Two Slashes

I think it’s been somewhere around two or three weeks since I got my Twitter account.  And since then, I’ve either found that people already have an account and are more than happy to follow me (especially the fine folk in #hak5…), or they don’t (most commonly because they don’t have a clue what it is or see a point).

So perhaps it’s within reason for me to clarify A) what Twitter is and B) why, even though it’s intended to show off what you’re doing, it’s nothing to do with your typical social networking status.

So, first things, first…what is Twitter?  In the service’s own words:

What is it?
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Bloggers can use it as a mini-blogging tool. Developers can use the API to make Twitter tools of their own. Possibilities are endless!

While this might be the “official” response, I think it’s a little skewed from what actually goes on “inside the club”.  If I had to write their blurb, it would probably read something more like this:

What is it?
Twitter allows groups of interconnected individuals to share their thoughts, actions, discoveries, and other [Internet-based] content they might find interesting.  The uses of Twitter extend from the occasional mini-blog post to a more flexible and involving alternative to RSS feeds, to even providing a platform for publicly-interactive applications.

(I know, I should be their press writer.)  Anyway, most of the outsiders (like Justin here) see the post field (with the 140-character limit), the extensive lists of previous posts (called “tweets” in Twitterese), and the equivalent to “friending” someone and instantly see it as a glorified Facebook status.  While that may be what the original intention was, the platform has quickly expanded into a monster of its own.

Perhaps what sets Twitter apart from my usual definition of statuses is that it has become more interactive, more like an ongoing, open-air conversation.  For example, the public timeline is like walking through a crowded room and catching glimpses of conversations.  Naturally, something’s going to pique your interest at some point, and it’s then and there that you can investigate further.  Yes, there are the people who announce that they’re going to pilates, but you also get a group of people who respond to each other.  Did you just share a link?  Well, perhaps @someone found it useful and has a recommendation for you too.

When you compare the two, MySpace, Facebook, and the other typical networks are all about drawing your circle in the sand, and inviting all of your friends to step inside; if you’re not in the circle, you’re not worth listening to and your opinions are irrelevant.  Twitter, Jaiku, and some of the other alternatives erase that circle; yes, you can surround yourself with your friends, but at the end of the day, there are plenty of other (usually friendly) people who can hear you…and you can hear them too.

And I didn’t even get into the expandability aspect yet.  Sure, Facebook lets you update via text message, but I haven’t seen any really interesting applications that integrate so nicely as some of the Twitter applications do.  Seriously, will Facebook let you know about your packages?  And some people find it a rather adaptable alternative to RSS feeds; no reader (or associated configuration) required, it’s accessible anywhere you are, and you still get the notifications about what’s new at your favorite site you’re looking for.  (If you’re a Twitter user, you might have noticed that sometimes I plug TechCentric or my new posts from here…same idea.)

You can blame Web 2.0 for even coming up with an idea along the lines of Twitter.  But even if the idea isn’t catchy to you, apparently it was to the bigwigs considered to be the forefront of all things tech, like Leo Laporte or Kevin Rose, or any of the newer media faces.  And you know what mob mentality is like…

Unfortunately, even I think I sound like a raving lunatic.  Call it my effort to make myself universally accessible, whatever you like, but I really recommend that you at least try it out.  The service is free, and if anything else…you can follow me.

So, I’ve finally put in a good half hour’s work and cleaned out some of the dust from SkipTo.  I’ve got more things coming (including something I have desperately needed to add to Rolling Paper), but I figured some activity and an update as a show of good faith might do me more than some random post.

So, I present to you the improved (slightly revised might be a better way of putting it) SkipTo, v0.1 revision 38.  It has all the fun you’ve come to know and love, plus the following new tidbits:

• Slightly (and I mean slightly) more efficient display updating (and a “Why didn’t I think of this before?” reaction)
• New search method:  You can now select from the typical (and still default) “Linear” search, where SkipTo looks for shortcuts that start with your entry, or the “Full-Body”, where you can type any part of a shortcut, and all matches will be displayed in alphabetical order.

If you want it, grab it from the usual place in the Software section.

I’ve been a longtime user and fan of GrandCentral.  Being me, the ability to make sure that one phone number means near-constant contact is a very enticing one.  And the way Grand Central’s set up, it also works well as a privacy-protection number – you can let people reach you if you want, or forward them somewhere else if you don’t.

However, GrandCentral has one inherent flaw that I’m consistently running into when I hand the number out to people I know:  It only handles phone communication.  For a number that you’re supposed to hand out instead of your cell phone number (or any other number), it’s rather difficult to use that number for anything that isn’t strictly voice-based communications.  In other words…you can’t send or receive text messages with it.  In this day and age of people text-messaging and e-mailing each other from mobile devices left and right, it really kills the whole point of a forwarding number if it doesn’t forward everything with it – therefore leaving people like myself having to hand out the numbers we are “wrapping” with the GrandCentral number out to the people who need to get in touch with other ways.

