Matt’s Cuppa

clipped from lifedev.net Open Sourcing Your Creativity Creativity is something that’s not easily contained. In fact, it’s contagious. When creative people start putting their heads together, some amazing things happen. It’s a rare occasion when an incredible idea is solely created by one person. 99% of the time the problem isn’t someone stealing your idea, it’s you not actually doing it. So what better way to put an idea into motion than having more people help? Instead of using traditional methods like emailing ideas back and forth, try using one of the many online collaboration apps The important thing to remember is that the sharing of ideas is quick, is a low-barrier of entry for other collaborators, and is easy to share. Realize you can’t do everything on your own Allow for the free exchange of ideas Trust other people Pretty soon you’ll have people questioning every aspect of your idea. This is a necessary and healthy aspect of collaboration

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I was at a happy hour last night and a woman there was talking about a study her and her daughter were in that looked at the levels flame-retardent chemicals in adults and children. Turns out that her daughter had 5X the amount of these chemicals in her body than did her mother. Five times! Apparently, the safety standards are set using adults, not children- the ones who are typically in the most contact these flame-retardent chemicals. Anyone else see a possible problem here?

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clipped from gizmodo.com Timbuk2, makers of free Gizmodo advertising/superb laptop messengers, are expanding their focus to a complete line of travel gear. And their new bags not only feature the infamous Timbuk2 panel styling, but “ninja pockets” for the guy who has to yank out all his electronics at checkpoints—namely you. Read on for the full three bag rundown.

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clipped from www.simplehelp.net Are you the one that your friends and family call every time they have a problem with their computer? Put these tools on your USB thumb drive and troubleshooting will be that much easier.

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clipped from www.readwriteweb.com It’s great to hear that Marc Canter is writing a book, called ‘How to build the Open Mesh’. He’s been working for years on this vision with his product PeopleAggregator. He’s just posted the four Appendices that conclude the book in his blog. It’s a great overview of the major web platforms: Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft Mesh, and Facebook/MySpace.

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The most recent copy of Scientific American is all about security and the net. I always find these discussions interesting because, as a blogger and a social media strategist, I WANT to be found. But I want to be found on my terms. That’s why I have a Facebook account and a LinkedIn profile.

That begs an interesting question. Those of us who blog work hard to create their online persona. It a brand that people recognize as ‘you’. Some bloggers create a persona that is more or less like their actual self. (Mine happens to mostly be real myself; its much easier to keep track of!) Will some government initiative someday require us to expose our true identities to our readers? Would it matter?

The more talked about controversy is definitely government spying. What do our packets have to say about us? Maybe more importantly, is it okay for our governement to collect this information without our consent or knowledge? This makes me think of Google’s ability to view your search history going back as far as your account creation.

I guess I’m alright with agencies reading my mail if that’s what it takes to keep the net relatively un-policed. (That is a whole other topic I could write on…) What concession do I demand in return for my cooperation? I want someplace where I can log in and view the inforation that has been collected. I want to know what agency dug through my trash and when. If these law enforcement agencies followed Google’s example, I think would make a good compromise. We can make the internets safe without destroying the freedoms that created the World Wide Web in the first place.

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clipped from news.cnet.com Together, Ubiquity and Web Slices lead me to believe we’re entering an era of fracturing Web content. Already we have seen content separated from presentation with RSS, and we’ve given developers access to online data for their mashups via Web APIs. But the growth of Microformat-coded Web pages will make it possible for users to more easily create their own mashups–personal profile pages that have just the pieces of Web content they want, or e-mail messages made up of live maps, automatically updating weather forecasts, up-to-the-minute travel information, and so on.

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