Recent Posts

601

Living Room / Re: Newspaper Article: The Dirty Little Secrets of Search

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 13, 2011, 09:14 PM »

My concern is simply that most of us now unconsciously treat the results returned by search engines as the "objective" simple results of "searching" for what we have asked.  When the reality is so much more complicated, and made worse by the fact that we have adopted a single company (google) as a synonym for search, as if this one company provides us with a complete and objective answer to every search.

This is why competition is important. Even though the 2nd best would just as be spammed, the 3rd or 4th best may not - or they may have a better search algorithmn.

There is no perfect answer to this problem of people accepting the top 5 search results for any search as being the definitive answer to every question.

It's not perfect but everyone has mostly gone past this issue by now thanks to Digg/Stumbleupon/Reddit/AllTop/Twitter Trends/etc.

Even Delicious is a better search engine nowadays despite the obvious key of being abused.

We have to remind ourselves that there is so much more to life and the internet than the pages that come up at the top of google search results.

Which is why everyone's jumping in and out of the latest buzzword innovation derived from the concepts of a Semantic Web.

602

Living Room / Re: DC Front Page

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 13, 2011, 08:53 PM »

I also don't think the main landing page should be super big on dynamic items such as lists and tables. The homepage is really more needed for new visitors than it is for regulars. The regulars already know what's here and how to get to it.  With new visitors, it's more important (IMO) to have a predictable and fairly static navigational starting point. Ideally, it should give a quick intro to what the site is about, and provide an overview with clear links which invite the visitor to explore further. Think map rather than dashboard.

+10 or as the web marketers say..."landing pages" not "homepages"

Since March is when Sandy Bridge gets re-released, I thought I'd go check out Intel's site:

Today is so Yesterday: http://www.intel.com/?en_AP_00

and then going to their "busy" pages they have tons of screenshots with things grouped together.

Wouldn't be a bad idea to start an organizational structure not from the perspective of a category but of a "suite". Maybe even start with pre-packaged zips like many of the AHK zips all grouped into one and then just later on provide single download files.

603

General Software Discussion / Re: What does it mean when I say "successful freeware"?

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 13, 2011, 08:45 PM »

To my way of thinking, something that is truly freeware was created for no reason other than the satisfaction and pleasure of doing it; and was released for no other reason than the desire to get it out where it could be used.

Of course the problem with this definition is that it sounds more like it's about open source software specifically. Most freeware developers may not consider their software as "releases".

If it was done for any other purpose or reason, I don't consider it freeware. I see it as a software product that's been licensed for public use at no charge.

Also problematic in that there are "free for personal use" freeware and "free for free" freeware "but get me famous/ego building" and finally the ever famous "free for free but only so I can get popular and sell you my new boosted program" freeware.

A subtle distinction? Perhaps. But it's an important one, since not making this distinction often results in a great deal of confusion for the general public, and significant bitterness and resentment on the part of the software community.

I think in order for the general public to be confused they have to be aware.

Most freeware users view freeware as being no different than paid software. (from a monetary perspective).

The term "I'll use it if I need it badly enough" so to speak.

Such faux 'free' software may play a role in a larger agenda.

Unfortunately, they are also often the ones with the better quality.

In the end, my entire point is that it doesn't matter how we define freeware. Open Source for example. Even fanatics don't really know what that means philosophically and they often cheer browsers like Firefox thinking it's somewhat of a true virgin counterpart to Chrome's gold digger pizzazz.

In the end, success often blurs the definition, not the course. Take Ubuntu and the "proprietary codecs" elites argument but also take the "interface elites" who won't try to make a better Ubuntu because "it's for teh noobs" until some developers actually go ahead and prove them wrong and becomes a dark saint in that shady argument.

604

General Software Discussion / Re: What does it mean when I say "successful freeware"?

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 13, 2011, 04:53 PM »

But "on internet = rich in 6 months" seems to be the myth that's aggressively promoted.  Why I have no clue.

Oh come on. Spam and web marketing doesn't induce blindness. 

Seriously though, from the outside looking in, it's not fair to say donationware is either hard or easy.

The reality is, just like software design, few freeware programmers are willing to take the risk to develop a cashcow.

Take the OneNote interface. It's nothing special. However it took ages before anyone would seriously consider that interface.

Therefore design-wise, most freeware lack the bang to attract paying customers.

But then let's consider everything else. Just like forums and blogs need good image synchronization in order for people to pay attention (something I still have a hard time doing) we know videos/blogs/community are at least a bare bones element of what should attract donations but how many actually have that?

