Replacing Flickr
Chad on www.flickr.com
Yahoo’s lack of innovation is one thing, but what really drives me bonkers about Flickr is the terrible video support. Maybe 1 in 10 of my video uploads are successful. I take a lot of short vids on my iPhone and even on my 60D I think they should be viewed within context, alongside the still photos that were taken at the same time. Isn’t that the whole point of having video capability on your digital camera? To enhance the still photo viewing experience with sound and motion? The video problem became so frustrating that I have begun the hunt for a Flickr replacement.
Social Network Audit
After posting my Google+ rant on Google+ I thought more about what kinds of social networking services I use, and how many I have abandoned in the past. I put them all together in the graphic above, separated into three groups (from top to bottom): Currently using (frequency from Left to Right); Infrastructure and Deadpool.
Current
Twitter is my most used network. Tumblr powers my blog. I upload to Flickr often, where I share private photos & vids of my babies with friends and family. I use Zite for social news (I used Summify before it got acquired, Percolate and News.Me never worked out). I keep up with a lot of stuff through Twitter or podcasts. The next set of SNSs are for tracking: books, movies, music, bookmarks and locations/food/meetings (Path). Then there are a couple for pure entertainment. Finally, there are the functional networks (and Google+).
Infrastructure
These are basically the services that I use without really knowing it. Flavors powers my site. I do upload the occasional video to Vimeo, but mostly it is used for viewing vids that people share to me. YouTube is exclusively for watching. IMDB is now used just for reference (I log all the films I watch with Letterboxd). Gravatar and Disqus are useful social utilities.
Deadpool
Some of these I tried and disliked, some lost out to competitors higher up in the graphic, and the rest are great but I trimmed to simplify my social networking life. As you can see, a number of services have fallen by the wayside.
Believe it or not, I have been trying to cut down on my digital attention deficit disorder. I have been pretty successful with iPhone apps. One obvious way to cut down on the number of SNSs I use is to use Facebook with a number of apps. But… still too creepy for me.
Two networks on which I have accounts but remain undecided are 500px and Diaspora. I have flirted with the former simply out of frustration with Yahoo’s lack of vision for Flickr; the latter I joined during the whole Facebook revolution of 2010. I shelved it when Google+ came out, but I am thinking about taking a look at it again. It looks like they have come a long way.
It is a valuable exercise to periodically audit different aspects of your life, and simplify where you can. Obviously “simplification” is a relative term, but it is something we can all strive for, and can lead to more happiness. To make this blog post even more pretentious, I will end with a video from an inspiring TED talk entitled Less stuff, more happiness.
What if the phone company gave you free unlimited phone calls but they could record, monitor and sell your phone calls and information about what you said on them.
Anil Dash in a conversation about How do blogs need to evolve?.
This is such as great analogy for — ahem — certain free Internet services.
Warner Bros: You are doing it wrong
The wife got me the Harry Potter: The Complete 8-Film Collection boxed (17 discs) set for our anniversary. Yes, well, she got me Lord of the Rings for another anniversary, so it is already well established that she married a total geek. Besides, it is a great present and I hope to enjoy all of the films and books with both of my daughters. I know it is only DVD, but I don’t own a BluRay player, and I do everything digital anyways. So I was excited to see that the boxed set included digital downloads! But not so fast… Take a look at this fine print:
DIGITAL COPY: Includes Standard Definition Digital Copy™ of the film with the purchase of this disc. Special Features not included. … Not compatible with iTunes or with Macintosh and iPod devices. Consumer must reside in Japan and have a broadband internet connection and a DVD-ROM drive. * Mobile Requirements: Digital copy access on mobile phones limited to supported phones using Docomo as a mobile service provider. … PC Requirements: Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or later or Windows® Vista or Windows® 7, Internet Explorer® 6.0 or above. Windows Media® Player most recent version, Adobe® Flash® Player most recent version, and Adobe® AIR™ most recent version.
Boy, that last couple of lines is packed full of exciting software that I want to install on my computer [/sarcasm].
Anyways I only have my MacBook Air here in Japan so with no disc drive it doesn’t look like I will be able to get any of the digital versions. Besides, when you go to Warner on Demand Digital copy website there are a number of other restrictions including:
※Digital CopyのダウンロードはInternet Explorerで行ってください。他のブラウザでは正常にライセンスが発行できませんので、ご了承ください。
Yes, digital downloads require Internet Explorer. Apparently they cannot license [the content properly through] other browers thank you for your understanding. (#bullshit)
I know it has all been said before. Hollywood needs to be disrupted, and not just the distribution part of the business. This is such a terrible, terrible experience. I am glad there are alternatives, but it is a sad way to treat paying customers.
“Because the biggest producers of content on the Internet are not Google and Yahoo — they’re us – we’re the ones getting policed. The real threat to the enactment of PIPA and SOPA is our ability to share things with one another.”
