Another app I’ve come to appreciate on the Mac is WriteRoom, a full-screen writing environment - nothing but blackness, green lettering, and you.
So I went looking for something I can use here at work, and sure enough, someone has cloned WriteRoom for Windows and called it DarkRoom. Nice!
(This post composed in DarkRoom :-) )
Today is my second day at the new gig and I’m getting used to a Windows environment. First installs included Firefox of course, and Eclipse.
I’m a die-hard Quicksilver fan on OS X, so the idea of pointing and clicking to launch things is anathema to me. Today I found Launchy, and open source launcher for Windows that, while not as full featured as Quicksilver, does the launching thing in the same way and has me back in keyboard mode. w00.
(The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy.com Software, Inc.)
After some prodding, I posted the full, and slightly edited, “Building The Franken-site” saga on Drupal.org. It basically covers using XML-RPC as the glue to get Drupal content into a Wordpress template and vice-versa. The next version of this site (under construction now) will work this way.
I’m planning out the next iteration of redmonk.net, and it involves more close integration between the Wordpress blog and the rest of the site in Drupal. If you’re a Drupal hacker, please check out my progress here:
Jodi and the kiddo and I are out East, visiting the family for a real live vacation. Before leaving, I raided the bookshelves of a family friend, and came away with a couple of pulp sci-fi novels - perfect airplane reading.
One of my choices was Fallen Angels by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn (Amazon link).
From the synopsis on the back of the book, I was only mildly interested, but it looked readable. What I found was a fascinating “hard sci-fi” novel with a humorous conceit.
Two Fridays ago, I was laid off from Content Connections. After touching base with a few folks I knew, and sending out a number of resumes, one in particular came together rather quickly. I got an offer early last week.
Having accepted said offer, I’ll be starting a new position with Go Daddy on Wednesday, July 26th. I’ll be working with the Creative Group, designing and building templates for several of Go Daddy’s tools.
For me, this kind of design is going to be a challenge, and I’m totally looking forward to it. The fact that the compensation is good and the benefits are fantastic is gravy. W00t!
The job of a newspaper is to show you what’s new.
Dave Winer is talking about the “river of news” metaphor again. This is the “all new posts go into one bucket, most recent first” model that Radio Userland, Amphetadesk, and the other first-generation news readers used.
The first aggregator, the one I wrote in 1999, did. And so did the one that’s in Radio UserLand, and so does the NewsRiver aggregator that’s built into the OPML Editor.
I don’t particularly care for this model, because I have high-priority sources and low-priority sources. There are some feeds that I put in a “Never Ignore” folder in my aggregator (for the record, I use NetNewsWire). I’ll go there before most any other feeds - even if there are other feeds that have updated more recently. This is an aspect of feedreading that the “River” doesn’t handle.
When I’ve browsed the “important” feeds, I start mashing the spacebar to jump through all the unread posts, in whatever folder they are. I’m scanning at this rate, and will go through 40 or 50 new posts in about as many seconds, unless one catches my eye. This is the same model as Dave’s river of news.
You’re not taking advantage of a key capability of the human brain, it scans very quickly as you scroll.
I think that “mash-and-scan” works as well as scroll and scan for me. YMMV.
Friday before last, I said goodbye to Content Connections after 2.5 years. it wasn’t my choice but there was no malice involved on either side. These decisions have to be made sometimes.
It’s been a great time, working with a fantastic team of people, and some very smart IT guys. Rich - we nearly came to blows but it was worth it. You know I respect you, now stop playing WoW and get back to work! ;-) Mike, how you ever put up with him is beyond me. You, too - turn off WoW and get Scalix in line. Scott - I do not envy you the headache you shall have when you awake. In the meantime, sleep well, and dream of Superman.
I signed an offer today that came about very quickly, and unexpectedly, after leaving Content Connections. More about that in the near future.
I’ve added an extension of the monkinetic weblog called More Redmonk.
Right now you’ll find a Portfolio of graphic design, web design, and development work I’ve done, as well as articles that were too long for the weblog. Currently, that means the SiteLight series, which I’m moving over from the weblog. More articles will be coming soon.
