I am not always at “Inbox Zero“, as Merlin Mann puts it. But I am less than 10 on a regular basis and have zero messages in my inbox at this moment. That’s not to say all my email has been read, though. Only the important stuff actually reaches my inbox!

Most email I get is Bacn or SPAM. Bacn gets a filter applied to it and is sent off to a label to be dealt with at my leisure. SPAM is dealt with as SPAM should and is rare that I see it in the wrong place. Even the items that reach my inbox usually fit into a filter and labeled so I can quickly skim and either address or archive the messages.

So far with Priority Inbox turned on, almost everything new I’ve received has popped into Priority. Only half of it was and I’ve been training Priority Inbox appropriately. Which led me to think that even once trained, will it do anything for me?

And what about those people who save to their inbox and have hundreds of messages their? If they are not dealing with their email now, how is setting a priority going to help? When their Priority Inbox reaches hundreds of messages won’t they be in the same dire mess? Then what? Higher Priority Inbox?

I’ll try to report back in a few weeks and see if my first impressions have changed. Priority Inbox is a pretty interesting tool. I’m just not sure it’s going to add much to my email-life. How about yours?

I’m a huge Google Calendar user. I have many calendars for the various aspects of my life and shared with the appropriate people who need that info. And I’m subscribed to the calendars of others to get the information I need from others. Plus, the calendars are sync’ed to my MacBook, my iPod Touch and my HTC Desire phone so I have them with me all the time. Yet, the full power of the calendars never ceases to amaze me.

One of the most rewarding parts of my job is working with teachers and students and their use of technology. I had the pleasure to lead a training session with teachers returning to work this week on embedding code from other sites, into their wikis. The question of how to embed multiple calendars came up and I didn’t know the answer.

After the training, I sat down to Google and began to search. Surprisingly, it took me an hour to come upon the fact that the feature to accomplish the task of sharing several calendars to appear as one on a website was right in front of my eyes! “Customize the color, size, and other options“. It’s the “other options” that takes care of our needs.

Let’s assume you are a Google Calendar user and have more than one calendar that you wish to publish on a website to share publicly.  In the case of the teacher who is looking for this feature, she wishes to embed a calendar of class assignments and a calendar of block scheduling and perhaps the district calendar, all into a wiki for a particular class.

Go to the calendar settings of a specific calendar and just to the right of the “Embed This Calendar” section is the “Customize the color, size, and other options” link. Then scroll to the bottom of the Embeddable Calendar Helper page and you will see “Calendars to Display”. Add checks to the boxes of the calendars you wish to embed. Copy the resulting HTML code and paste that into your website.

It is important to note that you must have also checked that these calendars have been shared publicly.

This is a great way to overlay an organizations calendar with your groups calendar. If you share calendars then it’s worth checking out.

This doesn’t surprise me. I still carry business cards. What I would really like to know is what information people put on their cards these days? Mine has only online info; name, email, voicemail, and website. No postal information at all!

What about you? Do you carry a business card? What sort of info do you put on it?

Common Craft is a company that makes educational videos for a living. They offer a number of great videos for free viewing on their website. One of their most popular is “Twitter in Plain English“, to describe why someone might want to try out Twitter.com. Apparently, ABC Nightline, ABC Good Morning America, NPR Unger Report, CNN International, CBS Sunday Morning, and KOMO News all used the video. ABC with permission. The rest without it.

Lee Lefever, one of the owners at Common Craft, takes a very intellectual and mature view of this in his blog post questioning the use. It does seem to be “Fair Use” by the media to me. In most cases, excerpts were used in conjunction with a news story, some used more than others.

Ok, fine, no laws broken. Common Craft doesn’t seem to feel harmed and does not appear to be harmed commercially. All is good.

But wait? Where is the common courtesy? A simple email and follow on phone call to ask permission would have been easy? I understand a clear mention and link in a news show is not always “good television”. But all of these pieces are now online? Why not a link and citation of sources on the web page with the video of the news broadcast? That’s not hard at all, is it?

As a frequent internet user, I often see something on TV or hear on the radio and go to the World Wide Web for more information. I consume more news online than offline. And I consider myself an amateur historian as well. Original sources, citations and attributions are a big deal to me. They allow me to determine if the information is any good. They allow me to get more information and to delve in deeper to an issue or topic. And I have a greater respect for and return more often to sites that provide me with good references and valuable links to more info.

I certainly try to provide enough links when I write on a subject. And I encourage others to cite their sources as well. While this particular case looks like “fair use” was met, common courtesy could have been done better. All these agancies would prefer links from me, I’m sure!

I once wrote a piece on my ideal of a modern communication tool. The idea was basically one drop box that recieves all the messages sent to me from the many places I am. This box would recieve messages from Twitter, e-mail, SMS, comment replies, voicemail, and all the other bacn that websites and communication services generate. This box would have an intelligence that would allow me to route these messages to the locations I want to receive it based upon who sent it, the time of day, or where I am. Then I could reply in the form I choose. But my response would be routed back to the sender and delivered the way they want to recieve it.

