I’ve always considered email interviews to be cheap attempts to drive traffic to a site, or a pure lack of writing inspiration. They were always something that I’d skip over in my feed reader.

Then the revelation struck: maybe interviews are actually difficult to get right, making the majority of interviews nothing more than pathetic rhetoric. The fate of an interview rests on the shoulders of the interviewer—most who are uneducated on the topic being discussed, or simply don’t ask meaningful questions.

As I’ve begun to immerse myself in “real” interviews, I’ve grown to appreciate the quality of the questions, the sincerity of the conversation, and the thought-provoking ideas which are discussed. Interviews moved from simply being pre-written questions, to a topic-driven conversation.

Now, I find myself looking forward to reading a good interview.

Coincidentally, this week, a couple of interviews have landed their way in my RSS reader. Taking them like gold, I sat down, and read for 30 minutes. No distractions. No tweets. Just me sitting and reading.

When an article captivates your attention and imagination more than a feature-length, multi-million dollar movie, I think they deserve a link.

The Interviews

Phil Bowell interviews Shawn Blanc - Definitely one of the best interviews I’ve read in awhile. Phil talks to Shawn Blanc—author of my personal favourite blog—about how he began writing, as well as his design process, and even some steps he takes when conducting an email interview. Go grab yourself a cup of your favourite hot beverage, and read this right now.

Kyle Baxter interviews Brent Simmons - Kyle’s blog, TightWind, has quickly moved to the top of my RSS reader. He has a fascinating interview with Brett Simmons, maker of NetNewsWire—my RSS reader of choice, regarding the UI design of iPhone apps. In one sentence, Brent defines the key to developing for the iPhone: “Clarity is more valuable than density.”

And while I’m at it, why not plug some older, notable interviews that I have re-read recently?

The Glenn Wolsey Interview - The one part of this interview that continues to strike me everytime I read it, is actually something that Shawn (the interviewer) mentioned in response to one of Glenn’s remarks.

I almost wonder if The Net has taught us we should write short and quick posts in order to cater to those who want to consume the most amount of information in the least amount of time, thus the nobility of a blogger writing something wonderful and captivating has been lost.

The John Gruber Interview - Undoubtedly the most thoughtful interview I have read—it defines the gold-standard of interviews in my mind. It may be long, but it’s not one of those “skim-every-other-paragraph” articles. You just have to read every word.

Probing the Hive Mind - Chris Bowler reminds me about how much I enjoyed his remarkable interview with Dan Benjamin. Talking about everything and anything, it’s one of those good rainy day reads.

After a long writing hiatus, I’m finally back. I spent the last month in Zambia—the cradle of the AIDS orphan crisis in Africa. There are things that I saw, places that I went, and tears that I shed that I will never forget. Loving children that have been abused, alone, and destitute. Loving orphans that have never been loved.

I took over 4000 RAW photos on the trip, taking up a mammoth 33GB of space—all thanks to my little friend. I am working on a website that will attempt to give you a glimpse into the hearts and minds of the orphans in Zambia. Seeing the things I saw and that broke my heart. More on that later.

Coming home, I opened up NetNewsWire for the first time, and was greeted with 2600 RSS items. A lot of these stories may be “old news”, but there are a few that jumped out at me, and that I wanted to share a couple thoughts on:

• The highly anticipated 3G iPhone has been announced. Really, the big news wasn’t the actual hardware of the new phone, as much as it was the deals that were made. Having a $199 entry price point and launching it in 22 different countries will definitely drive sales through the roof.
• Along with the announcement of the 3G iPhone, came the news that the iPhone is finally coming to Canada—with Rogers. I freaked out a bit when I saw the expensive data prices Rogers wanted to charge, but after the introduction of limited-time offer of 6GB of data for $30/month—more than the 5GB soft-cap on AT&T’s “unlimited” data plan in the US—the iPhone is finally affordable in Canada. And now, I’ll be picking up a black 16-gigger of my own come Friday.
• As I wrote about previously, the biggest news out of WWDC this year was Apple’s new initiative into MobileMe. Apple has covered most of my concerns with Living in the Cloud, by allowing you to access your data via native applications on an iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac, or PC, as well as providing an elegant web interface to use when necessary. While it’s not free, it’s definitely worth the $99 a year.
• Kyle Baxter from TightWind published a very thought-provoking post on Apple’s shift in focus with the introduction of MobileMe. Definitely worth a read.
• The AppStore is set to launch on Friday with thousands of applications ranging from twitter clients to games to excel editors. Gruber nails it when he writes that the AppStore is what makes the iPhone into a platform, and that’s the bigger story than the 3G iPhone.
• Apple sold their 5 Billionth song on iTunes in June. Great. Now, when can we get iTunes Plus standardized across the whole store?
• Any camera-lovers out there have to be drooling over the Nikon D700. For $3000 you are getting the photo-quality of a D3, in the size of a D300. This is the first full-frame DSLR in it’s price range. Canon better react quick; they are falling behind fast.
• Data Robotics unveiled the second-generation FireWire 800 Drobo. Faster, quieter, and FireWire 800. Exactly what I’ve been waiting for. I’m getting one.

