Exploring AquaMinds NoteTaker

All About My Secret Cyber-Life

As Yoda once noted, "There is another." And so it is with my bloggy existence--truth be told, I have another cyber-family across town . . .

CultureHack has been in mothballs almost from the day I established this little NoteTaker-based beachhead. Recently, however, I've applied the paddles to CultureHack and it seems to be breathing on its own again. Check out the "Honey, I'm Home" post over there for more details.

The point's this: I'm feeling pretty spunky over at my first blog--in the past few days, I've let a few rants fly that pretty much accomplish the same thing as Jack Palance doing warm-ups for his One-Arm Pushup Thing--and I'm extending a cordial, self-serving invitation to check-out what I'm up to. I've similarly sent the very patient CultureHack readers to pay a visit or two over here.

As for Exploring AquaMinds NoteTaker, have no fear--it'll still be around. The only thing that's changed is when I want to let loose with with an essay that has nothing to do with NT, I'll have someplace inherently designed to accept my highly developed brand of stream-of-consciousness. This seems like an eminently sane arrangement because in the course of a typical day, I have many more opinions about Life, The Universe and Everything then I do about tech tips and workarounds. And rather than begin to dilute the focus of this site--yes, the terrifying thing is that this site does have a focus (of sorts)--it's more orderly to say the really outlandish, hair-curling stuff over at that blog.

Plus, I gotta admit that Uma still hasn't contacted me, so I can only assume--however horrifying the thought may be--that She Who Must Be Desired is interested in things other than NoteTaker. Given this revelation, giving myself some more topical elbow room seemed a sound strategy in my ongoing campaign for Uma's heart . . .

See you soon--either here or there.

Oh, And One More Thing . . . A true tale of a NoteShare-assisted Smart Mob

When I was going up the stairs,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away.
--Hughes Mearns

Hey, man, thanks for coming. No, no--I'm over here. Don't even think about turning around. Just act natural and pretend you're waiting for someone. I'm deep in this doorway and I don't want to be seen for obvious reasons--the next blog entry was going to celebrate my Official, Triumphant Return to this cyber backwater. But, natch, plans once more haven't panned out: I've got more NoteShare-related news I want to share sooner than later. So once again I'm in stealth mode. I'll try to make this a brief as I can, and with luck, just maybe I can get out of here without calling attention to myself . . .

Last time I was here, I spilled the beans about NoteShare, AquaMinds' new, forthcoming application, remember? Well, afterwards, I began to wonder if I gave the impression that using NoteShare demanded a rigorous, well-planned workflow. Because though it can certainly deal with more meticulous approaches, its real power is its flexibility.

Technorati Tags: Collaboration, NoteShare, NoteTaker, Web20

Introducing AquaMinds NoteSharePssst--Hey buddy, can I share something with you?

Let’s just pretend I’m not really here--okay?

As you may have noted, this blog has been on extended hiatus. But also understand that for weeks now I’ve been preparing for my Big Return: One of those swelling-soundtrack moments, where I do my best Gloria Swanson/Sunset Boulevard impression: It was the blogs that got smaller. . . That sort of thing.

However, events have transpired to upstage my usual, appalling self-indulgence. Just as I was getting ready to once again talk about, well, me (we all have to have a hobby), I find myself obliged to address much larger, more important news.

My old buddies over at AquaMinds have let the cat out of the bag regarding a new, genuinely jaw-dropping product. (I call them “buddies;” they, on the other hand, usually refer to me as “stalker” or, more charitably, as “Cease-and-Desist Boy.”) Where was I? Oh yeah--I opened my Sunday New York Times in an attempt to ignore the biochemical and neural havoc from New Year’s Eve and there it was, this article by Jim Fallows about the Next Big Thing from AquaMinds. And until I carefully reviewed what I could recall from the previous evening--who I might have talked to and even how I managed to misplace my underwear while still wearing my tux--I was profoundly afraid.

Technorati Tags: Collaboration, NoteShare, NoteTaker, Web20

Pond Scum Spotlight: In Which Idiots Who Pollute Cyberspace Get the Level of Attention They Obviously Crave

Hi There. I’ve just spent the past hour or so scrubbing spam comments off this weblog. Big, dumb, robotic intrusions into a discourse space with the sole purpose of shoving unsolicited ecommerce past the eyeballs of unsuspecting visitors.

