An anti-social conspiracy?

Further to my post yesterday, in which I bemoaned being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of differing opinions, I began to consider how this related to my lack of social interaction on the Web. I do not collect "friends" on-line, I think am friends with about 6 people, I have 4 followers on my Twitter account (and follow 3), I am notorious for my neglect of my Linkedin account. I have boundless respect for people who can maintain relationships (even if only virtual) with dozens or hundreds of people but I simply can't do it. Not least of the reasons is my previously discussed fear of accidentally offending someone I care about but, related to that, I just can't imagine that people want to know that I was stuck in a traffic jam for 45 minutes or that I am now 'friends' with some other complete stranger.
In a neat bit of synchronicity, one of my favourite tech bloggers yesterday posted and article about 'unfriending and unfollowing', here http://blog.louisgray.com/2010/11/unfriending-unfollowing-unsubscribing.html
Interesting article but I was a little horrified at the idea of reducing the number of  'friends' down to 1000 or so. I'm not sure I will have that many friends in my entire lifetime but I guess I consider it a matter of quality, not quantity.

Delicious, A Grumpy Dragon and Losing Motivation

Well, this has been an interesting few weeks. I have a lot on my plate at the moment; people who want me to fix their PC’s, an aunt who wants me to edit her memoirs and has sent me the chapter about the recent death of her husband as an opening salvo, multiple, conflicting, Christmas-Day-Family-gathering invitations from arms of the family that aren’t actually talking to each other, a wedding video that simply refuses to work, never-ending house renovations, mortgage amendments and Web 2.0 training.

And, suddenly, it all came to a grinding halt.

I know these issues are no more than any other normal working person has (and a LOT less than any parent) but I found myself overwhelmed and completely stopped doing any work that wasn’t utterly necessary to a/ keep me employed or b/ keep my wife happy, which is actually more important. I stopped going into my home office, stopped fixing other peoples computers, stopped my Twitter posts (which is nothing more than a list of the songs I wake up with), stopped answering emails. For about a week I didn’t even open my laptop – the only computer exposure I had was to the PC on my desk at work.

This has happened to me a few times in the past and that experience has taught me that there will be one or two key issues that have bought about what amounts to a Windows-style ‘freeze’. Find and deal with the obstructions and normal flow will resume. In most cases it turns out to be caused by guilt that I haven’t done something.

I decided that something about Web 2.0 bothered me but I ignored it, instead of facing the problem, and now I can’t find any interest in continuing. So I tried reviewing the lessons, one by one, to see which one I chose to skip glibly past.

“Ah-ha!” I muttered to myself, “So, what exactly is your problem with Delicious? It seems a rather innocuous little service; why are you so peeved at it that you can’t function properly.”

This little question took some serious thought because I couldn’t see exactly why I was so annoyed about it. I don’t use Delicious, never have, never will….

And yet I have more bookmarks and favourites than any geek I know. Aren’t I precisely the target audience?

Thinking about audiences is what got me on the right track, finally.  I was having a discussion about certain Perth blogs and papers and how angry I get reading the opinions of contributors (my wife won’t even let me buy some WA papers; she says they ‘…angry up the blood…”) who I referred to as “…the people who get their opinions from talkback radio…”

Something about saying this made me think about the Web and I started resolving my issue with Delicious.

I am a great advocate of the democratisation of information, and love the concept of equitable access to knowledge, if not wisdom, and the Web is arguably the second greatest tool to achieve that access, after writing itself.

For years I have been using the Web as a vast ocean of information, paddling when I want a quick insight, swimming when I want to compare and contrast (if you’ll excuse a term from my school years), almost drowning when discovering something completely out of my comfort zone.

More than anything I am a passionate lurker of forums; car forums, phone forums, PC forums, photography forums, political forums, news forums, gardening forums, renovation forums, the list goes on and on and on. I love the way that the combined insight of hundreds or, occasionally, thousands of contributors can almost always provide me the answer, solution or experience I need to resolve my issue, fix that busted part or help decide the best value toy.

Unfortunately forums are also the primary habitat of the Colourful Chest-Beating Opinionator.

