super-structure

In many computer applications¹, you’ll find a toolbar which contains a save tool & icon. Almost without fail, that icon is of a floppy disk (most closely resembling a blue 3 1/2″ floppy). But why not a computer hard drive (though those often end up looking like sardine tins in small icons) or a reel-to-reel tape? It is interesting that we sort of all agreed on one slice out of our technological history to agree upon as the standard for saving data. Of course, the irony of using this for to execute a save command is that very few computers today have a floppy drive at all and using these as a primary method of saving predates even the 3 1/2″ floppy itself.

I’ve often wondered if I’ll have to show my kids a old floppy disk to explain the history of the icon. That is, assuming I can even find one around here. When I did my Spring cleaning last year, I had to borrow a USB floppy drive from my father-in-law since I didn’t have a computer handy to even read those disks. Regardless, I believe the icon itself will be largely abstract to them; though I don’t doubt they’ll learn to recognize what function it represents immediately. They will become symbols more than direct representations, which isn’t a bad thing in of itself²

Similarly, you might find a old phone handset representing calls or phone functions and a snail-mail envelope for creating or checking e-mail. These, too, are outdated (or nearly, in the case of the envelope) tools to represent their digital replacements.

But then, what icon better represents saving data? Or making phone calls? Or sending mail?

1. This is mostly a Windows and Linux GUI convention. You’ll occasionally find it in Mac applications, though mostly in those written by Microsoft. This is because in most Mac applications, the file-level commands are only found on the menu bar and not in a window toolbar. A lot of web applications use a similar icon, as well.↵
2. Pretty much all letters, numbers, and other symbols all had more concrete meaning at one time. Take, for example, the octothorpe/pound/hash/crosshatch/number symbol (#). According to The Elements of Typographic Style, this was once used in cartography to represent a village. That is, it was a symbol for a town square surrounded by eight fields. The fact that we have so many different names for this symbol is indicative of its many modern uses and that we have all but forgotten its original, more literal meaning.↵

As I’ve become more and more attached to using Twitter, I (like most everyone else) has enjoyed adding more rich information into tweets. I personally love including links to a photo, which essentially renders a tweet to a caption (Arguably it also adds a 1,000 words or so to your actual tweet length). I have also been trying to use some of the location-based social networks on and off for a couple of years now, most of which seem to thrive based on their integration with Twitter.

First, we had BrightKite, which – while an attractive site – was trying to do too much. Foursquare and Gowalla both seem to be restricting themselves to I was here and did this¹.The value I see in these is to add some location context to a tweet (rather than the game of Foursquare or Gowalla, for which I couldn’t care less). It also provides a way for any additional data I wish to add to be made available to others if they happen on the same spot.

That being said, it is very annoying to me that these two methods for adding information to tweets (images and locations) aren’t really integrated better. After struggling for the better part of 15 minutes to add a Flickr² photo to a Foursquare post, I figured I’d likely never try that again.

Twitter + Foursquare + Flickr = headache

Perhaps it could be argued that having multiple URLs in a single tweet is a bit much information for a system that was built around minimalism. To that end, I at least try to provide enough information in the tweet itself to make it of some value. I almost never just use the default “I went to [blank]” text in Foursquare. If it is worth posting, it’s worth letting others know why I did it. This is how I choose to use Twitter. That is, letting anyone interested in what I think know what I’m doing and why it is of value. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t seem to be the intention of many of the services on Twitter.

1. It’s no coincidence I use the past tense here. One of my issues with putting my location online, in real time, while doing something away from home is best explained by the site PleaseRobMe. While I don’t worry too much about actual thieves tracking my whereabouts via the web, I find it best practice to limit who knows where I am and when. Thus, I generally post to Foursquare just after I’ve left. I’m just cagey like that, I suppose. Some feel this abuse of Foursquare is cheating the game. To those I would point to above and remind them that shit = not given.↵
2. Despite Flickr’s adoption of their own URL shortening, it has been poorly adopted by Twitter, its clients, and its services. The lack of integration there really puts a damper on my interest in using these as well. Why must I use TwitPic (less attractive and interesting to me) when I already am a long-time Flickr user?↵

We’ve been in Spring cleaning mode here around the house. Angela went through our old file cabinet, combing over records for the past decade plus. We also both chucked most of our papers and files from college. That alone ended up being ten boxes to take to the document shredding & recycling place.

