and university brands -- set to work.

The ultimate design -- a stylized double leaf outline, reminiscent of maple -- went through customary reviews. Like any proposed logo, it drew different reactions -- some people liked it, some didn't, but on balance the reaction was favorable, said Mike McKenna, the college vice president for communications who spearheaded the process.

This summer, as college officials were getting ready to order new stationery for the next academic year, the new logo was "unveiled" to the campus community. What happened next took McKenna and just about everyone else by surprise.

Students weren't very happy when the new logo appeared on the website and so they started a Facebook group called "Just Say No to the Middlebury Logo".  From the article:

Hundreds signed on to register their scornful, amusing comments about the double leaf. Some complained it looked too corporate, others that it was too much like Canada's national symbol, or even that it evoked a marijuana leaf.

At least three students designed T-shirts parodying the logo, and Franco, who also runs her own blog, posted their images on July 11. Two played off the Canadian motif, and one -- designed by student Alex Benepe, who helped Franco with the Facebook project -- worked the logo's "M" into an entirely new college insignia, "LaMe."

Benepe said Franco's creation "grew faster than any Facebook group I've seen."

"In seven days, 777 people joined," Franco said. That was about the time, she said, when the college administration changed course and withdrew the new logo for general use.

McKenna, who already had received plenty of feedback on the logo, said he hadn't expected the Facebook reaction or the numbers. Roughly one-third of the college's students signed on -- in summertime, no less.

So one-third of the college's students joined the group - in the summer! 

In the end, the Middlebury administration went back and revised the existing logo a bit. As the article says:

While the college administration would not make policy based simply on people going online to express their opinions, McKenna said, the opposition couldn't be ignored, either. What he found heartening, he said, was the strength of students' institutional commitment, along with the favorable comments about the college's traditional, Latin seal.

The college decided to keep using a slightly updated version of the school's traditional "latin seal-style" logo on stationary, official documents, etc.  The new logo will be used on their 5-year fund-raising campaign that is going to reach out to the wider community.  (More information is available in Middlebury's page on their Graphic Identity System and specifically their "About the process page".)

Kudos to the Middlebury administration for working with the students - and somehow I expect we'll see more of these type of stories coming out of Facebook activity!

Technorati tags: facebook, middlebury college, middlebury, vermont

Jeremiah Owyang demonstrates why Forrester hired him - "Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle"

Jeremiah Owyang continues to demonstrate today why Forrester hired him with a great (and lengthy) post called "Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle".  Excerpting from the post doesn't do it justice, so I'll just point you over to the post.  I will include his warning and his intended audience:

Warning: For Advanced Strategists only
This is for the advanced only, not a company that is still trying to answer “what or why”. To gauge the sophistication of your organization, see this chart. Deploying this strategy without grasping the foundations of social media, the cultural changes it implies or testing trial programs will likely lead to failure.

You: A Social Media Strategist
You’re responsible for the direction of your online strategies for your company or organization, specifically using social media and computing tools to reach, connect, and build communities around your brand. Most folks at your company know this space is important, but don’t know how to do it, they are relying on your expertise to think holistically, integrated, and strategically.

It's a great post... thanks to Jeremiah for putting it together - and for sharing it with all of us.

Technorati tags: social media, social media strategy, social media strategist, jeremiah owyang, web strategist, strategy

Version of Windows Live Writer now available for a U3 USB drive

Courtesy of a tip from Neville Hobson, I learned that Scott Kingery at "TechLifeBlogged" has released a version of Windows Live Writer that works off of a USB drive.   As Scott writes:

This past February I posted a launcher for Windows Live Writer so that you can take it with your between computers and retain all your settings. Today I am releasing version 2.0 of the Launcher. Much has changed with Windows Live Writer and I have learned some new techniques for making it portable. This is a much cleaner implementation and it plays better with Windows Vista.

I don't personally have a real need to be able to do this, but I do think it's a cool idea.  I like the idea of being able to use WLW on any given machine.  Fun stuff!

Technorati tags: windowslivewriter, blogging, microsoft, tools

Congrats to Terry Fallis on "The Best Laid Plans" being published!

Congratulations to Terry Fallis on the publishing of his novel, The Best Laid Plans!  He also notes that the book is now available on Amazon.com!

For those who haven't been following Terry's work, he started podcasting his book out chapter by chapter back in January (scroll to the bottom to see how it began).  Each week (all the way up through May) , we tuned in to hear the latest wacky exploits of Daniel, Angus, Muriel, Lindsay and the two punk-rock campaign workers named Pete.  Even if you didn't understand all the nuances of Canadian politics, it was a fun story to listen to and you definitely found yourself cheering on Angus and Daniel all the way up to the finale when Angus......... well, I can't really give that away, can I?  You have to listen yourself - or now you can buy the book!

