Trying to write 750 words

There are a few websites that talk about the benefits of bashing out 750 words a day. I find it an interesting thought that just typing away and clearing the brain could be a good way to destress and help focus the mind. 750 words is around 2 sides of A4 paper and actually a decent amount of text. This can mean that you are just drivelling on about a load of rubbish.

BENEFITS

That I can see to forcing myself to write 750 words a day

- Helps to get the creative juices going - especially in the morning
- Forces one to pick a topic to start chatting about
- The target of 750 words, means - just keep going and see what happens
- In a world dominated by micro content (twitter for example) it helps maintain skills for longer form writing
- Improves writing generally
- Improve typing speed

NEGATIVES
That I can see from forcing myself to write 750 words a day

- Is this sacrificing decent quality, by drivelling on
- Is the target realistic or will you become despondent when you only get to 250 words
- What if you have nothing to write about
- If you have nothing good to say, don't say it at all!

At this point I have written 219 words. Wow it is actually pretty touch to write 750 words, about 750 words. It goes to show that longform writing does take either a decent amount of research or an in depth knowledge of the the subject. Trying to type out 750 words straight off, without pausing or heading to the internet to "research" is quite a challenge. Perhaps it is just a habit I have got out of. Perhaps I just need to set myself a lower target. Would 500 words or even 250 be a better target and something to actually stick at?

MAKES ME THINK

- What is the average length of a web page?
- How many words does the average web browser read on each page?

For me I generally, skim read articles and web pages. Even news articles I'm just digesting the headlines. This is pretty sad really. My attention span has definitely got shorter as I've now been using the web for over 10 years. But then perhaps I had a pretty short attention span in the first place. I really do think things like twitter haven't helped at all. Scroll, Scroll, Click, Scroll, Scroll. Perhaps it's just the tactile feel of the phone that has perpetuated this? Even in the early days of the internet, just using a PC to browse. The nature of the web, just encourages clicking away. Also I because there is so much dross on the internet, I imagine people now just try sift through a load of the junk (like this piece) to get to the good stuff. I can't imagine I would read 750 words of this "article".

This brings me to think about content on the web and what the purpose of most content is. Most content is there to either generate ad revenue or capture your personal data. I have no problem with either of these. There is other content that is largely self-promotion or advertising. It's no surprise really, when the some of the biggest companies on the planet are based on the internet. There is some great content out there too. Some amazing independent bloggers, and academic research that I barely tap into. I think it may be time to refocus my reading habits, and start consuming quality content, that can actually add to my wisdom, rather than scan reading click bait.

So to summarise, writing 750 words straight out the bat is a bit of a challenge. It's difficult to build out something that flows, makes sense, and has relevant content. That challenge is why I can see the merit of establishing a routine of writing longer content more frequently. Bashing out 750 words a day would be a pretty big challenge for most people. Once a week might be dooable for me, but perhaps it's worth persevering and giving it a go. It also helps give a sense of what a "proper" article may look like in terms of substance over style. Perhaps I could even learn to enjoy it as a daily ritual. That's today's 750 words a wrap. Now it is.

(751 words)

Writing on the iPhone

Now I'm now using the iPhone as my a main way to capture text. I've become so used to to typing away on a small touchscreen keyboard, that it is now the quickest way for me to type. I can bash out 750 words pretty easily on the small keyboard. There are always a few typos, but I'd rather just keep typing and go back and fix these later. There is something compelling about being able to quickly jot down a stream of consciousness in no time. It would be interesting to do a speed test on my typing as I think I'm getting to the point where I can draft faster on the iPhone that a full size keyboard.

This article was entirely composed on an iPhone.

**I love the portability.** I'm currently typing this while lying on a sofa, chilling out. There is something about not sitting at a desk, that helps free up my mind to just type away. I can capture and edit an article anywhere any time. My phone is with me 24/7. It is always charged. Always switched on, within two clicks I can start typing away. Compare this to going and getting my laptop, getting sat somewhere comfortable, firing it up, then finally getting to type text. It takes me around 30 minutes to capture 750 words. Who has time for that? Think of the amount of time you are sat with your phone. On the train, at the airport, waiting for someone or something... It doesn't take many of these occasions in a day to add up.

The iPhone also performs brilliantly outdoors in sunlight. The screen is clear bright and the text is easy to read. This is more than I can say for any laptop I've ever used, including my latest high end MacBook Pro. This means I can create text in places that may give more inspiration to my writing. Just writing in the garden opens up my mind a little bit. Writing can take place in inspiring places. Beaches, mountains, parks, cafes, museums, anywhere. When travelling, obviously it's a great tool to capture thoughts and notes. It's small and doesn't attract attention like whipping out a laptop would. It is so perfect on a flight. I've tried so many times to get the laptop out to get some work done. Elbows get in the way. Drinks get spilt and food gets messy. Then You have the pain of storing it under your feet for the rest of the flight.

