All posts by Mitch Mitchell

I'm an independent consultant in many fields, so I have a lot to share.
Computing

Microsoft Updates; What The Hey?

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Have you ever taken a look at the Microsoft updates that come to your computer at least once a week? I always take a quick look, although I’m not sure why since, with Vista, it came with the Genuine Advantage thing, so maybe I shouldn’t care what’s being put onto my computer.

But I do look, and most of the time I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. For instance, last night, there were 5 updates awaiting me when I got home:

“Install this update to resolve issues caused by revised daylight saving time and time zone laws in several countries. This update enables your computer to automatically adjust the computer clock on the correct date in 2010.”

Okay, that one I easy understood, since last year they changed the dates for daylight savings time.

“Install this update to improve Internet Explorer 8’s JSON interoperability in conformance with the new ECMAScript, fifth edition standard.”

What the heck does that mean?

“Install this update to resolve issues with non-compatible applications for Windows Vista.”

I’m thinking it would have been nice if they’d told me which issues those were more specifically. Actually, to be fair, they did give a Knowledge Base article number, and if you follow that you see there’s over 200 programs it’s affecting, so maybe I should be glad they didn’t try telling me all of those.

“Both the Meiryo UI font and the Meiryo UI Bold font are included in this update. These new fonts let an application optimally display Kana characters in the Ribbon UI component and in other parts of the user interface, especially in areas where text area is limited.”

Part of me realizes I have a new font; not sure if I’m supposed to use it or not. The rest of it; no clue.

“Install this update to resolve issues caused by manifest expiration in AD RMS enabled applications. This update will fix any existing issues in addition to addressing any future application manifest expirations.”

Once again, huh? Even my spell check freaked out on that one.

Part of me gets it; these tekkie guys are trying to tell us something. They might have well written most of it in Sanskrit if you ask me. Maybe they should just say “download this update; you don’t want to know”, and being the sheep we are, we’ll just accept it and move on. It’s about as clear to us if they do that as what they’re telling us now.

I’m just feeling so stupid and inadequate now; I need cake.
 

Blogging

Why Do You Revisit Some Blogs And Not Others?

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This is a relatively short post, especially coming from me. It’s a simple question; why do you revisit some blogs and not others?

I’ll answer this one first, though I know few people do what I do. I subscribe to around 200 blogs. I’ve been eliminating some over the past month or so because either they weren’t giving me what I needed anymore or their frequency was getting on my nerves. When I talk frequency, I mean posting once every month or longer; I’d already gotten rid of blogs that had 5 to 10 posts a day, as I realized that wasn’t just one person doing all the writing, and there was just no way to keep up with that kind of input.

I’ve also been deleting more blogs that use Disque or Intense Debate, as well as more Blogger blogs. If I’m not going to comment, and your content isn’t compelling enough to keep me reading where I want to comment, it’s time for you to go.

And yet, I’m still around 200. So, what keeps me going to them consistently? Each one of these blogs writes about something that interests me. Each one of these blogs has writers who are giving me something new and different and compelling and educational. They make me feel good, or they make me think, or they give me information I can use. I want that info, and I want to make sure I know where to go so I can receive it. So, I subscribe, and I enjoy.

No one hits a home run every time out; heck, I know I have some posts that get almost no one looking at it. Sometimes I wonder why, but other times I figure I’m just going to continue going for it because, after all, it’s all about writing and sharing and asking questions for me. And I truly am thankful to those of you who come back and check out what I have to say from time to time. I even appreciate those of you who pop in once then leave; at least you gave me a shot.

So, what keeps you going back to certain blogs for more?

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Personal

What Do We Expect For Free?

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A few days ago I saw a comment on another blog’s posting that made me start thinking about this concept of the word “free”.

It was a fairly innocuous comment stating to the writer of the blog that he would have liked to see a little bit more information on some of what she was sharing with all of us to get her insight as to why she was recommending some things that she was recommending. I wrote back that I thought she was giving us a lot already and that I was at least happy for all the time that she was putting into giving us what she was giving us.

However, it got me thinking about it just a bit more because I realized that there are times when I am like everybody else in expecting a little bit more than what I’m getting from something even if it happens to be free. There were a few people who made comments on a review post I wrote on Six Figure Blogger Blueprint wishing that the author had given us a little bit more detail on how to specifically do something, and I remember thinking at the time “hey, it’s free, what do we want?” And yet, when I think about it, there are a lot of things that I get for free online that I’ll write about.

For instance, I’m running a WordPress blog. There are times when I’m complaining about something, such as those constant updates that seem to irritate most of us, and every once in a while I remember that this is a free program. There are a couple of other things I’ve written about that I absolutely hate, such as Disqus, Intense Debate and Blogger, but when you think about it those things are free also. Of course, I’ve chosen not to use any of those things, and instead pay for my hosting and my blog, and don’t filter my comments using either of those other two things I mentioned or anything else, but it’s not much different than just openly complaining about something that’s free.