I think the bar for verifying donationware has to be something like Evernote did. Sure, it's not a small company but let's look at everything they did correctly and tell me most freeware programmers do this:

Pander to the more profitable crowd - I mean this is generally bad and yeah you don't want to listen too much to your users but Evernote did the opposite and they not only didn't listen to their existing customer base, they angered them with version 3

Create a brand - Basic marketing but how many freeware programmers settle for just having blogs that are basically changelogs with the occassional update? Contrast this with web services like Ning/Remember the Milk/Evernote blog hell... DonationCoder's blog and it's not even close. Most program download sites look like abandonware except for the occassional update.

Create a demand - How many freeware programmers tell their communities to try using their software in novel ways? For every NANY there's a billion freeware that only becomes advertised through blogs like Lifehacker and Mashable and Techcrunch and that's their high point where as for successful freemium products that's just the definition of a successful launch.

Make it easy - How many have a DonationCredit system like DC? Over here, I'm not a programmer and I'm just writing articles and someone would go ahead and send DonationCredits and it often makes me feel bad that I'm just sharing an article and not really being a developer. Unless every notable freeware has a micro-system there's no metric to talk about.

The reality is, even for non-software less-rewarding one day/one week only Campaigns to raise awareness for a Cause, it's trial and error. There's no theory except to learn from a failed campaign and being less gun-shy about promoting a campaign. Yet almost all those individual campaign makers probably did a lot more to generate interest in donations than freeware developers. Hell...than professional software developers.

But it's also why freeware's success can't be determined in money. Yes, that's a huge proof of success but most freeware developers have to have the mindset coming into their software development stage to make users want to pay for their software. The paradox however is that if most of them think like that, there'd be more adware and less freeware. As much as it would make sense that it would be nice for people to put food on your table - first people from both sides have to understand what putting food on the table means. For every good will, there's an incentive to shell out that good will. Even for successful large projects like Linux distributions - donations only come because Open Source is sold as a cause and not just software and it was helped by many individual evolutions from Torvalds to Stallman to Web Access to better evolving interface (while the program keeps it's name).

In short, freeware does not need to be a business to be successful at gathering donations. It just needs to be an advocacy.

605

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Agree or Disagree: GTD Airspace Analogy doesn't work for software because...

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 12, 2011, 06:22 PM »

...our minds think differently when on software.

Runway for example. Outside of the PC, this means jotting down check lists.

On it this means constantly dancing around e-mails, rss readers, social networks like facebook and twitter and manipulating software.

The design of a to-do list of paper means you can spot entries and want to check them off or cross them out like a grocery list.

On the opposite spectrum, you check software to-do lists when you want to do something or immediately after you have done something.

Because of the difference in scale - an average barebones software to-do list is actually 40,000 feet in GTD Airspace lingo (3-5 year vision).

The Runway instead of a software productivity system is when you are not "seeing" the software as it's alt-tabbed elsewhere and you are doing something you know is your next action.

But treated this way, the Runway becomes the GTD equivalent of 20,000 feet (areas of responsibility) so it's not a runway.

That is to say, your current actions are not your current actions.

Therefore it's safe to say that in order to have a Runway in software form, Runways must be treated like programs where you are alt-tabbing around a system. The conclusion being that it's not possible to have an efficient GTD system unless you are using multiple to-do lists system and as such the more a productivity system tries to be the "only one" the more it's not staying true to the concepts of GTD. This is speaking less of how a program adopts to GTD terms but more of how GTD should be able to make a computer user productive if they are using a software GTD system rather than hardware.

Note that this applies to productive software GTD users in that they often claim GTD works for them but they often delegate half of the airspace underneath missions and visions as opposed to truly trying to understand why GTD emphasizes that airspace so much. Coincidentally, no software whether they be GTD or not have tried using the terms as a default structure often because such a simple concept is treated as "complicated" even though tags, stars, colored priorities, do it tomorrow systems are more complicated. (Note that I do not consider brainstorming sessions as counting as airspace and thus I include mindmaps as similarly being incomplete even though David Allen uses mindmaps to get his software airspace concept in place.)

606

General Software Discussion / Re: What does it mean when I say "successful freeware"?

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 12, 2011, 05:02 PM »

It means the brand name is not popular enough that you need to add "successful freeware" besides it so that people will pay attention.  

For me the most successful software are commercially backed freeware like Virtualbox, Firefox, Chrome and OpenOffice.

