From blogs.tedchoward.com.

I’ve been privilaged to be part of a bootstrapping comminuty using a collaboration tool called an Instant Outliner. It’s an interesting tool built around the concept of a shared outline. I’ll probably write more about this at some point, but for now I have one specific point I want to talk about.

When the outine is updated, the computer beeps, and the person’s node that updated is bolded. This works fine when I’m at home and at my computer. But when I’m at work, I often have the volume down and the outline in the background. I found myself wanting a visual notification of some sort when the outline updated.

I’m on a Mac, so the obvious solution is to use Growl.

Like all the other tools for this community, the Instant Outliner is built on top of the OPML Editor, which I have previously described as a Swiss Army Knife. If I want Growl notifications for my Instant Outline updates, the OPML Editor needs to know how to talk to Growl. So, I wrote a tool.

Growl.root adds support for sending Growl notifications from scripts written in the OPML Editor. There are basically 2 verbs (OPML-speak for functions) that you need to care about.

growlSuite.newNotification(title, enabled) will tell Growl about a type of notification I want to send. For the instant outliner I would execute:

growlSuite.newNotification(“Instant Outliner”, true)

growlSuite.sendNotification(name, title, description) will actually send the notification. The first parameter(name) must match a notification type from the previous verb. The second parameter is the title of the notification and the third parameter is the text of the notification. To notify that I updated my outline I would execute:

growlSuite.sendNotification(“Instant Outliner”, “tedhoward”, “Guys, check out my new growl scripts”)

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, you can download growl.root here.

From blogs.tedchoward.com.

Have you ever noticed that you get some of your best thinking done in the shower? I certainly do. Some of my best and worst (i.e most creative) ideas have come to me in the shower. Often I will come up with a solution to a problem I spent the pervious day struggling with while taking my morning shower.

What is it about the shower that brings me to such a level of clarity? Is it the all the steam? It it the water? the soap? Perhaps, but I don’t think so. It occured to me that when I’m in the shower, I am not consuming any outside information. In the shower I have no TV, radio, books, podcasts, web sites, etc. It’s just me and my thoughts. The only other time when this is true is when I’m in bed trying to fall asleep. When I’m in the shower, Im trying to wake my mind up, and with nothing to fill it, it begins processing the information it already has.

Maybe the magic of the shower is simply the fact that I can’t bring anything else into it with me. It’s just me and my thoughts. I wonder what it would do to my life to take more time out of the day to just think. No reading, watching or listening. Just thinking, and maybe some writing. How big of a difference could this make? I guess I’ll have to think about it.

Do you set aside any time each day just for thinking?

BTW: The idea for this post came to me this morning in the shower.

From blogs.tedchoward.com.

Almost a year and a half ago, I took the Zen TV Experiment and wrote about my experience. For the first time, this caused me to really evaluate the position of television in my life and question its value. It also caused be to be aware of the tricks that TV uses and the effects it has on me when I watch it.

The immediate aftermath of this was a conversation with Megan where we decided to no longer eat our meals in front of the TV. It was a great improvement. It also started a series of events that resulted in us watching less and less tv over time. We would have these moments where we’d go through our season passes on the TiVo and eliminate shows for various reasons. I also resolved to only watch TV on purpose. In other words, I would only watch shows that I wanted to watch, I wouldn’t just sit down to “watch something”.

This past month, Megan decided to give up TV for lent. She went through a similar transformation of thought on the value of TV and it’s place in our life. She too is resolved to watch less and be more purposeful about it. And then we come to last night.

Yesterday was Easter; lent is over. Now that Megan is “allowed” to watch TV again, we had some decisions to make. We turned on the TiVo and looked at the list of recorded shows for the first time in six weeks. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much there. Several episodes of the Oprah show, The Office, 30 Rock and The Chicago Code. Having not watched any TV for six weeks, we are faced with the question: “Are any of these shows worth the time it takes to watch them?"

Not watching TV has freed us to do so much more with our evenings. Megan has become a fairly prolific blogger. We’ve both read several books. We’ve had some deep, meaningful conversations, played some games, had people over, gone out, worked on side projects. Which of these things are we willing to give up to watch a TV show?

It’s a difficult question, because the shows we watch together (I don’t watch Oprah) are really good shows. We really enjoy watching them (most of the time). But are they worth the half-hour every week commitment?

Last night we decided to quit watching The Chicago Code. It’s a fairly new show, and it’s off to a pretty decent start, but neither one of us is heavily invested in it. That left The Office and 30 Rock. We decided to table the discussion for later. We may finish out the season and then be done with them (especially since Steve Carell is leaving after this year).

Once we quit watching those shows, do we still need the TiVo? Do we still need the TV? It takes up a lot of room in our living room. These are questions that we will have to answer over time.

Could you give up watching television? Have you taken the plunge? What was it like?

I am a mobile app creator. It is my business not only to build apps, but to help clients understand what they need and want. As I advance down this path, I took some time to consider myself: how I use my iPhone.

First, I made a list of every app I have currently installed on my phone. Including web sites I've saved home icons for and the apps that come with the phone, I have 70 apps installed.

