Tech and the Dad Life

In case anyone is interested, my Mario Kart friend code is 3222-6297-1015

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Video is everywhere on the web. YouTube is one of the hottest destinations on the internet and it’s not just used for Crazy Indian Music Videos and cute cat videos. Increasingly there are videos how-tos, news videos, and more. While these may interest me, I’m not always free to watch a 5 or 10 minute video about something I may or may not find useful.

There are multiple problems with video only content. Maybe I’m in a hurry and I don’t have time to sit through the video to find the information I need. Maybe my internet connection is acting up and the video won’t load. Why should I have to committ my valueable time to view your content? You’re probably saying that I don’t have to and you’re right. But it stands to reason, if someone takes the time to create the content then they most likely want someone to view it. You also can’t just skim over a video like you can with text. What if I’ve already watched the video but I want to look find and find a specific piece of information? With a text article I can just browse to the section, find that information, and be done with it. If it’s a video on the other hand, I’ve got to find the video, wait for it to load, and then either watch the whole thing, or try my hand at skipping around and hoping to find it. Increasingly these days I find myself skipping the videos altogether. I’m sure I might be missing out on a lot of useful information and great content, but my time is just worth more than that. If there’s a video and an article also I’m going to read the article. If there’s just a video, chances are I’m going to skip it.

Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, but I have a suspicion that I’m probably not, especially considering the number of people who still use dial-up or only have very slow cable or dsl connections. If you’re making a video, great, but make sure that video is the best medium to convey your message. If you want to reach more people, then consider having a text article to go along with the video.

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Connor took his first steps today!  He’s still only somewhat steady on his feet and mostly holds on to things, but he’s going to be walking before too long.  I can’t wait!

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Well this certainly snuck up on me. Today is Document Freedom Day. In fact, I didn’t actually know it existed but it’s something I feel very strongly about. I believe that documents should be distributed in formats that are open and free. Standards should be unencumbered by ties to a single corporation, or that corporation’s business practices. A truly open document specification will allow complete compatibility in any product that implements those specifications ensuring your data will continue to be accessible for years and years to come and not just as long as the large corporations decide to support it. Open document specifications will help level the playing field and allow for easier migration from one software product to another. Open document specifications will also increase competition in the market ensuring the consumer has more options when it comes to choosing high quality software.

Check out the site and see what you can do to help promote document freedom!

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Nothing brings back memories like music. I can’t remember most things from my childhood or teenage years to save my life, but a song from that time period can turn on the flow of memories like Niagara Falls. Hearing a song I can see things from my past like they’re painted in a picture. Things become so real I can even smell the smells of times past.

I remember one of the first soundtracks I ever bought. Jurassic Park by John Williams. On tape. I’m not sure how I didn’t wear that tape out. I played the thing constantly.

I read a lot during high school and there were a few tapes and cds that I listened to so much that they’ve become synonymous with the books I read back then. If I go back and re-read one of those books the music starts playing in my mind like the opening score of a movie. I still read a lot these days but it’s a different experience. I can’t just turn on the music and immerse myself in a book for hours on end. I generally only get to read in the free minutes between finishing one thing and starting the next.

I’ve always wanted to create music. I was in band from 5th grade through the end of high school. I didn’t participate in band during college and it’s something I miss. At various times in my life I’ve tried to learn piano, but haven’t been able to pick it up. I almost wish piano lessons had been forced upon me as a child, but I’m sure if that had been the case my love of music would have a dark spot on it, or possibly not exist at all.

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Why do I let myself get so far behind on updating Gnucash? I’ve got to get myself on a schedule and stick to it.

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I can’t remember the last time I looked up in the sky and all I saw was blue…

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Yesterday Mozilla Messaging, the name of the new Mozilla Foundation subsidiary, was announced. Accompanying that announcement was a blog post by Mozilla Messaging’s president David Ascher with a few more details about the company and its plans for the future. Reading his post I found myself finding a lot of symmetry between what he was saying about Mozilla Messaging and what I feel about the open source community.

Quote:

One common short-hand for the above is to say, somewhat flippantly, that “email is broken”.

I’ll explain what we’re going to do about it in the short term, but the more interesting question is for me to ask you “what are you going to do about it?” As I’ve slowly internalized over the last few months, the notion that anyone can and should participate in helping fix whatever is broken is a key tenet of the Mozilla project. It has structural implications for how we build companies, and, I believe, it’s a key advantage compared to all the other companies who are tackling the nest of issues that entangle internet communications.

I believe this hits the nail on the head in several key areas. In the same way he says that e-mail is broken, I think that open source marketing and the open source community are broken. While this may be blatantly obvious, “the notion that anyone can and should participate in helping fix whatever is broken” is vital to the open source way of doing things. We need to be involved in the products we love. We need to help make them better and make sure others know about them too. We need to stop waiting for people in places of power to give us things to do to help with marketing and the community and start doing these things for ourselves.

The part that hits even closer to home is this:

We know we can’t do it alone, and we’re not even going to try. Indeed, rather than lay out a bold vision and convince people that we’re going to solve all their problems, we see our primary role as that of facilitating collaborative approaches to problem solving and incremental progress, through a combination of leadership and facilitation work. This is an unusual approach, and it can be chaotic and slow. But it seems to have worked well for Firefox and the web, and I believe it can work well for Thundebird and email.

I’ve only recently felt the need to be involved in the open source community. I’ve used open source software for years, but most of that time I was only an “observer”. I was interested in what went on in getting products out and how they were marketed, but that interest only went so far as following the news about the products I used. When I began to look at getting actively involved in the open source community I had the mindset of “What can I help with that they’re already doing?”. I would look at a group or community, and try to find where I could fit in with something they were already doing, whether it was something I thought was worth doing or not. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, but I believe it can lack a certain key element. Ownership.

I’m currently trying to get a LUG started in my area and help get the Louisiana Ubuntu Local Community (LoCo) group up and running. I’ve looked at other Ubuntu community teams that serve various purposes to see how they’re organized and how they function. As I’m wondering what to tell people about these groups a lot of things go through my mind. The one thing I keep coming back to is that we can’t do it alone. The people heading up these groups or teams don’t have all the answers and we shouldn’t expect them to. We need to look at them as facilitators and organizers. We need to build on the ground work of those who have invested time and resources into providing this foundation. Once the foundation has been laid, its up to the members to continue the work. The members should be the ones to decide what the group needs to accomplish and its their responsibility to make that happen.

So I’ll end with the same question David Asher does: What are you going to do about it?

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Wow. This has really surprised me. Sure $25,000 is merely pocket change for a corporation like Microsoft, but its definately for a good cause.

Is it for the publicity or are their collective hearts really in the right place? Who knows, but I’m trying to be less cynical so I’ll just assume they are genuinely interested in helping out a good cause!

read more | digg story

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This is a bit of interesting news. Apparently there’s going to be a bit of cross-platform goodness going on between KDE4 and Apple’s Dashboard. While some things obviously won’t work (Cocoa and AppleScript as the article points out) its got to be a good thing.

Personally I think there are far too many widget programs out there and everybody doesn’t need their own flavor. Why shouldn’t they all be compatible with each other?

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