Link Gallivanting

I came across this website entirely by accident and wonder how I didn’t know of it earlier: Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate. It’s a manually compiled and updated catalogue of “the most intelligent, provocative, and illuminating news stories, critical reviews, political essays, and commentaries published online” and is a service of the The Chronicle of Higher Education (US).

The site is updated six times a week and to someone who loves eclectic information, it’s a mine of still unexplored links, unread articles, new ideas, book reviews, loud opinions, and interesting insights. The sidebar of links to online mags and newspapers is very useful, though I wouldn’t recommend visiting this site if you do not have time to wastespend gambolling through the WWW.

Another addictive site, recommended by a friend a couple of days after I heard of it on the radio, is Ted.com, a collection of free lectures you can download and view at your leisure. Some lectures are 4 minutes while others are 30 minutes long, and the topics run from “life lessons” to physics to astronomy to the environment to music and design. I guarantee you’d find something interesting to watch on this site. If you have iTunes, the iTunes University has a ready link to Ted lectures, as well as a buffett spread of video and audio teachings direct from universities such as LSE, Yale, MIT. It’s a great site for part-time scholars and information-hoarders. Makes a great research tool if you manage to find the correct topics.

Filed under: Collectibles, Playing Favourites, Tech , arts and letters, ted.com, websites

On A Technical Note..

..I’ve had problems with my previous posts, due to caption tags that lingered long after the images were removed,

…which, somehow, someway, in that weird, annoying way of codes,

…got tangled up with the sidebar commands,

…pushed my second-to-most-recent post to the sidebar, and

…inserted a break where I didn’t want it.

I experimented with a new format, DePo, which I suspect I might return to, though for now, I am still fond of this black and white, and unvarnished, front page, and am relieved to have the posts behave as they should;

I must say, having the post on Stephen King haunt the sidebar, hints of Christine’s malicious mischief, and makes me look forward to a Stephen King novel on haunted codes and 101010 spirits.

Filed under: Tech , format, Tech, techie, wordpress

Hmmm…Microsoft and Obama?

This is a non-sequitor post but..

If you type in the URL address: office.microsoft.cm,* Barack Obama’s official website will display. The URL remains even when you click on the links within the site (I did not click on all, however) although the page will display the relevant sub-pages. .cm is the domain code for Cameroon.

I am not sure why this happens but a Google search threw up an interesting story on “The .cm domain scam”. I am not too familiar with how the domain business works so will leave it to you to draw your own conclusions (I have my own speculations). I can only say it was perplexing to expect a Microsoft Office page and to have Obama’s election results appear instead.

On the website itself, I visited both Hillary’s and Obama’s and must say that both sites are beautifully designed with rich content; both politicians are making maximum use of social media tools such as blogs, networking sites, podcasts to communicate their policies and update supporters. Our politicians should perhaps take note.   

*This is what happens when the letter ‘o’ on your keyboard decides to be sticky and rebel

Filed under: Tech

Mind Mapping

I get very excited when I come across a new software tool. At a class I recently attended, the tutor was advocating this software: MIND MANAGER by MINDJET as a nifty tool for computerised mind mapping. I have downloaded the 21-day trial version and am playing around with the software. Just to let you know, I have played around with NovaMind’s mind-mapping software and still have the free Freemind installed. Novamind’s was very colourful – it really is like creating Tony Buzan’s mind map on the computer, with wavy lines, lots of hues, and graphics you can include for yourself. Freemind was a lot more structured – more like an engineering diagram than a mind map, but still operates on the same principles of mind-mapping, that of root subjects and their sub-roots. What I did not like about it is its presentation – there was very little flexibility in terms of adding colour and graphics, and exporting could only be to HTML or JPEG format. Still, I have a Freemind-based chart of our Library’s operations on the bulletin board behind my desk. And – oh yes – Freemind is free.

I’m still tinkering with Mind Manager, but the features that stood out for me with this software are: the ability to add lots of colour, flags, notes, and graphics, and the ability to export to Powerpoint, MS Project, and MS Word. This latter feature alone made me download the tool – I mean, I’ve created mind maps before on computer only to find that I have to translate it to linear, conventional form manually. The tutor showed how a mind map gets translated to a presentation or text document, and it’s almost magical to see the sub-roots transplanted to bullet form.

The price is off-putting though – it’s US$349 for the full version (with export features) though non profits and educational establishments qualify for a discount of almost 50%. Exchanged into Ringgit, that’s still a hefty price to pay for a piece of software, though if you use it often enough (daily), I gather it’s more of an investment than an expenditure.

