RSS Feeds for Dummies

Lee and Sachi at Common Craft (blog) have created a new show with a great goal: make technology easier to understand for the less geeky people of the world.

Their first video is about RSS and they do a great job in explaining what is it and what is it good for. If have never tried RSS and have been wondering what is it, here’s the (3.5 minutes) video.


Click To Play

April 28, 2007 | Tags: | Leave a Comment 

Printing, scanning, faxing and bootstrapping

I was looking for a printer. Nothing fancy. Just printing.

Like with the chair I told a few friends about that. Eventually one of them told me that he had one and was not using it anymore. So I have a new hp officejet 6110 printer.

hp officejet 6110

While looking at amazon’s hp officejet 6110 page for features I saw this nice warning.

amazon there's a new version

It lets you know that you can still buy the product but that there’s a newer version available. Amazon delights everyone with this small customer satisfaction details.

April 17, 2007 | Tags: , , | Leave a Comment 

Efficiency

we all know as knowledge workers that presence does not correlate with efficiency

said by Laurent on Unlimited vacation.

April 17, 2007 | Tags: | Leave a Comment 

Architectures for Trust

Trustmojo is an ongoing research project that is trying to explore how trust works on the new web. Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss have been working on the project and updating a very good blog on the subject.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff coming out of this experiment. The Architectures for Trust talk was made at Pixelache and the slides are available online.

Here are the slides:

Other stuff at the blog
Facets of Facets, Tagclouds And Trust

On one interpretation, the most common tags in my cloud show what community I belong to, whereas the tail of niche tags convey my distinct identity.

Can I trust Wikipedia?

Wikipedia to build trust with its users–and comparing that trust with the trust people have in other encyclopedias might in the end make little sense!

The Long Tail of Trust

Almost each and every little cognitive process that forgoes a click is actually about evaluating trustworthiness, solving a mini trust dilemma if you will. Some links need almost no evaluation at all, whereas others need a lot more.

A lot of good stuff to read and think. Some of the comments on the posts (like this one) are also very good.

April 12, 2007 | Tags: , | Leave a Comment 

The Web killed the Expert Star (not)

I read that Andrew Keen will be publishing a book called The Cult of the Amateur: How today’s Internet is killing our culture discussing how the new participatory Web 2.0 is threatening our values, our economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity.

the cult of the amateur

I haven’t read the book (though I’m really looking forward to) but I’ve been following the great debate that Andrew is having with Chris Anderson (author of the The Long Tail).

Andrew says:

It has nothing to do with blogs or technology, but all these things are coming together in a way that concerns me and I think that if our traditional institutions of politics or culture or economics continue to be undermined by this personalization and radical individualization of things, then I think we will be in trouble.

I think that if the Internet becomes more and more of a soapbox to trash elected politicians and mainstream media figures and to conduct these witch hunts on anyone who ever makes a mistake, then I think that eventually we are going to find ourselves in a world where we’re just going to be staring at a mirror.

It’s going to result in what I call cultural and economic anarchy, and I don’t think that is a good thing. I think it will result in less community, which is ironic given the fact that this thing is supposed to be about community.

The Web (as a technology) is about choice.
It looks like Andrew has a very narrow view of the Internet. Everyone has. That’s the way it works. However, he says the Web could become just about trashing elected politicians and mainstream media figures. Andrew can not judge the use of the Internet by his own usage. He is concerned that the conversation is going to get much more diluted. I agree with him but I see it as good thing. Instead of having a smaller number of opinions we’ll have thousands. Having a choice is a good thing.

However, people will need to create and apply their own filters. In my case I’m not interested in elected politicians and mainstream media figures so I’ve created my own filters and tend to read a lot more about technology, art, food and wine. I get to choose what I want to read through my own educated choice.

On the other hand I’m also a producer. Amateur on some subjects, probably expert on other. I have my own blog where I write my own opinions (like this one). I do so to express my self and at the same time everyone else (that wants) gets my view on the ideas that Andrew has written about. Would this not be a participatory Web and I would not be able to write this and Andrew (or anyone else) would not be able to read what I might have to say.

Education for filtering
I would be scared if I could imagine a World where everything was just like it is now except that technology would have provided with even more individual power. Thankfully this is not the future and the World is evolving as a whole. In the same way we have adapted to other individual powering technologies, like cars and mobiles, we’re also learning now how to deal with this new form of individual power.

