Improved and Integrated Biographical Visualization services

I wrote about how Visualize.me had introduced an integrated infographic service for CVs in this post.

Vizify offer a more comprehensive service which integrates and surfaces data from multiple content services. (Facebook, Foursquare, Linkedin, Instagram, Twitter, WordPress etc.)

Which produces a more dynamic and holistic biography of an individual, here’s a link to mine.

 

Apart from regularly polling your services feeds for updates to keep an up to date representation of your digital profile | expression, they have also introduced a set of Vizcards (digital comments | business cards)

I certainly like the simplicity of the Vizify service and the overview function it provides.  While Linkedin is a great service for professional networking, it can feel busy or noisy with corporate profiles, and discussion groups etc.  In comparison Vizify provide focus on the individual and space to present for each facet or feature in the biography which is refreshing and seems to me to produce a more nuanced and holistic summary of that individual.

Do you use an infographic based biographical summary service?

My Portfolio of Mobile Devices – now with Google Nexus 7

I’ve recently added a Google Nexus 7 to the set of devices I use.  As a home based worker, I’m used to many aspects of remote working, and optimising the my use of the laptop and mobile phone (e.g. 2nd monitor, blue tooth headset).  However, this month my working location will be office based but away from home, which I thought was enough of a watershed moment to see how a Smart tablet format device would fit into my device mix.

Device List:

• Blackberry Curve 9300 (Blackberry OS 6)
• Google Nexus 7 (Android Jellybean 4.2) (16GB)
• Lenovo Thinkpad X61 (Tablet) (Windows 7 x64)

Interface & UX:

All the devices have an touch enabled capability of some level.

• Blackberry Curve 9300

The Blackberry has a touchpad control, but not a touch sensitive screen.  This is an improvement on the physical trackball device, and not an hindrance on the device of this size, and physical keyboard is  a more than adequate input option.  The only occasional inconvenience I experience on the blackberry is that the screen is now pretty small compared to many smart phones in the market, so coupled with many mobile enabled websites having been optimised for touch based navigation, the speed and mobility around some web sites can be a little cumbersome.

• Google Nexus 7

The Nexus 7 was a refreshing surprise to how easy and simple a completely touch and screen based device can be.  Also with Android Jelly bean 4.2, the touch screen keyboard is gesture | swipe enabled so that with a little practice I am get fairly adept at completely spelling a word with 1 touch and motion of the finger across the keyboard.  The swipe | gesture feature really is great, and with combination of the well designed device hardware and evolution of the Android OS, I don’t have any regrets about waiting until now before purchasing such a device.

I was also waiting for tablet OS which was able to support multiple user profiles, as my family will also have access to this device, so being able to separate use profiles for different individuals is very useful.  It’s often been said that Google Play doesn’t have app ecosystem or content breadth to compete with Apple or Amazon,  having had the device for a little over a week I don’t find either to hold any substance any longer.  Google Play is a well integrated content and application store and I have not been stuck in finding the applications to access my content  – in fact these 1st few days have been a little mind blowing as the sheer amount of content available through applications like Google Currents, Feedly, Flipboard and Pocket have given me a quandary about which application to use for what content or content category.

You will notice that there is also a Physical Keyboard dock (blue tooth connectivity) for Nexus 7 which also acts a hard case cover, and stand. I thought that this would be a useful addition in case I needed to do a lot content creation on the device.  Combined with the Kingsoft Office suite, I can use the Nexus 7 as a netbook format device as well.

• Lenovo Thinkpad X61t

The Lenovo Thinkpad has a resistive touch screen which responds to a stylus and has a flip and rotate function on the screen.  But I have never found that much more than a novel feature,  though the flip and rotate screen feature is useful in small face to face group meetings. 

It is my workhorse content input and creation device, and I need both a physical keyboard and mouse, as well as a large additional monitor to optimise my productivity on this device.  My activities in content creation and communication often requires the need for multiple applications and windows to be in operation.   The main laptop screen of 12.1 inches is too small to make multi window navigation and application use convenient. I frequently find the text size or content needs to be reduced in dimension to make that application window fit correctly to fit into the screen.

Integration of Content and Services:

Cloud  and Mobile enabled applications are so well established that this has been fairly straight forward.  Obviously the Blackberry has full enterprise service integration, and can also support a multitude of consumer email services etc.  In terms of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) Evernote has been my application of choice for a long time, and that is always been a leading light in multi-platform support so it was simple to extend Evernote from the Laptop and Blackberry onto the Nexus 7.

