All .. i came across this a couple of weeks ago and it tweeked my inner geek. Anything that calls itself "a resuable non-linear personal web notebook" will make me cock an eyebrow and have a bit of an investigate.
Pop over to the tiddlywiki site and have a look see.
You can view TiddlyWiki files on all major desktop browsers on Windows, Macintosh and Linux and many mobile browsers such as the Apple iPhone and the Nokia 770/N800. You can save from all the major browsers (Sofaree and Oprah users need a wee plugin but IE and FF on winders saves changes after saying OK to an "are you sure message")
It is open source and really rather clever.
Config it in seconds bookmark it and you have a wiki style notebook that you can use on all of your tin to store your thoughts links and other stuff. I have it on my trusty ILUG08 memory stick, for those moments that server connectivity is just not possible.
It works .. I like it .. i am going to introduce it at work to see who likes it! Oh and have a look at the GTD variants like this one ...
Showing posts with label Ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ideas. Show all posts
Monday 2 March 2009
Tuesday 26 August 2008
Now this is an interesting thing
I have been following this story for nearly a year and it seems that there may be movement on this. The Air powered car. TATA the Indian company that released the world's cheapest new car are working with MDI from France to put the "Air car" into production
Now the car itself is zero-emission or near as damn it, and topping it up will cost around 50p or $1, it will do 200Km on a tank full with a max speed of around 60mph. A decent compressor and you can fill it at home. Now I am not a dyed in the wool tree-hugging greenie but if the men in the white coats put their big domed heads to it surely something like this would save me a F**king fortune in petrol prices.
Friday 1 August 2008
I have started a new blog for my creative side
I have, after much ferkeling and a spot of winkling, decided to get creative on another blog... here. This blog will house my creative stuf paintings, stories, poems and the like. Not that I put that many of those on this DYM, but it should reduce some of the "noise" I create on PL a little.
If anyone is interested I have plonked a short SciFic story up there tonight it is very rough and probably derivative but it has Aliens, pulse rifles, Belfast and lots of swearing so prob not "Safe for Work"
If anyone is interested I have plonked a short SciFic story up there tonight it is very rough and probably derivative but it has Aliens, pulse rifles, Belfast and lots of swearing so prob not "Safe for Work"
Thursday 15 May 2008
Are we locked in a delusional pattern of cruel fantasy?
Not my words but those of philosopher John Gray in "Black Mass" his latest book. I must admit I am starting to like these "talking heads" books I used to run a mile from opinion based literature, generally because it wasn't my opinion and lets face it whose else's matters. :)
As Martin Amis recently put it "Opposition to religion [currently] occupies the high ground, intellectually and morally" most famously in the Dawkin's Polemic "The God Delusion" and the self-abusing secular banality of Hutchin's "God is not great" both of which I have read and enjoyed both disagreeing and agreeing with in equal measure.
I was passing through an airport bookshop and picked up "Black Mass -Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia" which just leapt out as a title that said "Read me and harumph at the page quite a bit" so I did just that, except there were far fewer Harumphs than I thought there would be.
Now I am not suggesting that Prof Gray is right in all his positions but I found myself either agreeing with or being challenged by him a lot more that Hitchens, Dawkin and to some extent Dennett.
"Progress is a myth" was one of the statements that made (given my ubergeek status) me first go "nonsense" and then think further on his reasoning. Progress in society is not like progress in science. Science is by nature cumulative for example we will never go back to alchemy, the same is not true about politics or ethics where things can and do come back often under different names time and time again. Torture that was prohibited by international law until 2 or 3 years is back as "professional interrogation technique"
When the Spanish Inquisition used it that was regarded by history as an awful heinous abuse of canon power.
Henri Alleg wrote of the very same thing in his book "the question" in the '50s and his documented experiences of water-boarding at the hands of the French in North Africa where soundly condemned as torture by the world at the time. (The book has a forward by JP Satre which makes it more than worth a read ;-) )
When The Khmer Rogue used it in Cambodia it was to quote The Times "a foul, inhuman action that highlights the iniquity of the regime that permits it", few at the time disagreed.
