Multimediocre
Nik Butler put out a vlog, vodcast, video today commenting on the state of multimedia in FOSS. This is my response.
Redesigning the redesign
All change at schwuk.com, but I’m not satisfied yet!
Here be dragons
I’ve been a fan of mind mapping for a few years now, and prior to my ditching Microsoft Windows in favour of Ubuntu as my daily platform (a move which was only possible due to a change of job) MindManager was generally the second application I opened after my e-mail client.
I’ve never found a FOSS mind mapping client I like though, so although I’m much happier using Ubuntu on a day-to-day basis I no longer use mind maps. I’ve tried Freemind numerous times, but it never worked quite the way I wanted it to. Aesthetically View Your Mind doesn’t do it for me either. Today I stumbled across PersonalBrain which has some nice features (and free – little ‘f’ – version), but again it doesn’t compare to MindManager.
I think it’s an integration thing – MindManager looked and acted like a Windows application, and integrated with Microsoft Office. Now I’m using GNOME but Freemind and PersonalBrain use Java whilst View Your Mind is QT based.
Close, but no cigar.
However finding PersonalBrain re-kindled my interest in mind maps, and being a good social network citizen I looked for a relevant Facebook group. I found – and joined – one, and this group has led me to MindMeister – an online mind mapping application. Now although I dabble with online productivity applications, I tend to prefer desktop based ones for a few reasons:
Being practical though desktop integration is still hit and miss on Linux, whilst offline use is hardly required anymore – I do use my laptop offline, but connectivity is so easy to come by these days. That only leaves control of data, which remains a valid argument. However comprises must sometimes be made, and I think this may be one of those times.
Process to empty
OK, so Merlin uses the title Inbox Zero, but I prefer the term process to empty. This productivity tip has been floating around for quite a while and most productivity geeks – especially GTD aficionados – should be familiar with it. The video of his talk at Google has stirred up new interest in it though, so I thought – as a practitioner of this approach – I would do my bit to pimp his talk.
Enjoy.
Hippo Bird Day
It’s that time of year of again.
I have no problem with getting older, but I really don’t feel any older than I did yesterday or even this time last year. I remember looking forward to birthday’s so much when I was young (to the point I couldn’t sleep the night before), and the feeling of being a whole year older was fantastic, but they really do count for less as you got older.
Of course my friends and remembered, but I really did keep forgetting about it until yesterday. Even Facebook greeted me this morning!
Cleaning House
I’m trying to be more organised (and by extension more productive). As well as the obvious things like task management (I’m not yet back into full GTD mode, but I’m working toward it), I’m also trying to be tidier.
This is manifesting itself in two ways. Firstly my office is a dumping ground for anything and everything, and apart from the path from the door to my chair, and my immediate work area you cannot see the floor or any flat surface. I’ve got a huge amount to sort, but I’m taking those steps.
Secondly I’m looking to eliminate online ‘clutter’. The other day I dropped my Jaiku account as it was worthless to me. Pownce may be next. Inspired by advice from Web Worker Daily I made an effort to reduce my number of inboxes. If it doesn’t fit into e-mail, IM, RSS or Facebook I’m not paying attention to it anymore. Twitter fits into this as I can get updates through RSS, and thanks to their new functionality I’m only notified about certain peoples ‘tweets’ through IM. Twitter also fits nicely into Facebook.
Having increased my RSS load, this9123.entry prompted me to reduce. It made me realise that of my hundreds of unread feeds, and significant proportion were things like Slashdot, Lifehacker and a bunch of gaming sites from the people at Joystiq. More often than not, I’d end up marking them all as read without looking at them. Well no more! I’ve not scrapped every feed that has ‘staff’, but I’ve removed quite a few of them.
Which brings me to a final request. Dear lazyweb, who’s feed should I be watching that I’m not already?
look good