Undo
If you have your online presence set-up for 7 years in one manner, there is a good chance it will take you more than 7 hours to undo. I am attempting to dissect my blogging /social media into two categories: social and work-related. Easier said than done:
- Use same name/Buy a new domain?
- Choose new blogging platform and Create skeleton framework
- Choose new aggregator
- Learn New blogging platform
- Learn new aggregator
- Communicate to friends on the move
- Locate widgets and find appropriate buttons
- Consider new tags
- To import or not
- Purchase more space? a new domain? (can never ask this question too much) toys?
- Find out why picture is not loading as a sidebar
And the list goes on an on. Yesterday, it was 3 hours of reading; today yet another 3 hours. All of the work will pay off, but yikes. Seriously, choose wisely and if you do plan to upend your internet presence, do be prepared to spend hours upon hours.
It is fortunate that this is not just a hobby for me; I can use all the Word Press lessons at work. It was the deciding factor.
nh
Word press and wikis: interoperate
So, I am on mission to make life easier. First off, I am sick of converting html and wiki tags. I asked and am waiting to hear if I can use the free mini-app. Not that there is anything wrong with basic coding, but am sick of <br> without a closing tag. It strains my punctuation brain.
On Friday night, a friend explained his attempts to integrate a word press blog into the corporate wiki. Sigh. I really hoped that it was a feasible option. If one of the smartest coders I know gets stumped, it is time to think of other options.
My hot Sunday afternoon is memorizing the FAQs on word press. Tomorrow I propose and create an internal blog for my company department. We use wikis, status pages etc, but communication is so important. And so, my personal addiction conspires to inspire and improve my new role
An unconference to feed my brain! And, a comic to warm my heart.
To cite a recent Bruce Sterling short-story: interoperate!
nh
Social Media group
Apparently, I don’t have enough on my plate. I am joining a social media group; hopefully I will learn something new. Lately, I have been warily watching the cusp approach.
nh
The Six apart cult…
Once a cult of frank, always a follower of the six:
[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/10/PID_012822/Podtech_6APART.flv&postURL=http:/www.podtech.net/home/4373/talking-with-six-apart-blogging-pioneers&totalTime=3342000&breadcrumb=9d319a1d20ff4704a943ceaaf11fa422]
Second Life gets an infusion
One of my non-internet savvy friends has been preaching the future to me about Second Life (SL). Like most junkies I simply discarded it at first as the Lavalife gamers site. After another conversation and some prodding, I joined the universe that has merged her Real Life (RL) and SL. Years of me expressing how integrated my online and RL were integrated simply left me without much of a leg to stand on in my discussions.
How could I a person full of curiousity and armed with a desire to try anything net at least once, 7 year Livejournal (LJ) user, and netizen discount SL. So, I got an account and promptly stopped using it as I was distracted with RL and other internet junkie habits, not to mention trying to learn for my internet-based job; SL was put on the back burner.
I promised myself that I would use this weekend to fix up my wordpress account with bligdets, new skin, etc. and play on SL to expand my vision.
Some inspiration: interoperability and meeting space
nh
Data centre diving
I am completely inspired by this article about data centres in the oddest places. Ex-military bunkers or churches beget high-end colos: http://tinyurl.com/ysrb2c
Ingenuity and technology will be Ernest Callenbach’s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotopia. Reuse everything. Well-built fortifications using military strategy and religious structures “built to last centuries” used for the new military front and the post-post modern (can we just have a new description already) religious experience.
nh
Blackliner/whiteliner
Wading the Archives
In university, I had the privilege to conduct primary research using the National Archives: hours and hours of wading through newly declassified World War II documents and those of the early 1950s for the Department of Immigration and the Department of External Affairs. My goal was to learn as much as possible about the post-war treatment of Ukrainian emigrants and their subsequent lobbying via KYK (Ukrainian Canadian Council) of the Canadian government and the world to aid Ukrainians intelligentsia and recognize Ukraine as a free country. Documents though available due to the Freedom to Information Act were oftentimes missing pieces or had sentences or sections blacked out. The hunt for war criminals was not my area of research at the time, but I found myself thinking often about what was not said, what was really said and what was censored. It was odd to think that most SUM (Children’s group) and zabava (dances) were monitored for activity not becoming of new citizens or landed immigrants. Someday I mean to re-write my university thesis using my older, wiser brain to siphon the piles of documents. It is a good thing that over time these are becoming available online.
Fast Forward to the Business world:
In my current job, I signed the strictest NDA of my career. Every other place of employment had a version of it (the oil company took my blood and urine samples too), but none that made me read it six times, have a friend with legal experience read it and worry incessantly about everything I type online. It is about ‘inside’ voice and ‘outside’ voice. All of that being said, part of my job that I enjoy is that I am 1/2 “Online Communications Specialist”. I post service status updates to portals, answer discuss list posts, write incident reports among other customer communications. Every single time I ‘translate’ internal documents to external documents and then handle approvals and revisions, I think about the Archive documents, wearing the gloves, and following the rules. The way I explain it to my family is: I filter and digest appropriate technical information to the customer base using Internet tools. The historian in me still sees the pages of documents which would swallow a person whole with content covered in black lines. I guess you could say that I am part Blackliner too, but in a decent, professional way. Or better yet, Blackliner/whiteliner with the latter being more on the side of the Freedom of Information Act.
nh
Perhaps, I need to get a life
Eat dinner or watch this webinar on Russian cyber crime? So much for expunging my bad boy fix. At least now it is directed towards learning instead of destructiveness!
Fall
Seriously, what is not to love about concord grapes and their happy eyeball popping sound when your teeth pulls back the skin? I love that every autumn moment is best served ghoulish.
nh
If you can pack it, you can carry it
My mom used to say this whenever we went on a trip. All week I have been looking around at the stuff I have acquired and slowly cleaning out the excess: old clothes to Planet Aid, old magazines to the hospital and some things not worthy of anyone’s company were just discarded.
I found myself thinking: If you had an hour to pack your more cherished items and go, what would you take.
It is a decent and real exercise in determining the important things.
**********************
My Nuit Blanche experiences turned into some of the same full on introspection. When I lived in Montreal, I was so isolated and found myself attending street festivals and night time activities with only a cup of coffee and my feet to navigate the city. This week I got to enjoy my own company as much as possible and it recalls those times, abet a healthier me. A friend was unable to stop by for dinner yesterday, another called from St-George on the off chance that I was free to attend the earlier Nuit Blanche activities with her and her husband. I stepped into Panic to visit some old and new friends, but was fidgety for more wandering and not Cure. The Bomb Shelter was a non-event with realism cluttered with “Give peace a chance” signs. It is as if the history rattles people so much that they have to cover it with a safety net of human connectivity. Such is the disturbing for some. The NFB films, http://www.archive.org/details/Operatio1955 and and cold war era propaganda: it made the noise of happy drunken chattering at midnight in a bomb shelter less, well, shiny.
Awakening the Electric Forest was my favourite installation of all with the haunting music and distortion. I wandered the crowded streets until about 3:00am when I was to pick up my partner in art crime. She had her store open and it was packed with customers. Shrug.
There is something entirely entertaining to be stone sober out late at night watching the art and people become the sketches of street-scape.
I want to wander more,
nh