In the process, I ended up with a rather large pile of 3.5″ floppy disks to get rid of. I decided to go through them and copy any files before we had them destroyed. Of course, we actually don’t own anything with a 3.5″ floppy drive! Even my old linux box in the garage only has a optical drive. Fortunately, Angela’s dad has a USB floppy drive he was able to loan us.

So, in the process of going through some of the disks (many of which included programs for obsolete operating systems), I managed to find a few gems:

• Lots of photos from around 1998-99, when Angela and were first dating and she was going off to pharmacy school in VA. It probably goes without saying, but we’ve aged a bit in the past decade.
  
  

  Our first ever big date, almost 11 years ago.

• The first help document I ever wrote for software. It was for a DOS program called Plane Frame & Truss (PFT, for short, because filenames back then couldn’t exceed 8 bytes). It is written in a very snarky voice; probably not something I’d try and reproduce in my current writing (okay, maybe here):
  

  How to use Dr. Noel Tolbert’s Plane-Frame-Truss Program (PFT)
  By Jason Coleman

  First of all, PFT is not user-friendly, regardless of what Big-Daddy-Tolbert may say about it. However, if you are using PFGTAB (the quasi-graphical version), simply read everything it tells you until you are more comfortable with the program. The questions the program asks are not always clear at first, so take your time with them.

  How PFT works: (This is more-or-less from the horse’s mouth)

  This will cover, for the most part, how to use the graphical interface, PFGTAB. You have to be at an MSDOS prompt, and not simply in a Windows Shell. In a windows shell, you can only run a program once, and then the shell more-or-less quits, and when using PFT, you actually have to run two programs consecutively. That’s one of the many non-user-friendly features of PFT.

• The first program I ever wrote in Visual Basic (or anything that had a GUI, for that matter). It was a program for Advanced Mechanics of Materials grad. level course which would determine the stresses in a curved beam member under a specific loading. It wasn’t exactly anything very useful (unless you need to design clamps for a living), but it also didn’t look too bad for a first attempt:
  
  

  Curvbeam.exe's screen.

So we found a few nerdy treasures from our past lives. That’s one of the fun things about cleaning out so much of that sort of stuff: you find the things that really mean something and can put them somewhere you can access, instead of buried in a tomb of junk.

I and about 400 other folks attended PodCamp Nashville this past Saturday. Perhaps the idea of a free, volunteer run conference kind of gave me some low expectations (I’d never been to a bar-style, un-conference before). But it was without need as the conference was time well spent.

I attended seven different sessions during the day:

• "From Prep to Post: The PodCasting Process" by Justin Davis (of the Davis on Draft podcast, produced here in lovely Franklin, TN). — This was a very well received presentation on the basic process of creating and distributing a podcast. Justin did an excellent job of describing good podcast practices and demonstrating the very low barrier to entry for creating a show of one’s own: From using inexpensive hardware, to open-source editing tools like Audacity, to free hosting & feed tools like FeedBurner. This was generally a very high-level view of the process, with a few practical tips thrown in to demonstrate just how simple this can be to get started.
  

  
  

• "Twitter Groups: The Real Conversation" by Paul Nicholson — This was really the background for and demo of a technology – ReTweetBot – for grouping related tweets to build more practicality into Twitter. Definitely something Twitter needs and this is a pretty good solution, though still not perfect (or very tested). However, the @pcnChat group seemed to work well throughout the day. Indeed, it seems to work better than tagging (which is not the same as grouping, regardless of the site).
  
• "Building Online Communities" by John Morgan — John presented excellent tips on how to begin and grow relationships with customers/clients/users. As someone who is trying to build up a community for Structural Engineers online, there was a lot of invaluable advice here. One of the biggest take-aways I have from this session is that I need to ask my community what they want from me¹ Lots of great ideas to be put into practice over at the BE Communities site.
  
• "Buisness PodCasting & Blogging: There IS a Secret Sauce" by Jerad Degnan — Another great presentation for mining ideas to put into practice over at BE Communities. My favorite: get people to answer the question "What makes you successful?" People love answering that and they also love hearing what others have to say in response.
  
