Recently in Web/Tech Category
Simon Guest is a Group Program Manager in the Architecture Strategy team at Microsoft. He has written a great post on his blog, simon, says on how to implement GTD in Outlook 2007. Since I use ClearContext there are a number of requirements that are met by that product, but overall Simon has delivered a really thoughtful analysis of his requirements and details on how to implement them in Outlook 2007:
“Last week, I made the switch from Office 2003 to Office 2007 Beta 2. Prior to the upgrade I was organizing my “stuff to do” using David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology and using the NetCentrics GTD Add In for Outlook. Unfortunately, as I discovered after the upgrade was complete, the NetCentrics GTD Add In is not yet compatible with Outlook 2007. They have plans to release an upgrade, but closer to RTM.
My Requirements
Not wanting to revert back to Outlook 2003, yet still wanting to implement GTD style functions in Outlook, I wanted to see whether I could implement a system that takes advantage of some of the new features in Outlook 2007 (such as the improved categorization for items) without requiring any custom Add-Ins for Outlook.
To start, I drew up a list of ten requirements I needed for implementing GTD using Outlook:
1. File Email. I want to set a project (e.g. TechEd) for an Email and then file it to a searchable folder.
2. Create Task from Email. I want to set a project and action for an Email (e.g. TechEd, @Office) and then convert the Email to a task item.
3. Filter Filed Email and Tasks. I want to filter my filed emails and tasks, both on project and action as applicable.
4. Create Waiting For Tasks. I want to create a “Waiting For” task when I send or reply to an Email that delegates an action to someone else.
5. Create Tasks from Any Machine. I want a quick way of assigning new tasks from any machine, and ideally any Email account. (For example, sending myself a task from my Pocket PC Phone when I’m on the road)
6. Sync with PDA. I want all my tasks to synchronize with my Pocket PC – and with the ability to filter on both project and action.
7. Works with the Command Line. I want to implement a system that also supports my command line add-in from an earlier post.
8. Supports Keyboard Shortcuts. I want to use keyboard shortcuts for everything above. I need a rapid fire way of going through my Email box without using the mouse.
9. Leverages New Features in Outlook 2007. I’d like to leverage the new features of Outlook 2007 (e.g. the ToDo bar) if possible.
10. No Add Ins. I want to avoid a COM Add In, although rules and VBA macros are OK.”
I discovered Google Notebook yesterday. I currently use Microsoft's OneNote as my note taking and brainstorming application, but I thought I would give Google's notebook a try. I must be missing something, maybe I will become better at it, but it does seem a bit difficult to copy and paste stuff into the application. However, for remembering content that you want to use later, I think that it is comparable to OneNote. Links are saved automatically and you can test to make sure that they work.
Here is a link to my google notebook which I have made public.
Microsoft Monitor Weblog provides interesting details on the Office Live beta which will launch on 15 February. The author explains the features and functions and describes what he likes and dislikes about the offering. He is no longer under a non-disclosure agreement so the article is very specific about the features that we will see.
Here is an example of Microsoft listening and making itself available to users, which I applaud. This is from the IEBlog:
Members of the IE team will be traveling far and wide over the next month, attending conferences and speaking with you, our customers, about IE7.
Look for us at RSA next week and Blackhat Europe, South by Southwest, and Mix06 in March. We’re considering attending ETech, and we’re looking at other conferences through the rest of 2006, so hopefully we’ll get to your corner of the world.
I am sick of Channel 9, Robert Scoble, and the self-congratulatory Microsoft bloggers who mask their lack of solutions with betas and “naked conversations”. Yes, I do think that Microsoft needs to connect with its customers, but vacuous conversations among the "A" listers does not yield products that have value. How hard is it to create a portal in which people can keep up with their RSS feeds? How hard is it to create a browser that has tabs, is secure, and performs well? How hard is it to create a webmail platform that connects to Outlook? Does it take a visionary like Ray Ozzie to see that the read/write web is evolving quickly before everyone’s eyes? Why aren’t Microsoft’s customers even more demanding than they are? Is it because we are so satisfied with the applications that have evolved over the years that we are willing to wait for Vista and the next version of Office?