I’m laying on the floor, typing on the backlit keys of my MacBook Pro, waiting. In less than four hours, I will be on my way to Pearson International Airport—the beginning on my month-long journey to Africa.

I should be sleeping; but my eyes won’t shut. All I can see, all I can smell, all I can taste, is Africa. There is something that draws me to Africa. Am I nervous? Yes. But that nervousness is outweighed by a child-like excitement. A sense of wonder.

Yes, I will be missing what I believe to be one of the biggest WWDCs in the past five years. Yes, I won’t find about the 3G iPhone or the iPhone in Canada (pretty please) until July. But I don’t mind that at all. There is something inexplicably captivating about Africa; the people, the children, the faces, the smiles.

Music, typing, and waiting—completely enveloped by darkness. I feel like I see the world differently than before. Sure technology is exciting and captivating, but it can’t compare to a orphan’s smile or a AIDS victim’s laugh.

This may sound incredibly cliche, but there are things in life more important than technology. And that is why I am excited—not disappointed—to have the privilege of being completely disconnected for a month. No computer. No Internet. Sure I’ll have my camera(s), but only to capture the life-long memories that I hope to keep alive even after I return home.

The past five months have flown by for me. I started this website. I taught myself photography. And I’ve launched my own podcast—of which I still have lots to learn. I look at where I am today compared to 5 months ago, and see a totally different person with a totally different outlook on life. It may not be evident to my readers, or even my own parents, but I recognize it.

I see the change. I see the shift in focus. And I like where I’m headed. By no means am I perfect, but I feel that I am going in the right direction. And that path leads directly across the Atlantic.

I’m off to Africa; be back July 5th.

There has been a lot of talk around the web about .Mac’s successor and it’s rumored appearance at WWDC on Monday. It started with the 10.5.3 update changing all .Mac references to a localizable string—%@—as opposed to a hard-coded name, possibly implying that Apple could change the name of .Mac in the OS with a small update.

The rumor grew as references to “MobileMe” were found in Apple patents and iPhone SDK beta strings. Then Apple was discovered to have purchased “me.com” as well as a variety of new top-level .me domains such as apple.me, ipod.me, and itunes.me.

Something is happening with .Mac—everybody knows that. The question remains as to what Apple will do to their web-based software as a service suite. I believe that if Apple plays their cards right, the new .Mac—or MobileMe—will be far bigger, and more important than the 3G iPhone announcement.

The Master Plan

Apple has always wanted full control of the hardware and the software of any device they’ve manufactured. They want you to have the best experience on your Mac, your iPod, and your iPhone. Apple, and more specifically, Steve Jobs, want to be in control of the experience you have with your Apple products.

While your Mac and your iPhone might function and integrate perfectly, there is something missing that connects them. Currently, the only “integration” between the Mac and the iPhone is a two-foot, USB cable that may occasionally get plugged in. That’s not the seamless integration and design that defines the Apple experience.

Apple’s goal—and the reason for their existence—is to integrate and control your experience across all your devices. And while Apple has succeeded at creating a stunning Mac and iPhone experience, there has always been an area that Apple has had little to no control in—the Cloud.

Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing is nothing new—I’ve written about it’s pros and cons before. Apple has a chance to completely revolutionize the cloud computing space. They have the advantage over any other company (Adobe, Google, Microsoft, etc.) because they already control the hardware and software. Combine this seamless online experience with your desktop, laptop, and iPhone, and you’ll never have to leave the cohesiveness of the Apple environment.