Notwithstanding that I sound exactly like a classic Grumpy Old Man I get really annoyed at the number and ferocity of various opinions out there. It was years before I discovered what a Troll was (it’s an Internet denizen that spouts opinions, often outrageous opinions, with the specific intention of annoying others or agitating discord), and that single discovery probably reduced my blood pressure by twenty points. I tend to lurk (observe without contributing) forums because I’m seeking data, not because I want to get into a flame war with some conspiracy-obsessed Opinionator desperately trying to stir up controversy for their own self-serving agenda.

There have only ever been half-a-dozen occasions I have offered my opinion anywhere on the Web, primarily because I don’t want to cause offence and aggravate someone whose sensitivity is screwed up to 11. My opinion is not something I fling around with abandon because I know how diverse the range of opinions, how venomous reactions can be, how permanent any casual comment online.

I’m the kind of guy who frets for 24 hours after any Facebook update, hoping I haven’t inadvertently irritated a friend of a friend.

(There is a couple of points that need to be made here. Firstly, anyone who knows me personally is going to be wearing a significant frown right now because they know I have an opinion, anecdote or reference about any subject known to man and I am not famed for my reticence in sharing them. True enough, but that is face to face. It may be surprising to some but I actually do refrain from sharing some of my opinions if they are not appropriate for the audience – that is not something you can do with a posting on the Web. Importantly, instant apologies can be made in real life, if opinions do upset people, whereas those same issues can fester and grow online before anyone knows offence has been caused.

Secondly, I am aware that there is something contrary, if not ironic, about me posting a  [long] opinion about the opinions of others on the Web. In the end I decided that this blog is not likely to attract the attention of too many trolls or Opionators and I would hope for appropriate constructive criticism, rather than the broiling flames of abuse.)

Because so many people so willingly, if not carelessly, share (should that be inflict?) their attitudes, opinions, insights and bias, especially in on-line forums,  I completely believe that I have a responsibility to not become one of those contributors. My opinions are no more significant than the next persons and certainly not important enough to inspire argument. Additionally, I pride myself on my willingness to be convinced by clear rational argument on key issues. For example, I used to be an advocate of capital punishment but my opinion was altered but some rational, insightful argument and I am now opposed. That doesn’t mean I have an obligation to try to persuade others and I certainly don’t want to argue with people who may have passionate, firmly held beliefs to the contrary. If I’m asked I’ll share my thoughts but I have no urge to impose my ideas on some online collective.

So, what has this got to do with Delicious?

As noted, I have been a web lurker for years, dipping my toes in hundreds of different informational ponds, and I have collected literally hundreds of bookmarks or favourites. Literally. At one point I printed my favourites list, because I wanted to start over and I didn’t want to lose the collection I had. And it printed as 36 pages of links!

So surely Delicious would be a treasure for hoarders of links like me?

Nope.  I don’t want to share. I’m not actually a social user of the Web. (Hmmm, the phrase ‘Does not play well with others’ comes to mind.) I don’t want others to criticise or comment on my choices. I don’t care to have my suggestions admired or belittled. I feel like a grumpy dragon guarding a hoard of glittering gems, willing to fry those pesky irritants who want to steal  my jewels. Much like my opinions online, I will share if people I know ask me for sources or directions but I have zero interest in telling the wider public. I don’t care for either the approbation or disapproval of strangers, Opinionators or trolls. I may take note of the sites marked by others but I would never comment, positively or negatively, on those posted.

Thinking about this may also explain why I have never put any photos on Flickr or equivalent services, despite having more than half a terabyte of the things scattered over half a dozen drives. It also explains why I dropped my involvement with Good reads, a site very similar to Library Thing, after listing a significant portion of the books I have read; within days I noted that reading reviews of books I liked frequently upset me because reviews often shredded books that were precious to me. Sure, you’re entitled to your opinion but I’m entitled to walk away  - and that’s what I find myself doing with most of these social sites. I’m told that it is quite common for people to present different personas online than who they really are; I may be one of those people in that I am relatively gregarious and friendly in reality but online I am secretive and insular.