Starting in March, Terry began taking us along on his journey into self-publishing, and it was interesting to read over the months how that has all gone.  In the era of Amazon.com and other online bookstores, self-publishing sites like iUniverse.com and Lulu.com have gone far to disrupt the traditional gatekeepers of the traditional publishing business - and also done much to remove the stigma traditionally associated with self-publishing (what used to be called (and probably still is) "vanity publishing").  It's definitely a fascinating dynamic and one that I'm certainly considering for some ideas of my own.  Sure, you don't necessarily wind up in bricks-and-mortar bookstores as you would with a traditional bookstore... but in the online era, does that matter? (or does that matter as much?)

Anyway, congrats to Terry and it's great to see it finally out.  I look forward to seeing a copy myself.

Technorati tags: terry fallis, the best laid plans, books, publishing, iuniverse

My employment status will be changing September 21... (and so I'll be available for employment)

The challenge of now having multiple weblogs... a friend pointed out that when I posted yesterday about my impending change of employment status over on my Disruptive Telephony blog, he missed it because that's one of my blogs he doesn't subscribe to.

So yes, it's true, the great time I've had at my current employer ends on September 21 after I finish a number of transition issues. I'll be in Los Angeles next week at Internet Telephony Conference & Expo doing one final speaking gig (and admittedly networking about what's next) and then I'll be up in Ottawa probably on the 18th and 19th... and then my time is done.

I'm obviously interested in opportunities that might be out there in the social media space... or other interesting areas of disruption.  (My other post talks a bit more about that.)  Please do drop a note if you know of such options.  Thanks!

Technorati tags: dan york

My first launch of Windows Live Writer Beta 3 leaves a bad taste in my mouth... I have to re-add all my weblogs!

As I mentioned recently, it seemed like a new version of Windows Live Writer was imminent, and indeed, on Wednesday Microsoft released Windows Live Writer Beta 3 (I would have written about it then, but I was a wee bit distracted). You could download it from that announcement page for from the main Windows Live Writer page.  Reading Joe Cheng's blog post about the release, it sounded interesting so of course I downloaded and installed it.

The first annoyance was that it's now integrated into the full "Windows Live" installer and so when you go to install Windows Live Writer, the installer will also by default install a bunch of other Windows Live apps, ranging from Messenger to Mail to a search Toolbar and a "family safety" option.  Now, you can thankfully de-select all of these options and simply install WLW, but it's something you have to pay attention to.  I understand Microsoft's motivation.  They want to make it easy for people to install all  the Live apps, and they see it as a way to "upsell" people on the other apps (which are all free).  Get people hooked on their apps and search versus those of Google.  I do understand... and I can't really complain because MS is giving us the really incredibly useful Windows Live Writer tool for free.  Still, it was slightly annoying that I had to un-check all those boxes just to get WLW.  (But yes, a small price to pay for WLW.)

The major annoyance, though, was the screen that greeted me when I launched it (once I found it!  My old QuickLaunch icon no longer worked and I had to sort through my Programs menu until I finally found it under the "Windows Live" sub-menu...).  The screen prompted me to start using WLW by adding a weblog! Huh?  What happened to the six weblogs that I already had configured WLW to work with?

Gone.

All the configuration data seems to be gone.  All my weblogs were no longer configured in WLW.  Now, this probably had something to do with the changes to registry locations mentioned in a recent WriterZone blog post.  Still, it was a rather unexpected and definitely annoying outcome of doing what I thought of as an upgrade!  (And yes, I realize it is "Beta 3", but I'm sorry, I would have expected an upgrade to pull across config info.)

Now, the process of adding a weblog is relatively trivial.  Just go to Weblog -> Add Weblog... , fill out the blog URL, username and password, confirm the results and you're done.  Maybe a minute to do it.  Still... it was an unexpected step to have to take.

The good news is that all my drafts still seem intact (even all those drafts for weblogs which are no longer added to WLW), and the couple of plugins I use seem to still be there... so I seem to be set to go.  Now, maybe I can check out the new features...

Technorati tags: blogging, tools, blog editors, windows live writer, microsoft, windows live

Is a new version of Windows Live Writer set to appear this week?

 Hmmm.... first this note in the Writer Zone on August 29th:

In an upcoming release of Windows Live Writer, we are...

and then Mary Jo Foley writes in ZDNet yesterday "Microsoft to unveil Windows Live suite this week":

The Times is unclear whether Windows Live Writer is in there, too. But it looks like it might be.

pointing to a New York Times article out on Sunday that says this:

The release, though it includes the Windows Live Writer blogging application, carefully avoids cannibalizing two of Microsoft’s mainstays, the Word and Excel programs.

(which would seem to me to be NOT "unclear" about WLW!)