Whether or not this is torture under current law is not the point, whether or not it is warranted is not the question, either it is a barbaric torture or it is not. Prof Gray's point is well made, past evils may be exiled but it is only a temporary respite.
In an interview in a magazine (hard copy only) He even had some words about web2 and the whole social network "thing". He posits the interesting notion that it is a "social black hole" into which our lives are slowly disappearing sucked in by the gravitational pull of
(1) the duplication of yourself in the profile of every network you join
(2) congestion (like we got on Twitter 2night) and how many friends do you really have or for that matter need? Has the human requirement and capacity for social interaction grown exponentially over the last 2-3 years?
(3) Noise - he made the analogy that joining a new social network was a bit like sticking your head in a beehive - potentially rewarding but likely to cause you pain.
(4) Time - Time is like land, "they aint making any more of it" So as social networks soak up minute after minute of your time you develop what he calls "continuous partial attention". Gone are the days when in rural Ireland we measured time in phrases like "2 shakes of lambs tail" or "The time it takes to milk a good jersey cow" a measurement that equates a useful activity with the time it took to do it. What would the modern equivalent be. "the time it takes to check Facebook, Twitter, Email and all my IM accounts?" it doesn't have the same .. hmmm.. ring or kudos ... BTW my best guess is 25 mins, to milk the cow manually.
(5) Rejection - both of yourself by others and when you reject a network that is now "not cool"
As a user I perhaps don't agree with all of that.. but he does pose some interesting challenges that we may need to face before long as to how we see and define ourselves in the world both real and virtual....... much to ponder on before I can even consider an answer to the question inthe title of this post.
An recent article by the main himself can be found here
As Martin Amis recently put it "Opposition to religion [currently] occupies the high ground, intellectually and morally" most famously in the Dawkin's Polemic "The God Delusion" and the self-abusing secular banality of Hutchin's "God is not great" both of which I have read and enjoyed both disagreeing and agreeing with in equal measure.
I was passing through an airport bookshop and picked up "Black Mass -Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia" which just leapt out as a title that said "Read me and harumph at the page quite a bit" so I did just that, except there were far fewer Harumphs than I thought there would be.
Now I am not suggesting that Prof Gray is right in all his positions but I found myself either agreeing with or being challenged by him a lot more that Hitchens, Dawkin and to some extent Dennett.
"Progress is a myth" was one of the statements that made (given my ubergeek status) me first go "nonsense" and then think further on his reasoning. Progress in society is not like progress in science. Science is by nature cumulative for example we will never go back to alchemy, the same is not true about politics or ethics where things can and do come back often under different names time and time again. Torture that was prohibited by international law until 2 or 3 years is back as "professional interrogation technique"
When the Spanish Inquisition used it that was regarded by history as an awful heinous abuse of canon power.
Henri Alleg wrote of the very same thing in his book "the question" in the '50s and his documented experiences of water-boarding at the hands of the French in North Africa where soundly condemned as torture by the world at the time. (The book has a forward by JP Satre which makes it more than worth a read ;-) )
When The Khmer Rogue used it in Cambodia it was to quote The Times "a foul, inhuman action that highlights the iniquity of the regime that permits it", few at the time disagreed.
Whether or not this is torture under current law is not the point, whether or not it is warranted is not the question, either it is a barbaric torture or it is not. Prof Gray's point is well made, past evils may be exiled but it is only a temporary respite.
In an interview in a magazine (hard copy only) He even had some words about web2 and the whole social network "thing". He posits the interesting notion that it is a "social black hole" into which our lives are slowly disappearing sucked in by the gravitational pull of
(1) the duplication of yourself in the profile of every network you join
(2) congestion (like we got on Twitter 2night) and how many friends do you really have or for that matter need? Has the human requirement and capacity for social interaction grown exponentially over the last 2-3 years?
