Email Information Management

Back in the day hearing that voice saying "You've Got Mail!" was really something of a big deal for a lot of users and not just the ones on AOL.  I know hackers who added that voice to their email notice programs just because it is both cool and rather retro!  Here we see Tom Hanks (in the film You've Got Mail) getting mail... 

Before we get started in addressing this perennially thorny issue, I thought it might be a good idea to first discuss the matter of just how do we spell let alone capitalize the word around which this post is centered?

This really is one of those issues that appears to have officially come down to personal opinion over empirical declaration, because when we finally sit down to cut bait the fact is that nobody knows officially how to spell email.

Actually would it be more correct to say “nobody knows officially how to spell email,” or would it be less correct? Huh...

The issue surrounding the question of whether it is spelled “email” vs. “e-mail” vs. “Email” vs. “eMail” vs. “E-Mail” vs. E-okay wait this is rapidly growing ludicrous...

The point to this is that the matter raises blood pressures across the world and has actually been the source of bitter arguments, some of which resulted in violence in the workplace!

If you think this is not a serious issue, consider this: as recently as 2011 in one of the semi-annual meetings of the American Copy Editors Society it was announced by the editors of the Associated Press Stylebook (the AP Stylebook is a reference source that pretty much ALL professional journalists and most of the non-professionals use daily) that they had changed their recommended spelling: "e-mail" is now "email."

The results of that announcement? 

Bitter argument by both journalists AND editors over that change. Now we in the Fourth Estate consider our editors to be the final word on questions like this, so when even THEY cannot agree? Well, let's just say that is a disturbing development.  We really don't like it when Mum and Dad fight.

I identified this issue as perennial because it is a constant and ongoing one - in fact it tends to pop up in conversation and concern almost daily when someone asks for the address to which they should address a message intended for me either as a journalist or as a member of the human race!

When a question like this grows violent the best means of settling it is to consult OTHER reference sources - but when we checked with the Chicago Manual of Style and then Merriam-Webster we found that they pretty much demand “e-mail” be used. Across the pond in Old England the Compact OED - which is generally the preferred consult of journos on-the-go gives the word as “email” so no help there...

If you are thinking that this should clarify the matter - after all we ARE talking about the OED and even Dr. Who agrees that the OED is the final word on spelling - considering the bloody-minded and often violent tendencies of the editors of the Compact OED there's still plenty of reason to be concerned.

After all, in 2010 those red-pen-wielding fiends were responsible for one of the bloodiest attacks on the English Language in recent memory when they abruptly severed 16,000 hyphens - but then we are told that on the wall of the offices of the lead editors at the OED there are Voldemort for Prime Minister campaign posters. I'm just saying...

What brought all of this up was a relatively meaningless comment that cropped up in a conversation yesterday between an editor and I with respect to their providing a small packet of information that I would require to work up a time and budget estimate for a small think piece on the effects of mobile games and mobile gaming on productivity hour estimates at companies that lack a firm policy on the use of personal phones in general, and smart phones specifically, in the work place.

I used "email" and they commented that the correct spelling is "e-mail" and there you go.  Game On!

Just because you CAN forward an email does not mean you SHOULD. And sure, Grandma may think it is cute, but really?  Really?

This is NOT About THAT

So yeah, that happened... But since this post is actually about consolidation of email and was prompted by our preparations for our annual Pre-Spring Cleaning Efforts in the office, we will leave the matter as stated above with the qualification that we are going personally with "email" and will refuse to argue that point because hey, that train has sailed!

Yesterday a sub-editor for a gaming publication I occasionally write for asked me why half-a-day had passed before I replied to their email.

My simple answer was that the email address they used for me is one of the webmail accounts I have and I only check that a couple times a day.  

If they need to get my immediate attention they would be best served using my main email address, which is POP-3 based, so I get those mail notifications pretty much instantly throughout the day thanks to the wonders of the smartphone.

They did not find that amusing.

The thing is email in this modern day comes in several flavors, with the two most popular being POP3 and WebMail.

POP3 - or Post Office Protocol 3 - works in many ways just like the physical post office but is a bit more flexible too. What I mean by that is that it has several layers of physical security that protects your email.

Layer 1: Email Service

When anyone anywhere in the world sends you email and your email service provider supports POP3 the email that they send you goes into your POP3 queue.  It is then stored there until you access and download it. So the people who send you messages will be able to verify that the message was delivered - but not read.

When you retrieve (read) the email, your local computing device basically downloads that email from the POP3 Server of your service provider, allowing you to read it immediately or later, if you don't have the time then.

The beauty of that is that you can connect to the server and download your mail in one big package and then later, when you have time, you can view and reply to any messages on your local computing device regardless of whether or not you have a 'net connection.

The next time you use your email app to check your mail the app will automatically upload (send) any messages you have replied to that are in its send queue at that time.  Isn't tech cool?

POP3 is like this guy delivering your email!  Okay not really. But then Cliffy was on Cheers back when mail did not usually HAVE an "e" in front of it.  Just saying...

Layer 2: Email Storage

If you have set your POP3 email app to both download the email messages AND leave a copy on the server, unlike the real post office it will actually retain a copy of that message for you.  

Should your local computing device be destroyed or stolen, you can still retrieve copies of any of your email messages from the server via another device.  Which makes it a sort of email message archive if you like.

You can ALSO set your email app to download your new messages and then delete the original so that it is NOT stored on the POP3 Server. It is entirely your call.

Basically the POP3 protocol makes it easy for anyone to check their email from any computer in the world, provided they have configured their email program / app properly to work with the protocol.

In addition to that and depending on the complexity of their POP3-capable email app, they may even be able to use a single app to download, read, and reply to ALL of their email accounts. And that is pretty much where this is headed.

WebMail on the other hand is just what it sounds like - a web-based email services.  

Examples of webmail include sites like Yahoo, GMail, and the web-based email services that are provided by a lot of ISPs and Website Hosting outfits these days.

Like POP3 the webmail server will accept email messages on your behalf, and then when you log into the webmail interface, present any messages you have received to you, in your inbox.

Unlike POP3 though, just reading a message does not make it go away from the server.  You have to personally delete the message when you are done reading or replying.

Both have different pro and con aspects to them.  For example with POP3 - assuming you have a properly configured email client like Thunderbird or Outlook - you can basically have ALL of your email in one place.  

These email clients are even smart enough to insert the correct reply to address in any email you write, and you can even configure them to use specific security or confidentiality settings based on that address you are replying from!

POP3 allows you to grab your mail from the server and read or reply to it later, whereas with webmail you have to do all of that online - so you cannot write an email message while you are offline - say traveling on a train or in a car - you have to wait until you have 'net access to do that.

One of the serious cons for POP3 - and this is usually the one that webmail fans immediately bring up when the two types of email service are compared - is the fact that POP3 often can serve as an infection point for computing devices that are not properly secured with anti-virus and security software.

Basically with POP3 you are physically downloading a copy of the mail - and any attachments - to your local device.  So if that email contains an evil payload and your security is not up to snuff, you could end up either infected, or running a hostile app.

With webmail all of the interaction takes place on some remote webmail server out there in the cloud, so if you get a nasty delivery chances are a lot smaller that it will actually succeed in delivering its nefarious payload to your local computing devices.

