When you should let someone shoot the moon December 7, 2009

Do you play Hearts?  You do?  Wonderful!  I love the strategy involved in Hearts, and I particularly love shooting the moon.  There are few games that require such a mastery of the other players, and which are so unforgiving of screw-ups, as Hearts is when you’re shooting the moon.

As much as it hurts when someone else shoots the moon, under certain circumstances it makes sense to let someone shoot.

There’s no space here for a full explanation of the game of Hearts here, but as a quick reminder, each heart you take in a trick counts for one point, and the Queen of hearts (from here on out, simple the “Queen”) counts for 13 points.  Points are bad.  Normally you avoid taking point cards, but if you take every heart and the Queen, you have shot the moon, which forces all the other players to take 26 points instead of you.

Since having 26 points added to your score is pretty awful, experienced players do pretty much whatever they can to prevent another player from shooting the moon.  If I must sacrifice by holding on to a high heart, so I can take a few points, that makes sense because it saves me from getting hit with 26 points when the player successfully shoots the moon.  Most players who are sophisticated enough to notice when someone is shooting are willing to take a bullet to stop someone else from shooting.

But there are circumstances under which it makes sense to let someone else shoot the moon.  If preventing someone from shooting the moon will force you to take 14 points or more, it is more in your benefit to let that player shoot, even though it may seem to make sense to take 14 points instead of 26.  Don’t agree?  I’ll explain why.

First ask yourself: which of these options would you prefer?  (For the sake of this exercise, assume no on is near 100 points, which would end the game.)

• Option A: Knock 10 points off your score
• Option B: Give 10 points to someone else

The two options may seem the same, but in fact Option A is 3 times better than Option B.  Think about it – scores are only important relative to the scores of other players (again, ignoring the 100-point end-of-game limit, which I’ll come back to).  Knocking 10 points off your own score puts you 10 points lower compared to every other player, making it just as good as adding 10 points to each of your opponents’ scores.

Think about it another way: If you had to add 10 points to your score (which is bad, of course), other players would also have to add 10 points to each of their scores to make you unconcerned about your own point increase.

In plain English, you should care three times as much about points you take as points any other player takes.  (If you’re interested, an equation describes your utility (your interests): U = points you must take + (all points other players take)/3 )

What this means is that while letting someone else shoot the moon is definitely bad for you, it’s offset some by the fact that two other players also have to suffer (which is good).  If you have to suffer personally to prevent someone from shooting, no one else shares in the points you take.

If you work through the math, it’s more in your interest to let someone shoot the moon than take 14 or more points to stop them.  In other words, if you’ll have to take the Queen plus one or more hearts to stymie them, it isn’t worth it.

Now we come to the exception to this rule: long-term strategic play.  Suppose Emma is trying to shoot the moon, and her success will push someone over 100 points.  If that will leave you in a bad spot (e.g. you’re in 3rd or 4th place already), you might want to take a bullet to prolong the game, which might give you time to get ahead of other players.  Of course, even in the beginning of the game, you might let someone shoot if they’re a less-skilled player you expect you’ll beat, or if they’re way behind, and you don’t anticipate a threat from them.

On the other hand, strategic considerations might make it worth it to let someone shoot the moon to avoid even smaller sacrifices on your behalf than 14 points.  The important thing to remember is that points added to your score are 3 times as potent as points added to other players’ scores.

Let me know your thoughts on this!

Why Android Rules, But The Android Market Sucks December 4, 2009

I recently got a Droid phone (which I’ll probably write more about at some point), and I love the Android platform.  Philosophically, I love the openness of it, and with so many phones planned to come out for it, I think the app count and quality will soon shoot way past the iPhone market.

But that will happen a lot faster if Android makes its Market suck a little bit less.

I have several beefs to grind with the Android Market:

• There’s no search! This fact is so hard for me to believe that every time I mention it, I have to go back and check to make sure I didn’t miss it somehow.  Hold on a moment…nope, still no search box.  For any directory/listing website these days, especially a Google website, this is ridiculous.  I have to resort to doing a site search:
  “site:www.android.com/market/ my search term”
  But this is clumsy, and way more than I should have to do.  Androlib, a pretty useful site, only even exists because of all the gaps in the Android market.
• No QR codes: It’s becoming common practice to display an application’s QR Code (2-D barcode), or link to it, whenever talking about the app.  (See my previous post about QR codes.)  The Market, however, fails completely in this regard. I’m required to manually type in the name of any app I like.
• If an app isn’t available for your particular phone, good luck finding out why. I tried for 10 minutes to get the Layar app for my phone, but the Market (on my phone) kept telling me there were no results.  I finally had to read a blog post on the Layar website to find out that the app isn’t supported on my Droid phone.  Couldn’t the Market search have told me that?

