onfocus

I'm back from ETech. The theme this year was The Attention Economy, and I have to agree with Matt's Thoughts on etech that I didn't walk away with much new information about attention. But ETech is always about more than the theme, and a 2nd emerging theme from the conference was ubiquitous computing. In fact, Bruce Sterling's opening talk was called The Internet of Things where he discussed his concept of Spime—a virtual object that manifests itself physically for a time while retaining the trackability of a virtual object. (As I understood it.) For example, shoes could be digitally designed, fabricated, and made location-aware. That way you could simply Google them if you can't find them in the morning. (His extended thoughts on Spimes are in Shaping Things.) Many sessions touched on ubiquitous computing and controlling the physical world in a more fluid, digital way.

Another emerging topic was Yahoo!, with three or four sessions devoted entirely to Yahoo! products. Of course I'm very interested in Yahoo! after working on Yahoo! Hacks, but their presence felt heavy-handed. (Granted, many members of the ETech selection committee were acquired by Yahoo! over the past year.) But the sessions I saw were straight product-pitches with little or no bearing on the conference theme of Attention Economy. I don't mind seeing demos or product pitches if they're within the context of larger ideas. Yahoo! wasn't the only offender there. Just to compare: Google was absent from the conference, and I only saw one pitch from Microsoft.

My favorite sessions were about big ideas: Maribeth Back's reading rooms, danah boyd's G/localization, Derek's distributed communities, and Clay Shirky's patterns for social software. I think what I'm personally looking for is a more academic, less commercial conference devoted entirely to social interaction mediated by technology. That's a convoluted way of saying Social Software Conference, but I'd also like to hear about trends in ubiquitous computing and networked devices as well.

Once again, I came away from ETech with notes full of ideas to digest and play with. And even though I might not have a better handle on attention, it's often the unexpected threads that emerge from the conference that turn out to be the most valuable.

Tomorrow I'm heading out early for the Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego. I can't think of a better place to spend a few days inside under fluorescent lights learning about new technology. Only kidding—maybe they'll have a few sessions outside on the lawn this year. ;) I'm really looking forward to the conference, there's always way too much to take in. (In a good way.) If you'll be at ETech and want to meet up at some point, drop me a note.

The only reason I'm still not caught up on reading after my vacation: link blogs. Email, done. Weblogs, done. Link blogs—over 1,000 links still unread. How do I keep up with this stuff on a daily basis?

Two days before I left for New Zealand, I spoke at Online Northwest—a one day library technology conference here in Corvallis. The talk was called Hacking Web 2.0 and I stumbled across a summary by Will Stuivenga at the Library and Information Technology Association blog: Online NW: Keynote. I definitely felt like an outsider, but my guess is that's the perspective they were looking for. I enjoyed getting a glimpse of a different world, and having the chance to chat with several people there. I think there should be more brainstorms between librarians and webheads. We have many big issues in common—even though our day to day problems seem very different.

sk and I just got back from driving around New Zealand's South Island for 10 days. It was an amazing trip, and I'm having trouble figuring out how to summarize the experience in a single post.

Instead, I'll just post some more pictures. I posted photos from the road at Flickr: New Zealand 2006. And you can click the photo of me hiking tramping below to see 15 more photos from the trip.

yay! I'm a little late with this news, but Flickr Hacks is now available in physical book form! Is there someone you'd like to see posting their photos to Flickr but they haven't made the leap? Give the gift of Flickr Hacks. :) I think the book is a great introduction to the Flickrverse, and any reader will become a Flickr power user if they give some of the more advanced hacks a go.

It's great to see the book in its final form, especially because this one was so much fun to work on. This picture is my copy of the book, and you can keep an eye on photos tagged with flickrhacks to see others.

Brian Sawyer—Hacks Series editor and another partner in crime on Flickr Hacks—just uploaded every figure from Flickr Hacks to Flickr in a gallery appropriately titled Flickr Hacks Color Figures. (Flickr.) So as you're reading along in the book and want to see a much larger image than you find on the printed (or HTML/PDF-ized) page, you can browse to the gallery and take a look by figure number. And don't forget about the All Sizes button on the image detail page if you really want to study a figure more closely.

This image is from Hack #43, Mash Up Your Photos.

Jason tagged me—and how can I ignore a taunt?

Four jobs I've had:
1. Wedding videographer
2. Guitarist
3. Best Buy, music dept.
4. Web Application Developer

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. The 400 Blows
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey
3. Un Chien Andalou
4. Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Four Three places I've lived:
1. Nebraska
2. California
3. Oregon
4. ???