I am impatient and I want Microsoft to deliver collaborative applications that work well in the business environment that we work in today. I wish that Microsoft would not just sit on their hands, make videos and posture. Work hard and deliver better tools on our desktops and on the web. Listen and execute is all that I ask.
Om Malik is one of my favorite web/new technology commentators. Yesterday he commented on Google in a post entitled "Google, the ultimate deflator" in a post that clearly descibes Google's strategic intent.
I got this note in the mail tonight. Incident log is an online crime mapping database service.
Press Release - 8/8/2005
"Boston Crime Mapping with Google Maps"
url:
http://www.incidentlog.com/lookup.pl?Src=57 Incidentlog.com, an online crime-mapping and database service, has announced the addition of Boston Police homicide and violent crime data into it's national database of police and fire events combined with google maps. The Boston feed is updated once per week from public data posted on the Boston Police department's website
Incidentlog.com incorporates this data with Google Maps' recently released application programming interface (API) to pinpoint the location of crimes and incidents on a zoomable/scrollable map. Google's maps differ than competitor mapping strategies in that they are more navigable by allowing users to click and drag
pan the maps in any direction, without having to wait for the web page to reload.
Incidentlog.com was formed in February '05 and currently has a database of 1.5 million events and has over 55 national feeds continuously updated to a freely browsable central database. Users can research neighborhood police reports online at the city or street level and setup alerts to be notified when events occur in areas they wish to monitor.
Future additions will include city-based RSS
police/fire/911 feeds, and radius-searching.
Scott Brodsky
sbrodsky2000@yahoo.com
Incidentlog.com
603-421-1713
Londonderry NH
Incidentlog.com
http://www.incidentlog.comNational Police Logs, Fire and Rescue Database
Tabbed browsing is a great idea. I use it FireFox and I am very pleased that it has been added to IE via the MSN tool bar. I just used the feature as I was posting a blog entry and I need to flip back and forth between the source website and my blog posting form. It was much easier than using two open windows in IE. Bravo.
Several months ago, I saw an article about the FireFox browser, and how it could do “Tabbed browsing”. One of the main things I disliked about Internet Explorer was that in order to see multiple web pages, you have to have multiple windows. Alt-Tab to switch between windows was cumbersome. I tried FireFox and really liked the tabbed browsing. In fact, I installed it on several of my machines. Firefox had several security flaws and updates (as well as IE). After a few weeks, I found that it lacked in other areas, so I gradually stopped using it. I read somewhere that MSN Search was coming out with a new toolbar that would allow Tabbed Browsing, and I saw that it was available here. I installed it and I really like the IE Tabbed browsing feature. I just turned off the Google toolbar, which used Alt-G to get to the search textbox, and now I use Alt-M to get to the MSN search textbox.
Just a few years ago, if you opened multiple Word or Excel documents, or even Outlook email messages, they would all show up as a single “Word” icon in the taskbar and the Alt-Tab dialog I liked this “Multiple Document Interface” . With Word 2003, the default behavior shows each window as a separate item in the Alt-Tab display. You can choose Tools->View and uncheck the “Windows in Taskbar” option to change this behavior. Word documents will then show in one Alt-Tab icon, and the Word Window menu (or Ctrl-F6) allows you to navigate between the open items, including any Outlook email messages currently being composed. (I like to use Word as my Outlook email editor, as well as my blog composition editor)
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Everyone in my house uses Apple computers except for me. By default, I am the tech services guy. Recently I have been installing TIGER on these machines and I have become a bit fan of widgets. Of course, Apple has implemented this functionality really well. For Windows, however, I have found two applications that allow you to add widgets to your screen. One is Konfabulator and the other is Kapsules. I bought Konfabulator. It has got lots of great widgets, but I want one that measures the speed of my broadband connection. Unfortunately, only Kapsules has that widget.
I clipped out some of this article, which I am studying avidly because I want to understand my kids:
While it's important to respect your children's privacy, understanding what your teenager's online slang means and how to decipher could be important in certain situations and as you help guide their online experience. While it has many nicknames, information-age slang is commonly referred to as leetspeek, or leet for short. Leet (a vernacular form of "elite") is a specific type of computer slang where a user replaces regular letters with other keyboard characters to form words phonetically—creating the digital equivalent of Pig Latin with a twist of hieroglyphics.
