I installed a Nest Learning Thermostat in our principle home today. I have to say that I am really impressed all around. In fact, it is one of the most impressive technology experiences I have ever had. I think, one reason for this is the same as one found in most Apple products — magic.

Installation was a breeze for me. I’m normally one of those people who are intimidated by such things. That said, in preparation for it’s arrival I watched the very clear instruction videos on their support page and it eased any fear I had considerably. It made it look so straight forward and easy. It seemed like magic.

Then, initial setup was equally simple and intuitive. There was help exactly where you needed it and clear simple language to guide your way in the few places it was. Every single step had an element of “A Ha!” that is rare these days in most things. And the fact that things just worked provided the “Ta da!” that magic requires.

Then, in the few hours of use, seeing how it operates and begins to learn, is the prestige. We left out for a couple of hours this evening, and arriving home, it was clear it had noticed and began to cool the house down. We arrived home and, in just a few minutes, the heat kicked on and it was back up to temperature within just a few minutes. Magic.

It remains to be seen how well it will be able to “learn” from us. We are an edge case. Both my wife and I keep irregular schedules that take us in and out of the house often many times a day. We do not have a pattern. Thus, even trying to “teach” it would likely not work. So, I suspect, this will be an interesting real world test. Even if it is not able to “learn” our home and away patterns, the ability to turn the heat down when we are away for a few hours and up in advance of our return will likely be pleasure enough alone.

via It's More Than Just 140 | mykehurley.net.

A beautiful post by Mr. Hurley on the many benefits he has received from Twitter. I too, can say that I have had a similar experience. That said, in order to receive such benefits, like any tool, one must use it with the right intentions and a mindful approach. Seems as if his are in the proper place.

The cultures of these two tech behemoths could not be any more worlds apart and that gulf is easily apparent when contrasted by such short distance.

In one you have the clean minimalist designs that Apple is long famous for. Whites walls, blonde wood tables all designed to accompany and highlight the brushed aluminum iDevices for sale within.

In the other, bright reds, blues, greens, and yellows. Wrapped around the length and inset in the walls is one long giant video screen that is constantly changing with stock photos of cheerful people, screen captures from XBox games, and Metro UI suggestive tiles.

In one, you have a bustle of activity. People getting help in a variety of ways from young hip folks in matching blue shirts. No employee, far more than I can easily count, is want of anything to do Each has a customer they are attending to and it looks like others are waiting for their turn. Everyone is standing as there is no where to sit and, in any other environ, one might mistake it for a really cool party full of conversations you’d be tempted to eavesdrop on.

In the other, there are more employees than customers. You can tell who they are simply because their shirts are the same yellow, or green, or red, or blue of the Windows logo outside. The customers that are inside are sitting and surfing – perched upon on the stools that are at each demo laptop and desktop. I can see over the shoulder of the few from the other side of the glass. They are mostly on Facebook. The employees don’t seem to mind. One might mistake it for an internet café if one did not know otherwise. The customers seem to be treating it as one at least.

It is the chairs or lack thereof that really pique my interest the most. I wonder if they, more than anything else I see, speak the loudest to the differences between these two stores and these two companies. The existence of these chairs seem to me to be a symbol. Not a wholly negative or positive one. But a mark of something deeper all the same. Certainly an important distinction between how these two companies want you to engage with the products they have for sale in the places they have built to sell them.

In some ways, the chairs could be perceived as symbol of hospitality. But, looked at another way, they communicate inactivity and complacency. Standing, even when still, looks like activity more so than sitting does to me. Perhaps when a customer enters a store such as this, and can sit down and use the equipment without interference or engagement with the staff, they become less motivated to do anything more than that. Why buy the laptop when you can have the surfing for free? Perhaps when they enter a similar store without chairs, and are engaged on a regular basis by friendly but determined staff, there is a sense to take some action, even if that action is to leave empty handed.