Apple can begin to change the way people use the Internet even with existing .Mac technologies. Kyle Baxter—author of TightWind, one of my favourite new blogs—beat me to publishing a brilliant piece on the integration of .Mac with the iPhone:

I can imagine Apple enabling iDisk on the iPhone so you are never “disconnected” from it — it connects more or less invisibly to your iPhone. No FTP login, password, and directory data to input, no UI even necessarily needed to login and connect — it does it itself.

Placing a file on your iPhone would not require the annoying steps of mounting it on your desktop, dropping it into your phone, and dismounting it. Instead, you would just drop the file in your iDisk, and suddenly that file is available to all of your devices, seamlessly. Forgot to print out a homework assignment or paper? No big deal; just access your iDisk on your iPhone and email it.

Effectively, your iPhone and your Mac would be tied together at all times by shared storage, whether they are physically connected or not.

This is just the beginning of the power that a connected experience will bring to the iPhone. Forget about an Internet connection simply meaning the ability to surf the web. The Internet will begin to be associated with the term “connected”. When connected to Apple’s online “Me” service, all of your devices will sync up—contacts, calendars, emails, passwords, and notes.

But imagine the possibilities beyond that. Imagine if Apple positions this “Me” service along with it’s mobile division rumored to be called “MobileMe”, as a consumer’s identity management. This service will know the podcasts and RSS feeds you subscribe to. It will know your user names and passwords for all the popular social networking sites. It will know the IP addresses of all your devices at any time, and will be able to access any file, located on any device at a moments notice. It will know precisely where you are via GPS or triangulation. Yes, it may sound terrifying that one company has all this power—but imagine the potential.

No one company has ever been able to successfully pull off a move this big, because they simply do not have the leverage that Apple does. They did not have control of both the hardware and the software. And that is what cloud computing is truly about.

The Apple Way

.Mac is not going to be overhauled. It’s going to be entirely revamped from the bottom up. And if Apple does this right, they can become the first company with a complete 360° solution. In order for this to catch on though, they need to do a couple things:

1. Give it away: In order to do this right, Apple has to make it free. Free as in Google free. Make the online services accessible to everyone. Make it so that you get a free access to “Apple Online Services” with the purchase of an iPhone or Mac. Make it so that pro users can pay a minimal annual fee to upgrade their features.
2. Ensure that it’s more reliable than Twitter: If I’m going to be sending you all my private information, I want to be sure that I can access it at any time. And having it work 24/7 would be a bonus as well. .Mac isn’t really known for it’s reliability and stability—hopefully Apple will work to improve this before launch.
3. Don’t duplicate services already in place: I love making .Mac Web Galleries. They’re beautiful, dead-simple to make, and integrate perfectly with the iApps and Aperture. But I’d much rather use Flickr with an established community. Don’t try to replace Facebook or Google or Flickr or Twitter. Make the new .Mac’s goal simple: To integrate all Apple devices with services on the Internet. Integrate the Apple experience with other online services (i.e. Flickr and YouTube upload from the iPhone)

Apple has the opportunity to do something game-changing with .Mac. Something that can, potentially, be bigger than the 3G iPhone. Brett Peters says it best: “Faster bandwidth allows me to do the same things I already do, only … faster. It’s equivalent to an incremental increase in storage capacity or processor speed. That’s just not sexy.”

Steve Jobs is not going to go on stage, come Monday, and announce a 3G iPhone that everybody knows about, without telling us the super-cool Star Trek-like things that we will be able to do because of this 3G technology. RIM, Nokia, Samsung—better watch closely.

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the ‘Snow Leopard’ rumors as they’ve circled around the web today. Cory Bohon over at TUAW broke the news this morning:

TUAW has received some information that suggests Apple may be working to seed developers with an early build of Mac OS X 10.6 at this year’s WWDC. 10.6 will not include any new significant features from 10.5; instead, Apple is focusing solely on “stability and security.”

We have also learned that OS X 10.6 may go gold master by December 2008 in an effort to start shipping it in January ‘09 at Macworld Expo. Mac OS X 10.6 will be a milestone release for Apple, as it will leave the PowerPC behind: a fully 64-bit clean, Intel-only Mac OS X.

