Having fun with nanoblogging

This post ties me with my second-highest number of posts in any given month so far this year (4) but it's not just for record-setting purposes.

I love nanoblogging and all of its forms. It's great to be able to shoot off a thought on Pownce or Twitter (or both). Even Tumblr has its place for more advanced thoughts, especially those that include an image or quote. Plus, Tumblr gets all of the tweets which includes all of the pownces. What a party!

So many of my non-tech friends ask me: why? Who reads the crap you write? The honest answer is this: I don't care. I write nanoblog and microblog and macroblog posts for my own edification. Sometimes it's helpful to work out a thought in words. Sometimes I just need to clear my head. Either way, it's healthy and hey, maybe along the way the things I've learned might help someone else. Considering that I'm a teacher by training but a banker in practice, this at least gives me the opportunity to educate.

Doing things the "Mac" way: A Skitch mini-review

Uploaded with Skitch!

I had a discussion earlier today with a friend of mine who is a die-hard Windows user and occasional Microsoft fanboy/Apple basher. You know, the kind who buys a Zune or Sansa just because it isn't made by Apple. We were talking about Skitch, a cool little app that I was just "invited" to beta test. What is Skitch? Essentially it's a whiz-bang annotation tool that allows you to add text, lines, shapes, and arrows to a screen or webcam capture (see the sample skitch above). I've heard a lot of good things about Skitch so far, especially from Merlin Mann, so I was overjoyed when I was allowed to download it. I even stayed up extra late just to play around with it a bit. Indeed, I was so excited that I saved the overview of Skitch (available in Skitch's help) as a Quicktime file and e-mailed it to my friend. I also sent him a few of my early skitches (see my tumblelog for these) to show him what I'd been doing with the program. I was sure he'd be as impressed with it as I was.

He wasn't. First response: "It's like Paint on Windows. I've had that for years." My response: dumbfounded. How could he even be comparing Skitch to Microsoft Paint? I asked him to elaborate. "I can take a picture with my webcam, save it, open it in Paint, and draw on it. Then I can save it again, and do whatever I want with it." Ok, I thought. I can see he is not getting this.

"But Skitch can do it all in one program." I thought I had won him over - yes, you could perform the same functions in Windows and get the same end result. But it was not as easy, and by no means as slick. I thought I had him for sure. Then comes the kicker:

"I don't see the point of it. I don't think I would have any use for it." And that was where it ended. How could I argue with that? If you don't need a program, why use it? I let the conversation stew all day and then while at work it hit me. I have discovered what I feel may be the fundamental difference between Windows users and Mac users. And it all comes down to one thing: my thoughtful rebuttal to his final comment. What do I think the point of Skitch is and what do I use it for?

It's only been a day so I'm not sure if I'll be using Skitch a year from now - I'll say that much right from the start. I think I've already hit on what the point of Skitch is in my introduction - annotation. But why do I need to annotate? And what? This part almost stumped me until I arrived at this: I don't need Skitch, Skitch needs me. I have never had the need to annotate a screenshot or webcam capture before nor have I ever attempted the procedure. Why? Because the old way of doing it - the Windows way - is a difficult, multi-step process that requires multiple saves and several programs. Why would anyone want to do this on Windows with tools like the "PrtScn" key and MS Paint? You could draw a picture of what your trying to say quicker. Skitch is useful because it's there - because it does something that heretofore had been difficult and time consuming. Yes, I might not have a need for Skitch, but because I have Skitch I will find ways that it will work for me. In essence, I am more productive because of Skitch because I am doing something that I would have never considered doing before.

I think my take on Skitch can be applied to the whole OS X experience. OS X is an operating system just like Windows and I will not deny that there are strengths that are inherent to both platforms. But OS X's true strength is its ability to reveal a level of productivity that Windows can only dream of. I do things with OS X that I had never done before on my Windows machine - not because I couldn't do them but because it was either difficult or not readily available. And I'm sure if you would have asked me back then if some of the things I do now were "useful" or had a "point" I would have said no.

Skitch is a fun, easy-to-use app. Do I need its functionality in my daily life? No, not in the least. Do I need to annotate screenshots and webcam captures? Not at all. Will I do these things now because I can? You bet.

American Idol Reaction

Yeah, I'm that...well, whatever word you want to use. Anyway, I think I can sum up tonight's eliminations with one thought: Antonella and Sanjaya need to go home. Now. I can't believe that either of them is still around. Antonella seems to be the most blatantly artificial contestant on the show this year. She is a weak singer yet always manages to act superior. She is the exact opposite of the awesome Melinda Doolittle, who is my current favorite. And poor Sanjaya...he's an okay singer, I guess, but he just seems so awkward. And what was with the whispering thing on Tuesday? I could barely hear the guy. With that said, I'm sad to see Nick and Leslie go. I think they both had something unique to bring to the competition and I vastly prefer them to Antonella and Sanjaya. You know what? Maybe people just like their goofy names...

And while I'm on the topic, here's my top three of the final ten guys and girls. Note that they are unranked.