GrandCentral has also been stagnant over the past few months following their acquisition by Google.  There are no invitations, so the only way to get an account is to reserve a number and pray that they admit you at some point.  Again, this is a bit of a deal-killer; for someone attempting to promote an open and free service, it’s really difficult for me to believe that without seeing any form of action taken.

I hate to be so negative, because from the inside, the service has been great (other than that “completeness” thing).  But if they really hope to get users, they need to start moving, open up to new users, and bring something new to the table.  Otherwise, they’ll get swallowed up in the vast sea of web services waiting to help people keep in touch.

I came across a video purportedly demonstrating some of the new features of Windows 7 that Microsoft’s been working on.  While this early in the development cycle, such videos should be met with questions and belief in deceptive and mockups of what people would WANT, I figured it was worth a few moments of my time to discuss it.

For your convenience, the video is embedded below:

Now that you’ve seen what we’re expected to be using in just a while, perhaps it’s time to point out that absolutely none of this is revolutionary or breathtaking, or even a big step up from what’s available now.  If anything, all they’ve done is take the hard work and brilliant ideas of others, and besmeerch them with an Arial Black Microsoft logo.

Windows Explorer
Browsing for files in a paned/tabbed system navigator is not even remotely new.  Konqueror, Dolphin, and countless other utilities have been doing this for ages.  And there are add-ins available for Windows XP.  Nothing new to see here.

FTP Locations
How many times around the track does it take for you to realize that this is a feature of Windows already?

Now, Microsoft:  Where would you like to go today?  Because I’d like to go somewhere where the featureset of your operating system isn’t yesterday’s news to everyone else.

…Wait, you seriously thought I was kidding?

Keyboard Shortcuts
This may be new to Windows users who don’t want to use remapping utilities, but other platforms have had this for a while.  The one I can think of off the top of my head is the K Desktop Environment, which is extremely lenient and flexible when it comes to setting things like this.  On the other hand, this is also one of those features that permits standardization to fly right out the window.  Just wait until Great Aunt Cecil remaps all the keys to Shutdown and wonders why the manual telling her Ctrl-P to Print instead powers off her machine.  Perhaps this should come with a safety warning.

Screen Animation & Capture
The video portion of this, if true, is at least a long time in coming.  But they’re only integrating the tools many people use and reuse daily (Camtasia, FRAPS, etc.), and I highly doubt they’re even going to consider it for use in anything more than a basic desktop capture (i.e. no games or really-hardware-accelerated functions).

Disk Usage Analyzer
Pardon me while I clear my throat here; to have the nerve of pushing this as new is pushing it.  It’s been done…a lot better and with a more helpful visualization than a pie chart.  (Anyone notice that smell?  Smells like burning pie to me…and I think it’s coming from the Redmond campus.)

Task Manager
The only thing new I see here is that someone’s finally harnessed the power of Netstat in a convenient graphical interface.  Though, they’re definitely a bit late in this respect.

Virtual Drive
Need I say more than, “Daemon Tools and Alcohol, noobified?”

Website, Blog, and Portal Designer
Excuse me, but why is there a copy of Expressions in my operating system?  Shouldn’t that be something extra?

Seriously now, I can’t wait until people actually start using that…you can tell who the inexperienced are by their use of one of a few dozen stock header images and designs that probably say “Microsoft” in more ways than there are calendar days in a year.

Coming Soon…

• Image Conversion – Image conversion.  We’re spending all our time and money on image conversion.  Because Grandma can’t use the software that came with her digital camera to do it.  Or because it’s a part of several other operating systems and work environments.  Take your pick, because either way it’s still lame to me.
• Document Conversion – I love how ‘document’ can be so vague as to encompass anything and everything all at once.  Does this mean Windows might actually be able to open OpenOffice files?  Doubt it, unless you want to install the third-party filter.
• PDF Conversion – Wait, doesn’t this one smell like a royalty fee?  Has Adobe approved this?
• Password Manager – This one I can understand, but it’s also nothing new.  KDE has Wallet (which IE had something similar to), OS X and GNOME have keychains, and other password managers have their “acceptable alternative metaphor” to a Post-it note in a wallet.

I know I should be taking everything in that video with a grain of salt, but I can’t stand unoriginality in something like this.  Vista was just catchup for OS X (and a failed attempt at that, too…heh)…now it looks like Windows 7 is slated just to move Microsoft’s operating systems division into something resembling the early 2000s…most likely after 2011.  Oh well, at least it’ll give me more time to enjoy my eXPerience.