Leet words can be expressed in hundreds of ways using different substitutions and combinations, but once one understands that nearly all characters are formed as phonemes and symbols, leetspeek isn't difficult to translate. Also, because leet is not a formal or regional dialect, any given word can be interpreted differently, so it's important to use discretion when evaluating terms. The following serves as a brief (and by no means definitive) introduction to leet through examples.
Key points for interpreting leetspeek
| • | Numbers are often used as letters. The term "leet" could be written as "1337," with "1" replacing the letter L, "3" posing as a backwards letter E, and "7" resembling the letter T. Others include "8" replacing the letter B, "9" used as a G, "0" (zero) in lieu of O, and so on. |
| • | Non-alphabet characters can be used to replace the letters they resemble. For example, "5" or even "$" can replace the letter S. Applying this style, the word "leetspeek" can be written as "133t5p33k" or even "!337$p34k," with "4" replacing the letter A. |
| • | Letters can be substituted for other letters that may sound alike. Using "Z" for a final letter S, and "X" for words ending in the letters C or K is common. For example, leetspeekers might refer to their computer "5x1llz" (skills). |
| • | Rules of grammar are rarely obeyed. Some leetspeekers will capitalize every letter except for vowels (LiKe THiS) and otherwise reject conventional English style and grammar, or drop vowels from words (such as converting very to "vry"). |
| • | Mistakes are often left uncorrected. Common typing misspellings (typos) such as "teh" instead of the are left uncorrected or sometimes adopted to replace the correct spelling. |
| • | Non-alphanumeric characters may be combined to form letters. For example, using slashes to create "/\/\" can substitute for the letter M, and two pipes combined with a hyphen to form "|-|" is often used in place of the letter H. Thus, the word ham could be written as "|-|4/\/\." |
"Technology increases the ability of people to share,but will they share more than just technology?",this article in the Economist leads in with.
The economics of sharing
[Smart Mobs]
Microsoft will release a new version of Internet Explorer soon according to the the IE Bloggers. IE7 will come out before Longhorn and the developers insist that they will listen to customers.
If you need to send a large file to someone without using email, you may want to know which are the services and tools that can be used without needing to be a technician or an FTP expert. Using the......
[Robin Good's Latest News]
When we started our blog, we had no idea who would read it except ourselves of course, so we named it Alice and Bill. But now that we're growing and want to expand the coverage to include people who write for us now and then, we were advised to find a new
[Alice and Bill.com]
A meem is a flexible way to describe things that are important to you. imeem provides a way to connect and communicate with friends, family and co-workers. Meems help define ones experience within an imeem network.
[ Thank you Brian ! ]
Analyst Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research writes on February 3 about imeem in his blog :
"You might not have heard of them yet, but you will after next week. They've been in trials for a while now and are going to be at Demo 15 next week. Think about what happens when you combine the concept of IM, social networks, weblogs and the ability to do things like share files and photos with a circle of friends. imeem is all of that... and more."
With a meem, you will be able to:
* Create a private group that represents all of the members of your family.
* Create a page for your favorite garage band, attaching music samples, photos, video, text and web links.
* Create a group that includes your stock broker, accountant and lawyer to share private documents concerning your estate.
* Create a group of friends and/or family in order to share photos without having to upload them to a remote server.
* Create a web log to chronicle your thoughts or experiences, easily attaching documents or media to support your log.imeems Privacy policy
[Smart Mobs]
Every so often, I throw out all my newsfeeds and start again. Lately, I have not been finding items that I want to comment on. For some reason, technology, elearning, and KM content does not seem very original lately. I am not getting the same sense of constant questioning and assertions of new answers. I have, however, enjoyed the conversations about "folksonomies" which I have noted in this blog. Coming from background in which controlled vocabularies were required,I have found the ideas harder than usual to accept, but I am coming around. I think that wehn there is a graphical interface showing the most used terms, folksonomies can work. If I want my content about ireland to be found, I can tag the items or photos with the commonly used terms. I think the laizze fair approach has a lot of merit and it works.
Lately, each night I read my newsfeeds and end up deleting the majority without even following up. Maybe by redoing my list I can become reenergized with the content flowing into my inbox.