Communication message how I want, where I want from whom I want, when I want it!

I think the day that technology will make this possbile is approaching. Google Voice/GrandCentral may be a move in the right direction. If Google integrates Google Voice with Gmail and GTalk and allows for the same management capability and transcription Google Voice then it might be possible.

This doesn’t solve a single porblem of John C. Dvorak‘s list. But it at least gets each individual the power to choose how they want to communicate. The future could be very cool!

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”
—  Eleanor Roosevelt

My wife is watching some stupid reality show of brides and weddings. This one bride reminded me of the above quote.

Focus on what’s important…

I used it when it first came out a few years ago but prefered Google’s offer. Since then I have just forgotten about it. But if you are looking for an easy and inexpensive place to host your own domain and manage your own email then Microsoft is worth a look too.

And of course DreamHost Apps, can give you some other options and Google Apps.

You can read about this at the Concord Monitor website.

This incident highlights something I’ve been telling friends and family for years. Do NOT use the free email from your ISP. It’s tied to the ISP! If they change ownership or you decide to change to a different service provider then you will be forced to change your email address. That’s never a good experience. In fact, I personally find it more of a hassle then changing phone numbers.

Dick Eastman has written a great article entitled, “Why You Need a Second (and Better) E-mail Address“. Hat tip to the Maine Genealogical Society where I first read the Mr. Eastman’s article.

I agree with everything Mr. Eastman says. Gmail is my favorite as well. Free Gmail or Yahoo mail or whatever is an improvement over being stuck to a particular ISP’s email. But I might go even one step further and suggest you take a look at Google Apps Standard Edition. For a very small annual fee you could have Google manage email at your own domain. By owning your domain then you never have to fear it changing. And if Google does not satisfy you then simply move your domain to another host. Your own domain puts you in complete control!

Don’t Use Your ISP for Email!

So my question is, does anyone like it?

I like it because it is an easy and clean way for me to share some stories that struck me as interesting. I definately need to use the “Share with Note” feature on each item as I feel like it looks nicer and I don’t feel like I am cheating on my blog as much. It’s more “me”, I guess.

I currently title these starting with “Items I’ve Read and Liked” then end with the date. This happens automatically. But I’m not sure I like the phrase “Items I’ve Read and Liked”. “Shared News”? “In the News”? “Stuff from away”? What would be a better title phrase to explain what these are to me?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and opinions on these posts. I’m looking forward to reading your comments.

My addiction is apparently buying domain names and playing with content management systems. Not so much with actually producing great content for these websites I start. I’ve never really been one to start New Years Resolutions. But timing seemed to have coincided with the New Year and my urge to change. I’m attempting to spend sometime writing each night on a different website.

Tonight is Useless Nexus’ turn. On Friday I hope to do some work on Central Square’s website. Sunday’s I hpe to post something to Maine Militia. On Monday I’ll write about my family. On Tuesday I’ll work on my online portfolio. And Wednesday I will put some effort into Tech Scamps. Actually, I hope Tech Scamps will become easy and I can put up some material more often over there. But I guess only time will tell.

The obstacles to succcess seem daunting. I haven’t written or talked about this but since last July I have not been feeling well. I had a cold last July and it seems like I never really fully recovered from that. I’ve seen my family doctor, been through the blood tests, has seen a specialist in pulmonology, conducted a sleep study on myself, and spent some time thinking about where my brain has gone. The sleep study reveals that I have a a mild case of sleep apnea. I’ve been given some options but have not choosen a course yet.

I’m definately not sleeping well. I’m definately finding stress at work and home as my mind seems to become less useful and more of a burden. I’m not sure if depression is a cause or a result of everything else. But I’m settling into a funk that is weighing me down.

I’m having a difficult time concentrating and focusing my mind and energy on any task. For those that have known me for a long time will understand how much this bothers me. I like being smart. I’m not feeling so intelligent these days.

So I succeeded in blogging here tonight. Let’s see how the rest of my New Year’s Resolution of blogging goes! Oh and I intend to lose 30 pounds in wieght this year too.

So far my experience has been mixed. I signed up on Sunday and setup a couple of domains. Then on Tuesday, the server I was on went down and was offline most of the day. These things happen. Hardware fails. I can forgive some misfortune. So far today Aquaman, the server, is fine and I’ve been playing more.

This is my first host that does not use CPanel or WHM for their backend control panel system. There are some idiosyncrasies that I’m still getting used to but nothing that has completely perplexed me. The control panel appears complete. I could find all the settings and controls I wanted. I was able to easily get some WordPress blogs running without the use of DreamHost’s one-click installers. I will be trying a Drupal setup in another week or so.