Another point in its favor is that webmail users never have to worry about whether they are running out of hard drive space on their local device - they only have to worry about exceeding the storage limit on the webmail server itself.

The Conveniences of POP3

Now having taken all of this into consideration, the conveniences of POP3 email are sufficient - and this is especially true if you are forced via your career to maintain a number of different email addresses - to make the efforts of properly securing your local computing device worth doing.

Actually - and I am not being mean here - you should be properly securing it anyway.  So really you could view switching to POP3 to be a bonus since it will encourage you to practice safe surfing and safe computing - which like I said, you should already be doing!

Filtering Email

One of the best aspects of using your local computing device in conjunction with POP3 apps is that, depending on the app, they can really be smart AND useful.  Specifically they tend to support some pretty useful utilities - like email filtering.

With email filtering you can set up all sorts of rules that the email that you receive has to follow.  When you get on a mailing list from an aggressive company, you can add their domain to your DO NOT ACCEPT list, and any offending email is deleted behind the scenes so you never see it.  Your app simply drops it into the round filing cabinet for you.

By using the Spam filters on your email app it will eventually build a list of the various companies, email domain names, and the like who you prefer not to receive email from, and present you everything except the email from those people or businesses.

You can also set up keyword rules - for example you can add Viagra and Penis Enlargement as either a single rule -- your app will delete any email messages that contain the words "Viagra" and "Penis Enlargement" before you ever see them.  Or you can set that up as two rules, and so never see another Viagra advertisement OR a Penis Enlargement advertisement again.  Yeah, that's a good thing.

How Popular is POP3?

Obviously using a POP3 App/Client to pull all of your mail into one convenient place will only work if you CAN pull all of your mail into one convenient place, right?

With that in mind, there are some simple steps you can take - and before you ask, I recommend using the Thunderbird Email App from OpenOffice/Mozilla because it works well, it is free, and it is easy.  You can also use Microsoft's Email program - they call it Outlook - and obtain the same results as long as you are willing to pay for it depending on the version.

Regardless of the app/client you use, you should be aware that they all treat the email process the same way - that is to say that they all consider receiving email to be ONE side of the process, and sending email to be another side.

You receive mail via a POP3 Server, but you SEND all of your replies via an SMTP Server.  So you are going to need to set up for both when you are consolidating - and I strongly recommend you test every account you have set up in the app/client to verify that it is in fact working as intended.

The Steps You Need to Take
Once you have picked the POP3 App/Client you want to use, and installed it, you will need to do the following - and this is true whether you are just getting started or you have decided to consolidate all of your mail accounts like us:

1. Contact your ISP to get the instructions from them on how to configure your email app to access their POP3 services.  You will also need - in addition to the address of their POP3 email server and the login settings as well as any special settings they may require, such as alternate port numbers - the SMTP Server settings and login information as well.
2. The POP3/SMTP settings for any alternate email service providers - specifically and including Webmail providers - so you can add them to your Client/App.

About number 2...  To help you out I went looking to see what commercial and personal email services actually include POP3 as part of their services, and this is the list of companies that I found DO support it:

• AOL/AIM Mail - Official Instructions from AOL
  
• Gmail (Google Mail) - Official Instructions from Google
• Lycos Free Mail (POP3 Requires Fee) - Official Instructions from Lycos
• Mail.com Free Email - Official Instructions from Mail.com
  
• Microsoft Outlook Mail (Formerly Hotmail) - Official Instructions from Microsoft
• Yahoo Free Mail - Official Instructions from Yahoo 

There you go - those are the big ones that pretty much everybody uses.  If your provider is not on the list check their site for POP3 Settings.

Bear in mind that some of the free webmail services that offer point-to-point automatic encryption do NOT offer POP3 services - they can't and protect your email with encryption.

Really was not kidding about you needing to maintain proper security on your computing device.  If you make the switch to POP3 you will need to do that.  Anti-Virus, Anti-Phishing and email scanning are a given in this world today.

Email Encryption?
That noted though you CAN do email encryption AND digital signing of email using Firefox with the free Enigmail Add-On.  Just saying....  You will want to get one of the free PGP Encryption programs for your OS though, as well.

Adventures in iPhone Land

PART 2 of a Multi-Part Effort

Adventures in iPhone Land

The iPhone 6 arrived via USPS on the afternoon of Tuesday, 18 November - which means I have had it for just under three days, and in that three days I have experienced much and have a lot to share...  Most of it good.

First Impressions

I have to admit that my first reaction upon opening the box was an eye-goggled jaw-dropped whaaa?!  The iPhone 6 Plus is HUGE.  Until the moment that I actually held it in my hands I did not truly understand the commend that my colleague Walt Mossberg made when he referred to the device as a Phablet - part phone, part Tablet.  

In almost every respect at least visually, the iPhone 6 Plus is indeed a Phablet.  But it is also a device that does not suffer from the downside of the Tablet or, interestingly enough, the wireless phone either.

What I mean by that is that where I tend to find Tablets ungainly and uncomfortable to use as a phone, the 6 Plus is actually comfortable in the hands, and easy to use as a phone.  

Note that while I was not aware that they had this feature until I actually experienced it - when you own an iPhone and an iPad, if both devices are turned on and logged into the same common WiFi network, when you receive a phone call on your iPhone it will forward the call to your iPad, so that you can take it there if that is more convenient.

And several times the iPad was closer to hand than the iPhone, and I took a few calls on it.  Even with the phone call on speaker and the device held comfortably in the hands the act of receiving a phone call via the Tablet was, to be accurate, uncomfortable.

That may be partly because it is an unusual experience, and partly due to the fact that taking a call under those circumstances leaves one at the mercy of the ambient noise in whatever environment they happen to be in at the time.  But either way, I don't recommend it.

A Question of Comfort?

While I had initial misgivings about opting for the iPhone 6 Plus once I experienced its over-sized footprint for myself, after just a few calls I have concluded that while there is a bit of getting used to to be experienced for me, personally, in the end I think I actually like the 6 Plus better than my old 4S.

Primarily I suspect that at least part of that inclination towards rapid acceptance is the fact that the 6 Plus is actually pretty close in terms of size to the sort of telephone handset I grew up using - that is to say the ear piece is just the right distance from the mic so that one is at the ear while the other is perfectly positioned before the lips.

Another strong factor for my ready acceptance is that we, as humans, tend to prefer what we know to something new.  And my comfort levels were never put to the test, because as soon as I turned on and properly charged the 6 Plus - or I should say while I waited for the 6 Plus to fully charge as per the instructions - more than a few minor matters were being attended to invisibly and behind the scenes.