Let’s be clear: This is not the equivalent of email spam--which, loathsome as it may be, is merely junk mail with no barriers to entry. Spam comments, on the other hand, can only be compared to annoying, psychotic non sequiturs that interrupt conversation. Imagine yourself at a party speaking intensely with two other people about something all three of you care passionately about. Now imagine this asshole--slightly sweaty, bug-eyed, in a cheap suit--muscling his way in, screaming Excuse me! Excuse me! I want you to buy a prom dress from me!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen--we’re talking about Business Pond Scum here. People worse than those electronic stores that have 30-year-long going out of business sales; people more creepy than those guys with less than full sets of teeth, who want to sell you stereo speakers off the back of a U-Haul; impolite thugs who basically need to be bitch-slapped into silence and then sent to military school.

Any one who follows the arc of this weblog must realize by now that my politics are not those of the sitting government. However, this morning I had an epiphany: I could finally wrap my head around and fully get behind capital punishment--I’d like to see the cretins who spray-painted this weblog with bad, even misspelled self-advertisements marched before a firing squad. Up Against the Wall, You Mothers. . . Bam! Next?

Of all the guerilla merchandisers who visited like burglars in the dead of night, my personal favorite is the search page which promises “Search Without Junk.” Yeah, that’s right, the hypocritical bastards are spamming to promote an allegedly spam-free search engine. Do me, yourself and every other legitimate Web citizen a favor--don’t patronize this service provider--ever. Forget about some kind of metaphysical rationalization for a boycott--it simply comes down to lying in public: They are junk merchants who say they don’t abide junk. Uh, good luck with your next search with them--you know, that critical one on which your job depends . . .

Pimp My Notebook: NoteTaker Metaphor Modification And Why a User Interface Should Be A Point of Departure and Not a Destination

Welcome to the Machiavelli Edition of Blogging With AquaMinds NoteTaker--it's Any-Means-To-An-End-Day, mousketeers! Particularly because the end in question is efficient, effective information capture and processing.

If you'll recall, just prior to my flirtation with the Talkies, I examined the myriad ways NoteTaker can be used as a database of other databases. Of course, this was a transparent and, in retrospect, pathetic plan to get Uma Thurman to notice me (which, by the way, forced her lawyers to rewrite the restraining order to include blogging). Desperately playing the Clever Card in my bid to impress her, I compared NoteTaker's ability to become a database of databases--a metadatabase, if you will--to those 400-plus special inserts that FiloFax sold at the peak of its Reagan-Era popularity.

And you know, I haven't been able to shake the appropriateness of that comparison--even if it was mine. It just goes to show you that Lust and Insightful Thinking are not necessarily mutually exclusive male modalities--despite what endless episodes of Ally McBeal would have you believe. I think I may have backed into one of those highly useful Idea-Objects--an abstract concept that, even though understood, can't fully be played around with until embedded in something that's generally comprehendible. (Those following along at home are undoubtedly bracing for the now-ceremonial wheeling out of the Richard Saul Wurman adage about only understanding something in terms of what you already know. And while this does have applicability, in truth, I'm intellectually strip-mining someone else this time around--Sherry Turkle, who talks about this concept in her book, Life On the Screen.)

Wham! Bam! Bam! Bam! In Search of the Lost Shortcut

Here we go again, playing the fool again.
Here we go again, acting hard again.
All right!
Well, I'm beginning to see the light!
I wanna tell you, ooh-oh-oh!
Hey, now, baby, I'm beginning to see the light!
--Lou Reed

This is an instructive tale about hubris, human interfaces and hidden helpful features. But let's start at the beginning. My entanglement with Apple computers goes all the way back to Lisa. Say Hello, indeed. It was love at first sight and from then onward, the soon-to-be Mac OS and I matured together and even made some very cool side excursions like reveling in HyperCard. Because I love to tinker, the jump from OS 6 to 7 and from OS 7 to 8 were more traumatic then they needed to be. But as a result, I learned most of the nooks and crannies of Apple's operating system and the importance of backing up. While on no occasion did I ever proclaim myself a Mac Deep Geek, I confess I thought of myself in those terms--secretly smiling about my secret identity.

A few years later, OS X entered the picture and (flexible, if nothing else) I scrambled aboard as a beta tester. Though business sense led me to keep my magazine OS 9-based, I personally never passed through the OS Luddite stage of other Mac users. I embraced the new interface and was not philosophically bothered by Unix living in OS X's basement.

Truth be told, however, my Mac Deep Geek appearances have become infrequent and much narrowed, like a superhero in retirement--think Mr. Incredible. I did not grow up with Unix and so my relationship with OS X is less deep. For a number of reasons (all of them my responsibility), I am essentially under house arrest at the interface level. Not for me (until now, at least) the deep juju of the Terminal. After all, the last time I seriously interacted with a command line was the C: prompt in DOS.

You Can Never Have Enough Dubious Insularity

A quick update--I finally got around to testing the most recent version the NewsFan RSS aggregator and it also failed my simple-yet-critical cut-and-paste test. Remind me to send a case of Scotch to the folks over at NewsFire in appreciation of their standing as the only rational news reader on my computer.

