I'm finding Martin's 43 folders immensely helpful in getting a better handle on David Allen's Getting Things Done. This post is one good example of understanding what Allen is talking about.

Next actions: Both physical and visible. If your “next action” is not both physical and visible, it's probably really a _project_. [43 Folders]

11:10:29 PM •  • comment  

I first used a timesharing computer in 1973 in a summer job with the old McDonnell Douglas. It was a Xerox SDS machine. My terminal was an old Teletype 33. This is a fascinating account from one of the early inventors in the field.

"I still don't understand where all the computer time goes in time-sharing installations, and neither does anyone else." -- John McCarthy, 1983 (Of course, the state of the art has advanced considerably since then; now we don't even know where the compute time goes in single-user workstations.) [Hack the Planet]

11:05:36 PM •  • comment  

I've got an old IBM Thinkpad available. With a little rearranging in the study, this could be a worthwhile investment.

Multiple Monitors - put that extra laptop to use.

MaxiVista is out with their new 1.5 version.  This new version has a few bug fixes, but also supports up to THREE secondary displays via three other PCs.  If you've got other laptops or Tablets around, you've GOT to try MaxiVista.  Don't confuse it with ShareKMC or VNC. 

This is a SOFTWARE DISPLAY ADAPTER that shows up in your Display Properties.  Treat it like any other monitor. Here's my setup. It's pure sex.

[ComputerZen.com - Scott Hanselman's Weblog]

10:47:05 PM •  • comment  

Another convert to full text feeds. Perfect timing from my perspective as I've just started following Wil's site. I've also just started reading Just a Geek, which looks like it will be fun

full text rules!.

After several conversations at Gnomedex with geeks who are better at being geeks than I am, I've decided to put the full text of all my posts into my XML feed from now on.

I guess I hadn't done this in the past because I wanted people to actually visit my site, but I don't care about traffic any more. Now I just want people to enjoy what I write, in whatever format they prefer, including offline newsreaders.

In a related story, thanks for all the advice about newsreaders. I've been fooling around with Sage for the last few hours . . . the "discover feeds" thing is a killer app, man.

[WIL WHEATON dot NET: Where is my mind?]

10:38:26 PM •  • comment  

Thank you Judith for the reminder and pointer to an excellent resource. If we're going to be serious about doing knowledge management in whatever flavor we happen to believe in (personal, corporate, or otherwise), then we need to stay grounded in the work that has come before us.

I'm reminded of an old software engineering quote that I can't track down this minute since I'm blogging this on the train. I do remember that it was in the Proceedings of the 1968 NATO conference on software engineering, which shows you the kind of useless stuff that clutters up my head. Anyway, the quote was something along the following lines:

"Unlike Einstein, who observed that if he had seen farther than others it was because he had stood on the shoulders of giants, in the field of software engineering, we have mostly been standing on each other's feet."

Something to keep in mind if we hope to make some progress in a world far more complicated than the one that existed in Einstein's day, or even in 1968.

sveiby knowledge management....

Old news to many but quite possibly new news to some--here is a link for your KM Library.

Karl Erik Sveiby--the principal of a global network of consultants, and a professor in Knowledge Management at the Swedish Business School Hanken in Helsinki--very generously supplies an online library of his earlier works, many of which are out of print.

This library also contains some of his favorite articles by other authors.

Check out the 90+ well-organized links available in his Sveiby Knowledge Management library.

[judith meskill's knowledge notes...]

5:37:19 PM •  • comment  

If we manage to survive the next few years, this may prove to be the most important news of 2004.

Historic Space Exploration Event.

CNN: SpaceShipOne captures X Prize. SpaceShipOne climbed into space for the second time in a week to claim the $10 million Ansari X Prize. X Prize officials said the privately funded craft reached 368,000 feet -- well into space -- Monday to win the $10 million prize.

A wonderful day for space buffs, and humanity. People will soon leave this planet, to live permanently in space and on other worlds, and this achievement is one huge step along that path. (Image thumbnail by Dexter and Southfield Schools, via CNN) [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

1:22:18 PM •  • comment  

Now here is a linking policy I can get behind. It is, forwith, the linking policy at McGee's Musings.

Boing Boing has a linking policy. Cory Doctorow: After years of making fun of "linking policies" that set out the terms under which a website can be linked to, Boing Boing has decided to create a linking policy of our own. Here it is -- now, abide by it!

Boing Boing doesn't believe in linking policies. They're dangerous, have no basis in law, and they break the norms that make the Web possible. They're a wicked, stupid idea.

That said, if you believe in linking policies -- that is, if you believe that people who make websites should be able to control who links to those sites and how -- then have we got a policy for you:

No site with a linking policy (other than a policy such as this one, created to deride and undermine the idea of linking policies) may link to Boing Boing. Ever.  [Boing Boing]

12:02:41 PM •  • comment  

Once again, John Perry Barlow cuts to the heart of the matter. Here's the core of it, although the whole thing is worth your time and attention:

Right here, right now, somewhere over the Atlantic, I'm having a moment of clarity. I realize the obvious. I realize that, along with a lot of other people, I have fallen prey to the peculiar American frailty which has given us so many bad presidents. I refer to our national tendency to treat presidential elections as though we were all high-schoolers choosing a Prom King.

Thus, when it comes to qualifying for the American Presidency, a grating accent can be a bigger political liability than a record of homicidally misguided policies. Being inconsistent is a greater personal failing than being consistently, doggedly, disastrously wrong. Being dorky is more damning than being dictatorial.

We all need to get a grip and quickly. Whatever it has been traditionally, this Presidential race should not be a personality contest. I say this as much to myself to myself as I do to you. I have to snap out of it and remember we are not electing our new best friend here. We were electing a set of ideologies, cultural predispositions, policies, practices, and beliefs - many of them religious - that may literally affect the fate of life on earth. And one thing I will say for George Bush, he has disabused me of my old belief that it doesn't really matter who's President. [Barlow Friendz]

8:39:37 AM •  • comment