(3) Noise - he made the analogy that joining a new social network was a bit like sticking your head in a beehive - potentially rewarding but likely to cause you pain.
(4) Time - Time is like land, "they aint making any more of it" So as social networks soak up minute after minute of your time you develop what he calls "continuous partial attention". Gone are the days when in rural Ireland we measured time in phrases like "2 shakes of lambs tail" or "The time it takes to milk a good jersey cow" a measurement that equates a useful activity with the time it took to do it. What would the modern equivalent be. "the time it takes to check Facebook, Twitter, Email and all my IM accounts?" it doesn't have the same .. hmmm.. ring or kudos ... BTW my best guess is 25 mins, to milk the cow manually.
(5) Rejection - both of yourself by others and when you reject a network that is now "not cool"
As a user I perhaps don't agree with all of that.. but he does pose some interesting challenges that we may need to face before long as to how we see and define ourselves in the world both real and virtual....... much to ponder on before I can even consider an answer to the question inthe title of this post.
An recent article by the main himself can be found here
Friday 11 April 2008
Plea to the Yellow Community - Suggestions for Project Control Application
I have been asked by a chum of mine for any recommendations for Domino based project control apps. She works for a charity in Scotland so £'s are very tight. Is there anything out there in Domino land that will allow so level of project management outa the box at minimal cost or open source that you can suggest/recommend?
It's not programming project control, this is the sort of logistical side of things, who does what,when and with whom. You know the MS-project "i'm project managing my house build"sort of thing. There is a need for collaborative working from the head office to the project teams on the ground, hence her thought that their existing Domino server would do the trick.
Any suggestions will be gratefully received.
Steve
It's not programming project control, this is the sort of logistical side of things, who does what,when and with whom. You know the MS-project "i'm project managing my house build"sort of thing. There is a need for collaborative working from the head office to the project teams on the ground, hence her thought that their existing Domino server would do the trick.
Any suggestions will be gratefully received.
Steve
Tuesday 1 April 2008
Changing your name
I came across a post the other day on a heretical and rather rude web site that posited the question:
Steve
PS yes this WAS a blantant attempt to get found by Volker's two top searches ... Sue Me!
"If your name wasn’t what it is and you had to choose from ‘Aresholeshitpantsfishguts’, ‘Stretchedbumholemoosepus’, or ‘Nigel’, which name would you choose?”
It is an intriguing question, one we should all give some serious consideration to. You have to factor in when this name change would be made. I mean, if it were now it would be merely awkward to go to the bank and say ‘Excuse me, but I have to change the name on my account to Aresholeshitpantsfishguts McDonagh ...Yes, I said Aresholeshitpantsfishguts .. you got a problem with that... No I am not a ASW whatever that is!
Of course that wouldn’t make it easy-peasy or terribly comfortable all the time though. Imagine if you went to visit say a sister in hospital after he had been bitten on the bum by a moose who had a terrible yeast infection on his moose tongue which transmitted itself to the rectal passage of said relative and then when you got to the hospital and you said ‘Hello, I’m here to visit my sister.Yeah. My name? It’s Stretchedbumholemoosepus McDonagh. No, I’m not taking the
piss, I swear dat's my name.
Steve
PS yes this WAS a blantant attempt to get found by Volker's two top searches ... Sue Me!
Tuesday 11 March 2008
Collaboration some thoughts on user buy in.
I am sure I am not alone in having a user community who think that collaboration is a "good thing" and react positively to being introduced to the newest bit of collaborative technology. People see the business benefits of wider, freer and more accessible information However a throw away comment today "... anything that makes my job easier..." made me pause for thought.
In hindsight I should have responded to this but at the time I was aglow with the success of the meeting. My response would have been that yes, it would make your job easier but that is only a small part of the equation. It makes is easier for you, your team, your managers and all those who interact with you. It is that wider inclusivity of knowledge that is most important.
I have a feeling (and freely admit I have no evidence to back this up) that a lot of people work to the axiom that "what is yours is mine and what is mine is my own, my knowledge is my power and I am more that happy to share yours, just don't expect me to share that much of mine."