I’ve also been a reasonably long time user of Synology NAS devices at home for home digital content (photos, movies, music etc.) The Audio and Photo playback application work without hitch, and I think it won’t be long until the video playback application is out of beta.  Certainly the download | file moving application made it easier to move content (music and movies) onto the Google Nexus.  I was also able to populate Google Play with my music library too.  So that means with Google Play Music, Synology Audio App, Spotify and Tunein Radio there is no shortage of music content on my mobile devices.  The Nexus 7 will come into its own as a content device when I purchase a good blue tooth speaker and use it to entertain the children when the family travels together.  Though, I must add as an aside – well done to United Airlines, who I flew with recently, for having a great on-demand music library – listened to Alison Strauss, Bon Iver, Robert Plant  and The Black Keys – many more were available too.

Conclusion:

I will be giving this combination of devices a good run in while working away so I will probably posting a lot more to the blog in the coming weeks.

Manchester Hackathon – 16/17 November @MadLab Manchester

It’s great to see Open Data initiatives taking place in Manchester.

For the first time ever, the City of Manchester invites you to dig underneath its digital skin.FutureEverything, Open Data Manchester and Manchester City Councilare looking for experts and innovators to hack, code, programme and experiment with the city’s sets of open data to build new applications and develop future services.

Utilising the open data sets from DataGM made available by Manchester City Council and public sector partners, participants are welcome to produce anything they wish – develop applications to help people find their way around, stay safe, discover new experiences and everything and anything in between. All data is released under the Open Government Licence.

Taking place at MadLab in the heart of Manchester’s Northern Quarter on Saturday 17th November, the Manchester Hackathon is set to be an intense, productive and exciting collaboration between the brightest minds in software development and data processing. Entries from both teams and individuals are welcome, and there are cash prizes to be won for the best product at the end of the session.

When :

Friday, November 16, 2012 at 6:30 PM – Saturday, November 17, 2012 at 7:00 PM (GMT)

Where :

MadLab

36 – 40 Edge Street
The Northern Quarter
M4 1HN Manchester
United Kingdom

For more details see here:
www.futureeverything.org | www.opendatamanchester.org.uk | @FuturEverything | #futr |

Google Nexus – Delivering Beautiful Hardware and Software – Consumer beware!

Looking at the Google.com/Nexus site, there no doubt Google want to | and do – deliver a “Wow!” factor around their consumer device portfolio : Nexus : – (phone|tablet|player)

This is going to go a long way to help Google establish a firmer foothold in the digital consumer market, beyond their stronghold of web services and grow the Android mobile platform into a core delivery platform | access gateway into many other Google products and services.

My impression is that this has the potential to bring them on par with the established market-share that Apple holds with it’s iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod, AppleTV) product set.

This will also be a warning shot to other digital consumer stalwarts such as Microsoft, Amazon and Sony.  Particularly as these are working to combine product with services.  There are a whole bunch of hardware and product manufacturers which will be also watching, but much of their activity is in becoming “manufacturer of choice” to these conglomerate mega-brands.

However, this is not an overnight takeover, for a start nowhere on Google.com is there any link to the Nexus mini-site.  However, it is highlighted on the Google Play mini-site:- in fact the Nexus 7 is available for pre-order now! (in the UK)

Google Play is the consumer storefront for its digital products and services (music, movies, books, magazines, apps (games)) – though not all services are globally available yet.

While Apple has iCloud , Amazon the Kindle store and Amazon Cloud Drive and Music player (again not generally available outside the US), Microsoft Xbox Live and Sony the Playstation network.

I think there will be a pang of regret and surprise (amongst these competitors : Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Sony) at how comprehensive a service | product suite that Google is establishing and how rapidly these parts have been assembled. Certainly looking at how these companies are evolving their web presences for the digital consumer, I think it is fairly clear that Google has a well thought strategy and presentation to the consumer market.   Amongst the others, it seem more “mixed message” at what it is they wish to be their primary delivery to the consumer (e.g. just products, already established services) – but not necessarily such a “front & centre” digital consumer experience.

What do you think? 

Is Google on to a winner with Google Play to become a digital consumer products and services hub?

Or do you think another provider has a better set of products and services?

Some thoughts on the latest G+ User Interface

Last week Google made a significant refresh of the user interface to their G+ social network system.

