Steaming Ahead

So what have I been doing for the past two weeks, you ask? Lots of minor things that may amount to substance eventually. I am preparing to be a guest speaker at a local community college in a couple of weeks, so that means taking a fresh look in several corners of the web and updating material I have used before for similar engagements. This assignment plus a monthly report I do for a client keeps me actively following up any fresh thinking that could be useful. The medium is different now, but the principle is similar to what I did years ago as a journalist.
I’ve added two new (related) habits to my working life in the last few months and now wonder what I ever did without them: using an RSS feed aggregator and listening to podcasts. The feed reader is NetNewsWire. There are others, but after I tried some I settled on this one and even paid for the full version. Feed software still suffers from nomenclature disease — you just can’t get ordinary people to feel comfortable with something called an aggregator and it’s not just about news anyway and what the heck does RSS stand for? I thought I knew until this week, when I discovered it’s only Really Simple Syndication if you aren’t the W3C, who think it’s RDF Site Summary. What’s your preference? I know what mine is.
The beauty of podcasts was evident to me once again today. I really had to paint the kitchen, but I also really had to make it a working day. Thanks to my iPod, I could catch up on several tech-trend commentaries I had downloaded ages ago while I transformed the kitchen. Still one more coat to do on the walls, but it’s going to be lovely!