However if we're describing smaller scale, the most successful software are ones that could be marketed as the best kept secrets of the internet to people who know very little about them and have a dedicated loyal community firmly behind it that few people know about.

Said freeware include software such as:

Opera 10.10 (anecdote) - I just read from the Opera forums that this was the latest stable version. Opera is a constant leader in browser security and unlike other browsers like Chrome who pretend to be lightweight but can't support as much tabs without crashing - Opera's main weaknesses are that they don't improve as much on their native browser features and would rather focus on extra features like mail client, widgets, etc. They also don't like interface harmony like being able to right click on bookmarks and would instead prefer to change hotkeys veterans are used to. Nonetheless they are the leader in the desktop as far as a browser that can have lots of tabs opened.

Revo Uninstaller - Where other uninstallers aimed to be more lightweight, Revo not only assumed users would want an uninstaller that would actually "remove" software (go figure) but their website is a testament on how to do both b2b and b2c right as far as creating a professional website that doesn't confuse the hell out of it's users and the way they "inconspicuously" pop-up and advertise their pro versions is another underrated hallmark of a freeware service that clearly deserves it's success because the developers have in mind the desire to sell to their users without sacrificing their service.

Syphir.com - Successful freeware are like leaders. They define an industry. Though not very well known, little syphir was so influential in refining gmail that not soon after big daddy Google released the Priority Inbox.

Soluto - Successful software is not always about getting the most marketshare or the most hype but delivering the best bang for the buck. In that category, Soluto is among those that not only understands how to make a professional looking and beautiful freeware - they managed to think big enough that when their tag-line for their freeware says "Anti-Frustration Software" and you become skeptical - all that evaporates after you've restarted your PC and witnessed their freeware take action.

Everything and DocFetcher - Sometimes success isn't about kicking ass in the freeware department but kicking ass in the professional department. Both of these desktop search engines could easily have gained more press if they were paid software with fancy schmancy marketing and design but instead they chose the KISS method and instead of being all negative and interpreting the last S as stupid. They ignored it and might as well have renamed it the Keep It Super Simple method because these two software knows how to get one powerful thing done in a clear and concise method.

Extreme Warfare Revenge - It's one thing to talk about kicking professional software' ass but professional games?! EWR was so bad-ass that when it's creator decided to create a professional game - most of the EWR community criticized it's features because it was just that good of a freeware. Not only that, the WWE/THQ couldn't match up it's GM mode with this freeware's depth that they instead mostly focused on improving their cinematic story/career mode because they clearly could not touch the success of this game despite their budget.

These aren't the only ones out there but I consider these examples as among the hallmarks of "the most successful" because it's one thing to be the top of the mountain because you've got a design budget or a marketing team behind you or a bunch of fans who like your application - it's another different thing to provide "one of a kind" freeware while being the underdog or the lesser knowns. (Kinda like the difference between buried treasure and expensive diamonds on a famous shop only the treasure is so kickass awesome, even if the store offered the diamonds for free, the treasure would have more value and the only reason it couldn't be considered just as big a success is because it's buried under a world full of advertisements)

Oh and the lesson I learned was: Content may be king but marketing is queen and just because we live in a world of geniuses, doesn't mean geniuses can't be pawns to the Corporate Popes err... bishops  

607

Living Room / Re: DC Front Page

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 12, 2011, 04:20 PM »

I think the blog is kind of useful because it serves as a digest and I read up on it regularly. (Like I missed out on the Wordpress topic) It's just that it doesn't look like your traditional blog that's why no one pays much attention to it and to be honest - it's not as intuitive when on the main page. (You have to go to the blog link just to see a giant orange rss button for example)

Then there's the easy to ignore yellow sidebar which isn't very obvious in saying it's updating software.

This is more a suggestion than a mock-up but I think most of the forum issues can be solved by simply renaming the main page into the DonationCoder Forums. Also a sidebar that shows and explains one random app would be nice.

My main worry about sorting software though is that there's no easy way to do it and it could easily turn out like this:

http://www.portablefreeware.com/all.php

Things like PopUp Wisdom would be easily buried under that sort of structure.

Contrast this with how spacejock.com sorts this:

http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter.html

Unclear, vague and you have to know what the software's name is - on the other hand it works because you want to explore the site.

608

Living Room / Re: DC Front Page

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 12, 2011, 02:13 PM »

https://www.donation.../Software/index.html

DC's problem (and I'm using the word lightly) is not that the apps are disorganized but that the apps are rarely advertised and reviewed and are therefore harder to chance upon.

