Consolidating
For 2008 I’ve decided to consolidate my online activities. As Thoreau said, “simplify, simplify”.
Writing
All writing will be done on teamryan. In the past I’ve tried using Vox for more trivial writing, but that (obviously) hasn’t worked. I have my hands full keeping one site updated. So if it’s important enough for me to write, it ends up on my personal site.
Linking
During the past year I tried and failed to stick with a convoluted system of both online and offline tools for bookmarking. If I came upon a link that I wanted to bookmark for future use but thought it would only interest me, I stuck it in WebnoteHappy (a fantastic application). If I thought others might find it interesting I posted it to Delicious. If I thought others might find it interesting but it was a link I would probably never revisit (ex. A youtube video) it was posted to Tumblr.
Enough of that nonsense. If I visit the link often (Ex. My bank) I bookmark it in Safari. Otherwise Delicious it is. I’m often wary of relying on web only applications, but if I don’t have an internet connection links are useless to me anyway. Delicious also makes it easy to create a backup (or I could synchronize my bookmarks with WebnoteHappy). I’ve played around with sites similar to Delicious but I’m a fan of their stripped down design.
Pictures
As with links my 2007 system for dealing with pictures was overly complicated. I sent all pictures taken with my camera to Flickr. Pictures taken with my cell phone (about all I took this year) were posted to a second Tumblr account. In 2008 I’m sending everything to Flickr. I’m paying for it, and though there are things about Flickr I’d change, they do a pretty good job dealing with photographs. Unlike Tumblr, I’ll have the added benefit of backing up my pictures and ordering prints (and yes, I have actually made prints of pictures taken with my cell phone). To keep some sense of order I’m putting all camera taken pictures into sets. Cell phone pictures will not be grouped into sets (for the most part) but will have their own page by using the phone tag.
A big part of simplifying my online activities is eliminating Tumblr. For a catch-all solution it’s great (jack of all trades, master of none). However, I tend to prefer sites with a more specific purpose. I also sent a report request to Tumblr many months ago that was never answered. Tumblr is free, so that’s understandable, but with Flickr I know I can email support and get a response quickly. That’s important to me and I don’t mind spending a little money for that peace of mind. Lastly, pictures I send to Tumblr from my cell phone often took hours to arrive. Some never did. I haven’t had that problem with Flickr.
By streamlining the tools I use online hopefully my production (writing, photographs, linking) will increase. I’ll reevaluate in 2009.
