In "The Blogosphere and Its Problems" (closing article in the June Issue of FirstMonday, A Decade of Web 2.0: Reflections, critical perspectives and beyond ) author Alexander Halavais laments the devolution of our "blogospheres," as a mere handful of social networks have centralized so much of the flow, but brings it round to a positive conclusion in the end:  we must exercise our creativity to build peer-to-peer connections outside the silos of Facebook, Twitter, et al... Even "riding on the back of the privatized infrastructure."

Sounds a lot like 1999.io, tho it gets no explicit mention, alas -i guess because it's still early days for this platform.  Now if we were to see more p2p functionality (pingbacks and active-notification, anyone?), that could change this game up pretty quick, IMHO... But far be it for me to tell our benevolent developer what he oughta do!  wink

The "why" of Holistic Planned Grazing explained in little over 3 min.

(if you know anyone who believes that cattle-grazing is the cause of global warming, please get them to watch this little video!)


Testing glossary feature of 1999.io

If it works, i offer you a piece of A picture of a slice of cheese cake. -yeah!

So let's see if it will serve reference to some off-server resources i am developing, i.e.: 

AgReMed.net , AgReMed News , "AgReMed Blog" ... 

If so, then this becomes a powerful tool to Narrate Your Work

I'm trying to think but nothing happens!  ,   Emoji ,     blush

Testing glossary feature: 

Narrate Your Work , Narrate Your Work ....

cheesecake , A picture of a slice of cheese cake. ... 

Markdown , Markdown ...

AgReMed.net  AgReMed.Net  ...

AgReMed News AgReMed News  

AgReMed Blog  "AgReMed Blog" ...

...

With the patient help of Andy Sylvester, i now have my own 1999 ChatLog Instance up & running in AWS hosting. That will be my primary blog from day-to-day, the place where i'm going to try to "Narrate The Work" of my day-job. Still, as this my.1999.io community is where the action is, as far as blog-tech and best practice goes, i intend to keep a hand in here as well, to whatever extent i can manage the stretch. 

What a nice surprise, to learn this morning (via Andy's River, post by Ron) that the ranks of 1999bloggers have been joined by Doc Searls. As evidenced by this post of a few days ago (follow the embedded links for more background), Doc -as one of the early settlers on the blogscape that emerged back around turn of the millenium- knows what "blogging like it's 1999" means as well as anyone around. From my perspective, the ClueTrain Manifesto and Doc's related writings about the concept of VRM (Vendor Relationship Management) were an important influence in the first years of this century, and are now more relevant than ever. So now, as then, i shall be reading his every post with interest. 

Digging deeper into Andy Sylvester's site, i chanced upon some videos, unrelated to what i was looking for, that will help with another problem i was having, namely: how to easily xfer video and screenshots off my Android phone. The app to use (combined with MyFiles app) is called ASC for Android, and here's the video explaining how to use it.

So thanks to Andy Sylvester's new eBook, i have my own River5 installation up and running (albeit at an URL i will NEVER remember, so i'll have to put it in the menu of this site). Now i've got a job to figure out how to customize this River (given the typical state of documentation in this particular development pond i.e. : scattered!), but meanwhile:  deep bow of respect @AndySylvester, for documenting every step of the process so impeccably, and taking nothing for granted in terms of what knowledge your reader brings to the table.  For any non-programmer interested to get own server up-and-running painlessly, best course of action would be to buy Andy's book and do it now, i would say.

 I'm dusting off this old chestnut -a phrase whose first online mention was by Dave Winer, AFAICT, later elaborated in this definitive post- and hereby announcing to the world that i'm making this the mantra of my work... At least that part of it i do while seated, pecking and squinting at a screen (which modality, as a farmer, i don't have much time for, but that just makes such focus all the more important).

Lineage of this noble idea can be traced back definitively almost to turn of the millenium (documented by one David Smith in these posts from 2007 and 2009 ), and has since been known by various names (e.g. "Observable Work," Working Openly on the Web: a manifesto, ") all the more,  since being written up in John Stepper's 2015 book "Working out Loud."

In fact, though you'd hardly know it today, this idea goes back to the purpose of the web as conceived by TimBL -a two-way, read-write medium for scientific collaboration, in its earliest incarnation- and to visionary engineers & artists such as Doug Engelbart, Vannevar Bush, and H.G. Wells long before it's realization as WWW.