I am aware Delicious is also presented as a way of storing or aggregating bookmarks, with the option for ones favourites to be kept private, not for public exposure. While that may suit some I am more confident in my computers, my backup regimes and my hardcopy records than I am confident that Delicious’ servers will be reliably working every time I need them. For that matter I don’t actually trust the company behind them to continue for as long as I may need them. It wouldn’t be the first time that a web service suddenly forces you to change your work patterns because they decide to modify, ‘improve’ or cancel something you have added into your online life – look how readily Google abandoned Wave.

I can see that Delicious has great potential as a collaborative tool but since I am not a collaborator by nature this is an aspect that I could use as a work asset but not as a private individual. I can see that tags are a more intuitive way of recording metadata but I tend to prefer a more formal structure. (Hah, I just got a visual of neat rows of sticks implanted into a muddy swamp.)

I love the sharing of information and knowledge that the Web encourages but I despair at being exposed to so many opinions, friendly or aggressive, supportive or hateful, balanced or extreme. It has been said that the Web gave everybody their very own soapbox but I would walk away from some random spouting their thoughts if I saw them in the park and I will click away from websites like Delicious.

I have written this to help me resolve my motivation issues, with some success. Will I actually post this on my blog, implicitly inviting criticism or will I hoard this as if it were another jewel? The library Web 2.0 blogs are (hopefully) a small enough, well-mannered enough audience that I may get away with it (and, hey, only one of my previous posts garnered any comments) and, in the end, a blog is supposed to be the 21C equivalent of a diary. I could always remove the post if I don’t like the reactions, or worry too much that I have offended someone, or change my attitude about opinions…

Digital books are the future?

Some people may simply agree with this post's title without pause, others may be horrified at the idea but, in any case, it is a point worth discussing or libraries face missing the wave.
The article that made me consider this in more depth here:
http://feeds.paidcontent.org/~r/pcorg/~3/zCRaLaydHsI/

Amongst many interesting (but not personally verified yet) points is the question; "Did you know that the two most common ways people get books today is borrowing them from a friend or getting them from the library?" This is a US article but that idea certainly made me pause.
How may public libraries in WA offer books in digital form? We here at Gosnells have a small range of 'Playaways', which are,essentially, pre-packaged digital books but that seems half a solution, in my personal opinion.
I am sure I heard that there are libraries in Perth (or was it WA?) that can provide downloadable e-books but I'm not sure which libraries do, if any.
I appreciate that Amazon took forever to offer the Kindle in Australia but there are now a good number of e-book readers available and the iPad and a couple of the new tablet phones make fine readers themselves. If this is, as advertised, a burgeoning market, are we all prepared for it?
Personally, despite my tech-head leanings, I have never used an e-book but very recently a librarian friend of mine noted that his partner, who is also in the industry, recently said that she would now never consider giving up her Kindle to return to traditional paper-and-board books. Is that simply the first splash from an oncoming tsunami?

RSS and new sources

Firstly, I must confess to being absolutely insatiable when it comes to soaking up information; I can never spare enough time to find and absorb all the information I want. A major part of my misery is that I am interested in dozens, if not hundreds of topics, from cars (of course) to new technologies, from politics to economics, from marketing to trivia and comedy, from real estate to second-hand bargains. As an example of my info-addiction my list of Bookmarks in Chrome is over 300 web sites in 45 categories.
RSS feeds have been part of my info-diet for some time but my subscriptions are liable to change frequently and, as mentioned, some browsers handle RSS better than others. The Web 2.0 Training however led to the discovery that Google Reader is usable here at work, despite us being behind a notably fierce firewall. It's a bit curious, really, Google Reader will work but not Gmail. Don't get me wrong, though, I am not complaining.
As this assignment supposed to be a new thing I fired up Google Reader using the new Google ID I created, as opposed to my personal emails. Some time after firing up Reader, but before i subscribed to any specific feeds, I noticed an excellent, wide-ranging, nicely eclectic list of news items that I thoroughly enjoyed. As soon as I subscribed to a feed this pre-existing list disappeared, which made me a little sad.
I added my feeds (I've had the Unshelved one on my personal readers for years), including Autoblog and a couple of others but kept feeling disappointed that I had lost that original list.
After some time i thought I would try and work out precisely what that feed had been. I have to shamefully admit it took me some time but, eventually, I noticed two headings on the left - 'Recommended items' and 'Recommended sources'. It turned out that 'Recommended items' was that first list I had seen.
Over the last week, 'Recommended item's' has become one of my favourite sources, not least because it covers a broad range. Today it included a story that so intrigued me I added two new feeds because of it: KnowTheNetwork.com and LouiseGray.com. Both of these sites have some great insight into Web2.0 technologies and the article, 'Finding relevance with RSS' ,about Twitter, RSS and relevance, really appealed to me.