I wonder how much the Apple Store experience would change if there were place to sit at every station. Would the customers still buy or would they check their Facebook for free? I wonder how much the Microsoft Store experience would change by simply removing them.

It was slightly too big but not so much so that it looked horrible on me. I imagined the slightly oversize fit would be perfect for wearing with a chunky sweater underneath. The ideal business casual outfit for late fall in Minnesota. Not so much for late spring in Arizona. Hence the price, I suspect.

I brought the jacket home and it served me well for a couple of solid years. Especially at first when I was just a tad bit heavier. It was still big but not enough for me to care.

This year, as the first chilly blush of fall came, I put it on and it seemed not quite right. A bit too roomy in too many places. Even more so than the past. I had lost a little weight but not too much. Enough to make a difference though. It did not look bad but it did not look its best. I finally had to care.

It took this realization to spark my mind to the idea that I could take it into a tailor. We have a really great one close by. One who takes tremendous pride in his craft. One who learned the trade through apprenticeship and years of study. One I’ve taken other things to in the past.

I felt sheepishly dumbstruck that this had not occurred to me before. Perhaps it was because I paid so little for it that I felt I had to accept the jacket as it was off-the-rack. Perhaps, in my mind, I thought (correctly as it turned out) the price of having it tailored would far outweigh the price I paid which stopped me from even considering it as an option in the first place. No matter the reason, I’m glad I got past it.

The price to have it tailored to fit me perfectly was still less than I would have paid to buy that same jacket at full retail. Doing so would not only made the jacket look better on me now but allows it to continue to be a mainstay of my wardrobe for many years to come — perhaps even a lifetime. Well worth it. Should have done it right away. And, if I ever need to, um, let it out a bit again I now know I should take it back to my tailor and he will make it perfect for the me yet to come.

I believe there is a place for this is the world of technology. I think there is a need for a Software Tailor. For instance, you have a text editor that works well but could use just a few changes to make it work perfectly for you. You take it to the Software Tailor and they do that for you. Or perhaps you go to one to build the perfect task management app to fit your specific working style. In my mind, many who program are crafts people and I think there is a growing opportunity and need for such a service by people with these skills.

Of course, this would mean we would need to have a culture in place to support this. Those who make such products from the beginning would need to “leave a bit of extra fabric” in their products to allow for such growth (or to take it in a little in the middle). Just like a tailor can tell much about the manufacture of a garment from the threading and seams, and make adjustments accordingly, so too would code have to be clean and well commented. But, once again, if a culture and system to were support this, those that take the software trade seriously would excel from builder and tailor. Those that did not would be revealed and expelled.

Can you imagine a future where, for a price, a key software tool that you rely on can be bespoke? That programming would be a trade craft passed down through apprenticeship and study. That when you want a piece of software to fit you just right, you can take it to someone to make do that?

I can and I wish it so.

The recent controversy and numerous arguments and counter-arguments around Apple’s mute switch is really arguing about philosophy. Apple clearly has a philosophy about the way the hardware and software should treat the mute switch. Basically, mute means mute except in the cases where the user has asked it not to be. When a user asks for an alarm to sound or a video to play, ignore the switch. You don’t have to agree with this philosophy. There are several ways to get around this philosophy (one being to turn the phone off entirely). But, regardless, when you bought that phone part of what you were buying was this philosophy and any others Apple has decided to imbue.

The discussions back and forth about comments being a good or bad thing — philosophy. If you go to a site with comments enabled, the site’s owner is making a philosophical statement about a belief that comments from, and discussion with, others are an essential part of the ideas expressed. By your participation, whether it be reading them or participating by adding your own, you are buying into this philosophy. There are options to opt-out of this philosophy, one being not to visit the site at all. But, make no mistake, there is a philosophy being expressed and you are being given the opportunity to agree with and participate in it.

The solution is simple, if you are not willing to agree to or buy into someone else’s philosophy, learn the skills required to build something that closely matches your own.