‘Snow Leopard’ has been the topic of many heated debates today. I’ve been most interested in the posts on the MacRumors forum regarding the 10.6 rumor. Comments ranged from: “Does it make sense to do a speed and stability upgrade only? That sounds like a 10.5.X, not a 10.6!” to “Steve Jobs needs to go sooner than Ballmer if he things that is a good move.” to my personal favourite “It’s NOT GOING TO BE Snow Leopard.”—I recall hearing something similar to that in January regarding the MacBook Air…

First, let’s clarify a few things:

• This is a rumor. None of this is confirmed.
• ‘Snow Leopard’ is a codename.
• “Speed and stability” are not the only new features—Snow Leopard is said to be ‘pure cocoa’ as well.
• ‘Pure Cocoa’ does not mean abandoning all Carbon APIs. Apple may only axe the Carbon UI stuff.
• Giving PPC users all the features of Leopard and giving Intel users a “speed and stability” boost is not Apple abandoning their loyal customer base.
• Steve Jobs: “I’m quite pleased with the pace of new operating systems every 12 to 18 months for the foreseeable future”

I was very skeptical about this rumor at first, but as it has developed throughout the day, pieces have fallen into place. The Snow Leopard upgrade may very well be the last version of OS X. It’s a chance for Apple to tie up all the lose ends in the OS before they move on to even greater things—OS 11.

Think of all ‘loose ends’ in OS X. The Finder, FTP, Quartz GL, Resolution Independence, ZFS, etc. This is Apple’s chance to fix the integration and interoperability of their OS, as well as optimize it for the computers/devices on which it will run.

Snow Leopard could mark the end of the Intel transition. Why should the people going out and buying a Mac today have to deal with the bulk of code in OS X and third-party universal binaries? It would make much more sense to have a leaner, faster, more-optimized version of OS X running on those machines. Apple increasingly needs to slim down OS X for it’s growing lineup of mobile devices—iPhones, iPod Touches, MacBook Airs, and possibly a Mac Tablet.

If this rumor is true, and Apple is working on an Intel-only, leaner, faster, more reliable version of OS X, I have to give props to the people over at Apple. This is something that Microsoft has never done, and has put them into the hole they are today with Vista. Feature-ridden bloated code is no solution for an OS. Sure, there will be some unhappy devs, but in the long run, this decision will prove it’s worth to both Apple and their user-base.

The Future for Apple

If Apple seeds developers a beta of Snow Leopard at WWDC next week, it could give us a glimpse of what Apple has planned for the future—both hardware and software-wise. Possibilities include:

• An all-Intel iPhone and iPod Touch
• Beating Microsoft to the game with a multi-touch Mac at Macworld 2009.
• A free—or next to free—upgrade in January for all Intel Mac users that will improve the performance of their systems.
• Resolution Independence, ZFS, and a tabbed fully Cocoa Finder.
• Improved battery life across all portable devices.
• Cocoa updates to iTunes(8?) and Final Cut Pro.
• OS 11—Intel & Cocoa only—slated for a late 2010 release.

Exciting times are ahead for Apple and the Macintosh. It will be interesting to watch how Apple markets Snow Leopard, and the real-world performance gains from leaning the OS. I want to publicly ask Microsoft to stop their photocopiers, and refrain from pulling any stunts like ‘Snow Vista’. Please Microsoft, no.

School’s out, and henceforth, my three-month summer begins. School—even with marks in the high nineties—ceases to give me any satisfaction. And so I’ve decided to live a summer full of purpose and productivity. I couldn’t be more excited.

I have a couple of projects that I am looking forward to working on throughout the course of the summer break. While I want to relax during my one major break from school, I also want to be creative and accomplish something (or a couple of somethings) this summer.

• As many of you know by now, one of the things very close to my heart is missions. I will be going to Lusaka, Zambia for a month this June to help first-hand with the troubles facing AIDS victims and orphans. It’s different than just dropping some money in a bucket and letting someone else worry about their problems.

  I get to actually first-hand and walk with them, talk to them, and love on them. Sure we will be helping out with the essentials—food, water, medicine, AIDS education in schools, etc. But there is something even more powerful: I am able to go and bring them the love and hope and happiness that they have never had the chance to know. I count it a privilege to go and live in tents in the middle of the jungle in order to bring love to their remote tribe. That, in my opinion, is the greatest project for any summer.

  But being the geek that I am, I don’t want it to end there. Part two of this Zambia Missions project is to bring what I saw, heard, and felt home. I want to share exactly how the people of Zambia have changed my life as much as I have changed theirs. I will be coming home with thousands of photos, video clips, and stories that I will be just aching to share. And share them I will—as soon as I catch up on my sleep.