The Market really needs to clean up its act.  Until then, I’ll keep on dreading using it.

How To Find Mobile Phone Applications Easier, Faster November 28, 2009

I have a Droid phone, and I love it.  But applications for the phone are way harder to find than they should be.  This post is a call for everyone to make it easier to find and share applications.

You might ask, What’s the problem now?  Isn’t it easy to type the name of the application into the phone?  I say no – it isn’t easy.  The keyboard isn’t fun to use.  It may seem a small hassle, but small hassles are often the difference between being willing to do something, and being unwilling to do it.  For example, if you write about a website, and include a link, you’ll get a much higher clickthrough rate than if you were to leave the website unlinked, forcing people to copy and paste the URL into their browser.  It’s easy to do, but that small difference will prevent lots of people from checking out the site you’re mentioning.

QR Code

With mobile phone applications (and, in fact, with any URL), there are these handy things called QR Codes.  A QR Code is like a special type of barcode that encodes for a particular URL.  Most smartphones can read a QR Code (using their camera), and go automatically to the URL.  They’re used a lot in Japan on advertisements, so if you want to know more about the product being hocked, you can quickly go to the website on your phone.

Every Android application also has a dedicated QR Code, but for some reason most people haven’t gotten into the habit of using them much.  In these days of camera phones, omitting a QR Code is tantamount to forgetting to link to a website you’re talking about.

Barcode Scanner

To scan a QR Code, you’ll need some sort of scanner app, like Google’s Barcode Scanner. This scanner (or another) really should come standard with every camera phone.  Actually, this capability should be built into the Camera and Market applications, instead of being a separate application that you need to download.

Here are all the places QR Codes should be, but usually aren’t:

• On every application listed in the Android Market
• The Market should also have an easy-to-browse database of all the QR Codes for each application, so it’s easier for everyone else to display the QR Code they need.  (Androlib makes excellent use of this practice, but the whole Androlib site only exists because the Android Market is so horrendous and difficult to use.  If the Market got its act together, Androlib wouldn’t have any reason to exist.)
• In the settings of every application on your smartphone, to make it easy to share apps with someone else (so they can just scan your phone’s screen)
• On any article mentioning an application (as I said, this is analogous to a link)

I think this is so important for the development of the smartphone ecosystem that I’ve taken to leaving comments on every article that mentions apps without a QR Code, demanding to see QR Codes.  You can help make this a standard convention by doing the same with this text (or write your own):

It’s becoming common practice to display an application’s QR Code (2-D barcode), or link to it, whenever talking about the app.  This page is less useful if apps don’t have QR Codes mentioned.

In the age of in-phone barcode scanners, leaving out the QR code is tantamount to talking about a website without remembering to link to it.

Please join others in displaying an app’s QR Code when talking about it!

Because all these practices haven’t become commonplace, I’ve put together this list of QR codes for my favorite apps – partly to share with all of you, but mostly so I can bookmark this post on my phone, and pull it up when I want to show someone else an app they should really have.  This way, they can just scan the phone screen.  It’s a clumsy workaround to what should be an easy thing, but until app makers start displaying QR codes in their settings, it’s what I have to do.

Advanced Task Killer Free

Barcode Scanner

Ultimate Stopwatch and Timer

Google Voice

Mototorch LED

Free Wifi Finder

DockRunner

Last FM

Pandora

Slacker Radio

Photoshop Editor

Astro File Manager

Twidroid

Wapedia

Voice Recorder

Bubble Level

Fring

Chess Clock

Cardio Trainer - GPS workout tracker

Dolphin Browser (with pinch-zoom!)

Photo Collages: Picasa vs. Shapecollage.com November 22, 2009

There are websites and programs out there that will take a bunch of pictures and automatically turn them into a photo collage.  Sweet!  I played around with two, Picasa (the program that’s part of the Google constellation) and Shapecollage.com.  They each have strengths and weaknesses, though at the end of the day both are great tools that make it really easy to get a cool effect.