I walk to our local grocery co-op (2.5 blocks) no matter the weather. I walk to our local bread shop (4.5 blocks) and wine shop (4.75 blocks). On a nice day, I walk to a small independent bookstore I love (6 blocks). The great little park , recently refurbished after years of city neglect, where my daughter likes to play (3.5 blocks). When the time allows, I enjoy meeting a friend for beer at a great restaurant and bar with a fantastic selection of beers (5 blocks) which I enjoy more than the one with less selection across the street (100 feet). These places are designed for walking to. They have limited parking if they have any dedicated at all. In the time it would take to get in the car and navigate traffic, one could be there already on foot.

What I love most, beside the walking itself, is the occasional friend or neighbor I run into. And, even when I don’t, most of these shop owners and barkeeps are friends and neighbors as well. For this is where I find out the news that matters most — that which is happening right around me…

“Did you hear about the break-in just around the corner?”

“What’s the deal with the two seemingly competing chocolate shops opening on the same street two blocks from each other?”

“Mr. Councilman, sorry to disturb your coffee. Can I ask you about your vote against the stop reminder I asked about for the pedestrian walkway?”

Thus, though a walk may be only a few blocks it can sometimes take an hour if I’m in no hurry which is just fine with me.

Increasingly it seems, so many of us live in places without sidewalks. So many suburbs and exurbs we are moving to are without them. So many of these communities we build are purposefully absent this integral part (in my mind at least) of community. Though I can’t imagine a worse fate then to be somewhere without them, I increasingly feel in the minority.

The planners know that less people want them. They are moving out of the urban area for a sense of country living. Part of which means, in their mind, to have lawn that extends to the road. Even though that road may be a asphalt beach. Sidewalks are simply a reminder of all those things they are trying to venture from.

These concrete paths are not technically ours. They belong to the city — the community. Even the ones that are just in front of where you live you must share and allow others to pass through. As such, you must maintain them despite this domain. You must shovel them when it snows. You must keep them free of ice. You must pay the cost to repair if damaged. More people, it seems, would rather have a few feet of green space instead. One that they own outright and can tell people to get off of when crossed.

Because there are less sidewalks in these places, people tend to make their connections elsewhere. At work or at the kids hockey practice or at the dog park. They tend to know their actual neighbors less. There are few opportunities to do so since they never cross each other’s paths except within the protected bubble of vehicles and traffic laws. They drive to all the places they need to go. Which are the similar to the places I go but all decidedly further away and designed for cars. Upon return, they go straight into the garage and then shut the door.

They turn on the TV before dinner to get news that is happening half a world away and consider themselves informed. Why should’t they? For the news they may get from conversations with people who do not live near them might as well be the same distance and equally as relevant. And because these connections are with people who live not near us they must discuss what things we have in common which does not start with community for there is none.

I wonder too if our communities in the virtual world are following this same path.

My first sense of being “online” was on a dial up connection to a local BBS. I knew the people there offline as well. It was small enough that one could. The topics discussed were often a continuation of the ones we did when we were together. If there was a problem that needed sorting (or a quarrel that needed moderating) one messaged the sysop who, once again, was a friend as well as neighbor. There were sidewalks there.

Then AOL came along. The first suburb. A place where you could form relationships, of a sort, with people from all over the country. They were not neighbors or people you would likely see in real life. Yet, you felt like you knew them just as well. You felt like you were being informed about things that mattered. And, as long as you stayed there, there were sidewalks.

Now we have Facebook and Twitter. The exurbs. Communities and relationships that span the globe. People on the other side of the planet that we know better than those real humans right next door. We can now know the first hand, on the ground, news of a community in Iran in real time. Or assist in the search for someone we barely know who has gone missing and is feared dead. Are we building sidewalks here?

If you pressed me to come up with one reason I feel so drawn to a service such as Path versus the rest is that it feels like a sidewalk to me.

