I recently read an article in Wired Magazine by Dan Pink and Clay Shirky called "Cognitive Surplus: The Great Spare-Time Revolution" and was inspired. The point made by Dan and Clay is that society has shifted to using spare-time for interactive and pro-active activies instead of one dimensional past times. For example, moving from TV to the internet. Clay and Dan estimate that people born in 1960 have already spent 5 years watching TV - astonishing. But that trend is changing - slowly, but surely. They estimate that American's alone watch 200 Billion hours of TV per year. That is insane.
Dan and Clay go onto to say that if this time could be harnessed, the impact on society would be amazing. Harness the time spent watching TV, which is already shifting to social media and other self-publishing media, and you will have a real impact.
Here's my idea. Let's be realistic. I don't think that we can capture 200 Billion hours. So let's focus on one group - everyone who used to watch ABC's LOST. During it's 6 seasons, LOST averaged about 13.5 Million viewers (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_(TV_series)#Ratings). What if we just focused on these people? that's 13.5 million hours a week that can now be used for something more productive and interactive. The "Cognitive Surpluss" just grew by 13.5 million hours last month.
Dan says in his article that people are motivated by interest rather than the traditional carrot and stick. If so we just need to find something valuable for these 13.5 million people to do. We are geeks. That should be easy. Let's think about it. These people were interested in:
1. Mystery - It needs to be something that makes them think. Something they have to discover.
2. Characters and Relationships - People need to connect to other people. This should be easy! Find something social.
3. Puzzles - A little different than a mystery, something that they have to figure out. Something to solve.
4. Interactive - LOST was incredibly interactive for a TV show. Fans discussed, searched, and blogged about LOST.
These are just some of the things that kept people coming back for 6 years. We (geeks and programmers) can surely build something to captivate these viewers. Something new that finds this group of "Losties" (yes - I was a fan). Maybe a site where they click a button every 108 minutes but for succesful click a sponsor donates $1 to a charity? Something, but something that gives back and captures this surplus.
What would you do?
Maybe it's just me but I found this "Security Feature" of Office 2010 a bit annyoing out of the box. Outlook does not download any pictures by default for HTML emails. Now this is nothing new, but what is different is that Outlook 2010 has added another layer of security around the pictures. You now have the option to finely tune when things are downloaded. The side affect is that nothing is downloaded at all. And when I would click on "Download Images" on an email, it still would not show the images.
I found that I had to explicitly tell Outlook to download HTML images and then restart Windows. It did not work if I simply restarted Office. Again, maybe this was just me. Here's what you need to do in Outlook 2010 to enable images for HTML:
- Click on the new "File" tab
- Click on "Options"
- Click on "Trust Center"
- Clicn on "Trust Center Settings"
- Uncheck the "Don't download pictures automatically in HTML e-mail messages or RSS items" check box
- Click the "Okay" button
- Exit Outlook 2010
Again, for me I had to restart Windows (Windows 7 64bit, Office 2010 64bit) to get this to "take affect".
I was working with a few different presentations and VMs recently and noticed the program specific, recently used files list. This is very cool. It's convienent for two reaons:
1. The file that I need for that program is filtered by that program type, so i can access it without having to sort through other types of files.
2. The list will show more of that file type and not a list of mixed types (meaning 10 ppt files rather than the last 2 and 8 other types)
Just one more convienent feature.
I know that this has been talked about and demonstrated a thousand times but if you haven't seen it, Aero Peek is very cool. Not only that, but I find it the new feature that I use the most right now. Aero peek gives you the ability to see the application window for a given app when you either alt-tab (and wait) or move the mouse over the task bar thumbnail. All other open windows just show up as frames. I love the fact that I can see things like IM windows, documents, mail, etc without having to actually tab to them or even open them.
The only issue that I had with it was that you need to Aero turned on and you need to make sure that you have the drivers installed for your video card. On the Dell M6400 that I'm using, I had to pull the Nvidia drivers down from Dell in order to turn on Aero. Also you may have to turn on the feature at the taskbar level. This is under the Properties page of the taskbar.
Have you ever been downloading a large file using IE and had to keep tabbing back to the download window to check on status? Well one of the things added to the TaskBar as a feature Icon in Windows 7 is download progress! I was downloading the Zune software this morning and watched the progress happen right there on the task bar. Very cool. One less thing I have to tab to in order to check status. This is also true for windows explorer views as well.
Microsoft Learning has just launched three free eLearning Clinics that you may be interested in. These Clinics are geared towards three different audiences, and focus on introducing new features and functionality to those interested in simply learning more about the OS or those that are already considering deploying in the near future.
Sometimes I work from home where I put my laptop actually on my lap. Putting my Dell Latitude D820 on my lap when working is like setting a hot piece of coal on your lap for 8hrs a day. I found the XB1004 (http://tinyurl.com/ckchox looking for something to make life better for working under these conditions. This little investement has been amazing. It's basically plastic with some rubbery corner pieces to keep things from sliding around. It's not necessarily a piece of art. However, it is perfect for what it does. He keeps the laptop off your legs, vents it for cooling, and has a nice flip out shelf for the mouse. I've heard people complain that they with the mouse shelf had a lip or something to keep the mouse from falling. I use a Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 7000 and have had no issues with the mouse falling. In fact if there was a lip it would be in the way when I got to the edge of the shelf. I paid list price for the XB and do not regret the purchase. Amazon has it on sale for less than $20. Well worth the money. ) when
I know this isn't techie, but quite frankly I didn't know where else to share it. I was watching the Bay Hill invitational with my son Christopher today. It was the final round, with Tiger Woods down 1 shot with 3 to play. Christopher was fulfilling one of my daddy dreams. He was excited to watch the ending as much as I was. I told him during the telecast that we needed to be quiet when they hit, because that's good manners in golf. Each time Tiger went to hit and I was talking to my wife or other son, Christopher would say "Daddy...quiet..quiet..they are about to hit the ball". Too cute.
But it was the final put that gave me that moment. We both had the same look on our face. Glued to the screen watching every frame as if it was the mona lisa (Okay...like it was Dora the explorer). I told Christopher, "Tiger has to make this putt to win the tournament." Christopher said, "Quiet Daddy, he's about to putt." Then just as crazy as it was at the course, Christopher and I both jumped up cheering when it went in. I looked at my 3 (almost 4) year old and saw a genuine look of joy on his face. He understood what was happening and was excited to see Tiger win. We cheered and high fived. It was the first time that we shared that "winning moment". It sounds sappy, but I will remember this moment for the rest of my life.
Later on Christopher just wanted to keep living the moement. "Daddy, my name is Tiger now...not Christopher." he said. He must have pretended to hit the putt, make it, do the Tiger fist pump, and then run to me for a hug like Tiger did to his caddy after hitting winner. Man...what a Sunday.
Am I the only one that doesn't see the "Add to Favorites" button on the tool bar anymore? I see that can "Add to the Favorites" tool bar, but that isn't what I want to do. I can right click on the page and click on "Add to Favorites", but that's not what i want to do either. Hmm..
One of our developers going to TechEd today received a bad news, good news email from Microsoft (CRG Events) about TechEd 2009 in Los Angeles. It said:
"We have made a change to previously published agendas. The attendee party will no longer take place, however we are planning an alternative social gathering which will continue to provide a great opportunity for attendees to network with each other in a fun social setting. Additionally this year you will receive a full copy of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 when released to market as part of registration."
At first disappointed, this developer was then excited to see he was getting a full license of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 some time in the future. Although, I'm not sure if that is better than the usual 2 hours of endless beer and usually bad theme park food. I guess that depends on how much he likes the new peek feature.