I’ll keep tinkering with this tool – I understand a novelist used it to flesh out his novel :

For the past decade, Richard Powers has turned to a program rather ominously called Mindjet MindManager, which creates vast, sprawling outlines resembling family trees….For “The Echo Maker,” which won the National Book Award last year and is about a man who emerges from a coma without an emotional connection to his intimates, Powers created a visual outline for each character. It included material on his or her “life history, personality traits, physical characteristics, verbal tics, professional and educational background, choices and actions, attitudes and relations to the other characters,” he said. “As the material grew, I created topical sub-branches and sub-sub-branches. … After many months, at the very tips of these increasingly articulated branches, I sometimes ended up with sketches that plugged right into the draft.”

Wow. Of course, he supplemented MindManager with Microsoft’s OneNote, where he “mapped out possible changing interactions between characters, and claims “The combination of software programs (each of which links seamlessly into the other) allowed for simultaneous top-down and bottom-up composition.””

I personally feel software cannot replace desire and inspiration, but as a planning and personal productivity tool, mind mapping can be useful, whether done on computer or done the old-fashioned way: using your hand, colour pens, and paper.

Filed under: Playing Favourites, Tech, Work & Productivity, Writing

The Thinking Blogger Award

Ahem..just when I was about to post some meaningless lyrics, Sharon, the Malaysian lit Madame, drops in and tells me she’s given me the Thinking Blogger Award.

This award-chain, the brainchild of one Ilker Yodas, requires you to pinpoint the top five blogs that make you think, and I’m surprised but awfully grateful that someone like Sharon finds my blogposts greycell-worthy. And since the rules of the game requires that I tag five blogs in turn, I have to do the incredibly tough task of paring down my favourite reads to offer you the five:

1. Pak Adib’s The Reader – because he reminds me of the tenets of Islam and the importance of faith
2. Dina Zaman – because she gives significance to the ordinary life, and expresses the frustrations (and humour) of being Muslim in a modern world
3. Najah’s Annotations – because she unearths issues on Motherhood, citizenship, and provides a glimpse of what life is like (from a still-Malaysian perspective) on the other side of the causeway
4. Fencer’s Quirk – for his well-researched, interesting takes on – well, all manner of things but I especially like his posts on writing
5. Idlan Zakaria’s Organised Chaos – for a Malaysian scholar’s perspective on various issues (and glimpses into life in Britain)

I can list at least ten more blogs that frequently make me ponder, and will pass this meme around for them to make the list.

To the bloggers I tagged, the rules are:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.Please, remember to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all – blogs that really get you thinking!

Tag away.

Filed under: Personal Note, Playing Favourites, Tech

Tech Interlude: This is The One

Okay, I was enamoured by this black beauty, but I’ve just read of this upcoming one, and it has Wi-Fi!

The Dopod has integrated Wi-Fi (a feature the Q and i320N lack), Bluetooth 2.0, and push e-mail capabilities right out of the box. Plus, it delivers on performance with snappy response time, excellent call quality, and long battery life, according to CNET (pic also from CNET).

What more can a girl want?

Oh wait, how thin is it?

At 111.5 x 62.5 x 12.8mm and 130g, the C720W is thinner and lighter than the 8700g (69.5 x 19.5 x 110mm; 134g) and shorter than the Q (116 x 64 x 12 mm; 115g). More importantly, it feels good in the hand. The C720W has a nice contour shape and curved edges that make it a little more comfortable to hold and use as a phone than the blockier Moto Q. In addition, the C720W features soft-touch covering that gives the unit a rubberlike texture, so it’s easy to grip and use one-handed.

I am sold. This must be the Smartphone I’m looking for (for the next month, at least).

Now, to get the $$$.

ps: These tech posts are included because I am still searching for the perfect combo devices to track productivity. At the moment, I am using Google Calendar, Outlook, and this wonderful Emergent Task Planner which I print and staple into my office notebook. I am intrigued by Pak Adib’s calendar and to-do moleskines, though I would only use a moleskine as a journal and not as a productivity tool. They’re too – lovely – for such workhorse objectives!

Filed under: At the Stores, Personal Note, Tech, Work & Productivity

Tech Interlude: My Ideal Smartphone?

I believe I may have found the smartphone I’ve been looking for.

The Samsung i320N has a QWERTY thumb keyboard, Office file viewer, web browser, in a slim sleek casing.  Running on Windows Mobile 5.0, it will give me a phone-calendar-(ebook) reader-audio player-internet browser-push E-mail device, without needing too much space in my handbag. It looks much better than the Motorola Q and the Treo. I only wish it was wifi-enabled and had 3G connectivity but – you can’t have everything if your budget is limited, I suppose.

Read reviews here and here.

Filed under: At the Stores, Personal Note, Tech, Work & Productivity