While the new iPhone was charging, as I had followed the instructions with which it arrived and fully activated the device, adding my local WiFi security data, and authorizing the phone as my primary for both wireless service and iTunes, the following took place without my having to think about or actively manage them:

• Contacts - the phone automatically - or perhaps automagically is a better phrase - reached out to the Cloud and grabbed my Contacts data and saved it to the new device.  In consequence of this, when I reached for the phone to make a call for the first time, rather than needing to look a number up on my old (and no longer connected to AT&T) device, the full Contacts were already present, so it was business as usual!
• Weather and Other Data - while the phone did ask me to verify that I was, in fact, authorizing it to use my current location and the built-in location tracking features with which it comes as a standard feature - once I confirmed my permission for those, the new phone acted precisely as if it had been doing these things for me all along - or like my old phone basically.
• Messages and Text - the conversations and the new additions to the same - for my ongoing set of personal and business interactions were simply there.  No need for me to seek them out; it was as if the phone knew what was important to me and made sure that that information and its associated data made the switch with my details, everything intact.
• Important Dates and Appointments - all of the appointments on my calendar as well as the set of important dates that I had punched into my information management and productivity system three iPhones ago were just... There.
• Images, Videos, and Backgrounds - all thanks to the Cloud present and accounted for.
• The Apps I Use - note that I make a specific distinction here between the Apps that I actually use and the ones that happen to be on my phone because I had not gotten around to deleting them - and hey, the ones I actually used made the switch with me, without prompting, while the ones I did not - did not.

The important point to take away from all this is that I was not expecting it to be that easy.  In fact I was expecting to have to address and deal with all of this on my own, inconveniently, and over time.

The fact that none of that ended up being necessary is down to the genius of whoever came up with the programs that kick in when you upgrade phones.  Good on them!  Well done!

Second Impressions

Perhaps the most obvious point not in favor of this new and larger iPhone is the fact that pretty much all of the kit - with the exception of any Bluetooth kit - no longer works with my phone.

What that means is that some of it will have to be replaced.  In particular I will need to spend the time and the effort to seek out a MilSpec graded protective case for this bugger.  I will need to seek out and obtain a docking station for it because I use that particular connectivity convenience often in order to keep my phone and my notebook computer in-synch.

Having pointed that out though, it was very nice to be able to connect my earpiece and my over-the-ears headphones so that I could continue to use the stuff I am comfortable with and use often.

Big(ger) Screen Baby!

It is not that I am getting old, or that I have eyesight issues - but as one of the beats that I cover as a writer happens to be games journalism, and as mobile app/games play a significant part in that work that I do, the larger screen on the 6 Plus is a bloody beautiful thing.

Mark this down under the category of "you don't know what you are missing because you didn't know what you were missing" - but due to the manner in which mobile app/games of the city-building and grinder persuasion are built and played, it has been necessary for me to maintain multiple accounts and game sessions using different devices and log-ins.

I do that so that I can interact between the accounts using the multi-player side of the game play mechanics built into these games as a matter of convenience.  The increased screen size on the 6 Plus is so much bigger that I have not had a single missed - or incorrect - tap since I started using it!

That is a big deal, let me tell you.  Especially when you are playing a game like The Simpsons: Tapped Out in which you are making hundreds of taps and swipes in a single session!

So there you have it - in my opinion, for what that is worth - I find the new iPhone to be a major and easily experienced improvement over the iPhone 4S.  I suspect it is also an improvement over the iPhone 5 (all models) though having not used that generation at all, I really can't say with the sort of authoritative voice I usually use.

Keep an eye out for follow-on posts about this because I suspect, as I continue to use the 6 Plus, I will find other aspects and elements that I feel are worthy of comment.  And I shan't be shy in sharing those with you, I promise!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

The Technical Stuff...

Thanks to my trusty copy of Geekbench 3 (Version 3.2.2 for iOS), I was able to run the standard tests and here are the results:
 
Model: iPhone 6 Plus / Model ID: iPhone7,1
OS: iOS 8.1.1
Processor: Apple A8 @ 1.4 GHz 1 Processor, 2 Cores
Processor ID: ARM
Memory: 976 MB

L1 Instruction Cache: 64.0 KB
L1 Data Cache: 64.0 KB
L2 Cache: 1.00 MB
L3 Cache: 0.00 B
L4 Cache: 1.00 B

Processor Benchmarks Report

Single-Core Score:1620
Multi-Core Score:2907

INTEGER
Single-Core:1673
Multi-Core:3272

AES Single-Core: 1127 (988.3 MB/sec)
AES Multi-Core: 2211 (1.89 GB/sec)
Twofish Single-Core: 1034 (58.1 MB/sec)
Twofish Multi-Core: 2077 (116.6 MB/sec)
SHA1 Single-Core: 4559 (494.9 MB/sec)
SHA1 Multi-Core:  8998 (976.7 MB/sec)
SHA2 Single-Core: 2542 (110.0 MB/sec)
SHA2 Multi-Core:  5063 (219.1 MB/sec)
BZip2 Compress Single-Core: 1292 (5.25 MB/sec)
BZip2 Compress Multi-Core: 2540 (10.3 MB/sec)
BZip2 Decompress Single-Core: 1544 (8.37 MB/sec)
BZip2 Decompress Multi-Core: 3069 (16.6 MB/sec)
JPEG Compress Single-Core: 1366 (19.0 Mpixels/sec)
JPEG Compress Multi-Core: 2714 (37.8 Mpixels/sec)
JPEG Decompress Single-Core: 1881 (46.5 Mpixels/sec)
JPEG Decompress Multi-Core: 3662 (90.5 Mpixels/sec)
PNG Compress Single-Core: 1581 (1.26 Mpixels/sec)
PNG Compress Multi-Core: 3137 (2.50 Mpixels/sec)
PNG Decompress Single-Core: 1490 (17.2 Mpixels/sec)
PNG Decompress Multi-Core: 2969 (34.2 Mpixels/sec)
Sobel Single-Core: 1936 (70.5 Mpixels/sec)
Sobel Multi-Core: 3748 (136.4 Mpixels/sec)
Lua Single-Core: 1666 (1.50 MB/sec)
Lua Multi-Core: 3283 (2.95 MB/sec)
Dijkstra Single-Core: 1540 (5.53 Mpairs/sec)
Dijkstra Multi-Core: 2655 (9.53 Mpairs/sec)

FLOATING POINT
Single-Core Score:1574
Multi-Core Score:3103

BlackScholes Single-Core: 1746 (7.77 Mnodes/sec)
BlackScholes Multi-Core: 3461 (15.4 Mnodes/sec)
Mandelbrot Single-Core: 1146 (1.18 Gflops)
Mandelbrot Multi-Core: 2290 (2.35 Gflops)
Sharpen Filter Single-Core: 1326 (983.3 Mflops)
Sharpen Filter Multi-Core: 2604 (1.93 Gflops)
Blur Filter Single-Core: 1463 (1.39 Gflops)
Blur Filter Multi-Core: 2918 (2.78 Gflops)
SGEMM Single-Core: 1357 (3.80 Gflops)
SGEMM Multi-Core: 2648 (7.42 Gflops)
DGEMM Single-Core: 1270 (1.87 Gflops)
DGEMM Multi-Core: 2433 (3.58 Gflops)
SFFT Single-Core: 1662 (1.75 Gflops)
SFFT Multi-Core: 3284 (3.46 Gflops)
DFFT Single-Core: 1846 (1.68 Gflops)
DFFT Multi-Core: 3633 (3.31 Gflops)
N-Body Single-Core: 1969 (730.9 Kpairs/sec)
N-Body Multi-Core: 3896 (1.45 Mpairs/sec)
Ray Trace Single-Core: 2319 (2.73 Mpixels/sec)
Ray Trace Multi-Core: 4596 (5.42 Mpixels/sec)

MEMORY
Single-Core Score:1607
Multi-Core Score:1785

Stream Copy Single-Core: 2413 (9.63 GB/sec)
Stream Copy Multi-Core: 2411 (9.62 GB/sec)
Stream Scale Single-Core: 1452 (5.80 GB/sec)
Stream Scale Multi-Core: 1608 (6.42 GB/sec)
Stream Add Single-Core: 1361 (6.16 GB/sec)
Stream Add Multi-Core: 1590 (7.19 GB/sec)
Stream Triad Single-Core: 1401 (6.16 GB/sec)
Stream Scale Multi-Core: 1649 (7.25 GB/sec)

 Well there you have it - you compare the two - and granted they are actually separated by an entire generation... But still, whew!