Coincidentally, NewsFire has just released a v.4 update which can be found here. If you agree with my frustration with RSS aggregators that do not support simple cut-and-paste, download NewsFire and give it a spin. The developer should be given all the encouragement that can be mustered.

Friday, December 10, 2004 12:00:04 AM

No Getting Jiggy With the Architect: Assumed Blog Behavior As Weblog Reality

There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept . . .
As you adequately put, the problem is choice.
The Architect
The Matrix Reloaded

The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten.
Brian Eno / Peter Schmidt
Oblique Strategies Card

And how could it be so wrong
When it was so right?
Lloyd Cole
"I'm Gone"

In the wake of my circumlocutious posting about Miles Davis, jazz authenticity, studio composition and--oh yeah--blogging, I've continued to ponder its implications. Which goes to show that even left-field rambling can trigger logical and argumentative dominoing that end at surprising destinations.

An embarrassing product of a Jesuit education (certain members of the Society are still blushing at the dubious achievement of me), I nevertheless had Big Intellectual Fun in school and am particularly grateful that the concept of Right Questions being more important than Right Answers was driven so deeply into me that it merged with my DNA.

It's a simple and somewhat obvious thing, but also enlightening in a Zen-like way: Perfectly correct answers to Wrong Questions paradoxically result in the self-satisfied adrenaline rush of being Absolutely Right at the same time you are Utterly Wrong. But being a pleasure-seeking species, we rarely look beyond that satisfied high. This goes far in explaining many--if not most--of humanity's screw-ups: Smartly reasoned responses to thoroughly stupid queries.

Confessions of a Utilities Slut:All Hail BlogAssist, King of Workarounds

I'm not a proud man--I freely admit that I'm a slut for utilities that are beautifully crafted, laser-focused one-trick-ponies. The guilty secret of my childless condition is that I gave away my first-, second- and third-born for mission-critical applets like FastScripts, MenuCalendarClock and DragThing.

NoteTaker's integration with Ecto2 and MarsEdit currently does not support on-the-fly HTML conversion of text formatting. In earlier posts, I managed to create multi-component workaround by using Tagging Service in combination with iPaste. It was admittedly kludgy, but it sure beat hand-tagging all the text formatting and hyperlinks. The constituent apps in this solution are excellent and I plan to keep using them as they were originally intended. However, I've been seduced by a more elegant solution to HTML conversion when handing off entries NoteTaker entries to Ecto2 or MarsEdit: All hail Dejal's amazing freeware, BlogAssist.

The Silence and the Fans

Can't you hear me talkin' to you
I'm callin' you one more time
All night operator
Dial me a better line
--Bryan Ferry
"All Night Operator"

It's all rather like an Ingmar Bergman film, isn't it? Those who are kind enough to leave commments on this site only to seemingly be faced with The Silence. Well, actually it's not like that at all.

Given the nature of this site, it's understandable that many of the comments focus on the nitty gritty of set-up and configuration. Because of this, I usually choose to answer my new best friends via email. To do so with a responding comment runs the risk of turning this site into a knowledge base affair, which means it would soon have to grow up and behave itself. After all, would you want tech support from a wild-eyed, Bryan-Ferry-Spouting eccentric with a tumble-down haircut? Nah--and neither would I.

To do with credibility would mean Growing Up. And in terms of this site, I'd simply rather traverse the universe in a police box, offering jelly babies and unsolicited ideas to anyone I encounter. (And indeed, you'll notice that no one ever asked the Good Doctor what precisely he was doing with that sonic screwdriver--so I rest my case.)

Oops! Off course yet again. The point is that all comments are answered--but many privately, where the fact that I don't always use Annoying Capitalization and overwrought italics won't be observed.

Are we clear? Good. Now would you like a jelly baby?

The composition of this entry was made possible in part by Ornithology from the album "Broadcast Performances" by Charlie Parker

Monday, October 25, 2004 12:30:28 PM

MarsEdit and NT: My Blog, My Rules

Years ago--eons actually--when I was a callow college student, I hung around Washington's Old Ebbet Grill so much, I seriously considered having my mail forwarded there. It was two doors down from the inn where the British met to coordinate their plans to burn Washington during the War of 1812. In retrospect, I think that appealed to my insurrectionary younger self.

To be clear, we are not talking about the "new" old Ebbet Grill--an odd Hollywood set iteration of the original (which was finally torn down). The "new" Old Ebbet Grill is a hang out for yuppie scum and often featured in films and on The West Wing as a "Washington Hot Spot"--as if such a thing existed in the New York sense. My Old Ebbet, however, was a hang out for preppie scum and managed not to be historical, opting instead for a sort of Raymond Chandleresque ambiance.

