b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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No Free Lunch - Even In Norway
1st Skype Conference Call - Problem Resolved
Congratulations Dot Drummond - Beaumont Unified Teacher of the Year!
Rethinking Skype Conference Call Scenario
Help With Technorati Tags
Monday, April 18, 2005
Personal Productivity Tools
Helpful personal productivity tools and add-ons from Jack Vinson. Theres several here I already use and some others that sound quite useful.
Some other tools in my space
I wrote a few days ago about my PKM System, where I focused on email and file management, and I discussed some of the flow of my work. There are some other tools in my suite that help me with the flow of my work: anagram, BlogJet, Movable Type, MindManager, Outclass, AddEmailAddress, Firefox, AdAware, SmartList to Go, Flickr, Skype and emacs. Details below the fold. [...More]
No Free Lunch - Even In Norway
NYT: Interesting story on the "world's richest country," the Scandinavian welfare state, real economic growth across the EU, and how it all compares to the US. Good background reading for those wailing about the evils of a market economy and longing for the loving embrace of a government-funded social system. Four key paragraphs:[...]
All this was illuminated last year in a study by a Swedish research organization, Timbro, which compared the gross domestic products of the 15 European Union members (before the 2004 expansion) with those of the 50 American states and the District of Columbia. (Norway, not being a member of the union, was not included.)
After adjusting the figures for the different purchasing powers of the dollar and euro, the only European country whose economic output per person was greater than the United States average was the tiny tax haven of Luxembourg, which ranked third, just behind Delaware and slightly ahead of Connecticut.
The next European country on the list was Ireland, down at 41st place out of 66; Sweden was 14th from the bottom (after Alabama), followed by Oklahoma, and then Britain, France, Finland, Germany and Italy. The bottom three spots on the list went to Spain, Portugal and Greece.
Alternatively, the study found, if the E.U. was treated as a single American state, it would rank fifth from the bottom, topping only Arkansas, Montana, West Virginia and Mississippi. In short, while Scandinavians are constantly told how much better they have it than Americans, Timbro's statistics suggest otherwise. So did a paper by a Swedish economics writer, Johan Norberg. [...]
Terry Frazier at 10:14 AM
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Sunday, April 17, 2005
1st Skype Conference Call - Problem Resolved
Just tried my first Skype conference call using SkypeOut. I de-installed/re-installed the 1.2.0.41beta client to no good effect. But I think I figured out what the problem was - passwords.When I bought a SkypeIn number the other day I changed my account password to something more than the simple, low-security password I use at public sites. But the Skype client never asked me to log-out and log-in under the new password. It kept working (apparently) normally for Skype-to-Skype connections and the SkypeIn number worked, so I didn't think about it. But it never recognized the voicemail service.
Today I bought some (initial) SkypeOut minutes, and when I went to make a SkypeOut call the client warned me that my password had changed and forced me to log-out and log-in again with the new password. Suddenly all my account options were available and working.
So I called two family members on their POTS numbers and we had a brief conference. Perfectly serviceable. Not great clarity - both parties complained about the the general sq being muffled - but serviceable as long as only one person spoke at a time. No noticeable time lag or echos.
This is probably not something I'd use with new clients who are used to traditional conference calling services - especially if the call required more than four parties. But I can see using it where I have an established relationship (and a bit of leeway) and the circumstances call for a small, impromptu conference of 3-4 parties. This is certainly as good as the typical 3-way calling offered through most cellular networks.
Terry Frazier at 1:47 PM
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Saturday, April 16, 2005
Congratulations Dot Drummond - Beaumont Unified Teacher of the Year!
This is a personal note to my aunt Dot Drummond, in Redlands, CA. Dot has been a school teacher since Methusela was a pup, and has taught science at Mt. View Middle School in the Beaumont Unified School District in Southern California for more than 20 years. This year Dot has been voted one of two Teachers Of The Year for BUSD.Congratulations, Dot! Way to Go!
Rethinking Skype Conference Call Scenario
Skype Journal has me rethinking my opinion on Skype conference calls. As usual, I was thinking inside-the-box and viewing conference calls as requiring individual endpoint origination (participants should call into the conference.) Of course, with SkypeOut I can originate the conference and connect all parties. I had some initial resistance to the idea of having to pay for calls here in the states, having gotten used to calling anywhere in the US from my cell phone without additional fees. But SkypeOut's $.02/minute rate is less than half the lowest conference calling service I've seen, and the hassle factor is lower. Not requiring participants to remember a special number and passcode is a good thing.I'm still having lots of trouble with the 1.2.0.41 client, and Skype have not bothered to answer my support request. But once I get that cleared up I'll be adding some SkypeOut minutes and trying the conference calling feature. I'll still be adding the VoIP line for my main business number, but the Skype scenario is promising.
Terry Frazier at 12:25 AM
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Help With Technorati Tags
I don’t know how to use Technorati tags. I know how to make the tags, but I don’t know how to do anything really useful with them. I just barely figured out how to use delicious to capture my bookmarks and I don’t have time to think about this never-ending plethora of techno-tagging stuff (I admit I don’t get flickr, either.)
But tonight I decided to look into it a little, so I went to Joho and found a post with Technorati Tag: Tags where I found this helpful guide to tagging by Janet Tokerud. There are still a lot of missing pieces for me, but lots of good stuff in Janet’s article. Being a fan of using graphics and illustrations, I particularly like her Tip #2.
Tags aren't Category Names
[…]
Tag Tip #2. I like to illustrate my posts and decorate my post/feed with a graphic for each post. Technorati tag-surfing may help you quickly locate that little graphic for your post. That's how I got the graphic for this post which I copped from a Flickr photo of Peter Morville's great slide. [More…]
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