In his review of Google+ Farhad Manjoo compares their “Circles” feature to arranging wedding seating charts. Having to sort people into lists before you can interact with them online is annoying. But the problem isn’t lists. I like lists. I use lists. I might not be a typical user (Manjoo says that only 5% of [...]
I wrote my first serious research paper in high school; about ethnographic film. In 1988 the only way to see many classic ethnographic films was on film. You know, the kind of thing which comes in big metal canisters and has to be fed through a movie projector. It would snap and break on occasion, [...]
Two years ago I wrote a post about the various complicated ways I kept my home and office computer synchronized. Because my office computer recently blew up (really!) I have to think about how to get back up and running as quickly as possible, so I thought it would be a good time to update [...]
If you google the letters “GTD” you’ll get seven million hits back. GTD stands for “Getting Things Done,” a time management book, method and philosophy promoted by David Allen which has spawned a huge array of self-help blogs and task management webservices. Wired magazine described it thus: Allen’s approach is not inspirational. Instead, it is [...]
After spending one week trying to use Safari as my default browser, I decided to go back to Firefox. I was able to find numerous substitutes for my favorite Firefox plugins and features, but they never lived up to the real thing. First of all, although Safari was generally faster, I assume that Firefox 3, [...]
Firefox is much more than a web browser – its a platform. Numerous applications run on Firefox’s XUL framework, mostly as plugins. This extensibility gives you greater control over how web pages appear by blocking ads, turning off automatic flash animations by default, and offering site-specific customizations for some of the most popular web apps. [...]
I don’t normally accept advertising here on Keywords, but I think Gabe and Max’s Internet Thing is too good a deal to pass up. I am constantly encouraging my readers to make use of the latest internet technology, and Gabe and Max’s 430 part system can really help! UPDATE: Gabe and Max answer reader’s questions [...]
When I was telling people I wanted a compact camera which could perform well at a high ISO, I think many misunderstood. What I really should have said is, I want to be able to take low-light pictures without a flash. This picture was taken using my DMC-LX2′s intelligent ISO mode, which selected an ISO [...]
I wanted to announce two projects which I think should be useful for English speaking residents of the Taiwanese interweb: First is a Yahoo! Pipes feed which aggregates Michael, David, and Bent’s roundups of the English language blogsphere in Taiwan. That’s one RSS feed just for their link roundup posts. You can view it on [...]
If you walk around Taipei these days you’ll be sure to see the word KUSO written in big letters all over the place. For instance, this summer there was a city-sponsored cultural festival in Ximending called “KUSO Ximending.” But what does “KUSO” mean? Luckily, Wikipedia is there to help us out: Kuso is the term [...]