. . . when the law goes too far.

We live in a world in which placing the blame is often more important than fixing the problem, and based upon the events that are unfolding in Western Pennsylvania and its border state, Ohio, over the past week, the case of Butler County v. Punxsutawney Phil Sowerby may end up being a classic example of how the powers of law are often abused by small-minded officers of the court bent on personal revenge.

That is one way to look at the situation, but if claims made by the Sowersby family are found to merit closer examination, what this may actually be is another case of Corporate Greed and the abuse of the law by underhanded Corporate Stooges seeking to possess information that clearly does not belong to them, which is just the sort of activities that the Occupy Movement has been trying to warn the world about since its founding in September, 2011.

Punxsutawney Phil facing possible Capital Punishment

According to Butler County (Ohio) Prosecuting Attorney Michael T. Gmoser, he awoke on the morning of 22 March 2013 to a cold and blustery day and, not content to embrace the suck and live through another cold day in Ohio, resolved to make a difference and do something about it. 

Reasoning that he was put in charge of the Butler County Prosecutor's Office specifically to look out for and protect not just the interests of the citizens of that county but, if we stretch the point, the rest of Ohio, and also to protect them from the knowing actions of criminal scammers and scams of all types and sizes. 

Prosecuting Attorney Gmoser has been accused of abusing the law.

That realization sparked a series of thoughts in his mind as he awoke and went through the process of completing his morning ablutions.  According to a highly placed and very reliable source who wishes to remain nameless, the decision on whether or not to indict and charge a defendant is often made either in bed, in the shower, on the toilet, or during long lunches.

Gmoser is portrayed as a family man with a hands-on approach to every aspect of life, from raising children to prosecuting the bad guys in court, and likes to use anecdotes drawn from his everyday life as he addresses the Jury in closing arguments.  

The Anatomy of an Indictment

Gmoser is rumored to be in the process of creating three new motions and a discovery document to file with the court in the case of Butler County v. Sowerby, with sources claiming that he will be filing a request for funds to pay three expert witnesses to support a possible added charge of Interfering with Air Traffic Controllers, which while it is a stretch, could force the defendant to hire at least three new attorneys in order to defend the charge.

That is not an unusual tactic for Prosecutors today; adding additional charges often forces a defendant to seek a plea agreement due to the added expenses of defending themselves in multiple jurisdictions and courts.

His decision to begin the long and involved process of bringing charges against Sowerby was no different than the same decision on other cases, according to a source in his office.  "You have to have resolve and pretty good legal skills," the source advised.  "Plus being really pissed off at the defendant helps.

The charges that Gmoser intends to file include fraud and deception, and though such charges rarely include application of the death penalty, Gmoser has made it crystal clear that he intends to seek the death penalty in this case, reasoning that the circumstances of Sowerby's ongoing criminal enterprise warrants that level of punishment.

"Punxsutawney Phil did purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause people to believe that Spring would come early," the indictment reads.  

Phil exercising his 1st Amendment Rights to Predict Weather

Concerned about the broad-reaching consequences the alleged fraud may have, from the financial risks that are posed to businesses and investors who rely upon the predictions made with respect to the arrival and the nature of Spring for investing, for the process of determining when to begin construction projects, and a host of other large value projects, Gmoser points out that the scammer he is going after in this indictment poses an ongoing and serious risk to society.

"He's already serving a life sentence behind bars, as you know," Gmoser told reporters from television station WXIX. Convinced that he intentionally misled the nation, Gmoser feels that the only right action is to apply the most extreme punishment allowed by law.

"I woke up this morning and the wind was blowing, the snow was flying, the temperatures were falling, and I said 'Punxsutawney, you let us down,' " the prosecutor told WXIX.

Who is this Criminal Meteorologist?

 

Punxsutawney Phil Sowerby, of 301 East Mahoning St., Punxsutawney PA, is by all accounts a quiet law-abiding family man and resident of Punxsutawney, a borough in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. 

He has no criminal record, and other than his hobby as an amateur meteorologist, holds no professional licenses, bonds, or permits according to our inquiry with the Pennsylvania Secretary of State's Office.  

According to a statement made by his wife, Phyllis Sowerby, who declined to be interviewed by the press, Phil is being targeted by Cincinnati-based Fortune 500 mega-corporation Procter & Gamble, who she is convinced is using Gmoser as a legal stooge in its efforts to put pressure on Sowerby to reveal the source for the “elixir of life” that is allegedly behind his unusually long life -- the amateur meteorologist is rumored to be celebrating his 125th birthday this year.

“Proctor & Gamble want the formula and they will stop at nothing to get it,” Phyllis Sowerby is rumored to have said in an interpreted statement to local police.

The police in Punxsutawney appear to be taking the claims seriously, and have relocated Sowerby and his family to a more secure safehouse located adjacent to the Punxsutawney Police Station at 301 E. Mahoning St., Punxsutawney, PA. 

The safehouse is wired for both sound and video, with a number of closed-circuit security cameras that feed monitors at the Police Station that are now being manned around the clock  out of concern for Phil's safety. 

‘‘Right next to where Phil stays is the police station,’’ Bill Deeley, president of the Punxsutawney club that organizes Groundhog Day event warned. ‘‘They've been notified, and they said they will keep watching their monitors.’’

Deeley was not the only member of the community that was quick to jump to Phil's defense: "If you remember two weeks ago on a Sunday, it was probably 60, 65 degrees," handler John Griffiths told WXIX in Phil's defense. "So, I mean, that basically counts as an early spring."

The question of whether there is a Corporate conspiracy involved here is not as important as the other questions and concerns held by the community, who in addition to professing love for their amateur meteorologist also feel that his occasional mistakes should be accepted as the cost of being an amateur; besides which they have a lot invested in his ongoing hobby, which is crucial to the local economy.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Tourism, Punxsutawney Phil is the biggest tourism draw in the state, followed by the Little League World Series.  In addition to the official forecast which takes place in the morning at Gobbler's Knob, there are a large number of sanctioned and unsanctioned events, including the annual Groundhog Ball, Phil Phest, and six different musical events.

The World is taking the Indictment Seriously

Phil is reportedly unconcerned about the charges, and in a private address to the members of the community and the clubs that help host his annual events, went so far as to suggest that should the Ohio Prosecutor somehow manage to obtain an extradition order, he would rely upon Jury Nullification as his ace-in-the-hole.

While Phil appears to consider the matter something of a joke, the rest of the world is taking it very seriously indeed, and grass roots Free Phil Movements are cropping up on every continent out of a very real concern that Prosecutor Gmoser may intend to carry out the sentence himself.  

