be the change you want to see in the world

Testing moblogging clients…got photos working…u*Blog client on Palm OS 5.4 is the one I like the best. Vagablog works well too. If you know of any others, please let me know.

Digital convergence. The buzzphrase has been around for a long time. Steve Jobs is at the cusp of making it real in the entertainment industry, and is starting to make moves that bring his intentions into clearer focus. With the recent revelations about the new iPod interface, the idea of digital convergence suddenly struck me like a bolt of Pixar lightening. Having a clickwheel appear on the touch-sensitive LCD screen of an iPod with a full face display is a great idea. Bigger screen. No need for mechanical input. Brilliant. What next? Here’s what’s next: Read more

Run, doggie. Run like the wind. Run from all the madness.

Show dog goes missing at JFK airport

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — A dog that won an award at the Westminster Kennel Club show this week escaped from its cage at John F. Kennedy International Airport, setting off a search.

The whippet broke free at about noon Wednesday, said Tiffany Townsend, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs area airports.

Port Authority police were working with its owners to search the area where planes arrive and depart, she said. The airport, in Queens, covers more than 4,900 acres.

Owner Jil Walton told the Daily News that she feared for the dog’s life. Vivi, a brown-and-white whippet, was headed to California after the nation’s most prestigious dog show.

“When it’s cold she’s not happy,” Walton told the newspaper. “She’s a skinny little thing and I don’t know if she’ll make it. That’s what’s killing me.”

Barbara Nyby, a member of the American Whippet Club in California, said the dog won an award of merit at Westminster. The dog’s formal moniker is Bohem C’est La Vie.

The dog had been booked on a Delta Air Lines Inc. flight. Atlanta-based Delta said it was working with local authorities to retrieve the animal.

More than 2,600 dogs were entered in the show at Madison Square Garden, including 25 whippets, a short-haired athletic dog similar to a greyhound. Best in Show went to Rufus, a colored bull terrier with an egg-shaped head.

Much groaning has been heard about the clunky moniker “Web 2.0.” The label tries to encompass a range of technologies, approaches and insights about how to make the web more relevant, timely, interactive and interconnected. Hot technologies like blogging, podcasting, videocasting, RSS and others form the core of the larger phenomenon. But slapping a 2.0 thing on the end of something to denote newness is such a 90’s thing to do. It’s lame. It’s over. Period. Need a new signifier.

How to give it new name? Well, just look right in front of your nose. The current decade is driven by “i” consciousness. The ubiquitous prefix is popularized by the hottest company of the decade: Apple Computer. Apple is right at the centre of this personalized, individual-driven phenomenon. iTunes. iPod. iPhoto. iDisk. iEverything from Apple’s marketing division…you think they are stupid? They are on to something. Duh.

The “i” means “I” as in individual contribution, individual taste and individual expression. The medium has shifted and grown to allow for this to happen. Examples of this are many. Comments, ratings, playlists, photosharing, blogging, podcasting…too many to mention.

The new technologies are about allowing “i” to have a say. So, iWeb. That’s what Apple calls their new web publishing utility, but so what? They are going to object? We should steal it.

Obviously another meaning of the “i” is “Interactive”. The new web is truly interactive and dynamic, allowing people and groups to communicate instantly via technologies like RSS and Atom. A change on one website has an immediate ripple effect across the self-aware, interactive web.

There is a movement in web design that fits with the “i” revolution as well. “i” is for Intuitive Interface. Design is getting better. The focus of a website is now starting to emerge via several ubiquitous idiomatic elements of design.

The irony of all this - and this is where “i” makes even more sense - is that the older element in the equation, the Internet, was all about Web 2.0 before there was a web. Think about it. The Web really stifled the Internet. The Internet was all about collaboration and sharing before the web came along. Technologies like Usenet, BBS, freenets and e-mail ruled the early days of the Internet. These were deeply interactive and communicative technologies, albeit green letters slowly rendering across a black background (unless you had a nice terminal emulation application that let you spice things up). And it happened long before CERN came up with the Web.

CERN froze the Internet in its tracks while simultaneously making the world stop and stare at the pretty colors of inline links and images. We had a telephone and we suddenly shifted back to smoke signals. It was like a busy little ant getting caught in a big dollop of honey. Mmmm tasty…uh oh. Stuck. Static websites were informative and pretty, but that was the end of the story. Database-driven websites were an improvement. Comments came along and started the idea that people might like to participate, and the rest is history. Faast forward to iWeb.

The fact is the Web has only now finally caught up with the Internet. So iWeb makes sense.

“i” stands for “I”

“i” stands for “Interactive”

“i” stands for “Intutive Interface”

“i” stands for “Internet”

iWeb.

Let’s just call it that.

Wayne should stay home for this trip. It won’t make an iota of difference. The team will still be hounded from Quinn down to the waterboy by the internation media, as will other teams with NHL players. The media will win this tournament. Everyone else, from the fans to the players to the NHL, will lose. That’s my prediction.

On the other hand, if Wayne does go, and it appears he has, he may draw flies away from the team. Just like he did with his comments in Salt Lake about how other countries like to see Canada lose. With Wayne there, he make stop the players and coaches from being bombarded. So Wayne should go…I think. I dunno. What do you think?