We in the blog world share what we can in the hope that it will help someone, somewhere. That is the mindset I would like to get across to the those that wait for the benefits to appear as if by magic ... and I have not quite figured that bit out yet.
I have a users groups that have jumped in feet first, using first Team Rooms then Quickr. They shared and are sharing their expertise without fear or favour and they have reaped the expected benefits as their teams perform better in their interactions with themselves, their supply chains and customers both internal and external.
I get the impression those that don't completely buy would if pushed would say "...well thats OK for the Whatever-Team but we have to work in a different way." ... my question to them is ... why?
No amount of evangelizing or examples of success stories seem to convince beyond the "that's good" response. Now we have a Big Blue that is really responsive to our ideas, exciting new horizons are opening and I now need more than ever a way to convince the people who are slow on the uptake.
If I work that out .. I suppose that you should expect me to share it ;)
Steve
In hindsight I should have responded to this but at the time I was aglow with the success of the meeting. My response would have been that yes, it would make your job easier but that is only a small part of the equation. It makes is easier for you, your team, your managers and all those who interact with you. It is that wider inclusivity of knowledge that is most important.
I have a feeling (and freely admit I have no evidence to back this up) that a lot of people work to the axiom that "what is yours is mine and what is mine is my own, my knowledge is my power and I am more that happy to share yours, just don't expect me to share that much of mine."
We in the blog world share what we can in the hope that it will help someone, somewhere. That is the mindset I would like to get across to the those that wait for the benefits to appear as if by magic ... and I have not quite figured that bit out yet.
I have a users groups that have jumped in feet first, using first Team Rooms then Quickr. They shared and are sharing their expertise without fear or favour and they have reaped the expected benefits as their teams perform better in their interactions with themselves, their supply chains and customers both internal and external.
I get the impression those that don't completely buy would if pushed would say "...well thats OK for the Whatever-Team but we have to work in a different way." ... my question to them is ... why?
No amount of evangelizing or examples of success stories seem to convince beyond the "that's good" response. Now we have a Big Blue that is really responsive to our ideas, exciting new horizons are opening and I now need more than ever a way to convince the people who are slow on the uptake.
If I work that out .. I suppose that you should expect me to share it ;)
Steve
Friday 7 March 2008
A marvellous idea!
Here is a marvelous idea from fellow Domivangelical blogger Cristian in Italy.
I don't know if it is workable but we are a smart if opinionated lot (in the nicest possible way) and we should be able to peer review the contents and make one hell of a resource.. and why stop at dev help.. why not admin help too?
I don't know if it is workable but we are a smart if opinionated lot (in the nicest possible way) and we should be able to peer review the contents and make one hell of a resource.. and why stop at dev help.. why not admin help too?
Thursday 6 March 2008
Book review - What is your Dangerous Idea?
Just finished what my better half calls a "Loo Book" in that it is mainly left read and left in the toilet. Having read and enjoyed "What we believe but cannot prove", the first book in the series when I saw "What is your dangerous idea" in an airport bookstore I grabbed it without a second thought.
It is to quote the jacket "Todays Leading Thinkers on the Un-Thinkable" and to say the least the contents, complied by John Brockman, are both dangerous and provocative Each section is no more than a few pages long and feature contributions by Jared Diamond Sir Martin Rees, Brian Green,Matt Ridley and many more. Topics touch on the afterlife, the future of democracy and the nature of reality.
The ideas are ones that WILL provoke a reaction, they challenged my assumptions and in many cases worried me quite a lot!
I give it 9/10
Amazon link
Slaun
Steve
PS Nathan .. if you read this you would LOVE this book.. both annoying and satisfying in equal measure
It is to quote the jacket "Todays Leading Thinkers on the Un-Thinkable" and to say the least the contents, complied by John Brockman, are both dangerous and provocative Each section is no more than a few pages long and feature contributions by Jared Diamond Sir Martin Rees, Brian Green,Matt Ridley and many more. Topics touch on the afterlife, the future of democracy and the nature of reality.