Take this blog article for example: http://www.freewareg...der-nany-2011-event/

No specific apps because most blog sites are afraid of posting/reviewing one or two small apps and then there's always the reverse - troll commentors.

The forum is already magnified in the blog. Again the issue is that people are expecting blogs or tech forums and not a CMS lay-out.

609

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Next Action Card: Over-Simplified Daily Disposable Paper-based Task Outline

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 11, 2011, 03:35 PM »

Preview:

Project Name/Date
Trailing:
Coming Distraction:
Soon:
What Now?
Now Doing:
Want to be Doing:

<finish task>

What Now?
Now Doing:
Want to be Doing:

<repeat until day is over>

Warning: The value of a disposable plan is that it isn't hinged on any other productivity or notetaking system and therefore it's also not there to provide any upgrades to your current plan nor is it supposed to be a stand-alone system where you just add and add your tasks until it becomes a huge list. To simplify, after your day is over, you throw this away.

Materials needed:

Pen/Pencil
Notebook/Index Card/Medium-size piece of paper

Benefits:

None really. This is just a rarely shared set of terms so I'm posting it here.

The origins stem from a combination of GTD's Next Action, Limited Daily To-Do Lists (like those that say you only need 1-3 items on your sticky notes per day maximum) and some modified terms you see in movie theaters.

Intention:

The idea is to have a simple disposable paper template that can serve as a gap between over-simplified to-do lists and the more detailed personal systems like GTD without needing an advanced pre-template written notebook or other items like software and noteware as well as a set that's easy to memorize and remember.

Ideally this can work as slicers of individual projects but to showcase the outline's disposability let's assume it's an outline of your current day and you will throw the paper out after that day is over.

Instructions:

1st Half

1) On top of the piece of paper you can write your project name or the date you will be doing the task.

Below that write, Trailing:

This is just everything that might be catching up to you or will be bothering you soon. If you are familiar with the Behance Action Method, this is mostly the backburner and backlog stuff.

2) After you've written what you want to write down there, add a Coming Distraction: category.

Same deal except for more dreaded and urgent things. You really needn't overthink both of these categories as they just serve as better reminders of why your deadline is your deadline.

3) Next write down the Soon: category

These three categories are mostly interchangeable. Soon is more for your next tasks rather than your worries but these three are just there to crumple all your someday/maybe/tomorrow/reminder issues all into one without them becoming hard to read and organize because they turned into one giant list of texts.

2nd Half

1) Add a What Now? category.

This could be your Next Action or your Next Thought. You'll see from the next category that it doesn't matter.

2) Below, write Now Doing:

This is your real Next Action which is coincidentally is also your Current Action

3) Finally, finish it off with the Want to be Doing: category.

This is a special one in that you don't need to be writing anything in it. Part of why I prefer software is that I can be paranoid about writing down anything on paper even if no one will really want to read it.

Yet for me, unlike ideas, I can't jot it down in quick symbols or vague adjectives since there would be no point after the day is over to have this in your head. (Unless you like having Missions and Visions)

You could rephrase this into Want to be Doing Now but really it doesn't matter. After you complete the set the only thing you need to worry about is mostly what you add on your next What Now? and Now Doing but that's mostly in case you didn't have enough space or plenty of time after you finished your first tasks.

Advanced Tips:

-Instead of turning Trailing into a checkbox, add the numbers 1/2/3/ besides your item and cross out a number as the event looms closer and closer.

-Same thing with Soon but instead of a series of numbers, add the start date besides any task

-Don't turn Now Doing: and What Now? into checklists/to-do lists. If you need to, move your check-lists and sub-lists unto your actual activity be it a plan/blueprint/main outlining system or just actually going ahead and doing your tasks and having the done state serve as a check-off

610

Living Room / Re: A question for Google -- why are you so desperate to have me switch to Chrome?

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 10, 2011, 08:31 AM »

What if FF changes that in the future? What if a better search service appears, FF recognizes that and switches the default search provider? Lots of $ will be lost. Open source may be open, but there is still a small group of people in control. Google cannot directly control FF.

The thing is... the better search provider cannot be as rich as the richer ads/search/docs/e-mail provider.

Another thing is...Google understands why they overtook Yahoo and all the other web apps are there to leverage any loss from a marketshare perspective. I'm not saying Google's perfect (like how they miss out on Buzz or how Wave and Notebook was put on hiatus) but the FF situation even way back benefitted Mozilla more than it benefitted Google pre-Chrome.

