Scientific Ink

Tag: Web

  • Facebook – I’m staying, for now

    Subtitle: I really do get comments on this blog, just not on this blog.

    I heavily use a handful of social media sites: Twitter, Google Buzz, Facebook, Ravelry (knitting community), and Flickr. I value each for different things, and Facebook is my least favorite. Especially since now they’re trying to take over the Internet.

    Yet, Facebook is where my friends and family are, so I go there to hang out with them. Since I do not do a lot to maintain my Facebook presence, I pull in feeds to it from several places. I do pull items in from my Flickr account and from this blog.

    I have mixed feelings about the broadcasting I’m doing on Facebook via the blog. I like it that my friends engage with what I write – leaving me their reactions or just an “atta girl”. Yet, by feeding the blog into Facebook, I’ve let Facebook capture the interaction on the blog post. So, instead of comments on the post, I get comments on my notes in Facebook. One level away.

    I like this less than comments on the blog itself, but most of the kind folks who comment on Facebook would never encounter the posts except as notes on Facebook.

    A conundrum indeed. I value the interactions more than comments in “the right place”, so I’ll continue to do this. Unless, that is, Facebook drives me away…

  • The tension in public storage of personal memories

    I’m pretty much unable to draw, though I doodle a lot when I’m thinking. Photography has been my visual outlet, and I’ve long loved taking photographs and sharing photographs with friends and family.

    It took me a long time to give up my film camera, but when I converted to digital, it was permanent and now my old film SLR just sits there. I used to print lots of doubles of photographs to share with friends, but with digital files, I simply upload my photos and use Flickr to host my “photo albums.” My bookshelf of photo albums abruptly ends at that point, and now all my recent photo album holds is photo Christmas cards from friends and family featuring their kids. I enjoy the ease of sharing photos online, and given the loss of a few hard drives, I value that Flickr is storing my photos for me off-site.

    Until recently, my online photo album caused no angst. I don’t have kids and haven’t acquired a stalker so I feel unperturbed about hosting personal photos online. But, an interesting thing just happened to remind me that my personal photo album is public, and therefore not entirely mine.

    It took me a while to notice the add person to photo link in Flickr. But I love tagging things, so when I did notice, I immediately thought of some photos that I had uploaded that had other Flickr members featured (this feature is less interesting for non-Flickr members).  At that point, I went on a tagging spree and labeled them.

    I received a response that I should have anticipated. In my tagging frenzy, I’d tagged a friend in a photo I’d taken several years ago. In my photo, she’s seated with a man with whom she’d had a stormy relationship. Flickr had dutifully emailed her that I’d tagged her in a photo, and she had probably gone to look and perhaps been surprised by the reminder of that relationship.

    She wrote:

    I got this message via flickr.  Would you be willing to remove this photo from your page.  [NAME] is in it and I would like to look at your site without being reminded of him.

    What’s interesting to me about her note is that:

    1. That photo had been online on Flickr for several years, and she probably saw it when I first shared it with her after the event, but since the photo was buried underneath several years of more recent photos, it was below her notice until I tagged her and Flickr notified her.
    2. Once it was tagged, it was not only more obvious to her, but it was also more findable by anyone looking for information on her online (a current love interest, a parent)…

    My response was complicated. I realized I had been thoughtless and may have caused her pain, and I felt like a bad friend. At the same time, I was reluctant to remove the photo, even though I had had a negative interaction with her ex that very day, because he was part of my memory of the event and the image was within what I considered my personal photo album. Additionally, since Flickr is my photo file storage application, and the photo was taken at least one hard drive crash ago, I didn’t even know if I had a copy of the file on my computer anymore.

    It’s odd to me. I didn’t even like the guy, so it should have been fine to delete the photo, but that didn’t feel fine. In my mind, my Flickr site is mine first, and shared second, but, of course, that’s not how anyone else experiences it. And, the adding people functionality made that tension more apparent. My compromise in this case was to keep the photo on Flickr, but to label it private, so it was no longer visible to her and was not findable by anyone else.

    Note – in 2019 given flickr’s new owner’s change to the terms of use, I’ve moved my photos to Google Photos, so my flickr archive is much, much smaller now. 

  • Surfing the web, not surfing the waves, in Hawaii

    We had a lovely, wonderful, amazing, restful trip to Hawaii in March.

    The one thing I noticed, though, was that wireless internet was ubiquitous. Even at our sweet secluded little B&B near Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (Hale Ohia).

    I suppose the problem isn’t that there was wireless internet, the problem was that I was using it while I was on vacation.

    I sometimes used it for recreation (goofing around on Ravelry.com looking for a pattern for the yarn I brought). We sometimes used it for vacation research – for instance, I used it to find a highlight on Kauai – the amazing quilt/fabric shop – Kapaia Stitchery. And we used it to keep up with local/current events (wait, was that an earthquake? OMG).

    But we used a little too much to keep up with work. You might argue that some of it was in self-defense, we were clearing the email brush to prevent any stress conflagrations at the time of re-entry. Think of it as a back-burn or firebreak. Yet, that strikes me as the self-delusion of an email/work addict. And, to be fair, sometimes the strategy backfired – the email traffic might also ignite little stress events during the R&R, drawing us into the work mind we intended to leave at the office.

    We both do client work and have folks who depend on us, which makes going incommunicado a challenge and a little bit scary. I do believe that setting things up so they succeed especially in my absence is a sign of good work. So, perhaps I didn’t trust myself enough to leave completely? I’ll have to keep trying and keep vacationing to solve this conundrum.

    Do you find checking in on vacation restful or stressful? What’s your optimum prescription for rest and sanity with email on vacation?

  • Ada Lovelace Day: celebrating women in technology

    To celebrate Ada Lovelace day, today, March 24, bloggers around the globe are celebrating by publishing posts about women in technology they admire.

    I mulled this over for a long time, and I just couldn’t choose. So, I’m going to list off several women and how they have inspired me.

    Apparently, Ada Lovelace was an early computer programmer – from the early 1800s…

  • Going to Podcamp Michigan!

    So, just the other day, with some of my Michigan Usability Professionals Folks, I was wondering about local social media folks that I hadn’t yet met. You know, wondering about who might be good speakers to invite to talk to us, that kind of thing.

    Podcamp Michigan 11/8/2008
    Podcamp Michigan 11/8/2008

    I didn’t even tweet it, though I should have. But, I did find, in my inbox this morning, a twitter notification from, of all things, Podcamp Michigan. Ask and ye shall receive. Or, in this case, “receive even though the ask was inchoate and unarticulated.”

    A podcamp is an unConference focused on blogging, podcasting, and social media. Should be fun. I’m planning to attend. You?

    Coordinates:

  • Add to calendar “apologies”

    I really do like how Google Calendar works, and I like the fact that it tries to interact smartly with my gmail. I’ve been amused at some of the entries it has tried to make. This might be my best yet. Add to calendar "apologies"The funny thing is, it wasn’t a particularly abject or obsequious email thread, but there we have it, apologies, scheduled for 9/12. Funny.

    Particularly as I contemplate moving from being a project manager to becoming an account/engagement manager, I wonder if I’ll have apologies scheduled on my calendar more or less often…I would hope not, but moving into a more customer service role may require a different skillset.