The ideas are ones that WILL provoke a reaction, they challenged my assumptions and in many cases worried me quite a lot!
I give it 9/10
Amazon link
Slaun
Steve
PS Nathan .. if you read this you would LOVE this book.. both annoying and satisfying in equal measure
Monday 25 February 2008
Painting in winter.
Here is another of my paintings, acrylic on board 18"x24" and at the minute it has no name.There is a part of me that around this time of year needs to be reassured that spring is just around the corner and that is I think where this picture has come from.
Sunday 24 February 2008
AJAX and viewing very large datasets (50K+ documents)
Problem: How to facilitate a user request to get rid of the "paging" options at the bottom of a AJAX enabled web view and allow them to use only the scroll bar to navigate very large datasets (50k + documents).
I have been thinking about this all weekend and have drawn numerous wee drawings trying to get my head around what is required. The bull in a china shop approach would be download the 50k+ view data and then allow the JS or XSLT to render 50,000 documents .... Tried it .. OOOOO it was slow and required lots of answers to "this script is taking a long time it may be looping do you want to end it?" messages.
So the next option and the currently active one is to have 20 records per page and have the standard sort of page that has Page x of 2500 and allows the user to set x the background process goes off gets that page from the server and displays it. This has the benefit that the browser only has to get 20 documents from the server and render them which is quick and easy. BUT the user group doesn't really like this and reports back that they prefer a UI that has a scroll bar. Their main complaint is when you are looking at a Categorized view and the category is large when expanded then the data may be take several pages which you have to shuttle back and forth between.
And finally the last option.. what the user wants... a scroll bar option like in the client...This is the idea I am playing with at the minute,all be it as a mind game. My thoughts are these.
So...lets say we have a view that is 50,000 rows long, we want to display this in a grid that has 20 visible rows and each row has a height of 14px.
Step 1 - Create a viewport which we know needs to have a height of 20*14 = 280px
Step 2 - Inside the viewport create a holder [div] which has a height of 700000px (50,000*14)
I have been thinking about this all weekend and have drawn numerous wee drawings trying to get my head around what is required. The bull in a china shop approach would be download the 50k+ view data and then allow the JS or XSLT to render 50,000 documents .... Tried it .. OOOOO it was slow and required lots of answers to "this script is taking a long time it may be looping do you want to end it?" messages.
So the next option and the currently active one is to have 20 records per page and have the standard sort of page that has Page x of 2500 and allows the user to set x the background process goes off gets that page from the server and displays it. This has the benefit that the browser only has to get 20 documents from the server and render them which is quick and easy. BUT the user group doesn't really like this and reports back that they prefer a UI that has a scroll bar. Their main complaint is when you are looking at a Categorized view and the category is large when expanded then the data may be take several pages which you have to shuttle back and forth between.
And finally the last option.. what the user wants... a scroll bar option like in the client...This is the idea I am playing with at the minute,all be it as a mind game. My thoughts are these.
- To ensure the Scrollbar accurately reflects the size of the dataset the holding element must be as near as possible the correct size to contain the dataset, but it does not necessarily need to be full of data. The size of this containing object will equal
height of a single row * total number of rows in the dataset - The viewport need only contain the grid of Visible Rows say for example a table of 20
rows. The size of the viewport if defined in rows is
height of a single row * total number of rows in the viewport - When a scroll bar is clicked on either the down or up arrows the viewport is moved up or down by one row.
- When the scroll bar is clicked either above or below the scroll tab the viewport is moved up or down by one page.
- The current pixel position of the scroll bar in the holding element is returned by the scrollTop value. This can be used to work out the row that is at the top of the view port
current position as returned by scrollTop / height of a row given as an integer value
So...lets say we have a view that is 50,000 rows long, we want to display this in a grid that has 20 visible rows and each row has a height of 14px.