1) Let's not forget that Google's primary cashcow are ads. Let's not forget that FF's primary user are Adblock users.

2) Google's marketshare didn't increase from being the default provider. Just see any browser that tried to make a different default browser: people end up returning to Google.

3) Google has secret blackmail type of antics. Just ask the problems Opera tend to have with fixing gmail. It's always Opera fixes things, gmail ends up working, gmail ends up not working, users complain, Opera contacts and fixes things, gmail re-fixes itself, gmail breaks again. Meanwhile, google services mysteriously works better for FF. Yes, even better than they work for Chrome.

When Chrome was released most of the blogosphere were talking about how Google screwed Mozilla and not the other way around because there really was no danger for Mozilla to drop Google anytime.

So, Google is not trying to take over the world, they are just trying to control the money pipeline leading to them. Having its own browser is logical.

If you control the world, you control the pipeline. Google wants to take over the world of search. Mission mostly accomplished. Now Google wants to take over the world of cloud  applications.

Having it's own browser was illogical in terms of competing as a browser. It's been mentioned often times, Chrome does not have a bigger marketshare of users than Firefox. Chrome winning the browser marketshare is not only less profitable, they have a less than optimized browser that barely fits an alternative need on it's own.

On the other hand, Chrome "linked" to Google's OS allows Google to beta run most of the major problems that can be related to a WebOS. Allows Google to train it's customer to see the most often seen interface of their WebOS.

From the get go Chrome had no interest in competing with the browser battles. Their aim was much more grandiloquent. Aim at the heart of Windows marketshare by attacking it's weakest (and at the same time most exclusive points) - Office and IE marketshare.

Take those away and you can introduce an operating system that can leapfrog through most of the Linux and OS alternatives. Then once you gain a share of the operating system users, eat away at the remaining pieces of the prime competitor known as IE and Office. Once that taken care of, it doesn't matter if users prefer Firefox over Chrome. It will be installed in their WebOS which coincidentally will be syncing with Android data and you could potentially have the first dominant desktop-mobile-server-cloud-TV dominant service in the entire history of the internet which coincidentally combined with their improving offering of Maps/Images/Street Views/etc. services allows them to be the premier directory of everything and anything to the point that only services like Facebook would have their own marketshare as users are uniquely loyal to those services no matter how confusing, poor, private breach those services are. Every other service post-that type of monopoly and they could just slap a super search engine storage to their existing infrastructure and compete with any threat be it the likes of it coming from mobile/cloud/desktop/etc. (Again not saying their execution of their plan is perfect but just trying to steer any notion away from the idea that Chrome is a defensive move "in case" a browser switches to another search engine. That could almost count as historical revisioning even though history hasn't happened yet. Think Big, Not Small. The Google Way. Happened with Gmail. Happened with Docs and Spreadsheets. Happened with Wave. Happened with Ads. The smallest well known things Google have done - they often abandoned or mostly weren't updating post-release anyway. Chrome is the exact opposite of that and you can see it not only from the money being shelled in but for how early the first full version of Chrome came out of beta. None of those are actions of a company with an intent to just create a browser as a "back-up" utility.

611

Living Room / The Impact of Hard Mode and Scenarios on Horror Games

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 10, 2011, 03:03 AM »

Full article

Snippets:

I can't count the number of times users have told me that a not-very-scary game is better "on hard mode." Many of the games that I've complained about on this site have been defended by users claiming that hard mode is where the game design really works. Dead Space, Cold Fear, Silent Hill: Homecoming, and even Resident Evil: Dead Aim have all been credited as being better games when the difficulty is increased. This seems like evidence that supports the "harder is scarier" idea. In my review of Dead Space, for example, I spend most of the words praising the game and then trying to figure out why I didn't enjoy it very much. I ended the review with the conclusion that Dead Space doesn't require any critical thinking, and is altogether too "straightforward." Another way to say the same thing might be to say it was too easy; I walked through the game and never really had to put any real effort into it. Per the Two-Factor Theory, my brain never got a chance to mislabel my body's reaction because my body never reacted.

I think the key is not to make the game actually hard, but to make it SEEM or FEEL hard.

Think of the first Resident Evil for example: the fact is there is enough ammo in the entire game to kill every single enemy with guns (if you don't count that one glitch that make enemies respawn in one of the room). But to this day, when talking about it, most people still claim that the game doesn't have enough ammo to kill everything.

