I switched to a Mac last week, and am getting my bearings. Though the (ad campaign) phrase, "It just works!" crosses my lips daily, so do a number of other expletives.
It has been a reminder that "prettier" and "better-designed" can also mean headaches, if only because it's different. (I generally am not in a mood to Think Different, I just want to check my email.)
Pressing F12 is an example: my screen dims, and a bunch of "widgets" pop up - a calendar, a clock, etc. The clock is a classic style - round face - and I'm reminded of what it was like to glance at this style of interface and not even need to read the numbers -- to know the time, yet not be thinking about any numbers. I like it better than a digital display, I find it easier.
But as I fumble to re-train myself to use the FOUR keys for Alt, Control, Command, Function, Apple, Squiggly, and Option (Shift being a 5th key and 7th concept), I admit not all things Mac are like that clock, a steps backward into more intuitive paradigms. Not to blame Apple for that: as I compare the two types of hardware, and also evaluate Word vs iPage vs Open Office (vs. Google Docs & Zoho Docs), I can really see how we as an audience are still pretty conflicted as to what our expected tool paradigms really are.
Perhaps only the Shift key has a universally agreed-upon set of functions, dating back to the typewriter of course, and round clocks.
I'm enamored with the new concept of social bookmarking, and in particular, the website Del.icio.us. The basic points of usefulness are straight forward: house your bookmarks online so you can access them from any computer; share them with friends -- even subcategories such as http://del.icio.us/apckrd/social_bookmark. You can even subscribe to each others' bookmarks, and see them trickling in as an RSS feed. (What team working on a project impacted by information couldn't use an automated means of flagging new content and sharing, and amassing a searchable library?) However, I've had a challenging time consistently conveying to friends something I find most useful of all: using Del.icio.us to quickly find new, odd-ball sites (call it "researching new sites"). I thought I'd dedicate this post to a "How To" explanation. If you already know Del.icio.us, skip to #3 below. Otherwise, if "Social Bookmarking" is still new to you, here's a high-level video...
In a nutshell:
Del.icio.us is a place where users post URLs and write tags for them. (URL: CNN.com. Tags: News, Time_Warner, Int'l_News)
Just like you Google "International news" and get pages, you can search through Del.icio.us BOOKMARKS for the tag "International News" - that is, you are searching through websites other Del.icio.us users have manually tagged as "International News" (which will get you some sites that don't call themselves either word - International or News - but for some reason the user thinks of them as this)
If you find a website you love and want to find more like it - see what other people tagged it as, and then view what OTHER sites they gave the same tag to
You'd love to find other sites like this, but you don't even really know what to call this site. (You Google "widgets" but that doesn't get you a simple list of sites like this one.)
A list of the comments each user gave this URL (down the main page). This helps you understand what people appreciate about this site, what it means to them
BEST: Down the right side of the page, you see a list of user names and the tag they gave it. Click on that tag (for one person) and see what OTHER websites they gave the same tag to. The beauty of this is that some people use very simple tags ("widget") and others craft tags that may be more telling. I tagged this "widget-pantry" which is kind of silly, but I was looking for sites that offer lots of widgets. I have a few other sites also tagged "widget-pantry."
This is how you discover other websites like this one. This is how you research websites using Del.icio.us. Once you do this a few times, you develop an eye for other users who are more useful to you - who have sites you know and love tagged with tags that make sense to you. Add them to your network, and watch what new sites they discover. Here are the folks in my network: http://del.icio.us/network/apckrd (note: YOU can even subscribe to new bookmarks from the people in MY network - wacky, eh?)
95% of the world's problems come from poor access to information - including a lack of communication... I declared, in adolescence. No wonder my career has centered on Internet startups. Here, I share my everyday ponderings and observations, from a lay-person's (& Internet professional's) perspective, as the Internet improves(?) our access to information and ability to communicate.
I switched to a Mac last week, and am getting my bearings. Though the (ad campaign) phrase, "It just works!" crosses my lips daily, so do a number of other expletives.
justapersona