The Electronic Frontier Foundation
March 20th, 2006Two blogs with which I am affiliated – Crooked Timber and Lifehacker – made the top 10 list of referral blogs to EFF’s fundraising campaign. I was so glad to hear that!
Public speaking pet peeve
March 20th, 2006Today’s Lifehacker special is a piece I wrote on “Public speaking do’s and don’t’s”. I list ways in which one can prepare for a talk and suggestions for how to make the most of a presentation. I welcome additions to the list, in the comments here or to the original post.
I won’t replicate the entire piece here, but I do want to mention one of the issues I discuss. One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to presentations has to do with most people’s inability to stick to the time they have been alloted for their talk.
Few people are such amazing speakers that the audience can’t get enough of listening to them so it is best to wrap up a speech on time. One of the most common pitfalls is to add “brief” introductory remarks to one’s prepared talk. There is usually nothing brief about such comments. Moreover, given that most conference presentations – the ones with which I tend to be most familiar – are supposed to take about 15 minutes, adding just three minutes of intro uses up 20 percent of the time allocation. However, most people are already short on time so this way they get even more behind.
I have considerably less experience in industry and other realms. Is this better elsewhere?
A related pet peeve concerns moderators who are unable to tell people that it is time to wrap up and give the next person a chance to speak.
Links for 2006-03-20
March 20th, 2006Links for 2006-03-19
March 19th, 2006A photo is worth a thousand blog posts
March 18th, 2006
The images in my Flickr photostream have been viewed over 30,000 times so I decided to create a tribute by placing some of viewers’ favorites in a mosaic and added, what seemed like, an appropriate tag line. Yes, it’s a bit exaggerated perhaps (depending), but it seemed appropriate.:)
Links for 2006-03-18
March 18th, 2006-
interesting-looking RSS reader
Links for 2006-03-17
March 17th, 2006-
YAW20SP – Yet Another Web2.0 Start Page
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These are cute, if they had one in turtle, I’d probably get it. (Thanks to Fluffi for the link.)
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great blog log tool with visitor info by blog post
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view how many flights are in the air in the vicinity of various airports around the US
Geekier than geeky
March 16th, 2006You may have to be a pretty particular breed to appreciate the following, but I can’t be the only one around here.:) I found this Web 2.0 or Star Wars Character quiz quite entertaining. I scored 33 and while it is probably a sign of something positive that I didn’t score higher, I was still a bit disappointed. My point range gets the following recommendation: “As your doctor, I recommend moving out of your parents’ basement.” The whole thing is quite amusing, try it. Don’t look at the score chart until you’ve taken the quiz, you don’t want to spoil that part of the fun.
Favorite tech writing?
March 16th, 2006The University of Michigan Press is putting together a volume called The Best of Technology Writing 2006. The editorial team is soliciting suggestions for pieces, including blog posts.
[W]e’re asking readers to nominate their favorite tech-oriented articles, essays, and blog posts from the previous year. The competition is open to any and every technology topic–biotech, information technology, gadgetry, tech policy, Silicon Valley, and software engineering are all fair game. But the pieces that have the best chances of inclusion in the anthology will conform to these three simple guidelines:
1. They’ll be engagingly written for a mass audience; if the article requires a doctorate to appreciate, it’s probably not up our alley. Preference will be given to narrative features and profiles, “Big Think” op-eds that make sense, investigative journalism, sharp art and design criticism, intelligent policy analysis, and heartfelt personal essays.
2. They’ll be no longer than 5,000 words.
3. They’ll explore how technological progress is reshaping our world.
The resulting publication will be available both in book form and online.
Hop on over to digitalculture.org for more information and to submit your nominations.
Links for 2006-03-16
March 16th, 2006-
looks potentially interesting albeit expensive
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in memoriam two Smithies from the same family
Links for 2006-03-15
March 15th, 2006Links for 2006-03-14
March 14th, 2006-
YASNS – Yet Another Social-Networking Site
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don’t ask why I happen to come across this now
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chat about the Web site you are viewing in real time with other visitors
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quickly translates English, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese and French
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compare two files to see if they are different
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got to 15.5 seconds
Links for 2006-03-13
March 13th, 2006-
track where visitors are clicking on a page
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download embedded videos by copying URL into KeepVid text form
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list/rate favorite (or not) TV shows and episodes; I’m not sure what the point is just yet, I think for now I’ll stick to Yahoo! TV
Links for 2006-03-12
March 12th, 2006-
in alpha for now, and it shows
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– sent to my numerous close friends who are about to have babies
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NBC showcases viral video favorites – the part that’s unclear is how they will know what else to add without letting people post videos on various video-sharing sites.. intriguing
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digg-like site for multimedia content
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online calculator that keeps a history of previous calculations; the site also has a helpful conversion tool (for all sorts of measurements including weigth, volume, distance and also currency conversion)
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ajax spreadsheet program – create Excel-type files and share with others who can edit them
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online spreadsheet creation & editing, sharable, ajax (after a quick try, iRows seems to be more user-friendly regarding the availability of some features I tried)
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by my3cents.com, a consumer advocacy site
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Seinfeld locations on GMaps
Links for 2006-03-11
March 11th, 2006-
social planning/calendar system
Links for 2006-03-10
March 10th, 2006-
gives rss feeds to sites without feeds
Links for 2006-03-09
March 9th, 2006-
YAOAC – Yet Another Online Ajaxy Calendar
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I haven’t downloaded it, but it looks intriguing
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Great idea! (Unfortunately, one of my grocery store card numbers is coming up as unrecognizable.)
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create your own drawsing (painting) sketch and then post it to the gallery, fun!
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my response to Illustration Friday’s insect theme with an artpad sketch
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weekly suggestion for creative activity; post your contribution on your blog and link to it from this site
Links for 2006-03-08
March 8th, 2006-
video on drawing a horse cartoon
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it’s about usability and skill
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tool for editing pictures online; allows saving to different formats or directly to your Flickr account (yay!)
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mini flag logos
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track packages
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track packages andmap them on GMaps
How-to videos
March 7th, 2006Via Lifehacker, I found a helpful video on how to peel potatoes without too much trouble. Not wanting to pass on a recommendation without having tried it myself, I dutifully boiled a potato to test the method. It worked great! Note that the water at the end doens’t have to be ice water, it’s enough to put the boiled potato in some cold water.
While we’re on the topic of how-to videos, if anybody missed the instructions for folding a shirt, it’s also worth a visit. I found it harder to follow than the potato-peeling guide though. It may help to look at this piece as well to figure out what’s going on. I haven’t made this technique part of my everydays, but depending on your current method you may decide differently.
Links for 2006-03-07
March 7th, 2006-
YAFR (Yet Another Feed Reader)
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hosts small short content Web pages that are super easy to put up