That's because, even if it's not the case, the game makes the player BELIEVE that there is not enough ammo. For example, it does this by making the player have to find the ammo by himself (inside shelves, behind a desk, etc) rather than having the ammo convienently spawn on a enemy corpse when you kill them, like in every other game.

(on a side note: you will notice that RE4 went back to having ammo and herb spawn out of dead enemy corpses. The game even spawn ammo and herbs according to what you have left in your inventory. This is one of the many reasons why RE4 was not SURVIVAL horror anymore but action horror instead).

612

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Life is all about WHAT YOU DO IN REACTION TO WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 09, 2011, 09:11 PM »

Not sure I shared this (old) link before so here it is.

Yeah, I know the thread reads like obviousness but the source for the quote may or may not interest productivity seeking users but it's hardly written like a common topic. (seeing as it's a book review although you don't need to read the book)

It all depends on how much you believe:

Life Equals Richness
Life Equals Money
Life Equals Having a Home
Life Equals Fun
Life Equals Productivity

...blah blah blah...yadda yadda...so...yeah, this is more of a meta topic.

613

Living Room / Re: Divided Attention Disorder? Log off and read a book

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 09, 2011, 09:04 PM »

Umm... didn't read the article but why are people trying to rename ADD?

-Paul Keith (February 09, 2011, 07:19 PM)

Because the guy who wrote the article was on a deadline and had no original ideas  

-timns (February 09, 2011, 07:26 PM)

Man...this article takes the cake for unoriginal ideas then. ADD = serious issue; lots of false victims; does not need extra propaganda to exclude people from insanity.

Plus the whole story is: Log off and read a book then Log on, search Google for tidbits about the book, join one or two discussion forums and say hello to extra hell.

Edit: On the flipside, the applications you guys are listing here are a lot better than the ones you guy say you are often using in one of the other DonationCoder software listing threads. Focus groups...err...forum threads truly don't work.

614

Living Room / Re: Divided Attention Disorder? Log off and read a book

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 09, 2011, 07:19 PM »

Umm... didn't read the article but why are people trying to rename ADD?

615

Living Room / Re: A question for Google -- why are you so desperate to have me switch to Chrome?

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 09, 2011, 06:34 PM »

But right now (beyond Opera), you have three choices: (1) buy into a closed proprietary system like Apple, (2) go with Microsoft, who refuses to implement key open source standards in its browser, or (3) go with Chrome, which is trying to shed as much proprietary baggage as possible for one simple reason: so you can "take your data with you" -- whether that be mobile/tablet, desktop, netbook, and even gaming within the browser.

-zridling (February 09, 2011, 06:20 AM)

So which of these three choices includes Mozilla and its various open source offspring?  Firefox currently has more than twice the market share of Chrome, and is the only officially supported non-IE browser for many online transaction sites like banks.  Of course Opera (my primary browser, btw) is also a closed proprietary system.

-xtabber (February 09, 2011, 01:50 PM)

An alternative answer would be #3. One thing Chrome can deviate from the script if things turn for the bad is potentially combine Chromium with Firefox. It's not like it can't be attempted. For example Flock did it.

Mozilla is a great test bed for Chrome. Part of why Chrome's marketshare got so big so fast is because they copied many of the elements that make Mozilla successful but removed many of the criticism of Firefox's perception (like being a memory hog)

Not only that, Mozilla makes a great pincer for eating up IE's marketshare. It's not only a lazy incubator for what Chrome developers can focus on (all they really need to do is monitor most of the news coming from Firefox instead of IE or Opera) - the bigger Firefox's marketshare is, the weaker IE becomes and the easier it is for Chrome to eat up the OS market since Firefox doesn't really have an OS bundled with it outside of Linux (and many casual Linux users are starting to prefer Chrome's lightweightedness over FF) but Chrome's primary competitor on the mobile market are Opera Mini and whatever default browsers are on those gadgets. Things Firefox really are not able to take advantage of much unless they become even more lightweight than Opera Mini.

616

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Another request: Please share how you integrated opportunities to your system

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 08, 2011, 02:02 AM »

Usually this just involves a tab or another category but honestly I haven't found many systems that implement leads and opportunities in a unique manner.

Preferably I'd like to move away from business but it can't be helped. Anything that often moves into personal lives become someday/maybe lists or pending/reminder/contact style systems that assumes a clear route and a clear timeline.

