I just returned from a great lecture by Tad Homer-Dixon (”The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization” — go buy the book). Much of the talk was drawn from the book, but he did respond to some questions with some new material. Of note: whereas he sees Wikipedia as a shining example of open-source democracy, he remarked that the blogging culture is (largely) one of bullying. Do you agree?
A couple of weeks ago I embarked on an experiment with a variety of Google’s apps. It’s been an interesting couple of weeks. For now, I’m dropping Google Mail and Google Calendar. I need access to all my stuff, in annotated form, from anywhere I have my laptop. For me, that’s often offline (i.e. on the train). I’m going to keep using Google Notebook, which continues to amaze me. As far as Google Alerts go: they’re helpful, although I found that daily notification wasn’t all that great so I switched to weekly notification.
I’m gotten used to a new look and feel for my notebook. I’m using QuickSilver a lot, I’ve installed Backdrop and MenuShade, and I’m using Path Finder (a Finder replacement). I found these apps via a video from 43 Folders. It’s really too bad that Spirited Away isn’t a Universal Binary, as that functionality seems really useful. I wonder whether the performance under Rosetta is really that poor. I find I use it now and again.
The kGTD scripts for OmniOutlinerPro are really awesome. I’m ramped up on their use in the last week, and tomorrow will be the first day of real use, given that I’m back in the office after a two-week vacation.
My new motto: no dropped balls!