Top Three Guys:

• Blake Lewis - Blake would be a unique choice. Not the strongest singer by far, Blake can throw down the beat-boxing, which is pretty cool all by itself. Also, Blake seems to somehow exude cool without it seeming at all forced or awkward. A definite plus.
• Chris Richardson - A safer choice than Blake because I think he might have more mainstream appeal due to his strengths in hip-hop and R&B music. But, unlike Blake, sometimes his "cool" can seem just a bit forced. But, he's definitely better at it than Elliott Yamin who always managed to look awkward.
• Phil Stacey - The safest choice of the guys by far. He has a strong voice and wide appeal because he seems so...normal. His military background is especially poignant at a time of war. So, in essence, what Simon calls "boring" I call "moldable." That's right, Phil can become whatever the record label wants him to be.

Top Three Girls:

• Melinda Doolittle - Let's be honest: this girl can blow. I've already admitted that I think she's the frontrunner, or at least has a very very good chance to win. Simon is absolutely right about her in that her attitude is so refreshing. She is so unpretentious that's she's almost meek. The other girls probably run all over her...until she opens her mouth.
• Lakisha Jones - She's the new Mandisa, and while I liked Mandisa, I like Lakisha even better. Maybe it's because she isn't lugging all that "gospel choir" baggage around with her. Or maybe she is and we just don't know about it yet. Time will tell, but for now she has an awesome voice.
• Gina Glocksen - The dark horse front runner. I'm not sure what draws me to Gina. It may be her alliterative name, the fact that she's a local girl (from Naperville, IL), I'm not sure. But I think she has a big voice and a different style about her that is refreshing. She's also not pretentious either - she seems pretty confident about herself and her abilities but not overly so.

What do you think? Leave a comment if you disagree with my selections!

Facebook Problems

Once upon a time way back in early 2004 when Facebook had just come in to existence, I signed up for an account at the urging of my friends. I registered under bhinc@ou.edu. Since I had just graduated in December 2003, at the time I was really more focused on getting my life in order back home in Chicago than spending countless hours on Facebook.

Fast-foward 2 1/2 years and I am now ready to throw myself into Facebook after wading through the muck that is Myspace. Facebook is defiintely superior and the "next big thing" as they say. Unfortunately, when I'm ready to log back in to Facebook for the first time in a long time, I don't remember my password. And, to make matters worse, I no longer have access to the bhinc@ou.edu e-mail address I used when I originally signed up. I do have access to bhinc@alumni.ou.edu but that doesn't help me too much. Rather than doing the obvious and trying to get access to the original account by e-mailing technical support, I went ahead and created a new account under ben.hinc@gmail.com (my current e-mail of choice - everything else forwards there anyway). I used my alumni e-mail to join the OU network. All seemed well...until I decided to finally contact Facebook support about my original account.

In my e-mail to the support team I detailed my situation and offered two preferred outcomes: either reset my password so I can have access to the original account or merge the two so that all of my friends both old and new would be retained. Well...it seems having two accounts on Facebook is a violation of their Terms of Service so, while I got my wish of having my original account's password reset, I got the added bonus of having my new account deleted. Yes, deleted. I would've preferred a little warning so that maybe I could rescue a few notes or whatnot, but alas, it is gone. Just gone.

I have my old profile back now, so I guess I should be happy. Now I have to rebuild the damn thing....

The GooTube Debate

I read a lot of tech news and I listen to a lot of tech podcasts. And I am sick of hearing about how much Google's own Google Video product pales in comparison to YouTube. Yes, Google bought YouTube - that's old news. Also old news is the fact that Google Video has decided - at least for now - to run Google Video and YouTube independent of each other. Many journalists, bloggers, and podcasters that I have respect for have questioned this decision based on the perceived superiority of the YouTube model of video sharing. I think they are missing one major point: whether or not it was their intent, Google's video service caters to a completely different audience than YouTube does.

I agree that as far as video sharing goes, YouTube is vastly superior to Google Video. However, this assumes that Google Video and YouTube have users who are looking for the same level of functionality which YouTube happens to implement in a better way. I submit that while YouTube does sharing well, Google Video is more of a video hosting site. Sure, it includes some basic sharing features such as tags, comments, and the ability to post videos via blog, HTML, or MySpace. However, just by looking at the current layout of a standard Google Video page, one can see that the video takes center stage rather than the sharing features which are hidden in menus along the right hand side. This layout, which the journalists, bloggers, and podcasters referenced above might consider to be anti-social, puts the focus on the video. The social functions are merely secondary to the to the primary function of Google Video: storing videos.

When I shoot a video with my digital camera and want to put it on the internet, I go first to Google Video. There are a number of reasons for this. First, Google places limited restrictions on the size and length of videos that can be uploaded while YouTube restricts videos to 10 minutes and 100 megabytes. Also, as far as I can tell, YouTube only provides a web-based upload service. Google Video, on the other hand, specifically offers a downloadable uploader for files larger than 100 megabytes that is available for Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux. Besides these limitations, I find the upload procedure on Google Video to be simpler and more user friendly. I also find the video-centered interface of Google Video to be easier to navigate and much cleaner than YouTube's cluttered pages.

YouTube will probably bring in a lot of revenue for Google and I am happy about that. But to say that YouTube is better than Google Video and let that be the end of the story is a disservice to a great product. It all boils down to this: if you want to share your videos and are looking for a social atmosphere, go ahead and upload them to YouTube. If you are looking for a place to store your digital videos no matter what the length or size is and an easy way to embed them in your blog or webpage, please upload them to Google Video.

Considering my general anti-social tilt, I will stick to Google Video.