So I'm being *that* guy again

Although its only been about two weeks with this particular blog, I’ve decided to move most of my personal blogging stuff over to a Wordpress blog.

You can find it at http://samkale.wordpress.com

A podcast I'd like to see

The other day I wrote about my growing fascination with podcasts, especially those produced by Leo Laporte in the “This Week in …” series.  Leo has several great podcasts under the umbrella, including This Week in Media (TWiM), This Week in Tech (TWiT), This Week in Law (TWiL), and the related but non-Leo This Week in Photography (TWiP).  There are also a bunch of non “This Week in…” podcasts, all of which are just as excellent as the TWi’s.

For those of you that don’t know, the TWiT.TV podcasts all follow a similar format - a group of hosts (or panelists, depending on how you look at it) get together and discuss the major topics of the week.  The folks on MacBreakk Weekly talk about Mac-related news, while the folks on This Week in Media talk about topics related to audio/video (production, content, and the tech used in producing content).  The podcasts generally run about an hour apiece and the best of them (in my opinion at least) are the ones that “degenerate” into round table discussions between the hosts (as opposed to a new reading format).

So this morning I thought, “Why doesn’t OwenBloggers do something similar?”  We could get together a small-ish panel of current and former OwenBloggers and discuss business and business school related topics.  The composition of the panel would depend on the topics of the week.  Also, we could address topics that would fall under the auspices of one of the speciality blogs - Big Red Horseshoe Business Strategy Blog as well asn the Little Blue Pill Healthcare blog.

The technology already exists for us to be able to pull this off - Skype and Garageband are the major pieces (I think, correct me if I’m wrong).  The big hurdles would be participation by potential panelists (permission from current employers as well as interest and the time to do the show) and interest from the audience.  Unfortunately I don’t know how to address either of these.

Perhaps we could call it “OwenBloggers on Business” (OOB)?

Just a thought …

Information overload

For the past few weeks, I’ve had very little to do with my time.  Sure, there’s been a round of golf here, an errand or two there, flurries of calls over the impending house purchase (cleared the last contingency last Friday, we’re good until the walk-through and close), and some moving logistics to deal with, but the vast majority of my calendar has been, as they say, “unscheduled.”

But I don’t really do all that well with tons of unscheduled time on my hands.  My wife would disagree, but I’ll point her to my use of the word “tons.”  The difference, as they say, is *all* the difference.

Sure, a vacation, such as it is, has been nice, but even *I* have my limits.  And apparently 4 weeks is my limit.

As the uber-geek that *always* plugged in, I’ve spent some time recently playing with all the new and cool social web 2.0 apps cropping up on the net.  Of course there’s twitter, one of my favorites.  But there’s also Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Pownce, FriendFeed, and the brand new Plurk.

Oh, and let’s not forget my *ever-popular* blog over at OwenBloggers.com …

Yes, many of these “services” are simply glorified time-wasters (I’ll let you pick which is which), and once I start actually working for a living many of them will most likely fall by the wayside, but it does get me thinking about my already over-fragmented lifestyle.

Do I really need *more* ways to split my attention?  The horcruxian promises of web 2.0 aside,do I really need more places to look, more windows to keep open, and more media to track?

No, I didn’t think so …

The ultimate media machine

With all of my newfound downtime, I’ve found myself distracting myself with a combination of new and old media.  Except for the odd Geekbrief or Ask a Ninja, I had never really been one for podcasts, especially the audio variety.  But in the last two weeks or so, I found myself immersed in the podcast “scene,” following most of the TWIT.tv shows (TWiT, TWiP, MBW, etc), a bunch of photography shows, and even Digg Nation (which is oddly BETTER, I think, in audio-only format).

At the same time, I’ve been reading.  A LOT.  In about a month and a half I’ve made it through almost 6 books.  Add to that some 200-ish RSS feeds and a NetFlix subscription.