This heart-shaped collage was created by Shape Collage.  The website is easy to use, and assembles a collage out of images on websites.  You can enter any combination of direct links to images, and also the url of a website with thumbnails (including a Google images search result), which can be more useful.  You can choose from a handful of shapes, or make the collage in the shape of some text.  Then you’re done!

Actually, you’re not quite done.  One of the odd things about Shape Collage is that I couldn’t find an easy way to download the final image of the collage.  The collage is broken up into a bunch of links to each photo within the collage, which can be cool, but doesn’t help if you want to save the entire collage to your computer, or import it somewhere else on the web.  (If I missed this, let me know how to get the image!)  I had to use a screen grab and do some cropping, which was enough of a hassle to make me think twice before using the website again.

Shape Collage’s website only uses web images, though they also have a free program that has more features, and could probably assemble collages from images on your own machine.  I haven’t tried the program, but would love to hear from anyone who has.  As a result, to make this heart I had to upload all these images to my Picasa account.  If I wanted to do it again, I’d consider downloading the program so I could skip the upload process.

Also, I guess I didn’t have enough photos for Shape Collage’s tastes, and you’ll notice that there are a bunch of duplicates in the collage.  This is okay with me, but I’d prefer if they made sure any duplicates were in different parts of the collage so it wasn’t so obvious they were duplicated.

Picasa, a program by Google, is also powerful and easy-to-use.  Picasa works from pictures on your machine (not on the web), which is preferable for many purposes.  Picasa doesn’t have the option to form collages of particular shapes, but it does have more options for the types of collages.  Here are the examples (click the image to see the examples larger):

The top-left is, of course, the Shape Collage image from above.  The other options here:

• Top-center: Picture pile. this is the same format that Shape Collage uses, although it seems you can only arrange the photos within a rectangular frame.  You can, however, hit the Scramble button to rearrange them, or rearrange photos manually.
• Top-right and bottom-left: Mosaic, and Framed Mosaic. This is a really cool layout, especially the framed mosaic.
• Bottom-center: Grid. I actually used the grid layout to create the display above!  Very useful.
• Bottom-right: Contact sheet. I’m not quite sure what the use of this is, since you can’t add captions below the photos.

Beyond the layouts, you can choose between borderless photos, white-bordered photos, and photos in what looks like a Polaroid border (which Picasa humorously refers to as “Looks like a familiar brand of instant camera”, without mentioning “Polaroid”).  So Picasa is far more customizable than Shape Collage, despite lacking the ability to form collages in special shapes.  Picasa also makes it extremely easy to generate a single image from the collage (unlike Shape Collage).

Overall, Picasa is by far my preference, though Shape Collage’s ability to create collages in particular shapes is useful enough that I can see myself using it again, either on the web or through their free program.

Do you use one of these, or any other, collage tools?  Let me know in the comments!

http://picasa.google.com/

Use photographs to adorn your laptop November 20, 2009

This work (my description and pictures of my contraption here) is in the Public Domain.  That means you can use it however you like – I’m sharing it!

What do you do with your physical photographs in the Facebook age?  It’s a real problem for me, because on the one hand I almost never look through the photo albums of physical photos sitting on my self.  Probably no more than once every six months or so, and usually then I spend no more than five minutes at it.

But on the other hand, I can hardly stand to throw them all out.  I’ve scanned all them, but still hate to just throw them all away.

So I decided to throw together a “photo holder” for the lid of my laptop, using duct tape and cardstock.  This way I can enjoy a photo for a week, swap it out for another at the end of the week, and feel comfortable about throwing it out because I’ve enjoyed it for a week.  It also creates a conversation topic, and spruces up my otherwise-plain laptop some.

This is a project you can do in about 5 minutes, for no cost if you have the materials lying around.

Here are the photos of the project:

This is all you need - duct tape, cardstock, scissors, and a photo

Cut triangles from the cardstock

Use the photograph itself to space the cardstock corners correctly, and tape the cardstock to the laptop

The photo slips in pretty easily. I gave my holder a tilt to make it more dynamic.

In case you were wondering, the photo in the laptop photo holder is of my friends and I goofing off after giving out free milk and cookies around Finals time at UC Davis when we were students there.

Let me know if you have other creative ways of using old photographs!