Google+ – UI update Introduction

 

 

There were obviously much comment made on the likes and dis-likes of the revised interface.

I see it as a positive improvement and also a stepping stone on to further service integration and UI tweaks.

The reason I see it as a “stepping stone” move, is the number of comments the perceived unused quantities of “white space” that have been placed into this iteration of the UI.

      I like the vertical left navigation menu that Google has introduced.

   What I’d like to see the options is

• GMail
• Google Docs
• Google Drive (? – see this link)

Like this:

So you can see | view Gmail in the same interface window (browser tab) as G+.

So perhaps the “whitespace” section could be preview of the GMail inbox | Google Docs,  or by using the GMail |Google Docs icon from the vertical menu you would use those services inside the G+ wrapper.

I would even suggest Gmail could deliver message notification inside the G+ stream, while still being able to filter into the inbox, the time | activity stream of G+ and Gmail message can occupy the same flow.

For example Photos are already well integrated into the G+ interface – so I don’t particularly see why others can’t be.

In fact both these  Photos lead to the same place.

Universal Menu – Photos	G+ Menu – Photos

So Google is duplicating its menu system across its “common” menu system and in G+  vertical menu.  I would expect to see convergence in this area.

I don’t like having to switch tabs to use these other Google services or that clicking on links would open in new tabs.

This is what Facebook gets right – all their services happen in a single browser tab.  Whether it is messages, notifications, other services all operate within a single browser tab.

I hope & think Google will come around to this way of delivering its services too.

What do you think?

Do you prefer multiple tabs or single tab for multiple services?

Would seeing Gmail messages appearing inside G+ appeal to you?

How being a regular Home Worker has reduced my commuting carbon footprint

Over the last few years I’ve been increasingly home based for work.  This has happened because of well understood reasons :-

• Increase of geographically distributed teams and working communities
• Improvement of technology in broadband and mobility services – both corporately and domestically to enable home working

Though this has increased the use of domestic energy use – heating and electric consumption to facilitate this transition, the overall net benefit has been in my favour. 

Achieved through reducing the time and cost of regular commuting  into work.

In an effort to chart the trend I’ve used Dopplr (via TripIt nowadays) to keep a track of work related journeys. 

This is my Dopplr Profile Header

So on the face of it 31000 km in 4 years doesn’t sound insignificant.  But as I said before the interesting part is in the trends.

In that time I’ve recorded 120 trips that have been Carbon rated – Dopplr receives carbon footprint calculation via AMEE  (at least I think they still do)

Carbon consumption per Year:

2008 – 43 Trips – 2186 Kgs (including Flight to Boston Ma. to attend Enterprise 2.0 Conference in June 2008 – 1159Kg)

2009 – 35 Trips – 1200 Kgs

2010 -  26 Trips – 670 Kgs

2011 – 18 Trips – 359 Kgs

2012 – 9 Trips  – 117 Kgs

In Graphical Format :

Obviously 2012 is still very much in progress at the time of posting, so I expect 2011 to turn out to the lowest overall to date, and there will be an increase in 2012.

But the ability to be a home based  worker is a great boon, especially in the light of the recent panic buying of fuel.

• Fuel dispute: Unions and haulage firms at Acas

• Fuel strike: Advice to drivers changed after panic buying

Minor Milestone – 100th Blog Post

This is the 100th post on the TACTICS blog!

The Journey so far…

I first entered the world of blogging on 18th of July 2006, with this post “Welcome” encouraged by the activities of friends and colleagues (their comments are there for all to see) and the growing use of RSS feed readers as a method of pulling in content of relevance and interest.  Gosh, looking back the Internet of 2006 seemed a lot less complex, a lot less frantic activity…. the days of silo’d discussion forums (good ol’ PHPbb) and following blogs and using feed readers.

Remember using bloglines!

(taken from “How to use Bloglines” circa Feb 2006)

Now in 2012 I’m writing the 100th post on this blog.  Things have changed considerably in these last 5 | 6 years.

Web 1.0 is gone, Web 2.0 is here in force and holding sway to such an extend that society, economies and the way people communicate and share has been all been impacted.

Not that so many things have “died a death”, but many stronger alternatives have arisen to take their place, and lead to a greater impact on society.

People will refer to MySpace, Nokia, RIM (Blackberry), Yahoo  no being longer the dominant force or the internet “Poster Child” they once were or “promised” to be.