I'd Tell You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You

Honey, I'm home. . . . Now someone much smarter than myself would simply reach for the Dallas Dream Season Stratagem: I could simply pretend that this was indeed September 1st and hack the posting dates to mess with your collective minds. But of course, That Would Be Wrong. Suffice it to say, I can't tell you what I've been up to in the past five weeks because many of my associates would wind up behiind bars or worse. However I can tell you that the seriously bent incident concluded with me waking up in the back of a 1954 Chevy in Rio with no clear idea how I got there. And there is the other small matter of a tattoo that says Res Ipsa Loquitur in the precise Old English typeface of The New York Times. Indeed. If I needed any further evidence that my Speedo days are over, this is certainly it.

And that takes care of that--or will have to until certain statutes of limitations run out. Now, in the immortal words of Pink, "I'm comin' up so you better get this party started . . . "

New Rulez for a New Technology

I recently had lunch with former coworkers from a couple of lifetimes ago. We don't do this often and so there's much to catch up on, both personally and professionally. At one point, the conversation turned to weblogs--or, to be precise, business blogs. (Remarkably,I didn't bring the subject up, preferring instead to keep secret my alternate identity as Blog Concept Guy. Doing so ensures that the front of my house isn't paint-balled by all of those loathsome Teen Diarists I regularly bang on.) One of my friends went slightly wide-eyed and said her firm was thinking of establishing a blog, but "What if someone said something bad on it? It would be up there forever for everyone to see!" (For once, the italics are not mine--they're hers.) Indeed, what would happen?

The wonderment was not ironic, and I sensed that no one around the table was humoring her with their well-what-are-you-gonna-do smiles. Quickly finding a nearby phone booth, I changed into Blog Concept Guy and came to her rescue. I suggested that perhaps people talking back online was not a bad thing at all. That there was a definite Zen to blogs and, begging the pardon of Bill Maher, New Rules--or, nodding to the online nature of the topic at hand, New Rulez. And that's when I got the humoring smiles absent when the table contemplated that if you spout an opinion (corporate or otherwise) in public (online or otherwise), be prepared for rebuttal (and, in certain dubious circumstances, the possibility of a broken beer bottle coming at you, held by someone shaped like a refrigerator.)

Before we go further, let's lay our cards on the table--yeah, all of them. If you're here reading this post on this weblog, you've gone through a multi-level process of self-selection: You blog or you want to blog; you use a Mac; you are a current or potential NoteTaker user (or the competition fruitlessly attempting to gather strategic intelligence), you are sufficiently advanced as a computer user that combining the functions of multiple applications is actually seen as Good Thing, and because of all this, the idea of people civilly commenting to blog postings is no reason for paradigm meltdown. On the other hand, you may simply be here because I use "Free," "Sex" and "Now" as metatags for all of these posts--in which case, please accept my apologies . . .

With Keystrokes, Less Is Indeed More:Another "Helper App" to the Rescue

Okay, I admit it: Keystroke Reduction corrupts--and absolute Keystroke Reduction corrupts absolutely. And if you're feeling uncomfortable about me revealing this Inappropriately Obsessive side of myself, just imagine how I must feel. But let's move beyond the mysterious ways in which I'm seemingly hardwired. Save your pity and instead help yourself to anything that's useful. (Proving that no-strings-attached generosity trumps neurosis--or at least balances the equation.)

As I was bashing out yesterday's post and wielding Tagging Service like the time-saving weapon it is, I found myself getting petulant. Sure Tagging Service is a lifesaver (and if you're using it on my recommendation, I genuinely hope you have deeply thanked the freeware developer)), but, Man, those letter/colon triggers--that's two keystrokes! Surely, I thought, we can do better than that . . . And with a little surfing, indeed we can.

I am now the proud owner of a highly affordable little app called iPaste. Here's the executive summary: It's a multiple entry clipboard which enables you to keep much-used inserts readily on hand. But the best thing about it is that it assigns a keyboard shortcut to each clipping.

Do I need to tell you what I did next? (Mwah-ha-ha! Keystroke Domination is mine!--Why does this come off as much more Dr. Evil than Auric Goldfinger?) Yup: I made each of the Tagging Service triggers a clipping. Now by simply hitting Ctrl-Opt-1 followed by Cmd-Shift-\, I have my beloved overwraught italics.

Can I imagine seamless, WYSIWYG input eventually? Well, yeah. But until then, I'm productively hunkered-down with the one-two combo of Tagging Service and iPaste--sort of Batman and Robin for minicoders like myself. Okay, I admit it, this pretty much has made my day--and in response to the inevitable superior laughter, I can only say, "Cut me some frickin' slack." It's hard being an evil blogging doctor . . .

