I’m selfish, lazy and ruthless…and so are you

WWW (Wet Wide Web) (Photo credit: Rickydavid)

Jakob Nielsen said that ‘online users are selfish, lazy and ruthless.’ I’m one of them, and if you’re reading this on my blog then so are you.

So why start this happy, sunny week with a fat dose of abuse? Well, I blog pretty regularly and am always interested at getting better at it so found myself stumbling upon a little article about the best way to write online.

And I’m not sure how good I am at it.

So here’s the deal: read the article, and let me know in the comments how well-written you reckon this blog is, according to the guidelines written there.

Ironically, Nielsen doesn’t like blogging…

Multi-functionality

Image via Wikipedia

It turns out I’m not the only one who likes to have a rant every so often. Sitting at my desk at work the other day and the guy next to me suddenly went ‘aargh!’ Bit of an over-reaction but he didn’t like what some website had told him.

Apparently, the website suggested that people enjoy listening to music using their smartphone, but he doesn’t want to; he has an mp3 player and would rather listen to his music on that.

Now, I don’t have an issue with him using his mp3 player to listen to music, but if his phone can do exactly the same job at the same quality, doesn’t it make sense for him to use his phone for that, and not have to bother carrying round his mp3 player?

Perhaps I’m addicted to multi-functional devices. My phone doubles up as my calendar, contact list, wallet, Bible, calculator, radio, camera, mp3 player, news channel, alarm clock, torch, notepad, map and satnav, and wireless router. And that’s not to mention the wealth of time-wasting games and internet websites, audio and video available 24/7/365. What would have needed a small car to transport around 10 years ago fits into my pocket, and surely that’s a good thing in our world where productivity is king?

But there’s also something in me that really likes my colleague’s attitude towards keeping  things segregated. Of course it’s useful to permanently be carrying a map, GPS receiver and torch in case I get lost in the middle of Hyde Park in the middle of the night (and that only happened once), but does it at the same time make me so reliant on my phone that (a) I’m losing the ability to think for myself and plan ahead, and (b) if I lose my phone it’s as if the sky’s fallen?

Thought for today: is multi-functionality a good thing or a bad thing?

Irony and more search terms

Image via Wikipedia

So…about this time last week I posted about which search terms had eventually led people to this blog.

As always, the number of hits peaked a little on the day I posted it, and dipped down a bit last Friday.

On Saturday, however, the number of unique hits was five times higher than usual. The Sunday hit count was about twice that of the Saturday!

By the time Monday had come around, the addition of Monday’s post meant that Monday’s hit count was nearly nine times that of Friday’s…

So the new number one search term on my list is:

SEARCH TERMS

My sermon

I preached on Sunday on Nehemiah 1 – hope you enjoyed it if you were there as much as I did (afterwards – I was nervous as anything before)!

Anyway, just thought I’d point out that it’s on the internet for your joy now so you can download the notes and the audio right here!

You can also find the links on my website.