The same way we have learned to make some opinionated choices (like driving safely or dangerously) we will (hopefully) have to learn how to filter (and find our experts from) all the available information that we have access to. Only then, we will be can value (and pay) for the new culture or the new business models that the new valuable institutions have created.

One Web does not fit all
From the book description:

Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen warns—our professional newspapers, magazines, music, and movies—are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craigslist; television networks are under attack from free user-generated programming on YouTube and the like; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry.

Many industries that (thought they) had solid business models have been challenged by new ventures that have made things in a different way. It works for advertising, it works for music and it will work for many other industries. Which is not to say that theater or arts (for example) are ruined or will ever suffer from using the Web. On the first interaction of the Web, the Louvre Museum website did not stop people from going there. On the second interaction of the Web, even with all the artists that are out there, people won’t stop visiting the museum or buying art.

The Web does not work the same way for everything. Many times the concept of the participatory Web is put together with the concept of the Wisdom of Crowds. As I’ve written before trusting the Wisdom of the Crowds depends very much on the area we’re talking about. Generalizing the idea that the crowd is smarter than the individual is a mistake. So is also the idea that the Web is going to kill creativity or innovation.

I’m looking forward to read the book and take a look at another perspective of the participatory digital society some of us are living in. It’s good to have the option to read this book.

April 10, 2007 | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments 

Looking for an office chair

I’m looking for an ergonomic office chair.

I’ve looked around at some reviews and I particularly like 2 chairs. The Herman Miller Aeron Chair and the Steelcase Leap Chair. Both are a bit on the expensive side but I’m willing to consider them if they’re the only option to spend a few hours at the computer each day and still have my back in 30 years.

herman miller aeron chair steelcase leap chair
Herman Miller Aeron Chair and Steelcase Leap Chair

The Aeron costs around 500 to 750 € (on ebay) and the Leap is probably cheaper but it’s hard to find prices on the Web.

Other options include this IKEA chair which despite being a tenth of the price of the others, is (I’ve been told) pretty comfortable.

Has anyone bought any of these chairs ? Are there good other options to consider ?

Update: I’ve got a new office chair! A phone call to a good friend with a big office space full of not-used chairs was enough to help me do a bit of bootstrapping. I’ll test this one and see what my back thinks. Thanks for the recommendations.

April 10, 2007 | Tags: | 9 Comments 

Thanks mum


(photo by Leo Reynolds)

April 4, 2007 | Tags: | 11 Comments 

Starting up

I’ve quit SAPO and will be starting a new company.

When I was hired to work at SAPO I had only a small idea of the kind of opportunities that working there would bring. As a person with a passion for the Web I had the secret wish of working there.

The last 2 years have been some of most valuable and interesting in my work life. I learned a lot while working on a couple of cool projects and much more by interacting with the people that make SAPO a reference in the Portuguese Web.

But I feel that the opportunity to start something new has come. On the practical side I have no kids, no big house to pay, no expensive car. On the business side there are so many things to do, so many problems to solve and too little time to solve them.

I don’t know if I was stuck in (what I hope to be) a local max. What I know is that I’m not the type of guy that likes to be in the comfort zone. I feel much more comfortable being a thrill seeker than a fear avoider. Seth’s is right when he says that Safe is risky - Safe is a mistake. You cannot grow without taking some risks.

What’s next
I’ll be working on the projects that I have been planning and developing. I’ll finally have more time to focus on these projects. First of all I want to finally finish Adegga and prepare it for launch. Then we’ll see what happens.

I want to go to more conferences. I’ll be at Reboot 9.0 in June. For the first time as an entrepreneur. Going to conferences like Reboot, LIFT or SHiFT has been one of the best decisions I’ve made in my work life. Through this events I’ve met amazing people. People with whom I share experiences, knowledge, websites, ideas, posts, comments, links, photos, stories, wine tastings, business models and a bunch of other stuff that is essential to the way I think and work.

I’ll be starting my own company working on stuff I love. Because as Thomas said: Why the fuck you would want to work for somebody else’s passions is a really big mystery.

Update: Obrigado. Thank you all for the support! It’s good to know you all out there.

April 2, 2007 | Tags: | 29 Comments