The following music helped make this post possible: "These Foolish Things ( Remind Me Of You )" from the album Chet Baker In Paris (2000) by Chet Baker

Friday, July 16, 2004 11:50:09 AM

Dealing With Your Intellectual Kodak Moments:Building and Leveraging Better Archives

"Memories. You're talking about memories!"
--Harrison Ford
Blade Runner

Over the course of a multi-decade career, I've come to realize that, for organizations, there's something more toxic--and more insidious--than Not Invented Here: it's the proudly touted Invented Once. This is stealthily toxic because it gives the illusion of embracing innovation rather than resisting it--even as it poisons progress. It's the Hero Story enterprises tell themselves, hoping to once again catch lightening in a bottle--but in reality it has the hermetically sealed sacrosanctity of a religious reliquary. Put another way, if you think a prehistoric fly embedded in amber is wondrous, just ask the insect its opinion . . .

Oops--drifting already. If I ever needed proof of the massive resistance to caffeine that's I've built up over the years, this is it. Nearly a full pot of coffee in me and the patented Sheridan Drift Factor® is still in effect . . . What that first-paragraph amble is trying to say is that I've recently revisited my idea about using a NoteTaker blogging notebook to also (and very cleverly, I might add) archive final-draft posts as they appear on the weblog. Upon second and third thoughts, I've refined the concept. Call this Invented Again--the progress-friendly antidote to Invented Once. (Even though I do drift, it's usually in the right direction.)

Here, in no real order, are some additional observations on archiving posts within your NoteTaker notebook. (I suggest you revisit the linked entry cited above to refresh your memory about the mechanics of creating archival clippings.)

(In the Immortal Words of Keanu Reeves, "Whoa!") Revised NoteTaker/Ecto Script Now Available

Okay, I may have let you down, but AquaMinds didn't. All I can imagine is that someone over there wearily pulled themselves away from the July 4th festivities and accepted the baton from the programmers: Remarkably, the New, Improved, Seemingly Kevin-Proof NoteTaker/Ecto script is now available for your downloading pleasure. Public thanks to whoever at AquaMinds wiped hot dog mustard from their chin and proceeded to make the world safe from, er, me.

So if you were planning to blow my mail box apart tonight with a cherry bomb, please cease and desist. Oh, and Happy Fourth!

Sunday, July 4, 2004 8:32:34 PM

Entr'acte The Most Important Thing Is the Thing Most Easily Forgotten

Brian Eno is responsible for that observation about Important Things and Memorability--it's one of his Oblique Strategies. It's particularly relavant because four weeks ago, this weblog hit the ground running. And in doing so--in the white heat and white light (obligatory Velvet Underground reference) of getting the word out about the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript--I made, well, some assumptions. Foremost among these was that visitors were either NoteTaker users or at least knew of it and had wrapped their minds around its concept. Recently, I had occasion to wonder if, indeed, this was the case. So before we resume the usual geeky-but-festive proceedings, let's play around with the idea of NoteTaker.

Relax: There will no mind-numbing litany of specs and features here. If that floats your boat, then AquaMinds has a very complete and well-designed website for you to visit. And besides, handing you a NoteTaker cheat sheet on a virtual platter does nothing to build character--better, instead, to ferret that stuff out for yourself.

No, let's do this instead: Let's ponder NoteTaker from about 70,000 feet--implications being sometimes more important than details. And remember, I'm not affiliated with AquaMinds, so my take on their product may not be theirs--my assessment is strictly ex cathedra (I love saying that in exactly the same way Gomez Addams loves speaking French to Morticia.) If I happen to stop mid-sentence, it's quite possible that the developers have determined my location and have broken down my door . . .

Enhanced Support for Ecto & TypePad In New Verision of NoteTaker Blogging Script

Stop the Presses! Remake the Front Page! Seriously consider sending genuinely fawning email to the crack development team over at AquaMinds: The company today released a free updated version of the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript. Script version 0.8.4 offers enhanced connectivity for Ecto's support of TypePad's Continuation/Summary input field. Continuation/Summary enables a posting to be split into an introductory section which is featured on the main weblog page and a continuation or "spill" of the rest of post on a second blog page.

The benefit of TypePad's Continuation/Summary is the ability to feature more postings on the main blog page without making it overly long and unwieldily for visitors to navigate. TypePad is among the first blog service providers to offer the unique continuation capability, which thus places NoteTaker and Ecto on the cutting edge of weblog development.

When creating an entry in a NoteTaker notebook, the use of three right-pointing carrot symbols signals the NoteTaker/Ecto script that all text that follows the symbols should be moved to the TypePad Continuation/Summary field. The three right-pointing carrots are then automatically removed and do not visually interrupt the posting.

