TopEeds: Breath Sweeps Mind and Analog-y

Been reading a lot of web articles lately on the perils of digital tools and how on the contrary, that instead of making you more capable of personal efficiency, that these tools we've come to embrace (blogging, email) are also over hyped and at worse, counter-productive.


Feel the same? Read on for a way out and see the benefits of going analog and being offline for a few hours per day.

Email break.
E2.0 yes, Email nope.
1.0 is better.
Turn off that computer and use a napkin, instead.
Or try this kind of email and be enlightened.

QuickEeds at Mid Year Point

Some of the reads that might interest you, too.

On Social Media
Did you ever wonder that there are different conversations types? Which do often use online or offline? Thanks to KD Paine.

Beyond PageRank from Chris Brogan. Ego.

Social Media is Free and Brian Solis ensure it stays that way.

Top Ten Twice Over. A theory on why lists top the list.

2.0 Stuff
Sign of the Times...NY Times that is. Business is shifting.

E2.0: You can't help but root for it.

Goin' Mainstream

Multi-tasking Duh. Ask Tiger playing with his injured left knee. Focus.

POSS Egress

Stillwater, a Zen propaganda panda, serves tea in an illustration by Jon J. Muth from ''Zen Shorts.''(NY Times)

Anyone who has participated in an exhibit knows the extent of work put into coming up with a decent and classy booth. But it doesn't give you an idea of the work entailed to tear it all down and salvage all the materials for future events. Whew. Thanks to all those hands which made the work easier.

Re-POSS link. Max L, a multi-talented journalist, whom I finally was able to meet covered the event in his blog an includes a phrase or two from Open Source advocate, Winston Damarillo of Morph Labs!

Marching on is Reddit, now is full Open Source. Ho hum Java, too?

Java's getting Cloudy

Behaviors, Parenting and SaaS: Read and get the picture.

Twitter-addicts: Shrink that URL. Not just Tiny.cc. URL Small. And a bunch of others. And for the non-wimps, go big.

BIG as in Boston big! Click on and be awed by the big picture. Literally.


RIP. Those who perished aboard the Princess and other typhoon victims. Ghastly. Prayers and thoughts for the families.

Post-POSS

Highlights from the 2nd Day from sessions I attended at the POSS.

SugarCRM. I was able to catch a brief talk about this open source CRM and seeing how lightweight it is as an application is quite SaaS-sy. Will be testing it more on the next couple of days as I was able to get a demo cd.

Open Source in the Academe, Gov't and NGOs.
Take-aways.

1. IBM Phils. bullish on RP IT sector. Partnering on their SSME programs with a lot of colleges and universities.

2. DCI - Official IT company that handles and manages all Philippine government agencies IT needs still into proprietary software under the pretense of being unbiased and "pro-choice". Uh-oh. How about pro-cost-effective? I hope I misread that.

Had the temerity to stand up and speak about the SaaS option in general but I don't think I got my message right in this room of execs and officials. They thought I was doing a marketing pitch. Nooooo.

3. Mark Buenconsejo on Ruby on Rails for Pinoy IT. Hope he does encourage some more RoR guys. Pity that I did not win the Rails book he was giving away.

Then, a smooth segue to SaaS and PaaS as discussed by our main man, David Abramowski. What can I say? Just proud to be there listening to a great explanation as usual. Will post some pics later so you'll see what I mean.

Booth-strapped at the POSS

Just have a couple of minutes to publish this as we're in the thick of the Philippine Open Source Summit. It's the last day! Check colleague Macel's Twitter for snippets and updates of the days' highlights.

They're not geeks. Great. Steven Hodson on Hutch Carpenter.

" Hutch is one of the few bloggers who occupy my Tech Thinkers folder in FeedDemon and that is simply because he write posts that much of the time make you stop and really think about what his writing about. He isn’t one for writing fluff pieces and doesn’t play the typical Techmeme regurgitation game that many bloggers who have been writing for even longer than Hutch has."

SaaS can't price itself out of business

Amy Wohl is worried SaaS companies may be too focused on commoditization and drag itself down.


While Symantec now goes all out SaaS-sy, reports Jeff Kaplan.

Platforms over software and Android is aiming at mobile. Onwards to a new Google frontier. (Unreasonable Men)

Job Boards for Rails (on the morphexchange, huh!) and Grails!


Grails Podcast from Sven. Check 'em out as he includes Grails deployment via mor.ph. Woohoo.

Tech Tonic: TechSoup, CommonCraft & more

So plenty of reads, so little time...

Technology and non-profit do mix! Go Techsoup. Have to thank Marshall K and Beth Kantner for keeping the flame lit for these valuable service beyond mere techies.

Says Steve Rubel. If friends' opinions are the ones that matter most, then Friendfeed does make the most sense. Google is my friend, too. But we're not as intimate as I'd like to be.

Copyright can be all so wrong or is it? Anything grayer than this? Better than free = Brilliant Kevin Kelly and Rasmus Fleischer of Cato Unbound

Into simplicity and learning with vids? Check out the Lefevers' CommonCraft. Four thumbs up!