There is only one big tech story for the year and only one to watch for the year to come. The biggest tech story of last year is the one that mattered the most to you. Perhaps that is your privacy concerns when using certain social networks. Perhaps that is the new gadget you got and how it makes your life just a tad bit better. Perhaps that is the concern about a tech company you have come to rely upon now that its leader has passed (or, in the case of some, gone insane). No matter what it is, it is the story that affects you the most.

The biggest tech story of the new year will be what you are going to do to change it.

Is there an app or service that is not meeting your needs? Learn to code and build a replacement for yourself.

Concerned about the ownership of the things you share? Create a Personal RSS feed or pipe everything through a service like Pinboard. (You can and should subscribe to mine)

Feeling overwhelmed by all of this info-tech-social-stuff? Get yourself on a proper information diet.

The point is that the biggest tech story of 2012 will not be anything talked about in the media or some blog. The biggest tech story will be the same one it has always been…

You.

I have never used Ho Daddy (mis-type intended and a bit more honest judging from their commercials). They always came off as unsavory to my discerning tastes. There is an ocean of good hosting and domain registration out there that does not smell nearly as fishy.

As for me, I have been using Dreamhost for what seems like forever. Good hosting, great support, and they have a sense of humor. They are great for the .coms, .nets, and .orgs. Then there is IWantMyName for the fancy stuff. You know, the .me, .in, .wtf. They have a nice clean easy to use interface and can register just about anything that is registrable. I have also heard great things about Hover though I’ve not used them myself.

The point being, if you have a domain parked or hosted with So Daddy please know that they likely don’t care about the Internet you care about and therefore you should consider taking your Internet business elsewhere.

Update: Here is a step by step guide to do just that. Only 19 simple steps.

We would like to believe that that which we put up on the internet or save to the cloud is available forever. But how can we, who shall never see forever, possibly understand what forever is or agree on what it means? And what happens when we have the skill and the will to decide to erase our creations for that same forever — permanently?

We all now have access to tools that allow us to recover those things we delete — either through accident or purpose — for as far back as the backup storage space will allow. What then is to stop us from hitting delete instead of sorting it to some virtual folder and saving it? Why not let the clouds we are building do this for us? Why not erase these things with the knowledge that, in the rare times we might need them later we can get them back? Especially for those items we are not certain we will ever have to access again? Is it that despite our desire to have faith in digital permanence we, in fact, know the truth of all things in inherent impermanence?

I know people that have had a hard drive crash and lost everything because they had no backup. Years later, it happens again. I then inquire as to why they did not have a backup — especially after the lesson they should have learned the first time. The reason: Though the previous loss was painful at first, they rebuilt. They moved on. They survived. They saw no value in backup because they knew if the drive crashed they would rebuild, move on, and survive again.

I’d like to think that embracing such impermanence grants them a level of effortless peace. It gives them a certain confidence that their digital creations are not stronger than their ability to survive without them.

Perhaps it is this peace and confidence that fuels one to declare Status 410 and walk away. Knowing that what good you could do has been done — in a place, for a time. Now, it is gone. Life and all of it’s creations are permanently impermanent. When the permanence we and others have come to rely on suddenly reveals itself to be less so, we can only rebuild, move on, and survive.

The Buddha Machine is not an iPod. It’s not loaded with features. It’s simply a small plastic box — available in an assortment of colors — that plays nine different loops. The possibilities of how you listen to it, however, are infinite.

I received one of these today, a surprise gift from John Carey of Fifty Foot Shadows (THE place to get beautiful desktops, by the way). I have know about them for quite some time and wanted one but never pulled the trigger. It was incredibly thoughtful of him and it is even better than I imagined it.

My little girl has suffered with a really bad little flu bug that had her over a bucket all of last night. Not wanting to risk the same tonight I was looking for a way to ease her misery and lull her to sleep without her normal bottle of milk. I turned on the Buddha Machine and laid down next to her. She was calmed and asleep within minutes. Magical.