All in all, this would seem to point to an impending release. Perhaps even the "1.0" release??   We'll see....

Technorati tags: microsoft, windows live writer, blogging, tools

Nof45: "How to talk like a Canadian - a 12-step program"

Here's some humo(u)r to start your week back after the (North American) holiday.  Since I know from comments that a number of my readers are Canadian, I thought I'd just pass along to a link to a piece I posted last Friday:  "How to talk like a Canadian - a 12-step program".   It came about after a fellow podcaster said he wasn't sure about going to a conference in Canada because "his Canadian was rusty".  A number of Canadians actually helped me improve it a bit.  It's posted on my old "North of 45" blog that I used to chronicle our time living in Ottawa from 2000-2005 (north of the 45th parallel).

Enjoy!

Chris Brogan's "Social Media Toolkit" - a great list to get started.

If you are looking to get started in "social media" - or are interested in how others survive and thrive in the world of social media - Chris Brogan's post today, "My Social Media Toolkit", may be of great help to you.  I use most all of the tools Chris lists myself, although being on Windows versus a Mac, I use Windows Movie Maker versus iMovie.  I also don't really using Upcoming.org although I've been considering using it more as a way to somewhat automate the list of events that I am attending.  In the comments to Chris' entry, I also added the following sites/services/tools that I use as well:

• del.icio.us - I use http://del.icio.us/ to bookmark and tag all the various sites I find in the course of daily work.  My del.icio.us feed is then a sidebar on a blog, posted to a link blog, etc.
  
• Feedburner - I use http://www.feedburner/ (now owned by Google) for all my RSS feeds, both for the stats and also to add links ("FeedFlare") to the feeds so that people can post my items into other services.
  
• Windows Live Writer - I'll second the comment made (in Chris' comments) by Connie Benson that Windows Live Writer truly ROCKS for an offline blog editor (if you are on Windows).  It has *greatly* increased the ease and speed with which I can post blog entries.
  
• Screen captures - A recent addition to my tool set has been SnagIt from TechSmith. It lets me (on Windows) very quickly grab a section of the screen and copy it to the clipboard - which I can then paste into Windows Live Writer.  It has again greatly accelerated the speed with which I can make blog entries that include graphics, logos, or other parts of a screen. (Here's an example.)  There's also a plugin for Windows Live Writer, although I found that just the copy/paste worked much better/faster for me.  (I'm all about speed for posting, because blogging is something I just fit into random short moments of the day.)

Anyway, those are some of the additions I would make to Chris' great list.  Hopefully this all will help folks use social media that much more effectively.

Technorati tags: social media, tools, chris brogan, windows live writer

Humans being paid to add blog comment spam to LiveJournal

In recent weeks, it has become increasing clear to me that someone out there is paying people to spam blogs at LiveJournal. As readers probably know, I've had dyork.livejournal.com for about 4 years now and although it's not my primary blog anymore, I still use it for writing that doesn't fit in anywhere else.  I am notified by email when a comment comes in and lately they have pretty much all been short spam messages along the form:

Very exciting story! I like snow skiing and i practise it regularly, so i
completely understand you! <URL-related-to-skiing>

I of course removed the URL as I'm not going to help the spammer.  This particular comment was to a post of mine back in February about the blizzard we had and the only real reference to skiing was the very last line.

This kind of spam has been increasing for me lately with the same basic idea.  A very short comment that is tied into the text of the post.  One spammer even ends the entries with a name, as many other real commenters might do.  In fact, the comments look real, and often are the kind of thing I might very well let stand as a comment.... until you hit the URL and realize that this is just someone trying to sell stuff.

It's an interesting change at LiveJournal.  For so long LJ was "protected" from all the usual crap blog comment spam that plagues all my other blogs by the way commenting works at LJ.  To comment on a blog post, you have to either be a LiveJournal user, or you can leave your comment as "Anonymous".  However, if you leave your comment as "Anonymous", you can't leave a URL associated with your name (as you can do on this blog and most others out there).  This lack of a URL for commenters was actually one of the reasons I chose to leave LJ as my primary blogging platform.  I wanted to know more about the people who commented.

However, this "lack" of a URL turned out to be a great anti-comment-spam feature.  Spammers who were leaving comments with their spam site in the URL field were basically useless on LJ. I'd often laugh because I'd see the same blog comment spam showing up on TypePad (where I could see the URL) as I did on LJ - only on LJ it was ineffective.

It would seem, though, that someone out there figured out a way to make blog comment spam work.  It would appear as if someone is paying people to go around finding quasi-relevant blog entries on LJ and leave comment spam - with an appended URL.   It was probably inevitable... but it's also quite sad.  And it means more work for someone who just wants to write.

Technorati tags: blogging, blog spam, blog comment spam, livejournal