What should we really expect from “free”? Should we expect that everything we get for free give us full details as if we were paying for it? I’m thinking that’s what blogs are for, because there are a lot of us who give a lot of information out to people absolutely free. I think I’ve done some tutorials on this blog and one of my other blogs on how to do things step by step, and yet I don’t get paid for any of those things. I don’t mind that because it’s a blog after all, and I like sharing information whenever I can. At the same time, you notice over there on the left that I have three things that I’ve created, and each one of them also has some step-by-step information that I am expecting someone to pay for if they want that information.

Here’s the thing about “free”. “Free” still takes a lot of time to create. Whereas I can write a blog post usually in less than five minutes, there are people who take upwards of an hour or more to put together a blog post. How many of you have actually written a book? How many of you have actually written a report of some kind outside of school work? These things do take time to put together, especially if someone is trying to do a good job. If they do it like I do anything, they probably start off with an outline, then a brief sketch as to what each outline point is supposed to contain, then they write or create the thing, then they edit the thing, then they might take the time to pretty it up somewhat before it’s ready for delivery. I’m bad when it comes to the “pretty up” part, but I’m not so bad at the rest of it.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t have the right to have some kind of expectation that what we are either going to use or read at least in some fashion addresses the topic we’re hoping it does. Getting something free and finding out it has nothing to do with what it said it did is diversionary and sneaky, and that’s not right. But for everything else, I think we have the right to try it out, and if it works for us or we can get something out of it then great. If we can’t get anything out of it or it doesn’t work right, then at least it didn’t cost us anything and we should probably be happy for that. It doesn’t mean that something free can’t be criticized, but it does mean that the level of criticism should match how much it cost us.

It’s just something I’ve been thinking about over the past few days as I remembered something I had written a while back ago asking the question How Do You Value. How do we decide when something we get for free is valuable even if it doesn’t give us everything we want?

Social Media

Twit Cleaner

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What, another Twitter related thing? Yes indeed, but man, this is another great one.

The Twit Cleaner is an online program that will analyze every person you’re following and tell you things about them that you may not have been paying attention to. For instance, when it ran through mine, it told me who sends out only links and never engages with anyone, who sends mainly spam messages, who hasn’t been around for awhile, who’s not following you, and a couple other things.

Once you’re done, you have the chance to go through the list, determine who you want to keep following, and then, if you’re following fewer than 2,000 people, you can click the button and it will start unfollowing people. It’s careful not to unfollow everyone at once, as I guess it worries about triggering a Twitter reaction of some kind, but eventually it will eliminate all the folks you tell it to.

In my case, it highlighted 378 people I was following as actionable, and I decided to save fewer than 10 of those folks. So, at some point my follow number will be reduced by 368 folks, people who won’t even know I’ve dropped them since Twit Cleaner basically said they don’t interact with me anyway.

This is crucial, and it’s great. A major lament has been that social media hasn’t proven to be all that social, and you’ve seen me gripe about it often enough. The way Twitter had it set up, it would have taken me hours to go through my list and weed out many of these people. This is great, and I’m happy to share it with y’all.

The Twitter Book

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Social Media

Four Square

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Man, I feel so old!

There’s a new site that seemed perfectly suited to today’s “tell all” social media crowd. This one is called Four Square, and it’s basic purpose is to let people know where you are. You can link it into Twitter so folks can follow you around to see where you’re going or where you’ve been during the day. People can then visit to see exactly where you are, and they can comment on it if they so choose.

The principles seem to be twofold. One, it allows people to share with their friends where they are in case they want to stop by. Two, it gives a little bit of advertisement to the places where folks are. Here’s an example of how it works. Someone posted on Twitter that they were in Clinton Square, here in the Syracuse area. Here’s the link to what comes up. As you can see, it looks like a miniature Google Map, and there’s one person who’s commented on it, though a week ago so she obviously didn’t see who the person was who posted the link. However, I saw the link on Twitter, so I know who posted it and at what time they posted it as well.

Here’s the part about feeling old. I can’t imagine posting where I am at any point during the day, unless it was a major get together. For instance, if I were at a tweetup with a lot of other Twitter people and we wanted more people to come, I might post that. But if I were going to a meeting, I wouldn’t tell anyone because it’s not their business. Today I saw people who sent their Four Square message when they went downtown, to the special outdoor hockey game, to Winterfest (something I’ve never gone to in all the years I’ve lived here), to get their nails done, to a couple of different restaurants… that’s as far as I’ve reached thus far, though I figure as I get through a few more messages I’ll see more. Maybe this is tied again into this thing I have about being tracked, but I just can’t imagine it.

Still, it’s something to share for those of you who might feel inclined to want people to know where you are all the time. Frankly, I’m thinking you could just save time and implant a tracking device under your arm. lol

The Space Saving Air Hockey Table.

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