There's some like GTD's context concept that asks you to make a list specifically for your next action when you're in front of someone and there are habit trackers/weight trackers/nutrition diaries that remind you specifically of an item to take or a timeline of your logs but everything I've come up since to go back to the missions and visions type of route if not the business route of this one whole wish-list.

It would be kind of cool to have a productivity concept centered on say... seeing a poor person/remembering their face/clothes/etc/planning in the future on how to scout that person's problem and needs - inserting it into a note regardless if you don't meet that person for years and then needing only that snippet to create a roadmap set of action targetted at that person.

Of course this can be used for malicious needs like marketing purposes but still... google analytics for the real life brain seems like it could train us people to be more altruistic without more instantaneous or temporary in our help. (i.e. merely dropping a quarter on their empty cans) It also seems like a step productivity systems haven't explored yet.

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Living Room / Re: which is more important, system ram or video ram?

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 08, 2011, 01:37 AM »

Ok, I have a side question to this:

How much estimated ram is needed for how much HD space for it to run decently. (Let's say cheap HD and not SSD)

Let's assume things like defragging, antivirus scanning, consideration for non-pro but high spec requirement programs like Blender and Photoshop...multi-monitor multi-tasking of common applications (say MS Word + Firefox + Chrome + Opera all opened with 25-50 tabs)

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Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 08, 2011, 01:33 AM »

Now we really are going off topic! I meant democracy in the modern, practical sense. Definition:

The option occasionally, through an election, to replace one set of self-serving members of the plutocracy with another.

Just to go further off-topic: I don't really believe you can change anything in a democracy and hence I agree. Democracies exist in this world. Even if you don't believe in the rigged voting system, believe in Facebook likes and Digg up-votes. 

Republics however, I don't think they exist in any large scale anymore. The largest Republic I've seen is Hacker News.

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Living Room / Re: A question for Google -- why are you so desperate to have me switch to Chrome?

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 08, 2011, 01:27 AM »

I think you have to look at a slightly different and 'earlier' angle (ie the benefits of spying), web is almost mature enough to be able to question the value of data mining. At best it means relevant ads, what else is gained by google even if it is actively spying?

Hmm...I'm not sure I follow. I think we're implying the same thing except for the conclusion. Google still has to move on away from ads and it needs to find a revenue model for that and in it's earlier incarnation the reason Google even has the ad market is because they sort of improve the way ads are presented anyway so it's not like spying doesn't have any value outside of ads.

A clear example of how spying can help is to look at Facebook logins. There's no relevant ads there inherently but because programs can auto-import contacts and other functionalities, you can "train" your customers to willingly share their tastes and information as opposed to just data mining it which is all in all a more exposed and less controversial way of flat out building a list for ads as well as grabbing the interests of businesses who purely see it as a way to advertise their services.

More to the point of this thread, I would like to add the following:
Google tablet, netbook or whatever should and will be measured by its own sales not by its OS (Chrome and apps) Google is after a hardware market, of course it is running its own nice little thing, but hardware sales will judge its success

Hardware is pretty important for Google but they can't out-marketshare the users that way. Even if they surpass Apple, there's a good chance someone will create a jailbreak open source alternative that, though it might not impact sales, would keep Google from acquiring a social consumer/web user monopoly-like wall garden similar to Facebook.

Again Chrome for desktop is a good example. It bridges the users that are purely IE users if the netbook succeeds as a hardware but it has already eaten up a once untouchable alternative in Firefox at a faster rate than Firefox could eat up IE.

Then again going back to ads and other things: Google may not have figured out Facebook but if it can co-exist as a parasite with Facebook but for more browser-centric needs, it can convince businesses to put something on their webapp store that's like a Chrome-exclusive site beautifier greasemonkey script that makes it harder to move away from Google unless people suddenly have an interest in Safari/Opera/Firefox as in browsers. (Google may have a lot of complaints regarding it's less flexible extension +buttons only system but if it's adopted by ignorant consumers, it's ui is the closest to IE6 "not a browser" just a window to the internet interface)

Even better for Google, in theory, all these downstream to hardware anyway. The more Chrome becomes integral to the perception of a cloud OS, the harder it is for any alternative to copy the barebones interface of a netbook OS as users will still be most likely looking for that "window to the internet but with other nifty stuff that the blue one didn't" i.e. not much different for how hardware vendors bundle OSX and Windows pre-installed on people's PCs.