• "Slice of the Cake: The Secret to PodCast Listener Loyalty" by Dave Delaney — Dave and his wife ran a very successful podcast on parenting and he shared some ideas on how to partner with related goods and services to generate contests, etc. The most important parts seemed to be choosing something that would have relevance to the audience and to keep the process simple. It was also fun to see he had partnered with Rockabye Baby music, something we’re big fans of here at the Franklin Branch Office.
  
• "WordPress & PodCasting: Like Digital PB & J" by Mitch Canter — This presentation would have been best placed immediately following Justin’s session on how to create PodCasts. One of Justin’s strong recommendations was to have a website for your podcast and Mitch’s presentation was on how to do just that. This was done at a more on-the-ground level and Mitch really walked the audience through the process of setting up a WordPress blog (using a full WP install and not WordPress.com — something I very glad he spent time differentiating). He also hit on how to make the most out of WP plug-ins geared specifically for hosting podcast content. My only complaint was that some complex concepts (like plug-ins) could have used a bit more expanding and much time was spent on walking through a WP install. However, given the wide audience that he presented to in 20 minutes, Mitch managed to cover a lot. I was very glad to see WP getting a little love at this PodCamp and hope to see even more next year².
  
• "Why I Love Guinness: A Introduction to Social Networks" by Dave Delaney — Having lived in Galway, Ireland, Dave is a big fan of pubs and stouts. Here, he makes comparisons of old-world pubs to some of the most popular social networks. He also includes some rather amazing stats on the rapid growth of these sites. I do wish he’d spent a bit more time of some of the different types of users and how to engage them, but it was also an intro session.
  

Unfortunately, due to a lot of small things going on, I wasn’t able to help out but I would certainly like to volunteer some for next year. I’d even like to present on screencasting, as that was no where represented though I do think it is a popular form of online video. Further, I’m generally excited to see such a large tech community here in the Nashville area. This means not only PodCamps, but BarCamps (this past year was the third BarCamp Nashville). Maybe even a WordCamp, as WordPress seemed to be a popular subject.

Hey! Maybe I should try and find a MadCap users group here in Central Tennessee. Or even start one if it doesn’t yet exist! The possibilities are wide open and that was the best thing about this past weekend: learning that there are so many people right here around me who are interested in and even creating new media. People who have a lot of the same geeky interests as me.

1. Sorry, that doesn’t apply to this site. Here, it’s just whatever I feel like posting.↵
2. Or if Mitch decides to get a WordCamp going here in Nashville, that’d be even better↵

Over the past year, I’ve gone from someone who consumed and dabbled in new media after hours (okay, and sometimes during work hours!) to one who helps to create it as part of my day job. It was a very exciting and affirming part of my decision to work at Bentley when they asked me to start help creating screencasts, blog posts, and online communities for the structural engineering community. This past year has been a very steep — yet rewarding — climb up the learning curve.

Meet me at PodCamp Nashville

Paralleling that wonderful sense of that I’d made a good decision to go to Bentley, I also feel that the new media and geek community here in the Nashville area is even stronger than the one that was in Richmond (note: I also have more of a reason to be involved, now, so it’s part feedback loop). A couple of really exciting examples of this are BarCamp Nashville (in October) and PodCamp Nashville (in March). You can read more on unconferences elsewhere and I don’t mean to make these out to be some sort of pinnacle of geek/ new-media culture (they may royally suck here, for all I know as I haven’t been to one yet and have no comparison anyway). The point is that there is a desire to have these sorts of event and — far more importantly — the community that goes along with them here in Nashville. Socialization was something that Richmond had a very strong sense of; but it seems that Nashville has more socialization with a purpose, not just a end in and of itself.

So, I’m going to PodCamp this year. I’m not going to attempt to contribute any sessions myself as I still feel I’ve got more learning ahead of me that teaching (maybe next year?). But I’m so glad to support this sort of thing here and I feel that I need to at least contribute my participation as an attendee to encourage more of this. After all, it’s one thing to complain when nothing cool ever comes to insert your town name here but it is another to not bother to show up when something potentially cool does happen.

So, if you’re in the area on Saturday, March 7th and have an interest in new-media: podcasting, screencasting, blogging, etc., then please come to PodCamp Nashville. We’ll see what it is and if we think it can be better, we’ll make it better. That’s community.