To better understand the world's reaction, all that you need do is read the headlines from newspapers that are carrying the story and following Phil's plight:

• Groundhog ‘Indicted:’ Punxsutawney Phil Charged With Fraud (One News)
• Groundhog ‘Indicted:’ Punxsutawney Phil Charged With Fraud (Epoch Times)
• Groundhog indicted: Punxsutawney Phil charged for bad forecast (KTRK)
• Groundhog Phil a furry felon over false forecast (Toledo News)
• Groundhog Phil a furry felon over false forecast (Lebanon Daily News)
• Groundhog Phil 'indicted,' accused of lying (KITV)
• Groundhog Phil 'indicted,' accused of lying (WMTW)
• Punxsutawney Phil Indicted For ‘Misrepresentation Of Early Spring’ (CBS2 New York)
• Punxsutawney Phil charged with fraud for early spring forecast (Yahoo)
• Punxsutawney Phil 'indicted' in chilly Ohio (USA Today)
• Punxsutawney Phil's 2013 Forecast: Groundhog Receives 'Indictment' Over Inaccurate Prediction (Huffington Post)
• Weather groundhog Phil 'indicted,' accused of lying as winter continues (CNN)

Just to be sure that we are all on the same page, this is humor in the same vein as the original indictment...

. . . the need to maintain a good website for freelance writers.

The life of the typical freelance writer -- particularly writers who exist in the shadowy in-between world of traditional print and online publishing (a necessity these days as you have to go where the money is) -- tends to be a very predictable one in most respects.  

You may not know what you will be writing about from day-to-day or even hour-to-hour, but you do know where in the world you will be in physical terms with some easy predictability.  These days the lion's share of the work that the typical freelance writer does is centered around their personal computer, with assignments arriving via their email inbox and delivered in much the same fashion (unless the publication has an online form through which completed assignments are meant to be delivered.

One of the consequences of this new way of transacting business is the necessity for every writer to create and maintain a personal website or, at a minimum, a personal web page that serves as both an online identity and the focus for their work; it becomes the center of their business in other words.  

Editors these days expect to be able to access a wide variety of information on those pages or site, from instant contact data to writing samples, as well as biographical information that will provide a sense of who the writer is as well as what they do.  While most (if not all) of that information will never make it into print, the function that it serves is to give the editor a sense that they know who the person is that they are assigning work to or hiring,and that the writer is accessible to them so in that respect the form that a writer's page/site takes is pretty important, because it ends up being a virtual extension of a real person.

First impressions count for a lot -- my mother told me that and I believe it -- so the first impression that you make as a freelancer through your site should be an accurate reflection of who you are but it should also have enough character and oomph to catch the eye.  Obviously you cannot risk going over the top with it, but it should be memorable enough so that the positive impression that it makes on an editor lingers.

With that in mind you would think that every writer would take pains to be certain that their website provides an accurate reflection of who they are, and offers at least a minimal slice of their character and personality, right?  Well, no, not so much really.  In fact if you took the time to Google the search terms "+freelance writer +home page "+portfolio"  what you end up with is a long list of sites with predictable content but pretty much lack any sense of personal identity.  

The effort that you make in creating a site that represents the identity of the author is especially important for the freelance writer, and not just respective of the impression that it makes on editors who offer potential assignments, but perhaps even more important is the impression that you make on your readers -- after all the reason that you do what you do is for your readers, right?  Right!

The treatment that they give is more like a brochure than a personal statement, and these sites and pages appear to have been stamped out of preset designs rather than serving as examples of the creative spark that exists in each writer.  A very strange trend if you ask me, because I know a lot of freelancers and they are almost all, to a one, characters in their own right.

Addressing the reasons behind why these creative and capable writers who are otherwise interesting and even amusing people have come to the conclusion that they are better served by bland lists and tend to rely upon blog-style cookie-cutter designs -- formats that have about as much to do with the individual writer as the ticket stub for a train trip from Boston to New York -- and I confess that I am left quietly surprised by this trend.

While this is a subject for another post, on another day, before I get to the real subject of this post I wanted to share with you the results of several conversations that I had with different freelance writers whose sites pretty much mirror what I have just described, the gist of the conversation being opened with the question of how they chose the design that they chose...

"The appearance of the site really is not as important as the information it contains so as long as that information is easy to access and easy to read, what does it really matter?  It is not like an editor is going to form an impression of me from the design of the pages where I stick my portfolio," was one thoughtful reply.  "Maintaining that (website) is such a hassle.  I used to write a blog on it but I realized that nobody really cared, so now all I have to remember is to update my portfolio," was another.  Clearly they have the impression that their online presence is mostly wasted effort when it comes to what amounts to personal branding, and that is a shame, because when I looked at the other side of that coin the position was diametrically opposite...

"You can tell a lot about a writer from their home page," an editor for an online gaming entertainment site I was pitching a feature to said.  "In my experience the freelancers who take the time to create an interesting site for their work and themselves are the sort of writer who puts in 110% effort in the assignments that I give them, and besides that if you think about it, the fact that they take the time and put out the effort to create a site that reflects their personality and their skills is always a good thing," they observed.  "I can choose from a hundred freelancers for each piece I need written, so the ones who make a lasting impression on me are the ones I remember first."

It is probably a good thing that you cannot see facial expressions through webchat and IRC, because the writers I was talking to would likely have been shocked by my needing to carefully pick my jaw up off of the floor at their replies, and the editor would have taken note of the smug expression on my face caused by their confirming a reality that I had long suspected.  

The writers seem to be convinced that the image that they present to the world -- and what is much more important to my way of thinking to their readers and editors -- does not really matter or have an impact on how they are perceived by both groups, but I know -- I know -- that is not true.  Coming up with a good (and accurate) site design that helps to communicate who you are as writer is a very important step in creating your personal brand and in introducing you to the world, and especially new readers who are just discovering you.  Then there are editors -- don't forget the editors!

Once you have decided on that design and its elements and you start building your site, you should borrow a trick out of the playbook of web design pro's though, and immediately begin tweaking your site by paying attention to the way it is being used.  You get that information through the site stats that most hosting companies make available to you free of charge.  And that does not apply just to your website either -- you can use the stats from different elements of your site -- this blog is a prime example -- to see how it is being accessed, how it is being used, and perhaps even more significantly you can obtain a snapshot of the people who are visiting -- and reading -- your pages as well...

At least some effort towards improving the effectiveness of your website needs to be made on your part as its creator whose partial goal is to introduce your character and personality to both your readers and new editors who might throw you a bone in the form of a writing assignment.   It is not enough to make it and then wash your hands and say "I'm done!" you have to set small goals for yourself aimed at improving it and then do it!

Tweaking Your Site

If you happen to care about how your website looks, the impression that it makes on the average visitor, and how they use it, you already have some props and respect from me; I am convinced that the presence of your website or page is as important as good telephone manners and punctuation when it comes to making an impression on editors, and even more important for your relationship to your readers.  I am also convinced that the care that you take in design of your site/page and the information you put on it besides the required things like contact information and your portfolio are worthwhile and worth the effort.

The choices that I made for the recent redesign of my site were very personal and reflect both my character and personality -- actually the creative spark that set me in motion and resulted in that puzzling design came from a casual comment from an editor that I had pitched a piece to, and in the follow-up call they made some comments and observations that, though personal, set my imagination on the course that eventually took me to the design you can see on my home page.