It also serves as a back-up. Let's say Google's hardware doesn't sell and then what? It's a dead-end. However as long as Chrome exists, it's not a failed project. Every "next" Chrome netbook after that will always have users trying it out just to witness how Chrome integrates with the hardware and vis-a-vis that goal is also a vision that incentivizes Google to further eat away at browser marketshare therefore fail nor success Chrome (even without the data gathering say Chromium builds) is always a fallback application that would help Google grow and seep further into the nooks and crannies of web users' brains that it can always be an existing product Google will keep improving on. (unless browsers get totally replaced by something totally un-browser like)

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Living Room / Re: A question for Google -- why are you so desperate to have me switch to Chrome?

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 07, 2011, 04:22 PM »

Because of money and insight in how people use their computers? In it turns out that all you really really need is a browser Google wants to deliver so they can collect. They are preparing for the future, if that is next month, next year - from this or that device Google of course wants to be there. Why open the door for another Facebook monster? Make people use the browser/mini-OS -> make money with, for and from the people

Can also ask so why the hell is there something called Google TV??? - same answer. In Googles case they probably don't even think money or taxes, just deep thoughts about where future markets will be. Figure that out and current costs are of no importance. Control or just being first = more money than you can imagine.

-Bamse (February 07, 2011, 02:30 PM)

To be fair, this is also because of market demands unlike Facebook where it was more of a reverse process.

Lots of people now want things on the web but also things on their PC. It's just convenient and it also make things easier to sync across computers even if you don't know anything about networking and servers or can't afford a fast connection.

I'm not defending Google's habits but the Chrome of today has bridged a demand that Firefox and other browsers weren't providing. The web app is also a key to stopping businesses from shoving toolbars in order to advertise their products as it's just a link to another site.

I am being totally serious when I say this:

If you can answer 'why is google spending so much on something like street view?' then you can answer everything else they do.

-rgdot (February 07, 2011, 03:32 PM)

It's no longer the case. Not because Google is no longer trying to spy on people's lives but at this stage, things like street view are old news and doesn't align with Chrome at all.

Google kind of botched it with Chrome for gathering data. Doc syncs are not really possible or crude. Gmail is just another e-mail inbox. People have problems with bookmark syncs.

Chrome is really more of a frontend for Google's netbook. Things like data mining are alot more efficient elsewhere as most Chrome users really prefer third-party extensions because Google's own services aren't really that good at bringing the cloud os to fruition.

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Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 07, 2011, 01:06 PM »

So what is the bigger issue?

I was referring to this:

Of course this only assumes those who believe in the market also believe that we exist in a free market... (with no government bail-outs/global plans to censor the internet/intentional worsening of depressions to temporary stave off a more noticeable recession...)

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Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 07, 2011, 12:34 PM »

If you believe in the market, the ebook price business will eventually sort itself out. If publishers collude with sellers, it will be declared unlawful. If publishers operate a cartel, it will be found out. Competition has brought us inexpensive print books (certainly in the UK), the same will happen with ebooks. Eventually.

Of course this only assumes those who believe in the market also believe that we exist in a free market... (with no government bail-outs/global plans to censor the internet/intentional worsening of depressions to temporary stave off a more noticeable recession...)

...err yeah, I know you added the Apple situation already but I just can't consider that the bigger issue in light of other err...bigger issues.

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Living Room / Re: which is more important, system ram or video ram?

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 07, 2011, 12:26 PM »

System ram is just generally more compatible to more needs so it's hard to argue against going for it.

Video ram, you only notice it when you need it. System ram you're thanking it once you need it.

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Living Room / Re: A question for Google -- why are you so desperate to have me switch to Chrome?

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 07, 2011, 11:33 AM »

https://chrome.google.com/webstore

Chrome is going to be an integral part of Google's WebOS netbook.

I think they're hoping to pincer the OS market with the mobile market by having a webstore that is not just an app store, an extension database but most importantly a bookmark database for site services and in that way, they may not be able to wall garden the social crowd of Facebook users, but they can wall garden the rest of the internet especially static sites. (Although said static sites still need to be modern sites that host things such as extensions or login forms and stuff like that. Think a database where newbies who don't know how to greasemonkey their favorite sites can get a slick interface for their favorite site. One that in many ways integrates the browser and sites even more. Or for commercial sites, white label sites using the Chrome Webstore lay-out to bookmark a site under the guise of an installed app instead.)

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Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by Paul Keith on February 07, 2011, 11:30 AM »

Well, I'm mostly referring to awhile back. Way way awhile back.

If I'm not mistaken, there was a stint when Kindle books were really cheap and it was like bundle buying.

That didn't last long though but not a lot of people know that.