Collaboration Software

Collaboration Software

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A Travel Guide to Collaboration.

"It takes a shared space to create shared understanding," he says. "If there’s no shared space, there’s no collaboration. Period."

Technologies that create shared space and tools for collaboration fall into two categories: real-time and asynchronous/persistent

Stowe Boyd comments on the article and has this to say:

I have…shifted to the perspective that slow-time is just a degenerate and inadequate approximation of real-time

I…suggest that real-time should be the primary basis of every sort of human collaboration, and that slow-time introduces (in general) unnecessary complexities

I’ve been using Groove for several years now.  I primarily use the file-sharing and messaging features.  More recently I’ve been trying out InterComm by Five Across.  It’s a simple collaboration app with some unique features.  They recently added an RSS reader.

The practicality of real-time collaboration makes it less common as perhaps asynchronous collaboration, but I believe it should be what collaboration software should strive for.

Be strict in what you generate and forgiving in what you accept

Be strict in what you generate and forgiving in what you accept

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This is a difficult issue.   Application developers are caught in the middle.  On the one hand, we are in a position to take a stand against bad behavior by the feed producers; on the other hand, our survival depends on pleasing users who don’t care about the implementation details.

I can’t believe that the feed producers are purposely making things difficult.  If there was a way to educate them, I’m sure they would respond in a positive manner.  The squeaky wheel gets the grease. I hate the implications of that saying but you gotta do what you gotta do.  What if newsreaders had on file the email address of CEO’s, VP of Development, the appropriate responsible party within the company generating the bad feeds, and each time we refresh a feed, we notify the responsible party, that they are not playing nice.  Perhaps they would take notice.

Dear "Responsible Party"
Though I enjoy your content at "x", the application I use to retrieve your content is having to undertake extraordinary measures to deliver your content to me.  They and I as a consumer would appreciate if you would adjust your newfeed to follow published standards.  This would save time, energy and money.

A plea for convergence in weblog publishing

A plea for convergence in weblog publishing

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Brent Simmons makes the case for standard weblog features.
First, categories rule. I can’t imagine using a weblog service that doesn’t support categories.  The alternative is to require that you maintain multiple weblogs.  I have different audiences and categories serve as a filter for my posts.  Now, if TypePad would just syndicate on categories, things would be perfect.

Online photo printing

Online photo printing

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It’s time for Christmas cards.  We like sending a family photo.
Though we generally use Shutterfly, I thought I’d compare it to other services.

Snapfish is less expensive.

winkflash looks good. They have a simple low price per print with no sliding scale based on quantity. They also have inexpensive shipping charges. 

Here is one review of services that selects winkflash at #1.