• The next major project that I will be working on is a major redesign of MichaelMistretta.com. While the current design has served me well, it’s grown a little long in the tooth. And truthfully, I’m a bit tired of it myself. I don’t have any mockup designs in place as of yet, although I do have a pretty good idea of what the next step is in the MichaelMistretta.com design evolution.

  I want MM.com to be a central hub into all of the things I’m involved in on the Net. That said, I’m going against the decision to make it look like a “hub” and lose it’s journal-like experience. I’ve got a couple designs floating around in my head that I’m not ready to reveal yet. But if you are a designer that is looking for a project of you’re own for this summer, and feel up to the task, please give me a shout. I’d be more than happy to discuss plans in more detail one-on-one.

• On another site related note, I will finally be switching all of my many sites over to (mt). I’ve been using free Site5 hosting from my friend Ben Feldman ever since the launch in January, and I’m not going to lie—it’s been pretty bad. MM.com itself has only had about 85% uptime in the last couple of months, and I’ve had my IP banned from my sites for multiple days. After reading Shawn Blanc’s extensive post on his experiences with Media Temple over the past year, I knew that they were the host for me.

  I’m opting for Media Temple’s (gs) hosting plan which seems to strike the perfect balance between storage, reliability, price, and seems to handle a medium traffic site with occasional traffic bursts seamlessly. Sounds ideal for my needs.

• Finally, my biggest project this summer is the one that I can reveal the least amount of information about. The inspiration for the idea struck while in the middle of a game of Mario Kart Wii—which has absolutely nothing to do with the idea whatsoever. It is a joint project between Chris Thomson and myself, and is slated for a public release on August 30th. That is, of course, depending on how fast we can code PHP/speak with some people. While I can’t reveal the idea yet—although I will hint at it, as I love secrets—I will hint at the code-name for the project. It’s known as The Plank.

There are, of course, other side projects that I hope to participate in this summer, as well as some secret plans that I have yet to reveal. So far though, it seems that this summer is going to be action-packed. I’m looking forward to working on some things that I’m passionate about after a long year of school.

Dan McCullum just got his first DSLR (congrats!) and DM’d me on twitter asking for my opinion on whether to shoot in RAW or JPEG. If you are completely photo illiterate, I suggest you stop reading this, get a large mug of your favourite drink and start here. Most amateur photographers have probably heard these terms thrown around before, but don’t know which is better for them.

What are they?

Every time you click the shutter, your camera takes a picture and saves it in a file - typically a high-quality JPEG. JPEG compression is a lossy format that throws away the data that you can’t see in order to give you smaller file sizes. RAW on the other hand is lossless. It keeps every piece of data your camera captures - even if you don’t need it. This results in much larger file sizes, and slower write speeds. A RAW file isn’t even technically an image file. It has to be converted by special software on your computer and processed in order to be suitable for print or publishing.

Okay, but I asked what are they?

In essence, RAW and JPEG photos look pretty similar coming off the camera. In some cases, RAW photos can actually look worse as they are not as sharp and contrasty by default, creating the appearance that they are washed out.

So why would someone shoot in RAW if it produces worse shots and takes up more space off the bat?

While I don’t agree with Ken Rockwell’s opinion on this matter, he happens to have a decent analogy for explaining the purpose of RAW:

Cameras all start with raw data and convert this data to JPEG images with hardware in the camera. They then throw away the raw data since it’s no longer needed.

Saving this raw data is exactly like people who save twenty years of newspapers in piles around their house. They know they might need the information sometime, but it sure gets in the way! Other people think they are crazy.

The easiest way to understand why you want to keep the data in your photos is to see some real-world use. I scoured through my Aperture library to find two photos that were atrociously taken (by yours truly) to use as our victims in this experiment.

Example 1: White balance

Yes, that’s me in all my yellow splendor.

This is the photo right out of the camera. I know what you are thinking: horrible white balance. Photo is ruined. Delete. But this photo was shot in RAW, so there is still the original information from the camera saved in this file. Let’s simply tell Aperture to set the white balance from the colour of the shirt - which should be pure white.

After a white balance and a couple contrast and sharpness adjustments, the finished photo looks perfect. No one would have known that I had totally messed up the white balance had I not written this post. I was able to turn this photo from a reject to a rather nice portrait in under a minute.

That’s my secret. Shoot in RAW, and you can fix almost any mistake you make in the camera.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s look at what would have happened if we applied the exact same adjustments to a JPEG version of this image.

Bet you wished you had kept those 20 years of newspapers - you never know when you might need them.