Of mice and menu's

I thought I would share a lesson in technology soaking up an entire day (or more) for something that should have been very simple or, at least, straightforward.
A friend asked me to video a celebration with their video camera and I happily complied. Once done I attempted to return the camera but my friend said "Look, I don't even own a working computer; could you do whatever and put this on a DVD for me?"
I should have said 'no' but I assumed the whole process would the straightforward.
After ignoring the project for a couple of weeks I thought I would use part of my RDO this week to transfer the video onto DVD. I knew it would need some basic editing and I wasn't willing to spend any money for editing software on a once-off project so I thought I'd use Microsoft's Movie Maker. ( I had, after all, seen Kathryn Greenhill demonstrating Movie Maker at the LocLib Convention a couple of years ago and she made it all seem very simple.)
So I transferred the files from the SD card onto my primary desktop PC (with Windows 7), and went to download Movie Maker, discovering, as I did, that Movie Maker had changed with Vista and I actually wanted the older version.
Fine.
Once that was up and running I attempted to import the video files. These, it turned out, were recorded in a proprietary format that was incompatible with Movie Maker. So I turned to Uncle Google to find some (free) software to covert the files from .MOD to something Movie Maker would accept. There was no shortage of software that would do the job but most of it cost money I wasn't willing to spend. I attempted to download one program that froze my laptop (which I was using because my primary desktop didn't want to talk to my network and I didn't want to waste time investigating why) and necessitated a reboot. Once up and running again, I attempted to download another free program that produced a virus warning. The third one I attempted turned out to not convert .MOD files unless you paid for the upgraded version. The fourth program I downloaded also had me worried because it was a trial version and I have experienced dozens of trial versions that work perfectly right up to the point where you save your work and  then they ask you for money. But it turned out to be fine and it converted all the files to .AVI without hiccup.
Finally, then, I imported the converted files to Movie Maker and relaxed, believing the hard part to be over.
Movie Maker examined all the files and, in Timeline view, I started editing the individual clips into one whole.
Shortly after starting I decided an introductory text at the opening of the video would be a nice touch so I wrote up a short intro and then reviewed different fonts and animations for the opening credits. One of the animations reminded me of a movie and I thought a nice bit of music over the top of the credits would enhance the whole thing.
Back to my laptop to download the .WAV file of the music. No problem, plenty of choices there.
Once I had the file, though, I realised that the sound bite was too long and needed to be cut in half (roughly) to suit the opening credits; which meant I would need a sound file editor.
Back to Uncle Google to find a decent, free, audio editor. In no time I was reminded about Audacity and recalled plenty of 'doof' geeks raving about the program, so I downloaded that, with no problems. After installation I opened sound bite in Audacity. Now I am convinced that Audacity is a powerful and competent program but it is a little overwhelming if you have never edited audio before. Eventually I worked my way through Audacity's little interface quirks and edited my .WAV file down to size.
I returned to the desktop PC, copied over the .WAV file and played it with no problem. I returned to editing the rest of the video and then, for no reason other than technological suspicion, played what I had so far produced. Everything worked fine, expect the audio allegedly attached to the opening credits would not play. When I played the file by itself there was no problem but when I played the whole video it made no sound. Back to Uncle Google.
Dozens of people acknowledged similar problems in Movie Maker but almost everyone avowed the problem was incompatible file formats. I was sure Audacity could be trusted to convert audio formats successfully but  thought I would try other formats, just in case. In the end I had the audio file in three .WAV files (at different sampling or quality settings), MP3, MP2 and AAAC files. All produced the same problem - they would play when I clicked the file but not when I played the whole video.
Completely frustrated by now, I removed the audio file and changed the opening credit to something far more boring.