How it came to pass that this purpose has been so largely subverted by commercial interests and baser human instincts, i will never understand... But "this aggression will not stand" (apologies to the Cohen brothers), as i live and breathe. Just felt the need to throw down that gauntlet, here and now! 

ps:  Some practical implications of this approach -along with my own workflow, to the extent i've been able to develop it- is detailed a bit in this thread i initiated in the "1999.io Blogger Community" Discussion Group, recently kicked-off by blogger John Philpin.  This is shaping up into a fine CoP (Community of Practice), and if you are at all serious about using 1999.io, it (along with the 1999-user list that is moderated by developer Dave Winer) is a source of support that you would do well to engage.

Standing on line at CTT Lagos (post office) last Monday, scanning the titles on display (smart merchandising play by CTT, focusing attention of their captive & bored audience on a small selection of carefully chosen books!), i was quite surprised to see this title "The High Mountains of Portugal" by Yann Martel  -Canadian author of "Life of Pi," winner of Man Booker prize.

I found this surprising because: (a) This is the first i've heard, though i'm a fan of the author, and the book has been out for months; (b) Yann Martel is a Canadian (living in Saskatoon, of all places!), without any connection to Portugal that i am aware of; and mainly (c) What "High Mountains of Portugal" could he possibly be writing about? The highest is Serra de Estrela ("A Terra" of my wife's family, a region i know well enough) and -at less than 2k metres- it is nothing to write home about!


So of course i had to buy... And, though it started pretty slow (literally! narrated by a grief-striken man who walks from Alfama to Lapa backwards, followed by a 10-day voyage to northern interior in what must be one of the first motorcars in Portugal, circa 1904; so slow, i fell asleep the first few nites after only a few pages), the pace does accelerate as narrator Tomás' driving skill improves, culminating in a scene in tiny village of Tuizelo that i found to be quite worth the wait. Not to give spoiler, i'll just say that the title of this section ("Homeless," part 1 in the 3-part narrative sequence) says it all, as there is no redemption for our hero on reaching his destination.


The next story ("Homeward," circa 1938) is perhaps the most curious, in that -though set entirely in the basement of Bragança hospital, where resident pathologist Eusebio is pulling an all-nighter, on what begins a fairly boring piece of business-  it takes a turn for the fantastic that left me wondering just how much of this is real, and what part is dream. This is the part i want to go back and read again.


Final story in this trilogy ("Home") was the real page-turner for me (i.e. start-to-finish in one sitting), as i found it to be both most familiar and most uplifting. It follows the trajectory of hero Peter -a Canadian politician who loses both life partner and career at some point in early 1980's- as he finds his way with a new partner to a much simpler but more gratifying way of life in Portugal (quite like my own "redemption story" -except that politics was never my thing, and my partner-in-redemption happened to be a fellow human!). 

 Of course, to make a coherent book, these stories need to be integrated at both thematic and narrative levels.  Happily (or, satisfactorily at least, if not so happy): it does all come together in the end, though not in a particularly clever or contrived way, and -as with any good work of art- you are left to connect a lot of the dots for yourself. 


Overall: A good read, both well-written and sure to make you reflect on life's big questions from what feels like a very fresh perspective -much like "Life of Pi," only more grounded in the real stuff of life.  If that's the sort of thing that floats your boat, then you'll likely find "The High Mountains of Portugal" to be an uplifting experience.

Acronym to remember: POSSE = Publish On (your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere (/Everywhere).  Question: is 1999.io an implementation of this idea?  


Answer: at this point, i don't know.  Twitter.com would seem like a natural syndication target, since 1999.io uses it for authentication... But the easiest way i have found thus far to push posts there is from Radio3.io (a River3 implementation hosted by developer Dave Winer, i gather).  This method takes more clicks than it should, IMO.  


Syndication to FaceBook.com via their Instant Articles API is purported to be built-in, according to this Reviewer's Guide just published, but i have thus far been unable to discover how to access this feature.


As to other social networks: There does not appear to be any provisioning for them in 1999.io... But developer Dave seems keen on the idea, judging by numerous posts to Scripting.com in recent months, including one in which he spoke specifically of connecting to Medium.com (which Evan Williams said in a recent podcast that he would be open to enabling, IIRC), so i'm inclined to believe we'll see developments along such lines coming soon.  


Add Wordpress.com to the mix (the biggest fish in the blog-hosting pond, if i'm not mistaken), let the world know about all these syndication powers, and the world will soon be "Blogging like it's 1999!" 

Just discovered a 2004 article by Anton Zuiker ( @MisterSugar ) with a finely detailed history of blogging, a review of the state of the art & science at that time, and a good list of related pieces that were seminal on the topic.  Brings back memories of more exuberant times in the blog-o-sphere. Love it!