I am in the midst of writing an article about collaboration and teamwork. I have lots of experience working with global teams, so I thought that I would share some of my insight. I'd love to get feedback and suggestions, so I am putting a bit of my work in process out for comments, if you wish:
Global competition requires the use of web-based collaboration tools to coordinate the work of distributed teams. Because work gets done at different times, in different places, it needs to be coordinated via tools that easily facilitate the presentation of work in process and promotes the visibility of issues. Working virtually with a team that you rarely, if ever see, is becoming much more common in knowledge-based businesses. Even co-located teams find that shared document libraries, threaded discussions, shared calendars, task lists and archived company communications makes working together on a team more productive.
Despite the obstacles of distance and time, there are techniques that teams can use that make them more productive. There are five technologies that make teams more productive in today's information intensive, computer enabled environment.
- The telephone
- Email
- An electronic workspace designed for collaboration
- Instant Messaging
- Web conferencing
Here is the list of best practices that I have discovered for managing a virtual team. Technology is required for communication, but each the seven practices focuses more on people than on technology.
- Set clear objectives and communicate the objectives to the entire team. Communicate verbally, with powerpoint slides, let the team ask questions and push back on the assumptions and the objectives. Have a note taker record as much of the meeting as possible, noting objections and points that are not clear or require more research. Post all materials discussed in the meeting to a shared workspace. Prepare a list of assignments with a description of the problem that need to be solved. Set a specific date for a follow-up discussion.
- Agree on a set of group norms in a facilitated session. Everyone needs to express how they feel about working electronically. During each meeting there needs to be a process check about how the team is doing using this new mode of work. At the end of every meeting,make a point of asking each individual if they thought the time was productive and if they have any improvement ideas. Each person must respond with feedback.
- Be patient with people who don't speak English. Make sure that all points are understood. Ask people on the team to summarize what they think they have heard so that you can check for misunderstandings and clarify points immediately. Make it a norm that people can stop and ask for clarification.
- Communicate much more frequently to a virtual team than to a co-located team. At a minimum, schedule one long meeting each week, where each individual can talk about their work and can ask questions. Team members need to be prepared for meetings and submit their status reports or work summaries on time. This meeting happens no matter what. If one person can't attend they can send a proxy, but everyone is always represented. You must be very direct on this point. Do process checks to make sure that everyone is listening and onboard.
- Do fun things that help the team learn about each other. One time at the start of a virtual team project. Each location introduced themselves and their office mates via video. They also took pictures out their window and discussed their work life. One of the team members did a simple editing job to combine all the taped interviews. It was shown at each locations team meeting during a predetermined week. Everyone felt very good about meeting their team members around the world.
- Plan developmental activities. Invite a senior executive to the meeting to give their perspective on the business and allow your team to ask them questions. Work on a specific skill set, like negotiation, with the team, give a short presentation and ask for feedback.
- Relationships are so important that scheduling a one on one conversation with each team member once per week is important. It is very easy for people to disconnect from each other when they are physically distant. Communicate often with the team, communicate more frequently with individuals. If there is nothing to talk about, say hi, agree there is no need to talk today and confirm the time for the next scheduled talk.
These are some of my best practices, please comment.
I am a frequent reader of Robin Good's newsletter and website. Today he noted that he has a new colleague contributing to Kolabora.com who has a blog called Red Hot and Wired. If you follow the web, audio, and video conferencing world this is a good resource to link too. Hopefully we will be hearing more from Chris Duncan, the author, now that he has linked up with Robin.
Peterme points to a terrific essay by Adam Mathes titled "Folksonomies - Cooperative Classification and Communication Through Shared Metadata" and sparks a discussion of whether "folksonomy" is a good or right term for the sort of thing that del.icio.us does. I happen to think it's a keeper, but I also like Kirk Scott's "tagsonomy."
[Joho the Blog]
This is an excellent article, well worth reading. I am glad that Robin pointed it out.
In a highly informative nine-page report published today by Technology Review and entitled "What’s Next for Google", technology writer Charles H. Ferguson reports about the likely strategies, possible outcomes and far-reaching risks that the impending battle between Microsoft and Google......
- Desktop Search Matrix
Matrix compares Desktop Search offerings
[hatch.org]