They did not end up commissioning that piece -- they wanted a variation of it, which I was happy to accommodate -- but in the midst of that conversation they observed that they found me puzzling; they commented that they admired my pluck -- that my appearance and personal situation (I use a wheelchair to get around) would probably depress most people to the point that they would not be out there pitching feature pieces but rather would be depressed and hostile towards life.  They thought that my can-do positive attitude was admirable, and wondered what the secret was to my staying upbeat in a world of constant pain that is largely hostile towards people who cannot walk. 

"Drugs," I replied.  But they knew I was joking.  The truth is that just like every other life-altering situation, you have to make a choice; you either make the best of what you have or you give up.  It is incredibly easy to blame others for your disabilities and your inability to have the things you want or lead the life you want; it is a lot harder to take what you have and build upon it, and when you are physically handicapped I believe that making the choice to be emotionally compromised in the bargain is the surest path towards self-destruction and self-pity.

When you consider the alternatives -- lead a bitter and unfulfilled existence, don't get the things you want, make other people miserable, and in the end when you tally up everything you did not get done and all of the failures that your life presents, you still only have yourself to blame.  I would much rather try and fail then to not try at all, and besides that when you try and succeed the impediments that you overcame tend to make those successes all the sweeter as a consequence.  Now that directly impacts the entire issue of both an online and real-world presence for me, and probably in ways you have not considered.

I never conceal the fact that I am disabled (the politically correct phrase would be mobility challenged) but on the other hand it is usually not a good idea to make that the first thing an editor learns about you if they happen to be looking for someone to cover an event that requires travel to another city or country -- and I have and will continue to accept those types of assignments, because I firmly believe that the struggles associated with travel are my personal problem, and not something that I want to encourage the average editor to consider.  With that in mind you can probably see how my website and online presence is incredibly important to me -- and why tweaking it and making it more effective is worthwhile effort.

Despite the relative importance of that destination and presence online, very few writers appear to have even the slightest idea of how that resource is being accessed, and which pages receive return visits -- the sort of raw data that the people who create websites pay particular attention to since it allows them to fine-tune a website to improve its results and make it more effective.  Considering the fact that for most freelancers they are the web design and development department for their business, as well as the creative team, and the standards inspector, writer, editor, and chief bottle-washer.  We cannot be all of those things without forming an intimate attachment to what we create, but we can be all those things and still remain completely ignorant of the actual use of and impact that our sites have on the readers.  Heck, you don't even have to try to reach that level of ignorance, you just have to let it happen.

Knowing what the device and Operating System are for the people who are accessing your site can be as interesting and as important as knowing where in the world they are, what the percentages are for the nationality of your visitors (change that to readers) are for each piece, and when the stats cover your actual writing, features, news, reviews, and the like, this information morphs from statistics to valuable data that can help you sell your skills to editors from publications you have never even considered pitching to before.  When you discover you have a large reader base in Germany that you had no idea existed, that is new you can use!

Stats for Speaking Of...

When I first discovered the collection of stats that are available -- at the click of a link -- I was blown away.  There was all sorts of useful information to be had, in fact I will share a sampling of that with you now:

-- Visitor Percentages by Browser --

• 17% -- Chrome
• 46% -- Firefox
• 21% -- Internet Explorer
• 01% -- Mobile
• 03% -- Opera
• 08% -- Safari

-- Visitor Percentages by Operating System -- 

• 01% -- Android
• 06% -- iPad
• 02% -- iPhone
• 02% -- iPod
• 03% -- Linux
• 08% -- Macintosh
• 03% -- Other / Unidentified
• 72% -- Windows

-- Visitor Percentages by Country of Origin -- 

• 01% -- Belgium
• 10% -- Canada
• 04% -- China
• 06% -- Germany
• 03% -- Mexico
• 01% -- Poland
• 03% -- South Africa
• 27% -- United Kingdom
• 42% -- United States

In addition to the above stats I can also learn what pages on my various sites refer the most traffic to this blog, as well as what other sites online (mostly my home page and Google) refer readers in, where they are coming from and what search terms that they are using that ends up bringing them to my site and this blog, which blog posts generate the most views and how often, what the daily traffic looks like, and a plethora of other information. 

On the hosting account for my website I can get the same information but in far greater detail, and in fact the stats system can be custom configured by me to allow me to drill down to specific information such as what the percentages are for each of the Microsoft OS's that are covered by the entry for "Windows" -- if you are curious and I was, I recently took a look at that information displaying the data as daily stats and learned that over the course of the past seven days the presence of Windows 8 is steadily increasing, which suggests that contrary to the rumors online, people are actually buying and upgrading to the new Windows.

A jaded -- or clever -- writer might take these stats and use them to tailor the contents of their site in order to narrow them to the most appealing information, so for example I might start writing blog entries whose subjects include the Firefox web browser on Windows 8 and examine Internet interests of people in the USA and United Kingdom, which would nicely hit the top percentage of users already visiting my sites.  Or I could do the same thing but change the focus of habits to people from Poland if my goal was to improve the traffic from that country.  You get the idea about how this information and these stats are actually useful for improving the site, right?

. . . Routines

Like most people I am a creature of habit and routine; each day I follow a set of patterns that begins with waking up and checking my email over a cuppa, answering the messages that require my attention immediately before breaking my fast, and then dealing with the rest of the email on an as-needed, as-deserved basis.

Along with those answered messages are invariably a few new messages that I must create to deal with the things that need to be dealt with, and this first pattern of habit begins both my personal and my working day.

What follows is a pattern of routines: I read and review the wire service reports, prioritize the press releases that I have received as email directly from the PR's, and compare those to the report that is maintained on a pair of industry websites before selecting the stories that will make up the morning video game news contents for Gaming Update.

In addition to the above activities, I also review and select the various news pieces that have been submitted by the other members of the site's growing staff of talented writers, selecting and approving the pieces that are destined to be included as the day's gaming news feed from the other writers, performing these tasks and making these decisions in my capacity as unofficial sub-editor.

With all of that managed, I then depart IRL for work, where I perform the work-like things that the physical space is reserved for at that place called work, and at some point in my day I have Skype conversations with the other staff writers/interns for GU, during which we will discuss the topics for their upcoming pieces / coverage, and participate in the social side of those relationships.

This can mean anything from simply gossiping and exchanging links to the websites/pages online that have most recently attracted our collective attention, to participating in organized social activities -- for example we have our own small group on the Facebook social game Farmville within which we often pursue group-oriented efforts such as growing specific crops for crafting and the like.

By mid-day the bulk of this set of routines is completed, not to be repeated until the following morning when it all begins again and anew!

Randomness that is Not Random

Following the completion of that small element of work-mixed-with-socialization I fall into the next regular set of routines; completing outstanding assignments for the other publications that I work for, taking care of research for upcoming columns and articles, and organizing my list of Things That Must Be Completed and Acted Upon™ and, once those are finished to my exacting standards, I break for lunch, eat it, and spend some time visiting the websites and pages that I normally visit at that time of day (and thus performing yet another of the many routine activities that collectively make up the varied but regular subroutines of an average day).