Four TV shows I love:
1. Daily Show
2. Colbert Report
3. Family Guy
4. South Park

Four places I've vacationed:
1. Hawaii
2. Alaska
3. Mexico
4. Yosemite

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Steak and Potatoes
2. Steamed Clams
3. Mussamun Curry
4. Fish and Chips

Four sites I visit daily:
1. Google
2. Flickr
3. ORblogs
4. Metafilter

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Yosemite
2. Hiking
3. Napping
4. In the sun

Four bloggers I am tagging:
1. alison
2. merlin
3. kathryn
4. nelson

After focusing on Yahoo! and Flickr for most of 2005, I've been kicking off 2006 by poking, prodding, and generally hacking another side in the search wars: Google. I'm going to be bringing Google Hacks up to date and into its 3rd edition.

The first edition of Google Hacks was published in February, 2003 and it was a runaway success. Here's an article Tim O'Reilly wrote just months after it was released: Thoughts on the Success of Google Hacks. (The key ingredient? Having fun with technology during the darkest post-bubble days.) Google Hacks, 2nd edition was released in December, 2004 during the mad frenzy to get a gmail account. (Doesn't that seem like ancient history?) It's been over a year, and there are plenty of new topics to cover. 2005 was the year of Google Maps Mashups, and O'Reilly felt the topic deserved its own book: Google Maps Hacks. It's out now—and it rocks! (please note O'Reilly bias, but seriously. it's good.). I'll be including a few Google Maps Hacks in the new addition along with many, many more new Google features that you can tweak to your advantage.

And of course I'll be keeping a close eye on the news that Feds are after Google data. Wired News is already on the case letting people know that there are some privacy hacks you can use with Google or any other search engine. Personally, I'm happy to see Google standing up for their users' privacy.

I'm very excited to be adding to what's already a fantastic book, and I'm honored to be walking the trail that Tara and Rael blazed. Plus I get to play with all of the Google goodness at google.com and from around the Web. I'm searching for the most useful (and fun!) hacks, tips, and tricks I can find to include in the new edition. Got a Google Hack? Lay it on me.

Update: On a negative but important note, Philipp Lenssen is doing good reporting on the latest news that Google Censors Its Results in China.

I'm a guest blogger today over at the Yahoo! Search blog talking about (what else?) Yahoo! Hacks. The Good Kind....

Safari Books Online just launched a new service that gives you access to books before they're released. It's called Rough Cuts—here's a press release: Safari Books Online Launches New Rough Cuts Service. Flickr Hacks is one of the first books offered through Rough Cuts. We're not finished with the last round of editing yet, but you can get access to the full text of the book as it is now for $12.99 if you'd like: Flickr Hacks Rough Cuts. (You can pay $27.99 if you want the hard copy in addition to the online version once it's printed in a month or so. The printed book alone will be around $16.99.)

One of the most frustrating aspects of working on print books for me is the lag time between writing something and getting it out to an audience. The applications I'm writing about change quickly, so it's critical to get information out quickly. The editorial and review process is fantastic, and I love tightening text and tuning code. But it's frustrating watching your work expire while the book is in process because an application has changed. I think Rough Cuts will be a way to shorten the cycle. I also think it'll be great to get feedback from early adopters of the books so O'Reilly can tweak things before printing. Every book has errata, and with more people consuming books before they're out the door, hopefully more of that errata can be eliminated before the book is printed. (With enough eyeballs, all errata is shallow?)

So yeah, I'm excited about this new service—especially because Flickr Hacks is one of the inaugural titles. The author side of me is a bit nervous about letting people in early, but it's natural to the Web developer side of me. A few days ago I read through the entire book again as part of the editorial process and really enjoyed it. I know I'm biased, but I'm also proud of the book. (And let's face it, Flickr is fun!) And now you can read an early version too.

Update: For insights into the economics of publishing, check out Tim O'Reilly's take on Rough Cuts: The Long Snout.

Update (1/30): The Rough Cuts version of Flickr Hacks now has color figures. Check out Jim's Squared Circle mosaic in the Flickr Hacks Preface.

Later this year sk and I will be taking a trip to New Zealand. For the past five years, sk has worked with a company that imports wine from New Zealand into the United States, so I've been getting to know New Zealand one bottle at a time for a while now. (Once you try a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc you'll never go back.) But you can only learn so much about a country by drinking their wine, reading books, and watching Lord of the Rings.

Luckily we have friends and fofs in New Zealand, and we've been collecting their advice about things to do and see for a while. But I thought I'd tap the collective knowledge of onfocus readers to gather even more advice. So if you've been to (or are currently in) New Zealand and you had a limited time to explore, is there anything you wouldn't miss? Please leave a comment, or email me directly. I should add that we'll be on the South Island for the duration of our trip. Thanks!