Category Archives: technology

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.

Typerighter is a new application that I have been testing for a while. As the developer is a close personal friend of mine and willing to listen to my, um, gentle persuasion, I have been giving active feedback since the very beginning and I hope you, like I, will find it the perfect web based writing tool.

My favorite feature is it’s complete lack of features. The only visible feature is a blank page and the occasional “save” that happens automatically. That’s it, one feature.

OK, l lied. But not completely. It has more features but the rest of the “features” are completely hidden.

Want to save your file as plain text? No problem. Just type “.txt” at the end of the url.

Oh, you write in Markdown and wish there was a way to convert it to valid HTML without an extra step? No problem, just type “.html” at the end of the URL.

Oh, and if you are a paid user, you get nifty things like your own user space and being able to create a filename URL by typing http://username.typerighter.com/filename and you will always be able to access your document directly at that address.

So yes, it has a few features but none of them, ever, get between you and that blank page. The way a writing app should be.

And, it works in the browser so, you know, everywhere is disco. iPad? Disco. iPhone? Hustle! Heck, throw it on your Chromebook.

I’m using it to write this letter. I drafted an essay of my book using it (on my iPad, naturally). It’s really neat. I keep it open in a browser window with a page I have set as my scratchpad. I can type a quick note in there if I’m working in Safari and not break my stride too much.

To get the extra goodness a personal Typerighter domain provides, and to support independent development, I recommend you pay the current $5.00+ cost. Because, you see, that cost increases by one cent for each person who signs up. So getting in now gets you the best price. But, you don’t have to pay to use it. Just use the “Try it out” link at the bottom of the sign up page and use it for as long as you wish.

Seriously, I hope you love this thing as much as I do. Just head on over to https://typerighter.com/ and play with it for a bit. Like I said, my good friend Garrick van Buren is the developer and he would love your feedback. Make any feature request you want as long as it can be completely invisible ;-).

“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”

– Henry David Thoreau in Walden

Please forgive the repetition, but this has been on my mind lately. Namely, what are my three chairs? Is three chairs a reasonable and good sensible default for ones own approach to digital communication?

I don’t assume I have any right answer to those questions. That said, I have some ideas surrounding them.

Solitude

This could be any for working with ones dialog with self. This could take the form of a paper or digital journal, diary, etc. Those that are familiar with The Artists Way would have this with morning pages. Digitally, projects and services like OhLife and 750 Words might be good. Or local applications like MacJournal. Some may find this reflection and introspection simply with writing to plain text files. Regardless, I think it essential to external communications to first foster a healthy and regular internal one, no matter how one achieves it.

Friendship

This is one to one. It is interpersonal and private by default. Digitally, email would fit this idea. As would instant messaging, SMS, or even a phone call. It is dialog between two people. Unguarded and non-judgmental. It is an open exchange. A honest sharing. The opportunity for back and forth.

Society

This is where a social network may fit in. A forum would fit here as well. Even a blog with comments and an active and engaged readership might fit. The idea is that it should be productive dialog between a limited many. Greater than one-to-one but not so many that the conversation becomes noise and ideas are lost.

What are your three chairs?

The challenge, of course, is to use this as a healthy constraint. To choose three chairs that you are comfortable with and abandon or, at least, greatly decrease the use of others. To let others know of your choice where appropriate. For instance, “I prefer contact via email” or “I’m on Twitter and not on any other social network.” And even then, to have a clear intention about how and when you wish to use those chairs and with whom.

I would also like to think that balance is important here as well. That spending too much time in any one chair adversely affects the others. That the health of our internal dialog reflects well on when engaging our friends and society. That, equally true, the quality of those external engagements feed the quality of the internal. Therefore, choosing each chair with care and purpose is not to be taken lightly.