Column from PC Magazine: The Google Ploy—A Revolution?

OK, I know that John C. Dvorak sometimes just spouts off in an attempt to provoke controversy, but the article below is a great analysis of a possible future for Municipal Wi-Fi. Free public Internet access could give rise to a whole new era of entertainment consumption.

PC Magazine: The Google Ploy--A Revolution?

Free Municipal Wi-Fi is Born

Well, Google has officially blanketed its hometown of Mountain View with free wireless Internet access. A PC Magazine writer took it upon herself to visit and test out the new network (see below). It seems that the project, while obviously still in its infancy, has lots of potential as a public service.

PC Magazine: Testing Google's Wi-Fi Network

Getting Things Done: Task Granularity

I discovered something about my work last week. A process I had previously put on my next-actions list as a single entry is actually composed of three separate and definable steps. Listing my work in smaller chunks has made it easier to get things done.

But I did some thinking about breaking down tasks, and I realized that the degree to which things must be broken down is individual for each person and even for each project. For instance, a perfectly fine next action for me (if I were to apply GTD to my morning routine) would be "get dressed." However, my wife would probably need to have "choose clothes" and "get dressed" as two separate actions-- in fact, she often does the former action in the evening before she goes to bed. Some people might even need "choose pants," then "find matching shirt," et cetera.

But I use this example only to find a common ground in a task that everyone does every day (well, almost every day if you're still in college). The same principle of determining the size of individual project chunks applies to things you might do at work or at school.

If your job is to be an HR administrator, "Administer Human Resources" will definitely be too large of a chunk to constitute a good next action! On the flip side, "Turn on the computer" is much too small of a task in any job to have to track it individually. Unless, of course, you're a computer technician faced with the problem of trying to get a stubborn machine to power on. (Hint: It's either the power supply or the RAM.)

Similarly, my job title is to be an "Instrumental Music Editor/Engraver." Up until last week when this thought occurred to me, I had a next action of "Engrave music for [Project X]." If you have your job title in a next action, you can probably stand to break it down a bit more. And analyzing the things I do when I approach such a task helped me to create smaller chunks which seem much more doable. Again, though, "Start up the notation software" would be much too small of an action for me.

The point here, though, is that you need to determine the granularity that works for you. It's definitely a good thing to think about; especially if you have one or two things that have been sitting around on your list for a really long time. Re-defining the task in smaller pieces might just help you get stubborn projects crossed off your list.

Wisdom from the GTD master

I just had to share this great quote from Merlin Mann:

...Getting organized just means you’ve glued handles onto the various stuff in your life — you’ll still need to pick it up and carry it around from time to time.

That's my main problem... the carrying-around bit of productivity. I've got a great system set up to keep track of tasks, but many times it's difficult to find the motivation to actually work on the tasks I've defined.

So, Merlin (et al)... any ideas about forcing oneself to quit reading blogs, stop playing sudoku, and actually get some work done?

Folders for organization and action | 43 Folders

Today's WWDC 2006 Keynote Video

Go here to see Steve Jobs's keynote speech from WWDC 2006:

Apple - QuickTime - WWDC 2006

Coincidence that "defies calculation"

Imagine your wallet or purse has been stolen. Not fun, right?

Then imagine you're back at your job, waiting tables at a bar. You ask a young-looking patron for identification.

And the customer hands you your own driver's license!

This actually happened... check out the Associated Press story below.

Waitress gets own ID when carding patron - Yahoo! News

Kantor making useless predictions

But what else is new? This guy is always upset about the world as he sees it, but he doesn't take the time to find out what is actually out there before filing a "formal complaint" via his obtuse USA Today column.

I agree with him that the media is all about items, and not sources, on the Internet. However, his idea about a news service that filters what we see based on our personal preferences is both a) not something everybody wants and b) already available.

I personally like to see everything in the Yahoo! News headlines for both Top Stories and Technology news. I don't read every article, but I read every headline and most lead paragraphs that reach my inbox via the Yahoo! News feeds and Squeet's terrific RSS-to-email service. I allow the editors at Yahoo! News to cull the "most important stories" (75-125 per day in Top Stories and 30-60 in Technology) and place them in the feed, and from there I will choose for myself which specific items to read.

But for those who, like Andrew, would trust a computer to choose a smaller subset of stories for them, there are already services to do that. Firstly, Yahoo! and Google both provide Alert services that will either email you or fill an RSS feed with news and/or blog posts that match your specified search criteria. This doesn't quite fulfill Andrew's "prophetic vision," but it's one way to cut down on the number of items you see. Even free services like Feed Rinse will allow you to set certain search terms to either include or exclude items from any RSS feed you want.

However, the Holy Grail for those who would allow machines to interpret the news for them already exists in the form of Web-based service Findory.com. This service allows you to log in, enter some interests, and rate stories up or down for it to learn about your interests and provide news and blog entries from around the Web straight to you.

And guess what, Andrew? It delivers these personalized news items via RSS feeds! RSS does not have to be superseded in order to usher in a new form of Internet media consumption. If Mr. Kantor believes that RSS feeds can only be published by blogs and "official" media outlets, he is sorely mistaken. RSS is not limited to a select few creators; personalized feeds can be created using a number of sites and services around the Web. I even use a few personalized feeds myself.

RSS does not need to be discarded; it is an eminently useful and adaptable format that can be used to great effect in a variety of applications. Its only limit is the imagination of people who actually understand how it is created and used (and among this group I most certainly do not count Andrew Kantor).

USATODAY.com - Real Simple Syndication needs to add some complexity

Wi-Fi Scavenger Charged with Theft

A 20-year-old guy in Vancouver, Washington, has been accused of "theft of services" by a local coffee shop because he never gave the store any actual business.

Allegedly, he just sat in his truck in the parking lot for Broad Awakenings and utilized their free Wi-Fi without ever going into the store and purchasing a drink.

While the techie in me would like to make the case that he did nothing wrong by piggybacking on a service that is offered free, it is obvious (though the article says nothing about whether the coffee shop has explicitly posted anything to this effect) that the service is for customers of the store at which it is provided.

I'm looking forward to the city-wide free WiFi that Earthlink and Google have partnered to provide in cities across the country, but until that happens we still have to be aware that Internet services are still distributed via private enterprise.

Wireless Freeloader Charged Because He Never Bought Coffee - TechWeb

Legit Movie Downloads are Coming to iTunes

According to this article in the New York Times (see below), Apple and the movie studios are currently in talks to provide films digitally to consumers via the iTunes Music (and Video) Store.

I'm looking forward to this... legal digital delivery of movies is long overdue.

A Coming Attraction: Movies on iTunes - New York Times

Web spreadsheets from Google

Google has launched a new spreadsheet application that runs in your Web browser. I think this is great, and it seems to be pretty feature-packed from the outset. A multi-sheet Excel workbook (with formulas tying together elements from multiple sheets) imported almost perfectly. The onlt problem is that negative numbers, which I chose in the original .xls to show up in red, instead have "[Red]" appended to the beginnings of the below-zero values.

In general I'm impressed, especially since the spreadsheets were so recently introduced. You may need to sign up for an invitation to participate, but those with Google accounts already should be able to get in pretty easily.

Google Spreadsheets