Performance Zen

Author: spierzchala

  • Mead Brights and the Hipster PDA

    Ok, on Friday, May 27, I saw a very cool hack for the 3″ X 5″ Hipster PDA — The Mead Brights Index card dispenser.
    I went and bought said device at Walgreens on Saturday.
    Thing is, I have no idea who to give credit to!
    HELP!
    TECHNORATI: Hipster PDA, GTD, Index Cards

  • WooHoo! AdSense for Feeds Shot Me Down

    Just got my happy rejection letter from Google AdSense saying that I don’t qualify for the Feeds Beta.
    Couldn’t be happier! Ad-free feeds will continue!

  • Office 2006 — WEB EDITION

    NOTE: This was written 11 years before Office 365 was released into the wild.

    This week, I had a conversation that included a discussion of whether Microsoft Office applications should be webified.

    I think that this is the only way that MSFT is going to be able to get people to support a new version of their product. A web application running on an IIS server (you think they would make able to run on Apache? PSSSHAW!) would support thousands of users, even remotely (HTTPS).

    How? Well, once you load the Web app…the load is effectively off the server until the user needs to save, or import, or merge, or speel…spellcheck. Users get to free up cruft and crap from their machines by only loading apps when they need them, and only the apps they need.

    OWA is already good enough to replace the bloatware we call Outlook.
    As one lunch companion pointed out, there has to be a version of these apps running in a lab somewhere in Redmond right now.

    I would buy access to a new version of Office served over the Web in a heartbeat in order to dump the cruft and creep that currently occupies 300MB of drive space.

  • Culling the Partial Text Feeds

    There appears to be a meme beating its way around the chaos we call the blogosphere, that of culling out the partial text feeds in favour of the full text versions.
    I usually check this out when I decide to subscribe. Bloglines will occasionally offer up a selection of feeds to choose from, and if given the choice, I always go with the full text.
    Tonight, I began (alomost) mindlessly culling out the partial text feeds. ProBlogger, Moliskinerie and ongoing. LifeHack looked cool, but the partial text feed saw them get the boot.
    I agree with Scoble (ugh…I hate saying that!) on this:

    I’ll visit your site once in a while or whenever one of the bloggers that I read tells me you’ve written something interesting (which is quite often)

    I know why partial text feeds exist. But I have AdBlock installed in Firefox, so even if I click through, you get no benefit. Turn on full feeds.
    Do it. Now.

    Jeremy Zawodny is on the bandwagon.

  • New Work Digs

    So, last night, while I slept, the company picked up and moved up 128 to Lexington.
    So far, the number of disruptions have been minimal. The biggest concern was were to plug in the the Bialetti. That is the sign of a near meaningless move.
    Physical location is becoming less and less relevant to me. All I ask is that it’s nice.

  • What does my birthday mean?

    Your Birthdate: November 14
    With a birthday on the 14th of the month (5 energy) you are inclined to work well with people and enjoy them.
    You are talented and versatile, very good at presenting ideas, and you are also very good at organization and systematizing.
    You may have a tendency to get itchy feet at times and need change and travel.
    You tend to be very progressive, imaginative and adaptable.
    Your mind is quick, clever and analytical.
    A restlessness in your nature may make you a bit impatient and easily bored with routine, and rebel against it.
    You have a tendency to shirk responsibility.

    Eeerily accurate…

    Via Doc Searls

  • Moleskinerie: On Harriet the Spy and Paying Attention

    Moleskinerie, my fave online blog of notes and paper-lust, posted a short quote from Harriet the Spy today.

    [NOTE: Original blog removed. But check out this on Harriet the Spy from Kat Patrick – Harriet the Spy helped me come to terms with my queer identity]

    This brought back a flood of memories of the sixth grade. That year, I carried around an old, reporter-style notebook and made notes very similar to those that I had seen and read about in this book. Observations. Comments. Vague thoughts.

    It is probably from here that I began to understand the power of everyday events to shape people’s lives in a larger way. What does arriving late to school tell me about what happens in the rest of someone’s day? What does it tell me about their life outside of the context I see them in?

    From here, I developed a sensitivity to how people’s behaviour is driven by the forces in their life, and what it tells me about what they are thinking.

    The most empathetic and insightful people you know aren’t psychic; they are just paying attention.

  • Microsophist: Being Visible v. GTD

    Microsophist (He’s BACK) brings up a very interesting point on upward mobility within any large company: It’s all about the optics. [here]
    What are optics? It’s a term I first heard used in reference to the political culture in British Columbia. It described the massaging news to make it look good. Effectively, it means the same as spinning the news.
    At any large corporation, it is not about getting things done; it is about looking good and drawing (positive) attention to yourself as someone who manages up well.
    The side-effect of this is that leaders that manage both up and down well are seen as unusual.

  • Lunch with Rick Segal

    Had lunch with Rick Segal who was in Waltham on business today.
    Lunch was good, and we talked for 90 minutes about all things blogging and technology. It was interesting to meet an Microsoft Technical Evangelist from the good old days.
    It was a great chance to meet with someone else who has big ideas, and as my first blogger “meet-up” was a complete success…
    …until I demonstrated my complete lack of navigational skills by getting lost and making him late to his 1:30 appointment.
    I hate driving in Massachusetts.

  • SCIENTIFIC PROOF: Inability to understand sarcasm indicates brain damage!

    Ok, provocative title out of the way. Referencing article here.
    More provocative body text: if a lack of sarcasm indicates that a portion of the human mind is not working correctly, then the vast majority of native-born US citizens suffer from this affliction.
    I have a hard time living in a society where a fine degree of sarcasm in not appreciated by so many people. I grew up in a culture where sarcasm and self-deprecation were the foundations of humour.
    Maybe I am just missing the finer, more subtle, points of US culture.