Jeff Hester

Poking around the intersection of KM and Social Media

Archives for February 2005

Google Maps

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I really am starting to think that Google is going to take over the world. After bouncing around from one online map program to another, I settled happily with Yahoo! Maps for the past couple of years. Yahoo! Maps has generally worked well for driving directions, although sometimes the directions are a little too detailed.

But now Google has shaken the tree and I’ve got to reconsider. Google Maps is a new beta product from the geniuses at Google that looks very, very promising. The maps are beautiful and much more readable. The interface is very Google-like; clean and simple. But what I really love is how you can pan by simply clicking on the map and dragging in any direction. It’s this new realtime panning that makes Google Maps a killer app.

That’s not to say it’s not without problems, however. Last Friday I had to drive to a knowledge management event in Los Angeles, and turned to Google Maps for directions. I entered the following address: 350 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA in the search form, and got directions that took me a long way out of my way. What I really wanted was 350 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90071 (about 23 miles away). What a difference a zip code makes. Fortunately I made it to my event in time, but the lesson learned is simple. Heed the “beta” descriptor and get a second opinion on the directions.

A Faster, Better Webcam

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I’ve never been very satisfied with the image quality on my Logitech QuickCam Pro. It does an OK job if the lighting conditions are good, but the image just isn’t sharp and the colors are never very true to life. As you may recall, I first looked at using my Sony DV cam as a webcam over a year ago. The image quality was great, but my poor old 400 Mhz Pentium II just couldn’t handle the demand. My processor utilization would hover at around 100%, rendering the computer virtually useless for anything else.

Well, I finally got around to testing on my P4 machine, and the results are excellent.
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Joke of the Week

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A pompous minister was seated next to a cowboy on a flight from Texas. After the plane was airborne, drink orders were taken. The cowboy asked for a whiskey and soda which she brought to him. Then the flight attendant asked the minister if he would like a drink. He replied in disgust, “I’d rather be savagely raped by brazen infidels than let liquor touch my lips.” With that, the cowboy then handed his drink back to the attendant and said; “Me too. I didn’t know we had a choice.”

Collaborative Art

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I first mentioned the Squared Circle group in Flickr back in the fall. The concept is simple — post square images of circular objects that fill the image dimensions — a circle within a square. I’ve contributed over a dozen images myself.

I’ve always thought that a composite image containing all of the images in the group pool would make a cool poster, and apparently I wasn’t alone. We’re now on our way to creating a group poster made from thousands of squared circle contributions. It’s a great example of collaborative art, and it’s exciting to be a part of something bigger than yourself.

Click for a larger version

Not convinced?
Read Richard Koman’s interview with Stewart Butterfield, from oreillynet.com:

Stewart Butterfield on Flickr by Richard Koman — Not even a year old and still in beta, Flickr is a revolutionary photo storage, sharing, and organization application boasting roughly 270,000 members. Richard Koman catches Flickr CEO Stewart Butterfield for a few words on what has made Flickr so revolutionary and where it may be headed.

You still have time to be a part of the poster project!
If you don’t yet have a Flickr account, set one up. They are free, and I don’t get anything from it. It’s just something I think is really cool and worth a bit of your time. Then join the squared circle group (it’s open to anyone), snap a few photos, upload them and add them to the group.

And be sure to add me to your contacts — I’m BigBlue.

275 Hours of MP3s

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Inspired by a friend with a list of her MP3s, I thought I’d do the same and catalog what I’m got sitting on my hard disk. I tend to rip every CD I own to MP3, mainly because it’s more convenient and in front of a computer is where I primarly listen to music. Even when I’m in the car, my stereo plays MP3s, so either way, it’s a good idea.

I cataloged the MP3s using Windows Media Player and a free plug-in called Playlist Copier. It’s not a true plug-in, but a standalone program that reads your WMP playlists. I created a master playlist sorted by artist. I left out comedy, classical and Christmas MP3s (the three Cs?), and was left with over 2,500 tracks with a total playlist time of nearly 275 hours — enough for over 11 days of continuous play without any repeats. Considering how much time I spend commuting, maybe I should burn them to CD and see how many trips to the office it takes for me to listen to the entire list.
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