Wheat for Wood: Going beyond standard trading in Settlers of Catan November 9, 2009

I’m a recent convert to Settlers of Catan. Actually, I guess I’m not quite a “convert” – I’ve been looking forward to playing the game ever since I read an article about it in Wired magazine.  I just didn’t get to play until a few weeks ago.

So far, I’ve only played five times, but have come up with some really creative trading strategies.  As an admitted novice, I don’t know if this sort of trading is standard among Catan circles or not.  It seemed novel to the people I’ve spoken to so far, though.  (Let me know in the comments if you use this sort of trading when you play!)

The obvious way to trade is to offer someone one or more of my resources in exchange for one or more of hers.  But with a bit of trust, there are so many more possibilities!  How many people have made trades other than one-time, present-moment trades?  Here are some examples of other ways to trade:

Borrowing: When I really need a particular resource, and just don’t have enough in my hand, I’ll ask my fellow players for a loan of some resource.  With open-minded players, I’m usually able to find some agreement that is mutually beneficial.

• How it works: We usually end up agreeing on me paying back two resources of similar value to the one I’m borrowing.  For example, Anthony might give me a Wheat now, on my turn, and I promise that the very next two Wood or Brick resources that come into my hand will go directly to him.  If I come upon a lot of some other resource sooner than Wood or Brick, he and I might come to an agreement to discharge my debt earlier by paying something else instead.
• Potential drawbacks: If you don’t trust me, this sort of trade obviously won’t work.  Also, the I have little incentive to go out of his way to get the resource owed.  If I borrow a Wheat in exchange for two Bricks later, it might be a while before I get the Brick.  And until then, I have no real incentive to trade for brick, because I know I’ll immediately have to give it up.  The lender might take this into account when deciding how much to ask in return.
• One way to address my lack of incentive for paying Anthony back early is to build “interest” into the loan.  We might agree that I’ll owe Anthony two Wood or Brick if I can pay him within two rounds, but every extra round of turns after that, my debt will increase by one Wood or Brick.  That way Anthony knows I’ll work hard to trade for the resources to pay him back as soon as I’m able.  I would prefer to avoid such a clause, of course, because I’m better of without it, but Anthony might be wise to refuse to loan except under such an agreement.

Thief Threats: Without any data, I’d guess that this is the most commonly used non-standard trade agreement.  It’s blackmail, of course, and I never use this myself because I think it makes the game unnecessarily personal, but I have many times heard a friend try to get another player to cough up some resources to prevent being hit with the thief.

• This “trade” is interesting because it has the potentially receive payments from multiple people, if people really lived in fear of the thief.
• Drawbacks: It decreases your goodwill – people are less likely to give you the benefit of the doubt, or trust you, if you threaten them.

Banking and Credit Unions: If you have more than seven cards and you’re concerned about having to give up half because of the thief, you need a banker!  If I have fewer than seven cards myself, I could offer to “bank” anyone’s cards (hold on to them until they want them back).  I could charge for the service, or could form a “credit union” – an agreement between two or more players to all hold on to each other’s cards for free whenever the need arises.

• How it works:
  • Technically, banking is a free loan – I’ll give Kirk my excess cards for free (though there may be a payment included), with the understanding that he’ll hold on to them without using them, and will give them back to me when I want them.  Obviously, this requires some real trust.  If you’re considering banking with another player, I’d advise asking them frankly if they can be trusted.
  • Because trades can only go through the player whose turn it is, banking only works on either the banker’s or the client’s turn.  (An exception: when it’s the turn of an uninvolved but agreeable player, that player might agree to be a “broker” and allow the transaction to pass through him.  So if I want Kirk to hold onto my cards, but it’s Dani’s turn, she could agree to pass my extra cards to Kirk so I won’t get penalized by the thief before I have a chance to spend.  this, of course, requires that I trust both Kirk and Dani.  Which I do, as it happens.)
  • Banking is most easily done when someone willing to accept a “deposit” has a small number of cards.  If I have more than seven cards of my own, I won’t make a very good banker, because I am myself vulnerable to the thief.  I can think of two exceptions to this, however.  First, if I charge for my banking services, I might promise to throw away my own cards before throwing away my client’s cards.  Whatever price I charge would have to take this willingness into account (i.e., I would charge more for this promise).  Second, if I have an even number of cards (and more than seven), I can safely accept one card without affecting the number of cards I’d have to dump if the thief struck.