Just discovered: if i click the little arrow that appears at bottom of any post on Andy's River, it leads me (after i approve connection with my Twitter account) to another river where i can post to Twitter, with some added value beyond the standard 140 character text box, in form of Title, Link and Enclosure.  Dunno what's going on here, but hey:  it's cool, so i'll take it, no questions asked!

Am just wondering (being a guy who can't string more than 2 thoughts together without an outliner!)  if there is any way to bring the goodness of Fargo.io into my.1999.io -?

On a related note:  as i am in process of migrating to a new Android smartphone (OnePlus X -loving it so far!), and -looking for a good way to share outlines between phone & computer- i've just discovered an app (Android Outliner PRO) that shares outlines with Fargo via Dropbox: http://android-outliner.blogspot.pt/2015/04/outliner-v180-fargo-boxcryptor-owncloud.html

Two places to look for other 1999.io bloggers:

1. Andy Sylvester's list: http://1999bloggers.andysylvester.com/ 

2. John Philpin's list: http://feedly.com/johnphilpin/1999

HowTo: Images and Video in 1999.io

Note to self, so i don't have to flail around looking for these things:

images: http://my.1999.io/users/1999io/2016/04/14/0007.html

video: http://my.1999.io/users/W6AZ/2016/04/23/0009.html

That's just one link on each topic: elaborate by editing and/or commenting on this post. 

Further to last post, one other thing i forgot to mention that i expect from 1999.io : 

3. The environment should support civilized discussion within its community of users. 

Easy enough to say, of course; much harder to achieve in practice -especially that "civilized" aspect, which prompted even such a one as Jeff Atwood (of StackOverflow fame) to publish his "Universal Rules of Civilized Discourse," going on to build a whole SAS business on that foundation.

Still: i think that -as Dave has pointed out, both in words and by example over these many years- the very fact that we publish in our own space on the web, and by that token OWN our words in a very real sense, imposes a burden of accountability on us that tends to reward civilized behavior, and punish its antithesis. 

So: i guess that all 1999.io really needs to do (though it could always do more*) is provide a transparency mechanism whereby users can see who is liking and/or linking to their posts, such that it is easy to follow the the track-back to publishers/ posts that are so related. 

* If 1999.io were to go farther, enabling inclusion of comments via 3rd party softwares (such as Discourse), that might be cool... But if this were to add any complexity for users that might not want it, then forget it, i would say. Anyway (per previous paragraph), it's not really necessary, if this minimal provision for discussion can be included.

Two Things, essentially:

  1. Maximally usable interface, for minimally frictional writing/ publishing; AND
  2. Interoperability with social networks, so i can maintain my presence in multiple SN's (Facebook, Twitter, Medium) even while keeping everything i write in one web-space that i control.

As to 1 above:  that's what i'm exploring right now.  Easy enough to get started, i would say at this point, the workflow of most common tasks is admirably fluid, a few quirks that are either usability issues or bugs -it is too early for me to say- but MEANWHILE:

Regarding 2 above: the fact of it's being so RSS-savvy makes me inclined to think that interop should be easy... But i'd like to hear from people more technical than myself as to how such interoperability can be achieved by mere mortals that just want to write, and then publish to any of their SN accounts (having easily configured accounts & prefs for sharing) either to the default set, or else by overriding defaults at the level of a single post.

Is this asking too much, i wonder? Waiting to find out!

Closing the editor window caused problems...

I pushed the red close button at topLH corner of window, then tried under "Window" menu to "Reload" , and the app threw error (see below).  Could not quit the app via "app.1999"/ "quit"command... So i had to quit the hard way (ctrl/comd/esc keys) and reboot. 

Good news is: this appears to have resolved my "Keyboard Anomalies"(see earlier post)... So now i am back to editing in the Mac app! (happy blush

Testing: keyboard anomalies...

Backspace function does not appear to work, so to delete text, i need to highlight and press some other key (e.g. spacebar period, etc.).  

Also: return key does not work.  This, combined with Backspace problem, makes it just to brutal to edit in the desktop (Mac) app... So i am editing this post via web interface -which seems to work perfectly as expected.

PS: issue resolved! (see next post)

Testing: under "Main"menu, tried "Edit Menubar... " function, adding a link to "MyFacebook"page... The edit function seemed to work as expected, but i don't see any change in the Menubar, and don't see where that link shows up anywhere.  PS: now i see the link! dunno what caused it to appear, but what i did was post another item, and then log into Twitter thru the web interface.

First Post:  HELLO WORLD!