Since the JPEG compression threw away data that you technically couldn’t see, you can’t make very extreme adjustments when editing the photo. All of the original data is lost and the detail in those parts are gone. Photo ruined. Delete.

Example 2: Over-exposed

By now, most of you are thinking that I’m a horrible photographer. There is a reason this photo came out overexposed. In order to blur the car I needed to slow the shutter speed to 1/25 of a second. I closed my aperture to f/22 (the maximum) and set the camera on the lowest light sensitivity (ISO 100), but the image was still going to be overexposed. I had to choose between a normally-exposed capture with no motion blur, or an over-exposed capture with motion blur.

I chose the motion blur. And with a couple adjustments in Aperture I came out with this:

That is the power of shooting in RAW. You can correct things that went wrong in the camera. In this case, I restored data from areas that were totally clipped (pure white) and brought them down to a normal exposure. Again, in order to see how revolutionary this is, you have to see the equivalent JPEG.

While the car and the trees look decent enough, the detail could not be restored from the road or the sky and resulted in turning those areas to pure grey. The photo looks washed out and ‘blah’ compared to the RAW version with the preserved detail

If you want more information on the specifics of RAW and JPEG photography, check out this in-depth post from one of the greatest photo blogs out there - Digital Photography School.

So which one should I use?

There are pros and cons to shooting both RAW and JPEG images. Many people choose to shoot in JPEG because it is a universal format that they can be taken right off the cameras and shared via email or published to the Internet. RAW shooting requires an additional step - and additional software. RAW images need to be processed in a program like Aperture or Lightroom - I prefer Aperture - or even Adobe Camera RAW in Photoshop.

If you are not going to bother processing your photos, RAW is not for you. But even if you view photography as a simple hobby, it is worth investing in photo-management software like Aperture or Lightroom that make organizing, keywording, searching, and editing your RAW photos as simple as working with JPEGs. Flash memory and hard drive disk space is cheap enough nowadays that you can save all the data from your photos - especially if they are memories that you want to last forever.

As a writer, there always comes a time where you ask yourself why you are doing what you’re doing. Why do I sit here - or in my case, lie on my bed - and type words to publish on the Internet? Some think it’s crazy; others, a waste of time.

I came across a paragraph from John that expresses my feelings perfectly:

I wanted to write a site for someone it’s meant for. That reader I write for is a second version of me. I’m writing for him. He’s interested in the exact same things I’m interested in; he reads the exact same websites I read. I want him to like this website so much that he reads it from the top to the bottom, and he reads everything. Every single word. The copyright statement, what software I use, he’s read it all.

This long weekend - big happy birthday wishes go out to Queen Victoria by the way - I decided to do just that. I read a blog. No, not a blog post. An entire blog. From start to finish. From post number one to post two hundred sixty eight. I poured over the pages and pages of my favourite blog for hours on end.

And you know what? I really enjoyed it.

Enjoyed it more than spending the night watching TV. Enjoyed it more than coding and tweaking my website. Heck, I even enjoyed it more than tweeting.

Why did I enjoy it so much? Because Shawn wrote for an audience of one; he wrote his blog for himself above everyone else “When I write something for shawnblanc.net and hit publish, I want to then open up my homepage and read my own article. And I want to really, really enjoy it.” He wanted to enjoy his own content. And that made me love his posts even more.

Words of life

I hate to rave on and on about Shawn’s blog as I know I would be embarrassed if someone did the same for me, but I believe there is something to learn from the way Shawn writes. When I read over the pages of his blog, his words come alive. In all honesty, I have no words to describe it (no pun intended).

Words have power. And words, real words, are the ones that speak to me and come alive in my life. It’s addictive - in a good way. When I finished reading every word on Shawn’s entire blog, I started googling for more articles from him (and I did end up finding some). It didn’t have to be about anything in particular. It wasn’t the topic. It was the passion and the realism behind the words that allowed me to see into his life. It could have been about quantum physics, and I would have been glued to my seat.

It’s the exact reason that John wanted to write. He wanted to write for someone that would “like this website so much that he reads it from the top to the bottom, and he reads everything. Every single word.”

Fear of words

The problem with writing words of life is that it requires you to be vulnerable. You have to open yourself up, and allow your readers to glimpse into your life. You have to be yourself, and write with passion.

Shawn Blanc:

The problem is the fear of man. That fear to be ourselves, to speak truthfully and honestly, to stand up for what we know to be right and true and beautiful and wonderful.

