What the World Searched for in 2014.
Not the most inspired year in search.
Recently I have been listening to plenty of Late Night Linux podcasts. I like them because they’re half an hour long, the adverts are half way through the show, and in general I don’t feel that they’re filling time to fill one and a half hours of podcast time.
Plenty of other podcasts last for an hour and a half or more, which if you listen to one episode a week is okay, but I don’t do that. I find a podcast that I like and I listen to the most recent episodes and then I listen to them in chronological order. This takes a lot of time, but it also provides me with an evolutionary appreciation of how things have changed.
I want to listen to them in chronological order because I feel that they provide me with a timeline of what changed, when, and how people reacted to those challenges, as well as how this made them feel.
There are occasions where I skip episodes, either because I don’t like the topic, especially for Linux Extra. In one case I got annoyed because they spoke about “We weren’t taught A in school” or “we weren’t taught b in school”. I was never taught how to use a computer. I learned by trial and error, after trial and error, after trial and error. I learned by RTFM if I got stuck, but also by experimenting. I only RTFM if I get stuck.
I have paid for Lynda.com which then became Linkedin Learning and I have paid for courses on Udemy and Coursera but that’s courses that I chose to study, rather than formal tuition.
I was never taught how to use Final Cut Pro, or Adobe Premiere, or Avid Media Composer. I learned by having a PC with Adobe Premiere on my computer at home. I learned to edit tape to tape on a DHR-1000 editing deck. I learned to edit with FCP because that’s what we had at uni. I don’t remember whether we had it in Weymouth and Harrow, or just Harrow. It’s two decades ago.
With Avid I spent half a day trying to figure out how to do a simple edit. I eventually figured out that you mark in where you want a video to end and out where you want the next one to start, cut, and then your edit is done. It’s the type of editor where you do everything with keyboard shortcuts so it’s very fast, once you learn how to use it.
That’s why I hate the notion of “I wasn’t taught it at school so I don’t know how it works. I experimented with Linux in the 90s because Windows was constantly getting virused, so I eventually switched to Linux, and then windows, to linux, to mac, and then back to Linux.
In Autumn of this year my Mac will no longer be supported by Apple. It already isn’t supported for Final Cut Pro X. I can use an older version, but no longer the latest versions.
Recently I heard plenty of mentions of NixOS in one podcast so I installed and experimented with the OS and it took a while for me to be able to do anything but eventually, yesterday, I got PhotoPrism to work. I installed mysql/MariaDB and PhotoPrism, but I had to setup mariaDB to play nicely with PhotoPrism. I had to do that part manually. Eventually an old HP laptop running NixOS was running PhotoPrism and I was able to transfer photos from my mobile phone to the laptop and it felt extremely fast, compared to the same experiment on a Pi 4 and Pi5.
In the past when listening to other podcasts I have found that they are more enjoyable. They’re shorter. They’re edited, and they have fewer adverts. As you get up to date with podcasts adverts become longer, and more intrusive. I stopped listening to a few podcasts just because I got so tired of listening to adverts. I could skip them, but when you’re walking you don’t want to skip the first minute or two.
At the moment I find that I learn a lot from a variety of podcasts about Linux, and if they’re half an hour long then that’s perfect. My walks are one and a half hours long. It’s because they have less time for off topic chatter in short podcasts.
Over at least a week I have been blogging with the Pi 5 and an Apple keyboard. I am using the Apple keyboard just because it’s the one I have, rather than out of a preference for their keyboards over others. I have a full size keyboard but it lost a part so it’s unbalanced and the rapoo keyboard is too small to be comfortable for typing.
I use Visual Code and Front matter. Visual Code is good for keeping files organised. Front Matter is good for generating the Front Matter required by Hugo for each blog post. I create a new post with the required title, add the tags, and mark the post as false for draft status.
Visual Code and Front Matter work well on the Pi 5. With Front Matter on the MBP from 2016 it could take a while to load all the pages. With the Pi 5 it’s much faster. This decreases the time I spend waiting when VS Code wants to restart for updates.
I have found that the Pi 5 is fine for web browsing. It struggles when you play HD video for ten minutes or more, but in that situation you could play 720p or a lower res video file to save on resources.
I use git for my blog, first to get daily practice with GIT but also because if I slide from the mac to the Pi 5 it takes seconds for device A to be ready for blogging, after using device B for three weeks beforehand. I sync to github to have an offsite backup, but also because it’s an easy way of having daily activity. This isn’t so important. It’s about getting experience with using github too. Git FTP is the most useful aspect.
Before learning how to use Git FTP I would generate the pages, and have to sync the entire folder manually, rather than automatically with a single command. Filezilla requires several steps. When GIT FTP is setup it requires git ftp push and you’re done.
I experimented with 11ty and it worked well for a bit, but eventually I found 11ty too confusing so I switched to Hugo and it suits my workflow well. The advantage with Hugo is that once you have set it up it works well. I run the Hugo command and it generates all the files I need for the blog post. Once Hugo is done I sync git, and then run git ftp.