Friday, September 23rd, 2011 meant popping-open my bookmarks folders, navigating to the one whose title is "Blogs" and paying visits to:

(1)The Daily Girl Attack Panic Super HD Remix Blog, where I catch up on what Lauren has to say since my last visit. Lauren is, if you are not aware, an incredibly intelligent and observant girl gamer who, though temporarily seduced by the Dark Side (PR) is nevertheless in the foundations of her soul and, most important, in that moment before hitting the Start Button, a committed gamer and games journo. One of us, in other words.

In addition to being a genuine gamer, Lauren is also a freelance writer and her observations on the pink weapons skins for Gears 3, light musing on Dead Island, and her observations on immersion (or rather immersion-breaking aspects) in Deus Ex: Human Revolution (A) interest me, (B) cause me to agree, and (C) feel like she was somehow inside my head and thinking the same thoughts as I was on that subject.

(2) My weekly visit to Audra's Australian Adventures Blog where I quickly catch-up on the thoughts of an interesting young American woman (now technically Australian-American since she took the plunge and legally became an Aussie not too long ago), which is always worth the time spent visiting and reading the pages.

(3) WWdN: In Exile, my third blog-site stop of this particular subroutine of my routine is always where I am happy to see the advice that opens every visit: "Don't be a dick!"

This is of course the blog-slash-wisdom-and-observational-offerings of actor, author, and all-around interesting fellow Wil Wheaton, a man who has spent so much time in my bedroom on one screen or another that I almost feel as if we have some sort of relationship.... And interestingly enough of the three blogs that are part of this subroutine, Wil Wheaton is the only person/blogger involved who I have actually met and spoken with IRL...

While some of the dedicated Trekkies out there say that they dislike Wil's character in STTNG, I simply cannot see how they could possibly have reservations about or concerns over a writer who is also an actor and who IRL not only writes and acts, but also (A) brews his own beer/ale, (B) is a seriously dedicated gamer, (3) regularly speaks and/or/as well appears at PAX Prime, PAX East, This Con and That Con, and (D) would find my mixture of alpha-numeric points amusing. I am just saying...

GIGO: an Acronym that has Nothing to do with the TV show Weeds

One part of my daily routine that hardly ever varies is my need to discover factoids and stories, history, and other bits of largely useless and trivial information that somehow relates to my life -- or I can convince myself that they do -- often in very loose and hard to link ways :) Thoughts about some aspect of life in Chez BF is often the motivating factor, and of course the Internet and the Web are just about the perfect vehicle for that sort of hit-or-miss digital joyride. Often these trips begin while I am searching for information about a piece I am writing, but just as often they can be a subject casually related to games, gaming, or my dog.

In my home office resides my collection of video game consoles which lay about in various positions of attention, parade rest, and sprawl upon the broad and flat top of the oak armoire that is the one piece of furniture that Yvonne owned (along with an ancient but fully-functioning 1951 model RCA Victor 45 self-contained turntable) when we moved into our first flat together in New Haven -- the one that was just across the street from Saint Rafe's -- in the bad old days of the early 1990's when if we were not off at an SCA event, we spent our Saturday afternoons pwning Yale underclassmen from Psi Upsilon, KASY -- and the odd Spizzwink -- at our regular weekly AD&D game.

You may find this amazing (I know I do) but those Saturday AD&D games took place each Saturday afternoon (well yeah) starting at 15:00 GMT -5 and ending at 20:00 GMT -5 (or thereabouts) in the very dorm room that was once the home of Rear Admiral Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906 -- January 1, 1992) but at the time of our gaming sessions, was the lawfully registered domicile of one Gregarious Root (not his real name but actually his genuine 'Nym) -- and yes, his last name does mean what you think it does and, together, the two names do mean what you fear that they do; as many a formerly chaste young lady from the nearby seat of higher education Albertus Magnus often discovered.

Now, in addition to rising to the rank of Rear Admiral, and having the United States Navy vessel U.S.S. Hopper (DDG-70) named for her (which BTW you can get a 1/350th scale plastic model kit for from Trumpeter Models), Admiral Hopper is famous for a number of reasons, including the fact that she is the person who coined the phrase "Computer Bug" when, in 1946, while serving as a research fellow atHarvard University's Computation Laboratory, she worked on the U.S. Navy's Mark IIand Mark III computers, inventing the term "computer bug" when sheremoved a dead moth from the switching contacts of the Mark II that was preventing the program run from completing properly.

We were playing our weekly game of Dungeons and Dragons in the rooms that the female version of Einstein basically conceived and drafted her doctoral dissertation: New Types ofIrreducibility Criteria, and where it is probably safe to assume she formulated many of the ideas that eventually lead to her theories on simple platform-independent computer programming languages and COBOL, and how cool is that?!

. . . Wiki's

Most citizens of the Internet think of Wikipedia when the subject of the wiki is brought up, though to be honest Wikipedia is a site that is viewed by most members of the media as a rather suspect and unreliable source of information. In fact it is often used as a zinger or joke when an editor asks for the source for a particularly salacious or damaging quote -- the sort of thing that you absolutely must be able to reply upon being accurate or risk a lawsuit -- to which the writer will nonchalantly reply: "Oh that? I saw it on Wikipedia!"

All joking aside, Wikipedia has done more to make the Wiki platform the success that it is than any other site or community, and that says something worth noting! If you are not familiar with what a wiki is, in a nutshell it is a program that is usually deployed on a web server that uses a database or databases that are filled with user-submitted information -- or pages -- to collect and present information on a given subject.

Specifically it is an attractive and easy to use front-end that serves as both the major element of the sites design, and its structure. The users of a wiki create an account, and then they are free to post pages to the wiki -- and of more significance -- edit the pages posted by another user. Why is that important?

In the case of Wikipedia -- which is an online interactive user-driven encyclopedia -- it means that if you come upon a page on that site that has incorrect information, rather than send an email to report it, you can if you choose, log in and correct the information yourself. Quite a powerful tool indeed, especially because the web browser itself is the basic tool by which the contents of a wiki are read and created!

Wikipedia

The story of Wikipedia is one of those Internet success stories that are often brought up whenever a project is being pitched on an approach that has never been tried before. "This will be our Wikipedia!" is a phrase I have heard often in the past.

The site itself was not the first to implement the wiki as its structure -- that honor was pioneered by Ward Cunningham, who developed the first wiki in 1994. He used the wiki for his personal site and several sites that represented projects with which he was associated, but major success for the platform followed the creation of Wikipedia by Rick Gates, based upon the concept that was first proposed by Richard Stallman.

Originally conceived as a vehicle by which recognized experts in a given field or subject could generate content for the website Nupedia, the unique construct of the wiki format and its accessibility very quickly eclipsed Nupedia, and caused Wikipedia to spin-off as its own online encyclopedia site, as well as caused the creation of other related sites.

A side-effect of that success was the attention of the web world that was paid not just to the site -- which was wildly popular with surfers -- but also to the format, indirectly creating its own industry as individuals and groups set out to program their own take on the wiki with the improvements that they thought it needed. Today there are literally hundreds of different wiki programs -- some are naturally based upon the more successful offerings, while others are scratch-built to fulfill specific needs.

The idea behind the wiki is sound; it is one of the most efficient and best methods for creating and relating information, while allowing a large community to participate. While that is certainly one of the greatest strengths of the wiki as a platform, the fact that it is equally useful for a small group or even a single person to use to document and link information, and that it will run on any client that can use a web browser, well now there you have significant strength.