**I just can't get on with tablets for text.** I've tried my mini tablet to take text notes. Perhaps I need more practise, but I find the device way too big for any serious note taking. I've tried both landscape and portrait orientation, but I just find it too clunky. The iPhone just feels about the right size for a handheld keyboard. As phones inevitably get bigger (typing this on an iPhone 6) perhaps I will find it easier to type on bigger devices.

**Battery life.** Put an iPhone into airplane mode and just use it for typing text, and it will probably stay awake longer than you will. It's also pretty easy to carry one of those little battery backup devices, which can be a bit of a lifesaver.

**Finally distraction free.** Ever tried writing some long form text on a laptop and found yourself distracted? I know phones can be distracting too. All sorts of buzzing and notifications. But for me personally I find when typing away on an app, I'm less likely to wander off to Facebook. This is because on the small screen of a phone, there is only room for one app open. This gives me focus. Right now I'm typing this on a text editor and I can't see a web browser open anywhere on the screen. Clearly you can make a desktop app full screen, and I use this approach sometimes. However there is something very simple about a singe dedicated app open on a phone. You may have gathered, I like simplicity.

**Covert note taking.** This isn't as sinister as it sounds. But is probably the most compelling thing about writing on the iPhone. I like the fact that I can be typing out articles or notes in all situations. People are so used to people playing with their phones, that using your phone to type up a few text notes at anytime is not seen as unusual. If someone does something amusing, gives a great quote, or you just need to remember their name, whipping out your phone is no problem. Get out a notebook and pen and you are going to get some funny looks.

So there are a raft of reasons to make the iPhone your primary tool for capturing text. I mainly use it for personal note taking and long articles, but based on my thoughts above perhaps I should ditch the MacBook and go with the phone more often!

Forget and Ipod Dock

Music is a one form of media that is very important to me, forget TV, the internet, books, magazines etc. music for a long time has been a living breathing hobby. Up until recently I have been using minidiscs almost exclusively for my home music collection (I have over 500 - picture later). Minidisc for a number of reasons, mainly as a legacy to my youth, producing mixes and trading discs, but also as I loved having something physical to slot into a hifi and hit play - music as dot.mp3 files seem so bland by comparison to a labled minidsc, CD or vinyl. I have had a 30 gb Ipod for a couple of years now, but I just struggle with the concept of having all my music with me. I just hit skip all the time. I now believe 2 gb is the optimum size for a DAP for me.

Anyway enough of all that back to the project.

Given that I never really clicked with my ipod I never really got into a docking system for it. As such my home stereo was still quite a traditional set-up > Amp > CD > Minidisc > Speakers (all Yamaha for what its worth). I've been toying with the idea of a fully integrated HDD set-up with all my albums for a while. To cut a long story short, I did a it of research and a bit of ebay searching and settled on an old piece of technology (I'm a tight git and hate spending money). I bought a Fujitsu Stylistic 3400 touchscreen PC. £75 from ebay with two batteries wireless card, stand and case - a bargain. The specs aren't going to blow anyone away but I don't need much horsepower. I upgraded the ram to 192mb and its quite spritley with windows 2000. It is now hooked up to my stereo and an external 300GB hard drive and it is one sweet touchscreen jukebox - pictures and movies are worth more than words check it out:

Forget a dock, scrap the Touch - this thing is sweet!




Other cool things about this little device are;

• It will sit there as a digital photo frame - never wanted one really but now I have a LCD sitting there it makes sense to have some memories popping up.
• Being a tablet PC it takes very little power to run (see above I am a tight git).
  
• I was thinking about buying a NAS drive - no need the media drive is networked through wifi on this bad boy.
  
• Currently I am running mediajukebox as a mediaplayer as it works very well with as touchscreen - however given I'm running an OS I'm not restricted to any 1 proprietry interface.
  
• If I want to download MP3's to my DAP I just use the jukebox - no need to head to the office.
  
• As above for photos from my camera - no need to fire-up my laptop or desktop.
• Its all internet connected - mp3 tagging, biogs, cover art etc - no probs.
  
• Web browsing - of course the touchscreen keyboard is annoying, but standby to internet = 15 seconds (importantly stanbdy to music is the same). Want to quickly check our household gcal (is it recylcing with the bins tonight?) no probs. I use Opera and SpeedDial helps
• If I felt the need to I could keep the tablet running 24/7 and expose a port outside my firewall - run something like vibestreamer and access all my music from any internet connection.
  