Options (on a port, or on resource production): If I sit on a valuable port (e.g., the 2-sheep-for-1-of-anything port), I might sell rights to trade through my port.  I could also sell rights to trade for some resource I produce at a certain specified rate.

• How it works: Dani is sitting on a Sheep goldmine – she has two cities on a pasture tile with a 6 on it.  She can always trade the Sheep to other players, but with such a glut of sheep, she has more than people want.  She can trade it to “the outside world” at a rate of 4 Sheep for 1 of something else, but wants to get a better rate.  If I sit on a 2-for-1 Sheep port, I’ll be able to offer her a preferential rate on sheep – I’d be willing to accept 3 sheep at any time for whatever she wants, knowing I can profit by converting two of those into a resource of any type.  I could also offer Dani rights to the port, however.  She could pay me an up-front price (say, 3 Sheep), and forever after have the right to trade only 2 Sheep to me for whatever resource she wants in return.  I profit because I’m paid in advance on trades she might never actually need to make, and she profits by having that option whenever she wants.
• One caveat is that I can only convert Sheep (via the port) on my turn.  In my experience, most people think about their trades only on their own turns (perhaps this changes with more intermediate players), so when she’s looking to offload her Sheep, I can only offer her what I have in my hand.  If she wants Ore and I don’t have it, I’ll have to offer it to her the next time my turn rolls around.
• I don’t use this strategy much these days, because I have since come to the conclusion that I’ll do better if I trade lots, with lots of people, without inhibiting trade by charging a premium to use my port.  If I have a 2-for-1, I’ll usually allow people to trade with me without paying any extra at all.  I do this for two reasons.  First, it creates goodwill – I build the reputation of someone who will trade with you on good terms even if I don’t seem to profit by it.  Second, it does help me if I’m in need of some resource not in my hand.  If I have only a Brick and an Ore, and I really want a road (requiring Brick and Wood), there’s no sure way for me to convert that Ore into Wood.  I can’t be sure players will be willing, or even able, to trade my Ore for their Wood.  But if Dani wants my Ore and has two Sheep, I can use the Sheep to get me my Wood.  I’m not only converting resources for Dani; I’m also allowing myself to change the composition of my hand, which is useful.
• I could also sell the right to an option on a resource tile I occupy.  If I corner the market on Wheat, someone could pay me for the right to always be able to buy one Wheat for one Brick, for example.  If they have designs on some serious city-building, or want to know they can buy development cards whenever they need, this will help ensure they’ll have access (as long as my Wheat fields are producing).  They could also, I suppose, buy my unwillingness to trade Wheat with the other player, though I’d never agree to this sort of arrangement because I believe it personalizes the game too much.

Gifts and favorable trades to stymie a mutual enemy: I’ve seen that it’s quite common to embargo a player who is on the verge of winning.  But I haven’t ever seen players give gifts or favorable trades to other players who could take the player in the lead down a few notches.  Why not?  I think it just hasn’t really occurred to other players.  Or perhaps the opportunity hasn’t presented itself.

• How it works: Jordan has the longest road, has a development card that might be a victory point, and appears to have the resources to build a city on his next turn, which will probably give him 10 victory points, and the win.  There are several turns before his, though.  If Kim has a road nearly as long as Jordan’s, and she isn’t herself on the cusp of victory, Adam and I could trade with Kim to give her the resources necessary to take the Longest Road card.  If she doesn’t have much to trade with us, we could offer her very favorable trade terms (say, an interest-free loan), or might even make a gift if necessary.  (The same strategy could be used to help a player wrest control of the Largest Army card, but would take longer to implement since Soldier cards can’t be played immediately, and because a non-Soldier card might be drawn.)
• We could also trade to enable another player to cut Jordan’s road in two by building a city along it, and might cause the Longest Road card to shift to another player, or return to the deck entirely.
• Drawbacks: This is obviously a dangerous strategy because we might cause Kim to win by advantaging her over Jordan.  It may only be a viable strategy when Jordan is significantly ahead, or if Kim is significantly behind.

That’s all I’ve worked out so far!  Clue me in to any creative trading schemes you’ve practice or considered.

Call for Net Neutrality! October 28, 2009

I just shared my support for net neutrality with the FCC, and you can too!  I work in a Senator’s office, and I can tell you that making your voice heard is really important – and sheer numbers really do matter.

If you’re not familiar with net neutrality or why it’s important, read this article.