To recap, the NoteTaker/Ecto blogging script now supports the creation of post headlines, introductory text and the continued text of the posting.

Updated Version of Blogging Script Released

The NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript that enables blogging from notebooks has just been updated. The new version fixes a bug where the first sentence of the entry did not automatically become the posting's headline when the entry was first sent to Ecto (as opposed to sending it directly to TypePad, using Ecto as a conduit).

The crack team over at AquaMinds have posted the updated AppleScript here. And, while you're visiting their site, don't forget to check out the free NoteTaker Viewer that is also available for download, This viewer played a role in one of the productivity solutions discussed earlier.

In terms of further NoteTaker/Ecto script enhancements, keep checking back here. I'll do my best to ensure visitors to this site will be among the first to know any breaking news.

Tuesday, June 22, 2004 10:20:26 AM

How the Pieces Fit Together: A Visual Review

We've recently covered a lot of ground that has much to do with stitching together meta-applications from the parts of separate ones. Perhaps this is why I've been stifling the urge to scream It's Alive! It's Alive! each time I launch NoteTaker and NoteTaker launches Ecto. The story of my life: I set out to be Cary Grant but somehow became Colin Clive . . . Enough of my paltry problems.

Below is a chart that quickly and efficiently reprises the past few postings. Think of it as Page 2 of the virtual handout that started here. As always, double-clicking (© Microsoft) on the art, opens a larger, more legible version. Depending on your on the speed of your connection, this will happen instantly--or you may have time to begin a book. (I recommend Stranger Than Fiction, Chuck Palahniuk's new collection of essays.)

I'm wondering if a future improvement to these charts--yup, I go back and change things on this blog with impunity--may be to create image maps from the illustrations--but I need to workout the implications of TypePad creating thumbnails of them. Would the links work in miniature, like some sort of Barbie Dream House webpage? So many loopy ideas, so little time.

Sunday, June 20, 2004 2:01:32 PM

A Closer Look at Tagging Service

Yesterday I pointed out that Tagging Service by MonkeyFood provided fast, fast, fast relief for any one flirting with text-tagging-induced repetitive stress injury. Since then, I've had a chance to more fully explore this nifty little applet and I'm pleased to inform users who respond to angle brackets the same way Dracula responds to crucifixes that my new best friend, Tagging Service, also handles the creation of links that convey without a hitch to Ecto and TypePad. TS (yes, our bond is now so strong, I'm on nickname basis with the utility) additionally allows the timesaving creation of image addresses (img) and URL identification (url).

TS works its magic by inserting open and close tags based upon a single-letter trigger that is followed by a colon. This letter-colon trigger is placed directed next to the first word that the tag is to act upon--with no space between the letter-colon and the word. (Explained in prose, the process looks more complicated than it is. It's best to simply download the freeware service and play with it. Complete mastery takes about 30 seconds--I promise.)

Everything You Need to Know and Do to Begin Blogging with NoteTaker and Ecto; Well, Except for the Having-Something-To-Write-About Bit and, Okay, the Finding-Time-to-Post Part and--Look, Just Read This

Beyond the sexy industrial design, apart from the breathtaking innovation, Apple Computer's business model is based on the endless refinement of a single concept: Creating an utterly mediated computer experience for the user. This is why it has become a cult and this is also why, despite its recent embrace of Unix, Apple continues to be bitch slapped by Deep Geeks. As an Apple user who can trace his computing lineage all the way back to Lisa, this has always fascinated me. Two high-water moments in the history of Apple Mediation was the "There Is No Step Three" campaign that launched the original iMac and the beta build of OS X with default prefs set to show no desktop icons and and also to hide the dock (which, of course, proved to be far too much mediation for most user tastes).

I bring up mediated user experiences because I'd love to to tell you in friendly Jeff Goldblum-esque tones that there's No Step Three with regard to blogging with NoteTaker. But, hey, there is. And depending on how you count, maybe a Step Six, too. The good news is that (a) its not rocket science and (b) unless you change blog service providers, it's pretty much one-time-only effort. This also may help: While the process described below is not precisely plug-and-play, it will still earn you the aggressviely arrogant sneers of Deep Geeks--so, really, how hard could it be?

Visual Quick Start Guide To NoteTaker Blogging

Well, I fired-up a drawing program--so be afraid, be very afraid. Actually, the result is a fairly succinct distillation of the major things to keep in mind when you begin blogging with NoteTaker via the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript. The next posting will feature a step-by-step overview of what you need to purchase and how you should proceed--basically, all the other important stuff that would have disturbed the quiet Zen of the chart. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from taking a gander at the chart now in preparation for the next post--think of it as homework . . .

