Paper Boy (Project Dimes)

Here’s an idea.

  1. A little system tray program that retrieves contextual information. There could be many different paper boys, or chuck all functionality into one.
  2. Used for tracking Real Estate Properties, both Rental and Sales.
  3. Used for tracking Blogs, real-time alerts when someone updates their blog.

Notes:

Couldn’t possibly be any good trying to mash together everything. Needs clarity.

The Real Estate one is good. People can use this little satellite app to store and search for the Property types they are looking for.

The app will store all results, in some way.

When I’m Older ..

.. I want to be content.

"There’s an old man sitting next to me, Making love to his tonic and gin."

There’s a boatload of dreams in my head. Visions of what could be. Great and powerful deeds, fame and fortune.

But if I get to an age where I’m pretty much "old", then I’d like Contentment to be one of my defining character traits.

When I no longer have the strength of body to attempt wrestling my kids or grandkids. When my eyes fade and make reading harder than all get-out. When my youthful good looks (ha ha) become masterful lines of wisdom.

More, when I have to face the idea that I won’t be able to achieve the Dreams that are still Dreams ..

.. Then I want to be content.

School Homework Server (Project Dimes)

Here’s an idea.

  1. A school could set up the server, and students can log in, submit their work, and actually do research etc.
  2. More, they could create timelines, add their own "wikis", put together the tagging system for projects.
  3. In building Research for a History assignment, there could be a school-wide tag-cloud-relationship system that can be used. They can add to this, possibly.

Notes:

Needs refinement. The idea. But is a better contextual use of a file management system than just a .. file management system.

The idea is mainly to build up the school’s resources, and allow students easy access to these resources.

Quitting Diet Coke, Again

It’s happening again. Easy to tell. When a cold and delicious can of Diet Coke makes you more tired than before, then you know .. it’s time.

So here I am, a night and a day in. Almost 24 hours.

Things get a little more depressing. Obviously there are similarities going clean to drugs I imagine. Most people can agree you get addicted to caffiene.

But right now, in the midst of the needle and dagger and six-foot two-hander stuck in my eye, things seem especially low.

Diet Coke.

Clarion Folk Comments, Intense Debate

For a few weeks now Clarion Folk has been using a new Comment web service, Intense Debate (This review for the WordPress flavour, as that’s what I use).

It’s good. That’s my kudos meter-reading at the moment.

intense001-thumb

There is a lot to like. They take care of comments, they give you stats, they’ve got plugins to call on the blog (e.g. Recent Comments), and it’s all bundled into a very easy to use interface.

intense004

(Some of the Stats you can get with Intense Debate)

 

In the above image you’ll see some of the stats available. Clarion Folk doesn’t have a lot of comments, but take a look at a couple of the posts, and you’ll see that what the community lacks in quantity it makes up for in crazy .. ahem. I mean quality.

Although I’m just using Intense Debate for one blog, they are really trying to hit a multiple blog, global-wide audience. Some of the functionality is only really useful if you have more than one blog running Intense Debate, and if you comment on other blogs running Intense Debate.

I really hope they can get some momentum. It’s a good service.

It’s a service, which means WordPress (or whatever engine you are using to power your blog/site) will make a server call or two. These slow down the site for a little while, but it’s nothing too bad. And really, that’s not a complaint you can lay at the door of Intense Debate. It comes with the territory, at least to some extent.

Anyway, kudos to Intense Debate! I like what they are doing.

intense003-thumb

One more thing, before I forget. Support is stellar!

They are using a forum service known as Get Satisfaction. It seems fast enough, and has a few nifty response options. Social Network/Media geared.

But above this, I have found the actual level of support (from a particular fellow by the name of Michael, look see) to be fantastic.

So thank you to Intense Debate for you work.

Any readers who blog, take a gander. Actually, comment here! I’d love to hear some feedback as to how you find the commenting.

Time Management (Project Dimes)

Here’s an idea.

It’s based around a Time (and Project) Management understanding.

  1. Not your normal management system. The main point of this web server is to get people to actually note down what they have done for the day.
  2. It will monitor the times they have logged in.
  3. It will send reminders out at set times.
  4. For each day, the User logs in and inserts a new record. They give: Start Time, End Time, Projects Worked On (String, autocomplete, maybe del.icio.us type functionality), point form description of work done for the day.

Notes:

Not sure how reliable this would be. The System’s "police-ing" functionality can only go so far.

But it would make people think through what they have done. And management can get all the good stats, be able to see people’s frequency, _when_ they are entering their times.

Clarion Sharper By The Minute, Linq Support

I’m never sure what to do when Bob Z drops a bit of info in to me. Whether to blog it, hit the newsgroups, jump on skype.

See, I get a little nervous. Why? Because I can hear the cries of angst and trouble.

"Why aren’t they concentrating on bugs?"

"When is the AppGen done?"

"What is GTA IV doing in the SV office?"

Here goes.

Support for Linq (MS Site, and Wikipedia) is being added to Clarion#.

I like this. Means we’ve got another enticement to grow the community, and another facet that strengthens our competitive advantage.

At least, that’s how I see it.