Step 1 - Create a viewport which we know needs to have a height of 20*14 = 280px
Step 2 - Inside the viewport create a holder [div] which has a height of 700000px (50,000*14)
Step 3 - Place a grid inside in the Holder [div] which contains 20 rows 14px high
Step 4 - Register an event handler on the "scroll" event of the Holder [div]
Step 5 - When this event is triggered return the scrollTop and calculate the new starting row.
Step 6 - Ask the server to return 20 view entries from this starting row
Step 7 - Populate the table with these entries.
Step 8 - Position the table at scrollTop,0 within the holder [div]
Basically this will move the table which holds only the data visible in the UI to be centered in the viewport [div], the holder [div] has a height of 700,000px but only contains the table of visible data thus preserving the scale of the scroll bar without the requirement for having it full of data.
I have had a play and this seems to be "do-able" although there are some browser specific niceties that I have to get my head around as well as how to do interesting things like sortable columns, searches and how to return categorized views.
Has anyone else done something similar I wonder or would anyone be interested in the proof of concept I am working on? If so let me know ....
Ohh I wonder ...how does Ext.ND cope with large datasets?
UPDATE - In the comments below Joerg Michael didn't think this was a good idea...and Nathan Freeman followed up with the the point that ... perhaps the Notes Client view should be redesigned too.. :) Bum.. I was distracted by a user saying something that sounded like a good idea.. LOL...
Oh well ...being distracted are sunday afternoons in Feb are for :) However a non-notes solution of a similar nature has been looked at and put forward as a user extension for Ext as pointed out by Rich Waters as something to look at and as a point to think on... :)
Step 6 - Ask the server to return 20 view entries from this starting row
Step 7 - Populate the table with these entries.
Step 8 - Position the table at scrollTop,0 within the holder [div]
Basically this will move the table which holds only the data visible in the UI to be centered in the viewport [div], the holder [div] has a height of 700,000px but only contains the table of visible data thus preserving the scale of the scroll bar without the requirement for having it full of data.
I have had a play and this seems to be "do-able" although there are some browser specific niceties that I have to get my head around as well as how to do interesting things like sortable columns, searches and how to return categorized views.
Has anyone else done something similar I wonder or would anyone be interested in the proof of concept I am working on? If so let me know ....
Ohh I wonder ...how does Ext.ND cope with large datasets?
UPDATE - In the comments below Joerg Michael didn't think this was a good idea...and Nathan Freeman followed up with the the point that ... perhaps the Notes Client view should be redesigned too.. :) Bum.. I was distracted by a user saying something that sounded like a good idea.. LOL...
Oh well ...being distracted are sunday afternoons in Feb are for :) However a non-notes solution of a similar nature has been looked at and put forward as a user extension for Ext as pointed out by Rich Waters as something to look at and as a point to think on... :)
Friday 15 February 2008
Howard Rheingold: Way-new collaboration
Was broswing the TED web site ... and came across this lecture by Howard Rheingold. I read his book Smart Mobs back in 2003 and as a modern "prophet" he saw the advent of Web 2.0 ... however before I start waffling on let me (like Duffbert) recommend the book.I would give it 4 out of 5*'s.
This lecture isn't directly about what we as Domino geeks do, but it is a very pleasant and challenging 20 minutes and perhaps does have ripples that will affect us in our chosen professional niche.
Go have a listen, you can down load it for your iPod on this page to. Got to Here
If you haven't come across the TED website I also cannot recommend it highly enough!
These others i found interesting too.
Jeff Han's Mutli Touch Interface
Golan Levin's Scribble
Jeff Bezon on Innvovation
Enjoy
This lecture isn't directly about what we as Domino geeks do, but it is a very pleasant and challenging 20 minutes and perhaps does have ripples that will affect us in our chosen professional niche.
Go have a listen, you can down load it for your iPod on this page to. Got to Here
If you haven't come across the TED website I also cannot recommend it highly enough!
These others i found interesting too.
Jeff Han's Mutli Touch Interface
Golan Levin's Scribble
Jeff Bezon on Innvovation
Enjoy
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