And remember: Double-clicking (© Microsoft) on the art will open a larger, more legible version. Be aware, however, that depending on modem speed, this may take a while to load. Sorry about that--I'll be optimizing the size later today.

Monday, June 7, 2004 4:39:33 PM

What's Direct-To-Blog and What's Not

The very satisfying number of visitors to this site has prompted me to make the place a tad more aesthetic. When it was my private playground, the spartan look worked just fine, thank you. But, er, now that a party seems to have broken out, I thought it best to tidy up the house for the guests--even if that means spackling as the canapes are being passed around.

But in doing so, it occurs to me I may be giving the wrong impression of what direct-to-blog via NoteTaker and Ecto really means. Nothing significant has happened since the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript was released last week. So any nominal improvement seen in this weblog is me touching things up apres post.

The entries' artwork, hyperlinks and categories have all been added after the fact. Further, only the main posting area is the result of direct-to-blog posting from NoteTaker through Ecto. Adding insult to injury, those damnably inflexible sidebars had to be created within TypePad. And as long as we're discussing the artwork, be aware that in most--but not all--cases, double-clicking (©2004 Microsoft, apparently) creates larger, pop-up versions of the art.

And yeah, I'm ahead of you--you want to know when and if art, links and categories will be supported in the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript--to which I merely smile cryptically. As the Caveat Visitor at the right stresses, I am neither an employee of NoteTaker or Ecto, nor their spokesperson--although I do admit I frequently behave like that annoying "unofficial" booster for the Wendy's fast food chain. What happens in terms of further feature support will happen. But speaking strictly as a private citizen, there is nothing making such support technically impossible.

My advice is to see what the script becomes as it evolves from decimal-fraction release. After that, it will be very cool to see what other user-scripters further code into it . . .

Monday, June 7, 2004 12:32:50 PM

Case Study: My Blogging Notebook

Earlier today, I posted a screen capture of the NoteTaker notebook that provides the content of this weblog. While previous postings have emphasized the structure of a blogging notebook is situational and dependent on a variety of idiosyncratic factors, examining my choices regarding this blog's notebook underscores what needs to be taken into account when designing an effective staging area for weblog-bound information.

Self-knowledge is always to be recommended--but never more so than when planning a blogging notebook. Not only do you need to be sensitive to your blogging behavior--call it your informational biorhythms--but also what you want your weblog to encompass and, equally important, what you want it to achieve. By way of illustration, know that this is not my only weblog; I also have one that presently takes most blogs to task for getting trapped in metaphor and self-mythology. Clearly, the focus and scopes of these two sites are radically different.

Compared to this site, my other weblog seems to be presented in Panavision--it goes where my provocateur sensibilities take it. By contrast, this blog is extremely narrow in intent: Its laser-like focus is devoted exclusively to the ways in which using a connected NoteTaker and Ecto adds powerful capabilities to the act of blogging and deepens the result.

Oh, And One More Thing

Yes, that is a live-browser view of the TypePad controls panels you see embedded in the notebook's page, conveniently close to the entry being posted. I should feign hipster insouciance about this little feature, but, hell--how drop-dead cool is that? (There goes 20 years of cyberpunk posturing down the drain.)

Sunday, June 6, 2004 9:53:20 AM

Giving New Meaning to "MetaBlogging"

This is all very deconstructionist: The screen capture below illustrates the present structure of the NoteTaker notebook that's managing this weblog. While the JPEG is being posted now, detailed explanation will be found in a future entry. Right now I need another cup of coffee as I wrap my mind around the fact I'm writing about a picture of the thing I write with using the thing I write with . . .

Who says that Post Modernism is dead?

Sunday, June 6, 2004 9:29:26 AM

Notebook Structure: Mirror vs Parallel

In the previous post, I examined the impact of blogging behavior on the structure of a dedicated blogging notebook. And earlier, the current capabilities of the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript were outlined. These limitations will also affect the shape of a blogging notebook. For instance, it was noted that the NoteTaker/Ecto script only managed so-called "main entry" posts. This creates another structural quandry: Is the blogging notebook seen as simply driving those parts of the blog it can actually affect or should it be seen as a hard-drive-based archive/mirror of everything on the site?

Similar to the connection between blogging behavior and the kinds of sections in the notebook, the answer to this is situational. Personally, I see the blogging notebook as fully mirroring the content of its companion blog. My rationale goes beyond archival tidiness: The impresssive gathering and organizational powers of NoteTaker can be brought to bear on sidebar content if it is also contained within the blogging notebook. In this scenario, an addtional "sidebar" section is added to the notebook, with individual pages in that section associated with various sidebar content areas.