There was a time when I loved the simplicity of using WordPress but for a few years now I have found it bloated and slow. I use it because it has community features but if I could drop it I would. I write my blog posts in Markdown and then copy them to Wordpress.
The paradox of the Pi is that it’s very easy to transport, especially if you have a small keyboard and a small mouse, and it can plug in to any device with an HDMI port if you have the right cable with you. The drawback is that it has no battery and no screen, so if you want to use it in a mobile manner you will need to have a screen and source of power, as well as the keyboard and mouse. Theoretically the Pi 5 equivalent of the Pi 400 integrated keyboard Pi would be better.
I like blogging on the Pi 5. The setup I have works well.
Nick O’Neill needs to do more research. Most of what he writes is speculative based on two or three months of research rather than sociological research. He goes after trends and gut feelings. As a result whilst his content is interesting to keep a track of it’s not relevant to the type of content I am looking for.
Podcasters and social media people need to take a more academic approach to their writing. I’ve found myself angry with what Leo laporte and other podcasters have said. Some of them are really pro certain technologies and boasting about their advantages without taking a media tech and society view.
What I mean by this is that technology and communication are cyclical. What was really common in older media is going to become common in new media as more people come to use it. Radio and letter writing are what podcasting and e-mail are to their contemporary period.
It’s the same with the iphones being bricked. There was such an outcry within the early adopter crowd that you’d think technology has never evolved. We all know that more apps would be created for the Ipod touch and iphone for example.
It’s interesting to see how things are evolving and how by looking at previous technological trends we can see how the future will take place. Those who write about technology need to have a media studies background for a proper, well based understanding of their topic of conversation.
If you want historical information you want to find professors and their PhD thesis, the same should be true about technological writing.
There are two key events I have been to since the beginning of summer. These are PodcampUK and the Twitter Meetup. Both of these events have been followed up by a continuing collaboration between participants.
The first event was the London twitter meetup. I went there knowing just two participants, Sizemore and Jess. Over the night I would end up with interviews with quite a few members of the London twitter community but nothing much would be done with this footage as a result of not having known that I would be doing these interviews.
It meant collaborating with Jess and getting an edit ready in the hope that GETV would use it. They didn’t so that was slightly dissapointing.
I met another individual. Nik Butler of Loudmouthman.com. Following on from a good conversation on the twitter meetup night we decided that we would collaborate on other projects. One of these is ongoing, Twittervox. Twittervox is a weekly roundup of the week’s twitter news in review. It’s had over 2600 views over that time with up to four live participants at once around the world ranging from the US to different parts of Europe.
That project has been featured by Operator 11 on a number of occasions which I would like to believe is testament to it’s good content.
Twittervox is also of note because it introduced me to Phil Campbell and his work. Since this was a few weeks before Podcamp UK it meant that I would know at least two members of the conference.
At Podcamp UK I got to meet quite a few of those who are part of the British podcasting landscape, from teachers to academics, broadcast professionals and hobbyists. This broad range of people would lead on to more projects.
There were some interesting conversations and presentations which brought me some new ways of seeing certain aspects of the podcasting stream of content creation. It would make me think of podcasting as the equivalent of Amateur sports in relation to it’s “threat to broadcasting.” Within a week I was sitting at the Frontline Club listening to Andrew Keen but that was written abo
I’m glad I met Documentally whilst at Podcamp because of possible future collaborations we may work on in the near future. As of yet nothing is set in stone but already I’ve met him a few times to work on three or four projects which you can find on his website and on a number of video sharing websites already.
From what I’ve described above what I’ve found is that the conversations from events are leading onto some interesting projects and that it’s been a good transition from the student life into the professional one. It’s been a great opportunity to meet some interesting people and through blogs, twitter and meetings in the real world the conversation is as healthy as ever. I feel I’ve gained from these events and their aftermath and look forward to participating to many more in the weeks and months to come.
According to recent articles myspace is losing user share in relation Facebook but this is not necessarily a bad thing. When you think of facebook you know that it’s a glorified phonebook therefore everyone “needs” to use it to remain in the loop. In contrast Myspace is a specialised music sharing site for artists and creators of music to come together and collaborate as members of the same art form.
As a result of many users leaving myspace for other social networking websites so Myspace will have far less noise, in other words extra chatter that does not contribute to the appreciation of music. I for one have found myself using Myspace slightly more due to certain bands using the website.
There are a hardcore group of people that are part of many social networks at once and they are able to cope with the demands. Most people spend twenty minutes in front of facebook getting up to date with their friends before disappearing. “MySpace’s lead in terms of “attention” is almost embarrassing: it scores 10.79% against Facebook’s 1.67%.” source. People look at more content on Myspace than Facebook and user involvement is what counts to advertisers.
Myspace is good for the sharing of music you create without people having to install extra api whilst Facebook is personalised by adding api and hoping that your friends install the same. Both will co-exist happily for another few months whilst waiting for the next site of interest.