By now it was late enough in the day that my wife had come home from work so I shared my frustrations with her and ignored the project altogether.
Idly checking emails and blogs while catching up with my wife's day I wrote the audio file problem back into a Google search but this time I must have phrased it just differently enough. On Yahoo Answers somebody had written (in reply to someone else) " I know it might seem obvious but have you tried the little volume slider over on the extreme left of the timeline?"
I jumped up and ran back to the desktop PC and, sure enough, there was a volume slider I had not noticed. I had found at least three different ways to adjust volume in Movie Maker but this was the critical one. When I had played the video the volume on the captured video was fine but there was no sound from the added .WAV file.
This tiny slider was the volume control allowing adjustment of the video's own sound or any added sound files. By default, in a new installation of Movie Maker, this slider is set to zero, which means soundtracks play perfectly but added audio files were played at zero volume.
Excitedly, I adjusted the slider and -TA DAH! - the .WAV file played perfectly!
So I rebuilt the opening credits I had envisioned in the first place, played the whole video and it all worked brilliantly!
Happy now, I returned to editing the video, adding fades and wipes between scenes, adjusting volume in scenes too quiet and adding brightness to indoor scenes that were initially very dark.
By 10pm the whole thing looked fabulous and I was relieved and content.
Then I  went to save the video file.
Now, Movie Maker allows you to save the project, which I had been doing (naturally!) but you can also save the actual completed video as a video file.
It turns out that MovieMaker, despite presenting you with a long list of file formats, can only actually save the video in a few formats, all of which had issues. Remembering that this file was to be burned to a DVD for playback in DVD players and not necessarily on PCs I chose to save the file in .DV AVI format.
Saving the file took hours, literally, and I ended up with a file that is now 12 Gigabytes!
That's a little long for a DVD.
So now I have to find a way of converting that DV AVI file to yet another format that will allow burning onto, hopefully, just one DVD.
I'm ignoring it for now :-)
Was that the last of the problems? Of course not!
Last night, about 8.30, I returned from work and fired up the laptop to check my emails. On bootup, AVG kindly informed me that a virus had been detected.
Naturally, it was a virus from one of the programs I had downloaded to try and convert the .MOD files.
*sigh*
AVG alleged that it would lock the file in a vault or i could delete it. When I chose to remove the horror my laptop froze and, ten minutes later, crashed.
*sigh*
I rebooted and was advised that AVG had discovered another, different virus, which it locked up in a vault without problem.
Two new virii was, however, enough to motivate me to upgrade my AV program. I own, at any one time, at least five PCs and I often get asked to fix other PCs, so I am reluctant to use an AV program that costs me money. AVG Free has been pretty good for some years but, while fixing a bad virus infestation on my boss's daughters PC, I had been introduced to Avast, which is also free but a little more powerful. Importantly, Avast also has the ability to run a virus scan during the boot process. This means it can detect virii and Trojans that are capable of hiding themselves from AV programs that only run once Windows has launched.
I downloaded a new version of Avast, updated it, set it to run on boot and rebooted.
When I went back past the laptop, some 45 minutes later, I checked the scan and discovered it seemed to be flying along but had only scanned 1% of my files!
Another hour or so later, it had finally got up to 2%.
About 11.30pm (at about 37%) it stopped, because it had found a significant Trojan, and was waiting for my decision about what to do with it. I choose 'delete' but was little dismayed to find there was no 'Do this from now on' option.
*sigh*
I got up at 2.45am and found it had discovered another virus at 57%
Delete and sigh.
Up again at 6.10am to find another one at 87%
Delete and sigh.
At 6.45am, at 99% it discovered another one.
Delete and smile, because that was the last one.
I suspect that anyone who asks me to process a video for them in the future is liable to watch me slump slowly into a corner, wide- eyed and gibbering.
Technology, hey, you just never know when it is going to make your life more interesting:-)