Next I divided the list into apps that I use and apps that I don't use. I tried to stay strict to this criteria. I was tempted to put apps that I liked but didn't use in the use list, but I didn't stumble. I also grouped the apps that come bundled with the phone together. After this, I have 17 installed apps that I use plus another 14 bundled apps that I also use. That leaved 6 bundled apps I don't use and 33 apps that I installed but do not use.

I was surprised by the number of apps that lay unused, taking up space on my iPhone. I decided to group them to help me understand why I wasn't using them. This is what I came up with:

Games (8 apps)

I've never been much of a gamer. I pretty much only play phone games when I'm stuck waiting for something and don't have anything else to do. I am rarely in that situation

Duplicate Functionality (4 apps)

I figure I would use these apps except for the fact that I have other apps that perform the exact same function.

Forgotten Social Networks (3 apps)

These apps are tied in to some social networking website that I tried out once, but never really got in to. These are the ones I forget to post updates, and never care about my "friend's" status updates.

Demo Applications (10 apps)

These are apps that I wanted to try out, and were free. Some of them are cool apps. In fact, they honestly get occasional use, but that is only to show off some feature or design element. I don't actually use these apps.

Poorly Designed Apps (1 app)

There is one app that I never use mainly because it is a poor design. All the app does is do a location check, and then launch a mobile optimized website that included advertisements for the very app I'm currently using.

Apps that Provide No Value to Me (4 apps)

There is nothing wrong with these apps, and I believe there are many people that use them religiously. I have just found that I have no need for them.

Apps I Use Occasionally or Forgot I Had (3 apps)

These are apps I like, but I either rarely need them or I forgot I had them. They were lost in the sea of apps spread all over my phone.

This was an enlightening experience, so I decided to do the same thing for the apps I used. I was able to divide those into three categories:

Tools (7 apps)

These are apps that are utilitarian in nature. They help me accomplish tasks and get through the day. Some of them replace real world gadgets completely.

Reference (7 apps)

These are books and news. If I do have any downtime on the go, it's nice to be able to see what's happening in the rest of the world. Also, part of the point of having an internet connected device is the ability to quickly look stuff up.

Communication (3 apps)

The other reason to have an internet device is for communication. I include social networks that I participate in as well as email in this category.

With all this done, what does it mean, other than the fact I have several apps I should delete? It reveals how I use my iPhone. I use it as a tool for communication, reference, and productivity. I don't play games, and I don't really play with the phone, but I do like to play with new apps (see the 10 "demo apps" and 4 "duplicate apps" I installed). Interestingly enough, I don't really use the phone as a media device. I do use the camera, and I occasionally use the iPod app to listen to a podcast when I walk my dog, but I don't really use it for playing music or video.

This is all well and good, but it brings up another question: Am I a typical iPhone user, or am I atypical? I would imagine that I am typical within a certain category of iPhone owners. I guess I need to do more research. I think I'm going to make a habit of asking people what apps they have installed on their phones, and which ones they actually use. This is interesting information, and also very valuable information to a mobile developer such as me. I wonder if there is a service or social network that collects this kind of information.

The raw data follows:

• Apps I Use
  • Bundled Apps
    • Messages
    • Calendar
    • Photos
    • Camera
    • Maps
    • Clock
    • Calculator
    • iPod
    • App Store
    • Phone
    • Mail
    • Safari
    • Settings
    • Contacts
  • Tools
    • Amazon.com
    • PS Mobile
    • Boxcar
    • Google
    • USAA
    • i.TV
    • 1Password
  • Reference / Knowlegde
    • PocketBible
    • DallasNews
    • Flixter
    • WeatherBug
    • USA Today
    • ScoreCenter
    • Showtime
  • Communication
    • Gmail
    • Facebook
    • Tweetie
• Apps I dont Use
  • Bundled Apps
    • YouTube
    • Notes
    • iTunes
    • Voice Memos
    • Stocks
    • Weather
  • Games
    • Dr. Awesome
    • Poker
    • Frenzic
    • iVey
    • Labryinth LE
    • EliminatePro
    • Triple Play
    • Ramp Champ
  • Duplicates
    • Banking
    • Bible
    • PhoneFlicks
    • TweetDeck
  • Forgotten / Occasional Use
    • Pandora
    • Public Radio
    • Yelp
  • Forgotten Social Networks
    • Brightkite
    • foursquare
    • MySpace
  • Demo Only
    • Greenbox
    • Starbucks
    • WhatsApp
    • Remote
    • Bing
    • TV.com
    • Stanza
    • Yahoo!
    • AIM
    • Library
  • Bad Apps
    • PegNews
  • No Value To Me
    • Bloomberg
    • Gas Cubby
    • Quicken
    • myWireless

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2015512141

I’m not an Obama fan, but this is clever.

[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch

Lead developer of the ThinWire Framework Joshua Gertzen has written an article going over existing approaches to implementing OO inheritance in Javascript (including the famous example by Douglas Crockford) and explains the final solution that they needed on the ThinWire framework for super class method calling.

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