As today is a very special day for all us Apple-geeks, I’ll use some of the horrible hours of waiting to present to you a bit of nerdy news. We’re talking everything from strictly business to strictly silly.
There’s always new stuff to enhance your work/pleasure time in front of the screen. @4nd3rs from Danish Radio’s brilliant tech-programme Harddisken recommends this extra security for G-mail. Given the latest scare with G-mail accounts that disappeared (not really, they are all restored by now), this might be a good idea. Another very practical thingummy is Amplify, an add-on for Firefox and Chrome, which will let you clip and save anything on the page you’re on for instant mailing, blogging, tweeting, FB’ing or whatever. Really smart!
Do you listen to audio books? I do, occasionally, when all the brilliant podcasts aren’t filling up my time. Audiobooks, however, are often quite expensive, so there’s a natural limit to how many you’ll listen to. Funzafunza, also from the above mentioned Harddisken, mentioned Librivox, a truly original concept where you can find public domain books read by “normal people”. I’ve downloaded Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, a book I’ve wanted to read for ages. Next plane-ride, I’ll listen to it. The reader of this particular novel, a woman, doesn’t have the most pleasing voice on the planet, but I’m sure I’ll get used to her as I listen along. And, there may be other books there, read by more pleasant-sounding people. Anyway, I think it’s a brilliant concept! Do you have a pleasant voice, do you like reading to others and do you love an old book, why not give it a chance and contribute? I will, as soon as I have half a day to spend…
The eternal discussion of whether social media and the web in general is distracting us from true immersion in work, reading, etc. and making us into flimsy flutterers goes on and on. I’m biased, so I’ll only link to people who agree with me. *smirks*. Here’s the honourable Jeff Jarvis on the subject. He links back to the weightiest of previous articles in American media. It was @Elnif who pointed to that one.
And then there’s that there Twitter. Here’s what I’ve read lately on that subject. This in the Guardian, helping the positively curious to make heads and tails of it. This is a funny but not untrue infographic about the process of getting into Twitter.
Lately, I’ve been adding my bit to posterity, in this case Danish Wikipedia. Working with Wikipedia is not easy, it’s not at all like blogging, but as I’m incredibly stubborn I just keep at it. Also, I get help from kind Wikipedians (and also some pointing with a very big stick from less kind Wikipedians). So this well researched article about why women don’t contribute more (13%) to Wikipedia really hit home.
Where would you like to work if you could choose? Fast Company has picked the 50 most innovative companies. Together with Fortune’s Top 100 over the best companies to work for, we have a good starting point. That said, I’m totally happy working for myself. I’m such a nice boss, really, even though the salary s*cks.
Finally, we need something about language (from @stensamler), books and books (from @bogtyven).
Oh, and more books. (Would have loved to have embedded this charming, artistic and funny video. But since, apparently, they use a tune that Sony owns the copyright to, it can only be watched directly on Youtube. Bah!)
Great blog, Néné. Good job on Wikipedia. Social audiobooks could be the next big thing. People with great reading voices will become even more valuable. We should have a chart of the best readers. Also sample of voices. Maybe the technology will make us able to choose between voices in the near future? I want Charlie Sheen to read me a bedtime story!