And, London Calling! No Mick J or Joe S but I guess this will rock. FOWA!

QuickEeds: Iceberg and the Wizard's RoR

Not content churning out blogs and want to take stab at code, cool it and get Iceberg!



WindyCityRails his happening this Sept 20, 2008. Thanks to Chicago Ruby.org



Ruby Hoedown: Not a backbreaker, I hope. Thanks to Robert D for the shoutout

You can never get enough reading Lifehack especially when it discusses writing.

The Wizard at Harvard, dishing out some Hogwarts sense into Muggle minds

Math Probability: Challenge yourself with this. Nosebleed.

MacSense:Re-claiming Disk Space Thanks, Mr. Guy Naor.

Condensed, says Shaun!

Cool way to spell condensation, don't you think?

How secure can the cloud be? Fairly, says Alistair Croll and based on info he has regarding AWS recent "off the air" stint, this might be security attack. Now, Simon wishes a situation where you can easily switch would be a perfect foil to such cloud malice. Agree.

Lost count already but Web 2.0 and clouds are selling like pancakes. Still we look forward to couple more.

Can social media really translate into dough? Scoble asks the same thing about some other things a company does. Talk about lessons in corporate brilliance, eh.

Big in Japan' is happening June 20-22. RubyKaigi2008.

The world of intangibles will govern that of the hard. Kevin Kelly's online book, New Rules for the New Economy. Go read. Just in case you haven't yet.

Lego - Shaun from CoderKev

QuickEeds is Google-certified

Library of Congress. How I'd love to stay there and read my time away and Google occasionally, too.

I've always thought that deep is kind of cool to say about a person. But looks like using Google isn't helping promote deep reading which Nick Carr has a beef with. Same feelings here. Information overload but honestly, it may well because I'm not satisfied with the top of search lists. From Google, I go Gobble.

If it is being a smart(-@ss) that you want. Google some more and JB thinks it still has value.

Tom Davenport realizes that it's no use battling new media and we now have the attention span of kids so KISS (Keep it Short and Simple). No more Cervantes novels for now, just JK Rowling and Dan Browns. Bless them all authors.

Parting shot. Knowledge isn't wisdom :)

Speaking of which, why not go analog.? Go for the napkin. And I don't mean sobbing. Via Garr Reynolds who is a Zen Master himself.

Going to an event? What do you look for after the title? Topics or Sponsors? Like most people, marketing pitches during events drag me down but so do bland presentations. Here's Dave and Dennis on upcoming Enterprise 2.0. Ironic that they can't collaborate. I think they both mean well.

"Save Me From Syncing, Fast" and other Provocations!

Already tried Buzzword? Funny as it reminded me of Lunarr which is equally cool but I feel is also under-promoted.

Cloud = tedious syncing, hopefully not says John Stokes.

Provocations: Thinking isn't work? Think again. Prof. Andrew's at this again via MLab and so are some CEOs. Senor Ross Mayfield also covers this one. The man behind it: Gary Hamel

About time. These are the Rights I should concern myself with.

Trad Vendors: SaaS Will Bite You in The -Aas

Courtesy of blogs.chron.com

Traditional ISVs who now plan to shift to SaaS. "It's like letting loose the pesky dog you're trying to discipline. Time to get a hamster."

On Open Standards and Open Sourced Standards. Simon just took me back to school and talked GPLv3 to me.

How international capital flows would be affected by SaaS. Tell me it won't all just funnel back to North America.

SaaS Platform Wars: Java come out jabbing. Stop fighting kids.

Again, again, again. SaaS Hosting - the way textbooks would present it in school.

Grand Time

OSS.ph. It's time. And look who's stalking...

It's really, about time. Some other year, this iron-willed lady could have won it but hey, maybe some other time.

For later. It's Firefox that is making my Mac sluggish most of the time because of all the open tabs but that shouldn't be the case as there are other ways thanks to RWW.

We'll see how it turns out. The business of Cloud is happening in Boston.

Thoughts and prayers still to our brothers in Myanmar and China. There are lots of ways to help and most are just a click away.

QuickEeds: Acrobatic Sounds SaaS to me.

Time was when it was just known for it being a document file that is really secure for things we don't want to be edited. But oh, how time changes quickly with technology. Really quick as I have yet to try this. Love the dark color, though.

RailsConf 08 Summary: Cute

RailsConf 08 is officially over but for those who missed attending the event, you can still bask in the experiences through the attendees who took the time to blog and capture in video most ,if not all, that happened there.

Prolific Drew. Probably the most comprehensive of all the updates from Day 1 to close.

Congratulations to the winners of the Ruby Hero Awards presented by the RailsEnvy duo. See it here but prepare a plastic bag in case you, t____-up from the excellent camera work.

Finally, Charles was kind enough to post something about our Guy's prezzo. We're flattered-silly :-)


Photo courtesy of duncandavidson at flickr