That is why I’m sitting here on a Sunday night - Victoria Day’s Eve - in front of my laptop immersed and typing away in Writeroom with fireworks exploding all around. Because I want a voice of my own. I want to write for myself. I want to enjoy every word that I write, and savour them over again and again.

I’ve read through all the secret sauce recipes of blogging. How to write the killer headlines, and how to attract the crowds. Keywords and SEO and stats and traffic. But I’m tired of all that. I just want to write.

Yup, I’ve taken the leap and started a podcast.

It’s called Discovr. Let me explain:

Discovr is the brainchild of my own pursuit for information. I wanted to know about photography and graphic design and video editing and coding - every creative thing you could imagine. And when trying to learn about them, I found myself resorting to countless hours Googling. Reading and dissecting every bit of information I could find.

After a while, I realized that this was not the way to learn things. I wanted to go to one place where I could learn about a certain topic from top to bottom. It was then that the seed for Discovr was planted. Over the next few months, I worked on developing this minuscule idea into a full-fledged podcast.

The idea was simple - cover one tech topic in depth each week. Invite guests on that actually know what they’re talking about. Sit down, hit the record button, and have a conversation: just like a couple of people sitting around a table and talking tech. No limits. No restraints. No geekiness boundaries. Just raw technology.

We’ve already gotten two episodes up. Check ‘em out, and subscribe in iTunes if you feel so inclined. Also, if you have any feedback, we’d love to hear it. Ideas, tips, critisim, requests, complaints, whatever. Just give us a shout up at the blog and we’ll be sure to get back to you.

Theoretically, technology exists to make our lives easier. In the real world however, it’s not that simple. In many ways, technology over complicates even the simplest tasks in our lives. And so the story continues with RSS.

RSS is one of those technologies that seems like a revolutionary way to simplify your life at first, but ends with tireless hours of complex organization and wasted time. At the very core, RSS is a brilliant idea - bringing the news you care about to you, instead of you going to the news. However, the existing RSS readers ruin the simple foundation that RSS was built upon. Once again, software is shown to be the major bottleneck in the development of a platform.

The creation of any revolutionary new technology represents a major paradigm shift. However, in order to explain a new technology to a person, you must compare it to an existing technology. Sometimes these comparisons don’t always fit perfectly (for instance, see the original Macintosh manual where the Finder is described as “a central hallway in the Macintosh house”). Two different comparisons are typically used when explaining RSS - email inboxes and newspapers.

RSS as an Inbox

It’s no coincidence that the most common way to consume RSS is similar to one of the most common uses of a computer. Everyone uses and understands the way an email inbox works, and so, that knowledge is translated into an RSS reader that functions like an inbox. You refresh your RSS feeds much as you get new mail in your email client. You sort your feeds by folders much as you do - or should do - with email. And there is a big annoying number that marks your “unread count”, or the number of new RSS items you have to “read”.

This is where the comparison between RSS and email fails.

RSS is not email and shouldn’t be treated like it. Most email is specifically directed at you, and requires your attention to read and possibly take action. RSS feeds, on the other hand, are not specifically for you. They don’t all require your attention, and need to be “read”.

How many times have I come home from a weekend away, only to find the RSS count in the thousands. RSS quickly becomes a burden that is dreaded. And so the question remains - is there a better way to get your content?

RSS as a Newspaper

Recently, there has been a push towards a different approach for RSS. Instead of treating RSS feeds as emails in an inbox, Dustin MacDonlad’s new app, Times, takes a new - actually, an old - approach to RSS. Alex Wooley, a casual RSS user, sums up the game-changing nature of Times nicely:

Before the introduction of Times, it’s fair to say I wasn’t really an RSS worshiper. I had NetNewsWire installed on my system (after they made it free) and opened it once in a while (where I would be blasted with 200 feeds which I really didn’t want to have to read through). So, I didn’t want or have a need to read RSS feeds. Upon downloading Times, I knew I’d been hit with a new kind of RSS feeder, something I hadn’t experienced before, something quintessentially different.

Times frees RSS from the dreaded “unread count”, and allows you to consume RSS feeds in a different, more refreshing way. The philosophy is that you will be able to scan headlines and find the content that is appealing to you without having to go through and “read” every single article. While it’s an interesting approach, it is suited for more casual RSS users. When you begin to have hundreds of feeds in your arsenal, Times quickly becomes cumbersome and useless.