Infoliage Blog

I'm seeing more "instant outlines" (or whatever you call them) on Radio blogs. Sean Gallagher and John Robb have posted them, and I could have sworn Dave Winer posted one too, but I can't find it again (see why we need RDF metadata in blogs?). I don't know about you, but I find these annoying and useless. An outline is missing all sorts of contextual information, semantic connotations, and any number of other dimensions of meaning that language has evolved to convey. Sure, use outlines as a writing tool if it works for you, but don't publish your outlines; try to put a little effort into it whydontcha? I sincerely hope attempting to communicate via outline doesn't catch on; we already have to suffer through interminable and excruciating PowerPoint presentations.

Books of books

I post some notes on three different weblogs, including this one, and maintain three other websites as well. On all of them I've been writing short and medium-length pieces for some time. I also have a collection of similar pieces I've written since I started using computers. (The only ones that have survived have been plain ASCII files, by the way.) I've decided I'd like to have a way to keep track of all this stuff, but I want to do as little work as possible. For example, I don't particularly want to reread everything all at once, and I really don't want to insert metadata in each document, nor do I want to insert them all in to some kind of database. So what are my choices? Not sure yet, but it seems like an interesting question.

From The Shifted Librarian: Web Evaluation Checklist.

"The checklist is currently only available in PDF format (file size is 18Kb). It is a simple 2-page checklist you can use when evaluating sites." This looks like a great tool; I've found that simple checklist-style usability guides are so easy that they are followed. Even a bit of attention to usability is good news! [InfoDesign, via SIGIA-L]

One UI enhancement that might be helpful in Radio is to include two checkboxes with each subscription-based news item. One would be "delete" as it is today, and another would be "post", enabling you to:

place two items in juxtaposition in a single post
create a set of posts all at once and then go into "editing mode", serially editing all your posts. (maybe on a page with more than one editable text field)
concatenate the process of deletion and posting into one click.

Well, I just popped a bunch more subscriptions into the list; we'll see if using more "quick scan" items in a subscription list is sufficient compared to actually visiting sites and reading what they have to say. Yes, I know I can click the links and still read the articles, but there's a certain context that's abandoned in the process. It feels different to me; I'm going to try it fairly intensively and see what I can find out.

Apparently Andersen continues to implode; according to Dann there's a big layoff tonight. I've been through a layoff with no severance. People are still angry, still suing, and the CEO probably still doesn't sleep well at night. I was very fortunate, but some were really devastated. Because of what? In that case, and apparently in this one, a very small group of people seriously screwed up, and pulled the rest down with them. Sucks.

WSJ. Microsoft tries to outgrow the "Bill and Steve" show.

>>>The white-haired Mr. Herbold described being flummoxed by Microsoft's lack of traditional business processes when he first arrived as chief operating officer in 1994. He recalled watching officials make crucial decisions about new products after just one high-level meeting and sitting through board-of-directors gatherings that resembled unstructured rap sessions.

For all its market might, Microsoft continues to struggle with the basic task of building a professional management structure.<<< [John Robb's Radio Weblog] John, another conclusion is that a "professional management structure" is not always desirable. Certainly most companies that have such things would prefer to have Microsoft's success. I'm quite skeptical of the value of "conventional" management in unconventional situations.

Productivity

I can't figure out how Dave puts out the number of posts he does. Guy must be a genius reading-writing machine. I can usually manage one post a day, and he's churning out commentary on ten things, each of which took some concentrated time to read, absorb, and comment on. Doc can do this, too, and so can Jenny. I may just be more of a long-form blogger, of course. Where the heck did that term come from?

And yet...
Here's one more thing about Radio, UI oddities or no -- it does draw my attention. There's no single feature or characteristic I can put my finger on, but there's something about this scruffy little app. Have you ever seen the movie Tin Men? The scene at the end where DeVito and Dreyfus are looking for their New Thing in the early sixties. A VW Beetle putts by. They both say "I got it." That moment, that's Radio Userland.

Well, there it is. After using blogger, radio userland, and bbedit to write three different bloggish sites, I've decided I just don't have the time to keep it up; one of them has to go. And since Radio is my least favorite system of the three -- even though it's the most feature-rich -- this one drew the short straw. On the other hand, while I have this extra site, I can use it to try to Google-bomb my Infoliage.com site with the term technical writer. I wonder, do multiple links at the same site have any effect? technical writer technical writer technical writer technical writer technical writer Well that was more fun than it looked!

Okay, I just did a pretty informal test. I can write and post a story using BBEdit in about half the time it takes me with Radio, and Blogger is in the middle. And I despise writing in an HTML text entry field. Userland may be "turning the web into a fantastic writing environment", but how about a real text editor? I'm not a big fan of outliners, either.

I'm trying to clearly identify why I seem to avoid using Radio whenever possible. There's something about it that just doesn't feel good to me, even though it can do things my other two blogging systems can only dream of. For one thing, it feels slow and cumbersome. This is not to say that it really is, objectively slow. In terms of sheer elapsed time, it may be equal to or even better than my other tools. But my immediate sensation of using it says "cumbersome". Another thing, I think, is that with both Blogger and my home grown system I have the (perhaps incorrect) belief that I understand what's going on; I know how it works. I know that this is not a consideration for everyone, but it is for me. Now, usually I can figure these things out to my own satisfaction within a week or two. I don't, after all, ever use anything really complicated, like a chemical plant or a space shuttle. Maybe the wall I've hit with Radio is temporary. I hope. Back to the "documentation".