A Personal Wiki

The idea of a personal wiki -- of leveraging all of the advantages of the wiki platform for the management of personal or business data -- did not occur to me until quite recently I am embarrassed to admit.

Over the course of the past year I have been struggling with devising a way to manage what has become a large amount of diverse but related information in a manner that was not simply able to store it, but also make it instantly available to me. I needed to be able to create documents and then naturally link them together so that I could smoothly transition from one to another along a chain, a chain that often is very long.

I needed to keep track of information like the details on a video game, and then link that to my data on its publisher and developer, along with notes I take while playing the game to prepare for reviewing it. But I also needed to be able to associate the PR Representative -- whether they were an in-house employee of the publisher or worked for an agency, and there again was another galaxy of information that needed to be linked not just to the game but to other games. Add in what amounts to a dossier on the PR people that includes everything that I know about them, reports of meetings at events, phone call logs and reports, and more.

Initially I tried the traditional route -- notes taken on pads and notebooks, file-o-fax, and the classic address book -- but the simple enormity of the information quickly rendered that unusable as a system for information management. Sure, I had the information, but I had to remember where it was written down and then access it.

My next stab at it involved using Excel Spreadsheets as the focus for tracking the status of the different projects, linking documents to the entries and then linking in the address book functions from Outlook. Microsoft Office is a very useful suite of programs, and they do talk to each other -- but then Microsoft pulled the rug out from under me!

I was using Office 2000, for which I had paid a pretty big chunk of money back in 2000, and it still worked just fine for me. All of my data was in various formats used by it -- but when I bought a new notebook computer and went to install it to it, I discovered that at some point in the previous year Microsoft had declared Office 2000 dead, and they were not just not supporting it anymore, they actively killed its key registration system online, preventing owners of the product from doing ANY new installations!

When I contacted them about it they told me I had two choices -- buy a newer version of Office, which they were happy to sell me -- or find an alternative office productivity suite, and oh, have a nice day sir!

Do I have to tell you that my reaction was unpleasant? After having them kick my knees out from under me there was no way I was going to invest $500 in getting into bed with them again, because the day would come when they simply did that to me again. The following day I switched all of my systems to Sun's OpenOffice -- which is free -- but that does not have all of the components or interoperability that MS Office did, so while it solved my need for an office suite, it did not solve my information management troubles.

One of my editors, when they learned of my predicament, sent me a copy of Act for Windows, which I admit is a great program for management of contacts and documenting my interaction with them, but it only does that well for small bits of data. It is, to be accurate, a lightweight weapon in a battle that required a WMD.

I struggled with this for months, missing some release dates and losing contact information only to find it again AFTER I no longer needed it, and I finally sat down and declared that enough was enough. I needed a solution.

I happened to be looking at Wikipedia, reading about the development delays for a game that I was reviewing, when I said to myself -- what you need is a personal wiki.

In the past I have experienced what is called epiphany, but never had I experienced it on that level. It felt like being physically struck in the psyche. The blow was rapid and acute and stunning, and as I sat there, glaring at my video display, I repeated the words.

"What you need is a personal wiki!"

Getting there is half the fun. . .

I immediately sat down and began researching the wiki, and learned that there were hundreds to choose from, but not all of them were free. There were also options -- I could pay to lease a hosted wiki, or I could put together a server and place it on my network and install my own wiki. I could get a stand-alone wiki that will run under Windows and just stick it on my notebook, or I could get what is called a Workgroup Wiki and install that to my desktop, which would offer a limited service to my home network.

After carefully considering the matter I came to the conclusion that I would need a wiki that I could access from any machine in my house, and that I could access when I was away from home and office. It had to be web-accessible, and it needed to be robust. It had to have built-in security and access control, and if at all possible, I wanted it to be free.

With that criteria established I went looking for a wiki and, no real surprise, I ended up choosing MediaWiki -- the same software that Wikipedia uses.

There were plenty of cons -- for one thing I was already used to using that, and I was familiar with its markup code. For another, it was robust and war-tested. It was available as a package installation for Ubuntu Linix, which happened to be the flavor I use these days, and best of all, it used skins, making its presentation flexible.

MediaWiki it was!

Deciding on what to use turned out to be the most difficult part of the whole process.

I pulled my old notebook computer out of storage and installed Ubuntu Server on it, then put it on a shelf on one of the computer racks in my NOC, and tuned the LAMP Package to meet with the requirements of the wiki. Then I installed and configured the wiki software, and in a very brief single afternoon I was up and running.

I imagined that it would be very useful, but of course getting the wiki up on my network was really the beginning of the deployment process. It had no information, you see, so despite the fact that I had an operative Wiki it was not useful without information!

Where I started was with the stacks of notes, notebooks, and post-its that were the primary debris that littered my world. I took each note, created a page for it in the wiki as needed or added it to another page, and then shredded it. At the end of every evening I backed up the wiki so that if anything happened to the system, I could simply redeploy it to another computer and nothing would be lost in the process.

I then sat down to create a cron job to automagically back up the wilki twice a day so that I would no longer have to think about doing that, sending the back-ups to both of our NASD's for a mirrored arrangement so to speak, and the following day I resumed the operation.

Over the course of a week I transferred what amounts to five years of notes, information, contacts, and resources into that wiki. When I was done with the major part of that -- what I call the Information Alpha Build -- I sat back and started to use it.

Being able to search through all of that data using a web browser and the search button was, to be blunt, freaking awesome! All of the data was linked, and none of it was redundant. I no longer had to duplicate information because the information was associated with multiple subjects being covered. I could instantly and conveniently access what I needed, and if what I needed was elsewhere, why there was a link to it! It was only a few mouse clicks away!

My wiki quickly became an indispensable tool of my work-flow methodology!

Real Life Too

One afternoon I was looking for a digital photo that a relative asked me to email them when I thought -- man, here is a task that would be made so much easier by having it all in a wiki. But it is a photo, you cannot wiki those. Or can you?

A quick check of Wikipedia proved to me that indexing and organizing photos was one of the things that MediaWiki did well -- in fact you did not even have to FTP the photo to the wiki -- you could do it with a mouse click from your regular browser! And how cool is that?

While transferring the notes and data was time consuming, it paid off immediately. Building a database of photos however, well, that is not something I will manage in a week. No, that is a long-term project, best completed by making sure that all the new pictures are entered that same week that they were taken, and entering old ones in batches, when I have the time. But still, it is a workable project!

And there is no shortage of projects to be wikified! I plan to once and for all create a complete and accurate catalog of all of the CD's, DVD's and books that I own, with notes as to where they are located. Maybe I will even use the Dewey Decimal System -- I don't know. What I do know, though, is that the catalogs will be conveniently available from the landing page of our Household Wiki!

I plan to transfer all of our recipes to a Kitchen Section on the wiki -- and install a disk-less network computer on the counter in the kitchen to make accessing the recipes painless.

I am going to be inputting all of the vet records for our pets -- and for that matter, while I am at it I should scan all of the report cards my kids have brought home over the years -- maybe work on a graphing system so we can examine their progress (or lack thereof) in a given subject. And then there is our Coca Cola collection -- that clearly needs to be wiki'd.

I really love my wiki!