Anyway this litle piece of Fujitsu kit retailed in excess of $1500 at launch around the year 2000. For 75 notes it is now utilised as a great touchscreen jukebox - in my opinion beats an ipod dock hands down. You have to have a play with it to truley appreciate it! Dinner parties will rock!

Couple more movies

Boot to a paused playlist from standby in under 10 seconds



Web browsing with the touchscreen - sweet




Cheers
Bish

Listening to - Kaiser Chiefs - Off With Thier Heads (not sure its very good - may be a grower)

INSPIRE and the Social Web

Talking about metadata recently with a customer and showing off our new bit of kit - Stratus Gallery. The chap I was talking to made a suggestion that users would want to comment on the metadata records.

Comments that may include items such as:

• Subjective rating 1-10
• Previous Projects the data has been used for
• References to other data that may be useful.

I also notice that IBM have just launched a beta Enterprise 2.0 collaborative working portal type thingy - Bluehouse (strange name)

INSPIRE is all about collaborative working, sharing data, and making great use of the data available. You think those boys over in Brussels may be considering some of these social web-based capabilities - then again maybe not.

Cheers

Bish

Listening to - James Morrison - Songs for you, truths for me

Shaping a changing world...

There are people far more qualified and experienced than me in GIS, Web, Technology, Academia and dare I say business at this years AGI Conference. I went with a slightly tongue in cheek approach and I hoped to put some fun into the proceedings. I also strongly believe that the people I was speaking to understand Geo better than I do and wanted to show them a different angle on technology, rather than preach to them on GIS

These are my slides:

Web 2.0 And Hype

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: web 2.0 bishop)

http://www.slideshare.net/mpbish/web-20-and-hype-presentation

I didn't talk much about maps or Geo and as a former "GIS Professional" I struggled to come to terms with that in the run up to the conference. I graduated with a GIS degree in 2003. If my course director had told me 5 years ago that I would be presenting at the conference in 2008 (I would have bitten their hand off) but would never have predicted I would not be talking about Geo. Then again perhaps it has something to do with the time (around 2004) after a few shandies I told a lot of the top guys at the AGI they were a dinosaur organisation with outdated views and an academic focus. Clearly I was wrong as many people did listen to me yesterday. Do I feel guilty about not talking about Geo - yes a little. I love maps as much as anyone and I paid a lot for my degree to learn about geo.

But then look at the fantastic range of speakers all talking about geo at this years conference and I feel a little less bad. Perhaps the fact that I am product of the system and not talking about Geo says a lot about where we have come from and where we are going? I have aspirations to take the power of location to places it couldn't before - mainly in the Enterprise. I can't do that by banging on about maps and tile servers all of the time (some of the time yes).


According to some my presentation was confusing or perplexing and 'old news'.

I'm generalising here but the sad thing is I think that some people in technology and "blogsphere" are loosing touch with the fact that there are scores of people in our industry (and outside our industry) that don't understand things as "basic" as web2.0. I wasn't positioning my presentation to the technologists, the bloggers, the evangelists, the serial conference speakers. I was positioning my presentation to the real people I meet on a weekly basis. Not everyone has a blog or even reads blogs. Most people I speak to will never know or (need to know) what ajax is. There seems to be a great deal of surprise on the lack of understanding of the ‘basics’ of Web2.0. I think the thought leaders in the industry should take a step back from their blogs for a second. Rather than trying to out do each other “top-trump style” start translating this stuff. I count myself quite ahead of the curve, but way back compared to some of the techie people in the industry. By the time it hits my radar it is old news for the elite – but still relevant enough to help many of my customers and the wider community.

Cheers
Bish

Listening to Kings of Leon - Because of the Times

AGI 2008 Icebreaker

What have I discovered on the Icebreaker?

• I work in a dynamic industry and many of my ex-colleagues have infiltrated far and wide
• The Average age of an icebreakers attendee is 40+
• I'm not very good at location based quizzes.
• I should not stay out and booze too late this evening.
• Marketing and presence is noticed.

Should be a good day today - lots of interesting speakers and topics.

Cheers
Bish

Location Intelligence and Document Management

This little bugger caused me a lot of hassle this week.

Rather embarrassingly I lost a single document that prevented me from traveling to Sweden. I was quite impressed with the 4 hour turnaround service, but not so impressed with the price tag (still £10.10 a year for 10 years isn't so bad). Still my own stupid fault, should try and look after this one. Also amazing how fast news travels as the whole office seemed to know.

I did finally make it to MapSweden - however I missed out on the shrimp and vodka party, followed by sauna and midnight swim. The Swedes certainly know how to hold a conference!

Listening to Beck - Sea Change