Apple, Amazon, Facebook, hash tag,  Google and  Twitter are well understood household names and terms, and is supported by the various verbage or modern twists on common words has come into play to refer to participating in these new services.

This evolution has so transformed modern media, that icons for referencing or sharing via various social networks appears on every page, and across almost all TV programmes.

I have tried in some way documented my own journey and observations through this change via this blog.

Site Statistics so far…

So the 100th post can’t go by without some statistics!

To date the blog has clocked 22,650 (or so) views, the busiest day being 5th July 2011 with just under 100 page views mainly for the post -  My first thoughts on Google+ (Jul 2011)

Top 10 Posts :-

Top Post Links :-

Keeping it in sync with Blackberry – Google Sync for Lotus Notes (Mar’ 2009)

Facebook an example in social and contextual networking  (Jul’ 2007)

Microsoft Windows 7 keynote Insight client event Manchester (Sep’ 2009)

I’m sure the use of “popular word or terms” in the titles has helped keep these posts popular.

Annual Publishing :-

(the most frequent publishing months highlighted)

Year	Posts
2006	7
2007	19 (January – 5)
2008	19 (January – 7)
2009	22
2010	17 (July – 6)
2011	12
2012	3 so far…

Averaging 16 posts per year (2006-2011)

What Next…

Well I am going to keep blogging,  the ideas are logged, the time to post will get made some how, some where.   So my thanks for dropping by and taking an interest, I hope you have benefited from this blog in some way.

Remember to Enjoy the Journey….keep thinking, dreaming, and planning! 

(a reference to the summary in the “Welcome” )

Music Streaming Service Competition

An Infographic of my musical playback history Feb 2011- Feb 2012 from lastgraph 

I only recently wrote about the recent apps integration within the Spotify client (link).

So it was with interest I learnt of the new music service from The Lounge.

The Lounge is a full music streaming service with a large on-demand music album catalogue,  play back from commercial and public broadcast services and audio hardware integration with Pure Radio devices.

The fact The Lounge has a several artists that are absent from Spotify (e.g. Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Pink Floyd) and the direct hardware support, make it a very interesting proposal.

The subscription for the full service – support of streaming your playlists etc. to devices and playing music on-demand is available for a reasonable £4.99/month*. (*only in available in the UK) 

So it does make good competition for Spotify at least in the UK.

Will I move service?

No, not at present. I am not ready to move across.  Why?

Well primarily because of the application and social integration that is present in Spotify, I know some people have baulked at the requirement to have a Facebook account to use Spotify. (link)

• However, that integration with Facebook is a feature I enjoy and appreciate. 
• Also the integration with Last.fm is also very important, the ability to scrobble and build my play list into Last.fm is important from a personal viewpoint of tracking my own journey through music.

Finally the effort of curation and assembling playlists all over again, is a barrier too far.   Not inconsiderably effort has gone into their assembly and now they’re created in Spotify, they are shareable and subcribable.  To lose that library of musical taste and disconnect from the sphere of musical sharing is not something I can not stomach. 

The Infographic from lastgraph (at the top of the post) is a great example of the app and service I benefit from the extensibility from Spotify and Last.fm – the “limitations” in catalogue are bearable for service amenities such as these.

I don’t have any playback devices for Spotify apart from the PC | Laptop but there are audio device options (e.g. Logitech) which I have put on that “wish list”.

So what do you think?  Is the The Lounge  for you?

Spotify – now with in built Apps

Spotify actually announced this last year (link).

However, as a user I just recently received the update.

This is a cool update to a favourite app of mine.

It makes services like Last.fm much more integrated and useful, and helps fuel useful recommendations and sharing.

This video offers a great introduction:

Spotify Apps Video Introduction

Learn more >> here

It’s clear that the services integration “the app-store mind set” is coming through more and more.   There is a clear move to application extensions within applications.

Visualize your CV with Visualize.me

Visualize.me is a simple and straight forward Info graphics service to visually represent your career experience and achievements.

The real beauty is in the connectivity to the professional network LinkedIn, so that existing career information (already published in LinkedIn), can be imported into Visualize.me to form the basis to building your own career visualization.

This is small portion of what mine looks like: (click links to see in full)

It’s still a “beta” service, and some of the themes or palettes may not appeal to everyone, but it is a great starting point for delivering  a configurable career visualisation service.

It’s certainly something to try out and see what you can come up with.