A few days ago I started thinking about the Amazon Kindle.  Its been mentioned more than once on the podcasts I follow (Andy Ihnatko is a BIG fan of the Kindle).  And although the oft-mentioned design “quirks” (namely the pagination buttons) concern me, I do have to admit that the device intrigues me.

In toying with the idea of a Kindle, I started poking around on the web for reviews and the like.  Soon I ran across the *inevitable* discussion on “What I’d like to see in the 2.0 release” threads that seem to dominate most of the sites.  One comment in particular stood out, one in which the author waxed longingly on a device that would do the dishes, fold the laundry, be a book reader, be an iPod, and a bunch of other things besides.

Now, I’m a big fan of single purpose simplicity - the iPod, the iLife suite, etc.  But at the same time I’m also a fan of a phone that’s also an email and internet device.  The difference is that I like things that do things that *logically* go ttogether.  The reason I prefer the small keychain Swiss Army knife to the big, 1,000 tool one is that the small one does exactly what I need and no more - scissors and knife (I have never, in all my years, used the tweezers or the nail file for any serious purpose).  Sure, having a leather punch or a wire stripper is nice, but not terribly useful in *my* day to day life.

Put it another way - I like the APPL business model versus MSFT’s.

Anyway, back to the Kindle.  I got to thinking about what I’d like in a media device.  And here’s what I came up with:

• A form factor that’s reasonably portable.  The Kindle seems to be the foorprint of a hardback book and about 2-3 magazines thick.  I’d want something a *bit* smaller - perhaps the size of a paperback.  Or 2-2.5 iPhones.
• Books, newspapers, podcasts, and audiobooks.  I don’t particularly care about music, mainly because I have an iPod for that sort of stuff. 
• While I admit that the podcasts and audiobooks could go on the iPod as well, the reason I specifically elminated music is due to all the advanced playlist features on the iPod - I don’t necessarily care whether the e-book reader can make smart playlists or not.  Also, to my way of thinking, the podcasts and audiobooks are a natural extension of the e-book functionality.
• What I’d *really* like the device to do is be able to switch from text to audio on the fly.  Let’s say that I go on the Kindle store and buy a book.  For an exra charge, I can download the audio version of the book as well.  I an read along in the text version and, with the press of a button, have the audio version kick in right where I left off in the print version.  That way if I’m reading at home before heading out to run errands, I can take the device with me, plug it in to the car, and switch over to the audio version of the book.  Then when I want to go for a run later, I can plug in my headphones and keep listening to the book while I’m running.
• Everything sync’d through Amazon.com, such that I’d only have to plug it in to charge.  No computer tethering whatsoever.
• Removable storage, preferably SD cards, so I can have infintely expandable memory.

Even more important to me is the list of stuff it *wouldn’t* have:

• No internet functionality outside wireless sync with the Amazon store.
• No email.
• No web browser.
• No phone functions.
• No PDA functions - calendar, contacts, tasks.
• No third party applications to build lists, custom alarms, or anything else.
• No picture viewers.
• No touch screen, touchpad, or multi touch functionality (scroll wheel is fine)
• No wireless beaming of content to “friends”
• For that matter, NO social functionality AT ALL.  No posts to Facebook, Twitter, forums, or any other social web 2.0 community whatsoever.  I read to get AWAY from people, not be forced to interact with them.
• No bluetooth or other wirelesssystem to which people can become aware - I don’t need people pinging my media reader via bluetooth trying to give me a coupon to come and visit their store.
• No proprietary memory chips.  I’ve bought my last device that doesn’t use a standard SD card.  Mini and Micro SD are just as bad, in my opinion, as Memory Stick.
• No proprietary file formats.  I’m also pretty sick of every device trying to hijack and control the file format.  PDF for text, MP3 for audio.  They’re callede STANDARDS for a reason, people.  For that matter, I should be able to port the PDF over to my laptop and read it in a standard PDF reader, too.