Blogging Behavior and Notebook Structure

Because it's an easier proposition--and thus much simpler to explain--let's discuss the structure of a NoteTaker notebook that's dedicated to a single weblog. In otherwords, let's assume that apart from possible background materials (more on these later), pretty much all of the contents in the notebook is mirrored by the blog--and no additional content is being provided by other notebooks.

A second critical assumption of this discussion is that you have a structured blog in place. By structured, I mean you have a (basic) plan that dictates the kind of material posted to your blog, you have (more or less) a timetable for posting and you've have standardized (somewhat) your approach to posting--i.e., you may have a period of rigorous research, the results of which feed a posting or your approach may be much more improvisational. All of these decisions and behaviors will affect the structure of a blogging notebook.

Overview: What The Current Script Is Capable of Doing

Before discussing the structuring of dedicated blogging notebooks, it's helpful to understand what the first release of the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript can and cannot do.

At this point in its development, the script enables you to chose either a text selection within an entry or the full entry itself for posting to a blog. The script further allows you to chose whether this posting is sent to Ecto for additional work or directly to the blog "as-is," using Ecto as a kind of conduit. (In either case, Ecto is automatically launched if it is not already running.)

The script creates a headline for the blog posting from the first full sentence of the NoteTaker entry. The script bolds the first sentence, drops the period from it and then begins the body of the posting with the second sentence of the NoteTaker entry. Further, the script retains the block paragraphing of the NoteTaker entry when it posts to the blog via Ecto.. Important reminder: That period after the first sentence is critical. The script will make a headline out of anything and everything prior to finding the first instance of a period. If you forget to use one, well, unintended and surreal headlines will result.

Creating Blogging Notebooks

Okay, you've got the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript running from within NoteTaker--now what? Well, for one thing, it's Decision Time. The NoteTaker/Ecto script is not dependent or based on using a single notebook to blog. But it may be saner to do so.

Technically, if you have half a dozen NoteTaker notebooks, you can quite happily post selected entries from each of them to a single blog site. Indeed, this strategy will be discussed later. But at the outset, it may easier (and more organized) to create one dedicated blogging notebook.

There are two distinct approaches to doing this: Simultaneously establishing a blog and a blogging notebook or creating a blogging notebook that mirrors a preexisting blog.

Friday, June 4, 2004 12:14:01 PM

Getting Started: The NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript

Here's what you need to do to get NoteTaker and Ecto talking ot each other:

(1) Download the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript here.

(2) Decompress the file. (It's in StuffIt SIT format.)

(3) Open your computer's root Library and then open the Scripts folder. Alternatively, you can open the user Library and then the Scripts folder.

(4) Drag the saved NoteTaker/Ecto Applescript into the NoteTaker folder within the Scripts folder. (If you don't find a NoteTaker folder within the Scripts folder, create one.)

(5) If it's running, close and then restart NoteTaker.

(6) The NoteTaker/Ecto script is now available in NoteTaker's "Scripts" menu (found on the application's Menu Bar).

Everything you want to know about the finer points of AppleScripts can be found here.

Friday, June 4, 2004 11:28:09 AM

Once Upon a Time . . .

This weblog is designed to be proof-of-concept with regard to using AquaMinds' NoteTaker application and Ecto for directly posting entries to TypePad blogs. Additionally, it is intended to be an Index of Possiblities: Tricks, tips, work-arounds and enhancements that can be when working with these three applications.

The concept of blogging has resonated with the general public because, paradoxically, it's seen as the easiest way of creating a website--even though the real revolutionary breakthrough is that a weblog is a cheap and effective content management system.

Blogs have proliferated across the Internet with almost viral speed. But even though they are ubiquitous, there has so far not been a simple, feature-rich and powerful way to blog. At one end of the spectrum, professional blogging clients undermine the idea of blogs as "easy websites" by demanding significant levels of HTML knowledge and experience. At the other end, there are simplistic, WYSIWYG diary-based blogging clients that do little more than put a friendly face on weblog input screens.

But what if blogging could be pursued via a virtual notebook? A notebook that has the power to clip and save items from the Internet? A notebook that allows content searchs of itself? A notebook that can be structured to mirror the organization of the user's weblog? A notebook with entries that are transformed into blog postings with a mouse click?

What if this blogging notebook enabled a user to search the Internet from inside of entries, enabling her to gather information that can then be used in a blog posting? What if this notebook could also clip passages from other documents on the user's hard drive that could similarly be used in entries that are then seamlessly posted to a weblog?

This is what the blogging enhancements of AquaMinds NoteTaker promise to do. These capabilities are now made possible by an AppleScript that allows NoteTaker and Ecto, the premier blogging client, to interact with each other. That sudden draft you feel is the arrival of increased weblog ease and possiblities.