If you also want to tell the FCC why you think it’s important to keep the net open, go here:
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs2/upload/display?z=ydawa

Enter 09-191 in the “Proceeding” text box, and fill out your contact info.

Paste this, or a variation of it, or your own thoughts:

I am very strongly in support of net neutrality, and hope the FCC enacts rules that will prohibit any internet provider from offering preferential internet access to some sources or types of data, and offering inferior access to other sources or types.  I believe that the internet has been an engine of creativity in large part because of its openness and low barriers to entry.  Without net neutrality, the internet may not be able to continue in its role as an economic driver and source of information and innovation.

Cheers!

Right Now Thoughts October 24, 2009

I’m guilty of multitasking like crazy.  I’ll frequently be working on one thing, then midway through remember I need to work on something else, and both tasks are important, liable to be forgotten, and are tempting because I know I can finish each in only a few minutes.

So I keep a notepad document open (I use notepad because it’s so lightweight that it’s super reliable), called “Right Now Thoughts”, and quickly write myself notes if I need to remember to do something and don’t want to interrupt my current task.  I don’t keep anything there long-term, but use it constantly when I’m busy on multiple things at once.

It’s also handy because it allows you to manage multiple clipboard items without a special program for handling multiple copy-and-paste operations.

It’s also useful because it strips the formatting from anything you paste into it!

I make it extremely quick to access by saving a shortcut called “now” in the System32 folder.  Any time I want to open it, I just hit WINDOWS + R, then type “now” and it comes up immediately.  (No load time, the way there would be with Word, or a website.)

How to start a WordPress Blog October 19, 2009

Those of you who know me well know that I’m a systems nut – I come up with systems and procedures and lists for all sorts of my everyday activities. I delight in designing a good procedure, and I feel it makes me more successful.  I’m definitely OCD in the popular sense of the term (though not at all in the medical sense – true OCD is usually accompanied by guilt and fear, and feelings of unexplainable compulsion, while my systems are of choice, and bring me happiness).

Hmm, now those who don’t know me well now also know this about me. Guess that levels the playing field a bit…

I’ve found myself starting a lot of wordpress blogs lately (My Community, My World; Davis Dollars; Superpowers Project; and of course this blog).  And I’ve found that every time I do another, there are little details I forget about, and have to come back to later. Some of these details, like turning off the “similar posts” spam at the bottom of each post, can be really annoying, and I can go a while before even realizing I haven’t remembered this particular item to do.

So I’ve put together a to-do list when creating any new WordPress blog. It’s particular to my own goals, and assumes you know the basics about how to create a wordpress blog (don’t worry, it’s really easy, I promise you can figure it out on your own if you don’t know how).  Others might find this list useful, and might even be interested in grabbing it and tweaking it for when they start their own wordpress blogs!  Here goes:

1. Blog name:
   1. Think of a cool name for the blog
   2. Check if the url is taken, and buy it.  (They’re cheap, and if the blog really takes off, wouldn’t you want your own site?)  If it’s taken, you may want to think of another name.
   3. Once you’ve settled on a name, reserve your WordPress blog.
2. Do you have some central clearinghouse for all your online identities, which can help maximize your search engine rankings?  I use my google profile and facebook. Link to the blog from any and all websites that serve this function.
3. Set up email syndication through feedburner
   1. Create an account at feedburner if you don’t have one (if you have a google account, you’ll have an account already)
   2. Enter your blog url and hit Next
   3. Enter blog name and make up a Feed Title (doesn’t matter too much what it is)
   4. Hit Next a couple of times to get through some screens
   5. Under the Publicize tab, choose Email Subscriptions
   6. Hit the Activate button
   7. Copy the HTML without the <form> element (which the WordPress text widget doesn’t support), and save it somewhere (we’ll come back to it momentarily)
4. On the “Posts” page, delete the “Hello World” post.
5. On the “Pages” page, edit the “About” page.
   • Write a little about the purpose of the blog
   • Write a bit of bio information
   • Link to your other online identities – you’ll fare better with the search engines by having dense connections among your various locations on the web.
6. On the “Appearance” page:
   • Choose a theme
   • In the “Widgets” sub-page, zoom out some so all the widgets appear on the same page (this makes it easier to maneuver them). Drag these widgets to your side-bar:
     • Search
     • Text
       1. Title: “Subscribe by Email!”
       2. Paste the Feedburner text into the body of the widget
     • Categories
     • Pages
     • Links
   • In the “Extras” sub-page, check the “Hide related links on this blog…” box. This prevents each of your blog posts from displaying links to often-unrelated blogs that “may be related” to your post.
7. On the “Settings” page:
   • In the General sub-page:
     • Add blog title
     • Add a blog subtitle (or at least delete that horrible “Just another wordpress weblog” nonsense)
     • You must save changes before leaving this page!
   • In the “Writing” sub-page:
     • Enable Posts by email
     • Add the special email address to your gmail contacts list