The Support Wiki is a great reference. I’ve browsed it to see what is there. Like any Wiki, some areas need some cleaning up and improvement but appears complete, in that it answered all the questions I went looking for.

At this time, I plan to move a couple of low traffic sites over to DreamHost so as to get the feel of what they have to offer. Certainly, the price I paid for a two year plan is impossible to beat.

A website I am a regular reader of is Heal Your Church WebSite. Dean Peters actually wrote an article about password before the news broke of Gov. Palin’s misfortune. And wrote a follow-up after the news was out.

So if you are wondering how to avoid Gov. Palin’s embarassment then read the following two links. Good, sound advice:

• 5 simple steps to stronger passwords
• 5 things we can learn about password recovery questions from Sarah Palin

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.

The quote is by Charlton Ogburn from “Merrill’s Marauders: The truth about an incredible adventure” in the January 1957 issue of Harper’s Magazine.

I don’t claim to understand what all this means yet. I haven’t spent any time looking at the underpinnings yet. But I like the goal.

What I do want to reveal is some pretty cool tools if you decide to try Identi.ca or if you decide to install your own version of Laconica.

If you know and love RSS then you will really like Identi.ca.

• You can visit and subscibe to my posts at:
  http://identi.ca/mjohnson/
• If you want a RSS feed of everything I am writing:
  http://identi.ca/mjohnson/rss
• If you want to see just people who reply to me:
  http://identi.ca/mjohnson/replies/
• If you want an RSS feed of just people who reply to me:
  http://identi.ca/mjohnson/replies/rss
• If you want to see me and everyone I subscribe to:
  http://identi.ca/mjohnson/all/
• If you want an RSS feed of me and everyone I subscribe to:
  http://identi.ca/mjohnson/all/rss
• You can even pull an RSS feed of search terms:
  http://identi.ca/search/notice/rss?q=Maine
  http://identi.ca/search/notice/rss?q=football

It supports Jabber so you can get notifications to and you can post from your GMail or other Jabber account. Evan, the developer, says SMS may be coming but has no timetable that I have seen.

So far I love Identi.ca! I still love Jaiku but since Google has closed it off with invite only registration I fear it will stagnant. The idea of an open platform feels much more comfortable. And Twitter is, well, not a reliable product and since it has turned off IM support is worthless to me.

If you are exploring micro-blogging or maintaining a presence online then check out Identi.ca.

A few weeks ago I tried out a new web service called Soocial. It solved the Gmail Contacts problem syncing with my Mac Address Book. I used it for a week and was happy.

Then my birthday came and my wife gave me an iPod Touch. As of OS X 10.5.3, if you have an iPod Touch or iPhone then the added feature of a Google Contacts Sync appears in Address Book preferences. I couldn’t wait to try it! I completely forgot that I was set up to sync to Soocial. When I synchronized next the streams crossed and my address book blew up. Everything tripled! It was not pretty.

Fortunately, I have good backups and it didn’t take long to clean up the mess. I turned off Soocial for now. I’m currently just syncing with Apple’s tools and it’s working pretty well.

So if like me, you are exploring the success and failure of syncing then be careful, “Don’t cross the streams”.

Scott Wilder and myself will be talking about ice cream trucks. Yes that’s right. We are not afraid to take on the hard hitting issues of our time. What do you think of the ice cream truck in your neighborhood? Have you ever heard the tune of the Good Humor truck and rushed from your house half dressed with a handful of change? Is this a zoning issue? A commercial business on wheels in a residential zone?

Tune in to TalkShoe, LIVE, on Thursday, May 8, 2008, at 9:30PM EDT(-4UTC) and find out what Scott and I think! I’m looking forward to you joining us for this discussion!

http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/30633

If you can’t join us LIVE then be sure to listen to a recording. It should show up overnight or into Friday morning.

My hesitation has been the high price and the monthly data plan expense. I just have not been able to justify it within my budget. But now with the prospect of the phone being less then maybe I will reconsider. I might at least hold off on the purchase until the final product is released to see what the hype is really all about.

Google Custom Search allows you to group a specific set of websites or pages into one search engine. Searches against that engine will only show results from this set that you’ve assigned. And all powered by Google.

Do you use Google Custom Search? Do you know of a great custom search engine? I’d love to see it. Thanks!

I’ve used PBWiki and MediaWiki. Since this is tied into the other Apps I am becoming fond of then I’ll be exploring Sites more in the next few weeks. In the mean time, if you run Google Apps then be sure to go into your domain Dashboard and Add More Services. You will find Sites waiting for you.

So far I like what I see. It’s easy to insert Docs, Spreadsheets and Presentations from the rest of the Google Apps. And the templates available make it pretty simple to create all kinds of pages.

Check out one site I’ve been playing with:
http://sites.google.com/a/mjohnson.net/google-sites-test/Home

If you want to try this out on your website then visit the link below:

http://www.google.com/talk/service/badge/New#

Please, leave a comment and let me know what you think.