Flickr and obsolete technologies

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49243167@N03/4530257305/in/photostream/

Hmmm, I wanted to use Blogger's upload tool to share this photo but it would not link properly, here at work. Almost certainly that is the fault of our using IE6, more than a problem with the link, Blogger or Flickr.
Anyhoo...
The link will show you a 1924 photo of a member of a signifiicant early Gosnells-area family, paddling a little tin canoe down the Canning River, with another paddler not far behind.
If you look through the photostream of Mr McNamara there are a couple of photo's that hint at the river being considered far more vital in those days than today.
This treatment of the river as a legitimate transport route, as opposed to simply a recreational facility, made me ponder the unheralded death of technologies as new methods and tools evolve. I'm sure  most of us have heard of archivists bemoaning the unlikelihood of CD's or DVD's surviving as a viable medium, especially in terms of finding playback tools in 75 years, much like the BBC's Domesday Book tragedy in 80's ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project).
But how rarely do we consider uses of technology being subsumed by recreation after initially being a vital tool?
Horse racing is now a pursuit of wealthy owners and (generally) poor punters but it developed as a recreation from a skill that was once an essential part of life.
Most of us read, and some of us write, for fun but initially these were both skills that were, to one degree or another, valued and envied as effective business tools.
Some of us upload photo's. Clever people sometimes modify or tweak these photos using software tools like Photoshop. I often envy people clever enough to know how to use Photoshop but, before computers, there were retouching experts who had a valuable skillset that allowed them to produce art like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49243167@N03/4540585238/in/photostream/ from the same photostream. I can barely imagine the time, experience and expertise it must have taken to produce. Now technology can be bought that emulates these same skills, turning what used to be a (probably) income-producing trade or ability into a recreation, not unlike photography itself.
So, as technologies evolve it seems that some will die and others will become games and hobbies. I guess if we could see which would be which we could make a bucket of money:-)

The introductory post

Hi folks. This is my initial posting on this blog. I have to admit this is not the first blog I have created, nor is it even the first I have created as part of my library work. Once I created a blog specifically for other staff, hoping to inspire some to investigate Web 2.0 technologies. Instead, access to that blog service was disabled and none of the staff ever got to hear about it.
*sigh*
Anyway, hopefully, since I can currently access Blogger from work, maybe we will all get another shot at it. It should be mentioned that only certain elements of Blogger work through the City's filter so I'm not quite sure how this blog looks at the moment! If it changes soon, it's because I've accessed the blog from home!
The blog title? I live and work in Gosnells, a suburb often (justly) accused of being the hoon capital of WA, though some residents of Rockingham might object, but, to make a living, I introduce seniors to, play with, repair and often swear incoherently at PC's and other technology.
Don't get me wrong - I somewhat identify with 'hoon' culture (hmmm, is that an oxymoron?). I drive a Holden ute with personalised number plates, I wear trackies and flanno shirts when I'm not working and, much to my horror, seem to have picked up a discarded beer gut from somewhere and it keeps preceding me wherever I go!
But I do love Gosnells, with all it's faults, and you can often find my wife and I toiling away in our oversize back yard, hoping to coax veggies to edible size, listening to idiots destroying their tyres, doing burnouts and 'donuts', a sound my wife calls 'The Gosnells Symphony.'
Me? I save my car racing for Barbagello or Kwinana on Wednesday or Friday nights at the drags, though my wife is pushing hard for me to take up rallying.
In the meantime I'll either be up to my elbows in car or up to my elbows in computers, loving every minute of both things.
I'm acting as pioneer for the City of Gosnells doing this Web 2.0 introduction and I hope to inspire, cajole, persuade or manipulate others into exploring the wide-open plains and narrow alleys of new Web technologies. Not least, I'm fully expecting to discover new horizons myself.
Really looking forward to the journey, even if I'm not doing it in my ute :-)