Moving from WordPress to Fargo (Mostly)

That idea of disruption has picked up speed this summer. Or, at least that’s what it seems. I’ve moved from a Kindle Fire HD to a Chromebook and a Motoactv. I’ve acquired a Chromecast – and am having some decent fun in seeing where it makes sense. I’ve moved to my own RSS reader. And now, I’m moving from WordPress to Dave Winer’s Fargo Outliner. Disruption once again; with purpose, as usual.

Learning As Resume @Medium, Time w/o Speed @NYTimes

I’m really enjoying the writing I’ve been able to do lately. I probably have to blame the lack of putting smaller snippets of thought on Twitter, but overall, I do sense that I’m thinking more completely about anything that I come across. In putting down [personal] tweeting, I’ve endeavored to write more, and to more outlets. This seems to have lept my thoughts into areas that I’ve normally haven’t been as adventurous towards.

Zimmerman’s Not Guilty, Martin’s Redemption TBD

And so the verdict on the Martin-Zimmerman case has come in. Mr. Zimmerman has been declared Not Guilty of the Murder 2 – Manslaughter charge. And whlle I can sit on and near social networks and the commentary that will be more plentiful than the usual Sunday chatter – I think its good to get out something a bit more sound. And hopefully get a few of you to think about the law and how we come across cultural decisions as a matter of character and country.

Evaluating @tomiahonen’s 9 Unique Mobile Characteristics

My good & mobile-tuned friend Tomi Ahonen has been very, very long in the mobile industry. Just looking at everything he did before becoming a speaker, author, etc. is enough to just make you nod your head. And yet, as we sometimes know, the best friendships and admirations come not always because you agree, but because you can disagree constructively. In one of Tomi’s recent posts about location-based services (LBS), he listed nine (9) unique characteristics of mobile. Given that I use these unique abilities very often in my mobile presentations, seeing a new addition to the list means that its not time for blind adoption, but careful consideration and analysis. 

Running Up Against Boundaries

I would like to think that some points on this road would not come back around. But, it seems that I’m one that occasionally goes in a direction and finds that its a direction that I shouldn’t have gone – either at that time or ever. I’ve learned that when I go those routes that there’s a good chance that I’ll go that way again. Had that experience as I came again across a few experiences and the book Boundaries.

Life After 20K Tweets

At the time of this writing, I’ve got 19,997 tweets on my personal account (and 9,445 for MMM’s Twitter account, which was started sooner). I’ve made the commitment to pretty much end my doings on my personal Twitter account once I hit 20K tweets, with the exception of the automated services that I use to populate it and promote my wares and DMs for some folks whom I only connect with in that space. Since making that declaration, I’ve had a little bit of time to think about what I’ll do with the time that I won’t be spending tweeting. So far, the list isn’t as large as one would think.

Pursuing Discontinued Tech @Medium

Just posted my second piece over at Medium titled Pursuing Discontinued Tech. You can make the argument that I’ve probably written the same here a few times before – and I’d not argue. But, I’m still fiddling with the writing interface there. Its a lot better experience than WordPress in that respect. Definitely something that’s more or less WP without the fluff. At the same time, I feel like things that I write here are more mine than they are there. That’s something else for me to figure out – perhaps using WP vs Medium is another one of those discontinued tech pursuits that I’m aiming towards.

Life Beyond 140, Writing at Medium

Earlier this week, I received an email invite to contribute to the writing platform Medium. My 1st post is a bit of a break from the norm of what I even post here. What can I say, Life Beyond 140 Characters even counts here. I hope you enjoy that piece. And who knows what I’ll intentionally explore going forward. All I can say is that I have less than 20 tweets till I’m done on Twitter. Its going to be like crawling a web to keep up with me, unless you like RSS.

Of July 1 and RSS

Yesterday, I opened Google Reader for what should be the last time. I wanted to get a last download of the various subscriptions that I had there (see: Google Takeout). I also wanted to grab an impression of the service since its been a good while and there were some UX aspects that were done well (at least on the iPhone version). Still, I’m kind of in a similar boat to many others where you get this regular behavior of reading a collection of websites just the way you like that’s been shaken. There are many other services that are trying to take on the challenge of being the next Google Reader. But, I’m not sure that July 1 should be a reprise of the history that has been. I think the RSS reading public should be aiming to do better.

Ending 2 Experiments, Branching Another

For one reason or another, I’m finding that life after being a product reviewer is a bit less scripted than marketing budgets and product release schedules would have you believe. You aren’t as ruled by rumors of a misrepresented future, and there’s something to be gained from minding your own roads. Or, something like that. I’m probably a bit on the “ready to share with the world” side of why I’m concluding two experiments, and branching into something like another.

Leave Twitter? Then What?

I mentioned some time ago that I wanted to move on past Twitter once I hit some kind of plateau. At first, I thought that it would be when I got to a number of followers. But, as you can see in the photo on this post, I’ve not gotten all that far. Instead, after reading about someone else making a cut-off point of Twitter at 20K tweets, I thought that it would be a good idea to do the same. That doesn’t sound like a bad goal for some people, but I might had been at about 19,500 tweets when I said that. Once this post goes up, I’ll probably have about 90 tweets until I hit that mark. Leave Twitter? Yea. That’s what I’m saying.

Sync or Think Screen-Different

One of the things that I’ve enjoyed about my RSS reader is that I’m making something that fits the way that I read across several types of screens. That’s part of the reason why I’ve made the decision to host it on my phone, rather than using a web server/service (I’d been using Dropbox but wanted a bit more control). In hosting it from my mobile, I’ve had to be more creative in how my other screens go about connecting and getting updates. In part, I think instead of the concept of syncing, I’ve come up with a little something that fits better for someone like me who likes to read some articles more than once.