That’s it!  Of course, you may think of more.  I haven’t bothered to upload a favicon, for example.  Write your own favorite steps in the comments below.

www.google.com/profiles

Leaving your mark on the web with Google Sidewiki October 1, 2009

Have you checked out the Google Sidewiki?  If you’re excited about the way the web empowers people to become self-publishers through blogs, Facebook and Twitter, you should.  It allows anyone to leave comments on any website, which will be visible to anyone else on the web.

The comments show up in a sidebar on your browser.  (It can be minimized.)  People can vote on the usefulness of comments, so on a page with lots of comments, the absolute garbage should get voted to the bottom, out of sight.  I also suspect that the effort required to install the sidewiki and open it to make a comment may deter some of the brainless webizens who leave such idiotic remarks on youtube videos and local news stories.

One potential concern is that interesting but dissenting comments may get voted to the bottom, but I suppose that’s the trouble with any voting system.  I’ll just have to trust that the wisdom of crowds is better than not having any wisdom at all (i.e. no way to vote comments up or down).

Sidewiki is sort of like a simpler version of a service I used to use, ReframeIt (RI).  I was really excited when I learned about RI, because RI allows some pretty sophisticated commenting.  First, you can leave a comment associated with a particular part of a page (e.g. a particular sentence or paragraph you find interesting, or want to disagree with, or whatnot).  The comments get arrayed up and down the page alongside what they’re attached to.  (Update: Sidewiki also allows this.)  Second, comments have a hierarchy – you can leave a reply to someone else’s comment, while Sidewiki’s comments seem to have a flat hierarchy – it’s just a list of comments, and the only way to reply specifically to someone’s comment is to mention their name.  Third, you could even categorize the nature of your comment (agreement, disagreement, and several others).  All of these, I hoped, would lead to a really interesting ecosystem of web markup.

The reason I stopped using RI, though, was that I hardly ever found pages with comments already on them, and very rarely got notifications that any page I marked up was commented on by anyone else.  I felt like I was shouting down a well.  I was wasting effort on something no one would ever see.  (Do any of you still use RI?  Has the user base increased?)  Google, on the other hand, brings a user base that RI probably won’t ever attain.  And this is the sort of thing that is only really useful if lots of people use it.

Anyway, I haven’t started actually commenting on pages with sidewiki, because I just installed it, but I think it’s pretty cool.  I’m looking forward to hearing what others have to say about some interesting pages I see!   I see at least a few interesting uses:

• Seeing people’s thoughts on an interesting article, like the comments at the bottom of the article, but I hope (and suspect) that people won’t go out of their way to make a stupid comment, they way they sometimes do on regular articles.  Also, since people can vote for the usefulness of comments, the stupid comments will tend to be pushed to the bottom and out of sight.
• User-generated support for confusing websites: “First you have to click the _____ link, then move on to the next page and use the ___ drop-down menu….”
• Alerting users of scams or shady websites
• Providing supplementary information (links, further information, etc.)
• Linking to previous and future news articles on the same issue or event, providing more of a timeline of media coverage
• And many more, I’m sure, that I haven’t thought of.

One interesting thing I see is a change in the power dynamic between websites and commenters.  For example, if you leave a comment on this blog post, that benefits my blog more than it does on you, I think, because I get credit for having stimulated an interesting conversation, and search engines probably pay some attention to how much stories are commented on.  If you use sidewiki to comment, however, my blog may not get any “credit” for it.  You, on the other hand, benefit because all your comments are available from your Google Profile page.

I think this is a good thing, because it allows people to gain the credit for their comments, and encourages people to make more thoughtful comments (and fewer rants), since it extends their personality further across the web.  (It’s similar Facebook Connect in this way.)  But I wonder if google will give websites search credit for having a lot of sidewiki comments.

Let me know if you start using it!  Leave a comment on the post, or comment on Sidewiki!