-Clay Shirky, in his “emergency” TED talk about SOPA and why it would create a “consumption-only Internet.”
Source: mashable
b-mobile fail
I have a had a really tough time in Japan so far. Free WiFi in Kyoto is nearly non-existent. The choppy Shijo network is my only oasis, and it is pretty grimy. Being disconnected from the web tough as someone who is a trying to start a web business, does a podcast on the side, and is trying to keep in touch with everyone in general via Twitter and Flickr.
Thus I was excited when my b-mobile SIM card with unlimited tethering capability arrived yesterday. w00t! Unfortunately, it sucks. Only 0.12MBps up and 0.06MBps down. The latency is so bad I can’t even download the slew of excellent 5by5 podcasts I am missing.
Needless to say, I did the 21st century slacktivist thing and complained via tweet. When I looked at b-mobile’s twitter feed it looks like I am not the only one. Seems they are having all sorts of trouble with Docomo. Good news though! They will have it fixed “within the month”(!?). WTF. Even worse, turns out they have a 360MB cap over three days!
Looks like it is off to EMOBILE this afternoon. Is “E” better than “B” because it comes later in the alphabet?
MLS FAIL: A tale of two many plugins
I wanted to hear MLS Commissioner Don Barber speak about BC Place but I ended up getting a terribly unhelpful message to install Flash, with no fall back. Not very good design at all. So I fired up Chrome to watch the video only to be denied again! A plugin inside of another plugin?! I thought they were just careless in their disregard for UX, now I see they are deliberate in their attempts to make torture users. The truly funny (terrible?) thing is, all of these videos are available through their iPhone app! They already have created h.264 fallback content but are not using it!
The Problem with Facebook in Japan
Interesting analysis from Adam Acar. See the Risks in part 3.
Program or be Programmed by Douglas Rushkoff
Rushkoff’s appeal for a wider understanding of our rapidly changing technological environment seems like it might be the typical anachronistic song for simpler times, heard throughout humankind’s history of technology. It is more subtle than that. Rushkoff broaches a commonly heard criticism in his final chapter when he asks, “We all know how to drive our cars, yet few of us know how our automobiles actually work, right?”
Throughout the twentieth century, we remained blissfully ignorant of the real biases of automotive transportation. We approached our cars as consumers, through ads, rather than as engineers or, better, civic planners. We gladly surrendered our public streetcars to private automobiles, unaware of the real expenses involved.
Digital technology is different because:
Our screens are the windows through which we are experiencing, organizing, and interpreting the world in which we live. … They are fast becoming the boundaries of our perceptual and conceptual apparatus; the edge between our nervous systems and everyone else’s, our understanding of the world and the world itself. If we don’t know how they work, we have no way of knowing what is really out there. … Our senses and our thoughts are already clouded by our own misperceptions, prejudices, and confusion. Our digital tools add yet another layer of bias on top of that.
A short tract, but a worthy read nonetheless. Filled with great quotes.
Source: r03
“There is no shelf”
An amazing video homage to the evolution of information on the web.
Source: youtube.com
Coming out
My New Year’s resolution for 2011 is to be more public on the web. Thus I am changing all my usernames and identities from to reflect my real name.
I have been thinking about this for some time now, but have held off for two reasons: naming and timing. My full name (Chad Kohalyk) is far too long and difficult to remember, so I wanted a short, easy username. “chadk” is taken on every social network already. A friend advised that I make the “k” silent, but alas “kchad” is also gone. “chado” and various other Japanese permutations of my name are all long gone. A few months ago I thought I would go with “chadko”, but the just a couple of weeks ago that was taken too! This leads me into my next point: timing.
Short usernames, especially ones based on real names, have all basically dried up. I wanted to switch usernames for New Year’s but speed is imperative. Furthermore, with all the holiday traffic I think the announcement would get lost. People who do not follow my every post might not realize who I am (or who I’ve become). So I thought I would make the change during the run up to the holidays.
Years ago, when I first became active on the web, privacy was a concern for my future. I was still a student, and didn’t want to spoil a reputation I didn’t have yet. There were worries about lost job prospects. Nearly a decade later I sort of regret not putting my real name on all the content I have produced over the years. True, anonymity is a good substitute for bravery. I might not have done what I did if I didn’t have that warm, comforting protection. However, over the years I have come to think that the cost to my personal brand is too high. So, starting now, I am going to be braver.
You can find me online at:
- http://twitter.com/chadkoh
- http://blog.chadkohalyk.com
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandbaggerone (uneditable!)
- Instagram @chadkoh
- Gowalla @chadkoh
- and of course at http://chadkohalyk.com
Periodic Table of the (HTML5) Elements
Josh Duck put together a nicely designed table showing the 104 elements currently in the HTML5 working draft and two proposed elements. Bonus: Enter the URL for any site to see which elements are used, such as colosseotype.com.
Source: cameronmoll
A stream of text, photos, quotes, links, audio and video usually about the 
