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 RSS does not have to be superseded in order to usher in a new form of Internet media consumption.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

Cool video

A bunch of people using household items as percussion instruments:

YouTube - Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers

Today's Calvin and Hobbes

Consumerism at its finest...

uComics - Calvin and Hobbes for 5/27/1995

Google software on a new PC?

Dell is apparently going to start selling Windows PCs with some Google software pre-installed starting at the end of this month.

No, wait. Go back and read that again. They're actually making things other than Microsoft bloatware the default browser home page and desktop serach engine. The Microsoft stuff will still be included, but how often does a new computer owner change settings from the defaults?

My big question is this: is Google just installing its destop search, or will it include other software in the Google Pack as well? If these PCs come with Firefox set as the browser of choice, I will be overjoyed.

PCWorld.com - Google Knocks Microsoft off Dell PCs

Review: Mozilla Firefox

What software do you use to browse the World Wide Web? These days, too may Windows users don't know the answer to that question. Neither do they know that there's a much better program than the one they probably employ; the free Mozilla Firefox browser.

Most people using Windows view Web pages with Microsoft's Internet Explorer because it comes along with the operating system. The browsers that are packaged with AOL and MSN Internet access are really just thinly-disguised copies of IE, so subscribers to those ISPs are probably using it even though they're not aware of it. The 80% share of the Web-browsing market that IE holds is mostly due to the fact that many Internet users are not even aware that they have a choice. And if IE users knew the problems with their implicit choice, they would certainly choose another piece of software.

Enter Mozilla's Firefox browser. Firefox is a much more secure browsing environment than Internet Explorer; most spam and spyware make their way on to a Windows PC because of security problems with IE. (Ever since I set up my in-laws' computers with Firefox, the amount of spyware infection they incur has been down almost 100%. I'm pretty sure the reason I have to say "almost" is because of an attempt to download and try out the new beta version of IE.)

Everybody who wants to view pages and sites on the Web should use Firefox. In addition to its much greater level of security, Firefox also is better at using the standards of the Internet to display content in exactly the way that the people who write Web pages intend you to see them. My main personal reasons for using Firefox are two-fold: portability and extensibility.

Firstly, I use Firefox because it is portable. It works in (nearly) exactly the same manner whether you run it on Windows, Macintosh OSX, or the many flavors of Linux. This means that I can browse the Web in the same way, with the same interface, no matter what computer I happen to be using. Since I use both Mac and Windows, this is a big deal.

In addition, I use Firefox because I can customize it to work exactly how I want. It works perfectly fine if you just download, install, and use it "out-of-the-box," but the ability to install extensions is really cool. Extensions can do things like add toolbar buttons with interesting features or automatically change the size of the text on Web pages you visit (I've got a really high-resolution screen and the words can come out pretty small, so enlarging all text makes things much easier on my eyes).

The most important Firefox feature, however, is the high security I mentioned above. When malicious hackers find minor flaws in Firefox (like they do in every piece of software), the holes are quickly patched and updates are automatically installed on every version of Firefox higher than 1.5. Since it's free, there's no reason not to go try it out and set it as your computer's default browser!

Version reviewed: 1.5.0.3
Price: free
License: Mozilla EULA
Web location: Mozilla Firefox
Download size: Win - 5MB, Mac - 16MB, Linux - 8MB

Getting Things Done: Defining Your Areas

I promised a few days ago on Lifehacker that I would share my latest and greatest GTD breakthrough, and here it is: Define your areas.

What do I mean by that? Well, the answer is found in three more questions:

• What are your inboxes?
  
• Where do you file reference and support information?
  
• How do you mark media for your "to read/listen/watch" list(s)?

If you're like me, I'm sure you have a number of inputs into your system. I, personally, have physical inboxes at work and at home, email addresses for business and personal use, voicemail at work and on my cell phone, and an answering machine in my bedroom for those weird people that insist on getting in touch with me via that archaic land-line in my apartment.

Defining these inputs as specific locations helps immensely in figuring out where to go next in bringing new information into my system. Instead of just waiting until something new hits the horizon of my attention, I have a specific list of places and things to check when I need new information.

But defining the inboxes is only the first step. Next, I took these inboxes and categorized them by context:

• Office - in tray, voicemail, Lotus Notes
  
• Internet - gmail (this includes the voice notes I leave myself via K7.net and daily digests of subscribed RSS feeds via Squeet)
  
• Home - unread mail basket, answering machine
  
• Mobile - cell voicemail

When I'm in my office at work, I have access to the Office, Internet and Mobile contexts-- and those are the inboxes I survey, in order, when I'm looking for items to process. When I'm in my car, only Mobile is available. Having a concrete list of inputs is a great boon when sitting and wondering what to do next, and also in convincing myself that I've checked them all lately and I better get over to a Next Actions list and start working.

In addition to defining inboxes and placing them in context, I also find that it's important to specifically define what my filing systems are:

• Office - physical files, central filing server
  
• Internet - gmail, del.icio.us, writely, Powerbook over SFTP
  
• Home - physical files, Powerbook, Windows desktop
  
• Mobile - expanding file folder, Powerbook (only when traveling)

Knowing exactly where all of my filing systems are, and exactly what sorts of information I keep in each, makes recall of filed items incredibly fast.

Finally, the last set of areas to define are my "to read" piles:

• Office - lower tray (I have a two-tiered inbox)
  
• Internet - del.icio.us ("toRead," "checkOut," and "lookAgain" are tags I use to mark online reading materials I'd like to peruse)
  
• Home - nightstand
  
• Mobile - iPod (for podcasts and Audible content), expanding file (one pocket is labeled "to read")

When I have a few minutes of down-time, or I need to read something to "cleanse my productivity palate" between tasks, I have specifically-defined areas to which I can go and find material to keep me occupied.

And there it is. By defining my areas, I make sure that I know exactly what I'm supposed to be accomplishing when I'm performing certain tasks. I make sure that the steps of collecting and processing are kept distinct from the work of actually finishing next actions, and I know exactly where I should look (and, perhaps even more important, the only places I can look) when I need to retrieve filed information. I even have specific places in which to store reading material for down-time! By defining areas and keeping them distinct from each other, I avoid the tendency to wonder where to look to find new information, and what to do with it once it's been found.

Macbook arrives without the "Pro," still pretty compelling

It looks like Apple's new MacBook with the glossy screen and optional black plastic case is pretty darn cool. It's got the Core Duo processor (so all Mac laptops now run Intel), an iSight camera, and a new keyboard.

Check it out (review below)!

Macworld: Hands on with Apple's new MacBook with Windows

UPDATE 5/24/06: Way better (and easier-to-read) review over at David Pogue's blog.