Posts Tagged technology
Twitter, Writing, and the Darkness
Posted by annaldavis in Cyberculture, Writing on March 28, 2012
Since quitting Facebook I’ve been on a quest to find the right mix of social networking sites for my distractible writer’s brain. I’m on LinkedIn, Digg, and Stumbleupon. Now you can add Twitter to the mix. Here’s why I like it, in simile form.
Twitter is like…
…a NEWSROOM. I spent much of high school and college in journalism, some in the newsroom with the other contributors and some behind the editor’s desk. I preferred the newsroom. Digging up good stories, making the words fit together, yelling at each other across the desks trying to get the right spelling of a name – it’s all very exciting. But now I write from home, and occasionally from Starbucks. Great flexibility. Not-so-great for people like me who thrive professionally on deadlines and stimulation. With Twitter I can be as connected (or as quiet) as I would like. Very similar to the newsrooms I have known and loved.
… HAPPY HOUR. Every now and then someone gets a little crazy. Shop talk intermingles with personal opinion, the day’s professionalism gets lost in one reckless retweet. Sure, I guess Facebook offers the same sense of hair-down-loosened-tie networking, but in my experience Facebook is like happy hour in a bar that demands access to your underwear drawer in exchange for drinks. Twitter offers just the right balance – I can have a drink or two after work, talk about the day’s victories (or failures), pay my tab, and go home.
… CHURCH in LAS VEGAS. There’s a certain amount of street smarts required for Twitter. For example, beautiful tan women with dangly jewelry who show up in my follower list might not actually care about my tweets – they probably just want me to click on the porn site in their profile. I block those followers without clicking the link. (If there’s any question about where I stand on pornography, read this blog post titled Atheism and Pornography. In the interest of balanced journalistic practice, you can read the atheist rebuttal here.) But without Twitter, I would have never known that Frank Peretti was going to be in town promoting his new book Illusion. And he would have never autographed my 1986 edition of This Present Darkness. And I wouldn’t have watched Peretti turn a casual book-signing into an intimate, small group discussion about universalism, filmography, and what it was like to co-write with Ted Dekker.
So yeah, I think I like Twitter.
Click Here to Export Your Brain
Posted by annaldavis in Cyberculture, Technology on August 30, 2011
Productivity, note-taking, and mind-mapping software can be helpful to those of us who struggle with remembering things. We’re only human, after all. Personally I like to make lists and take notes on simple index cards. But what happens when I forget where I put the index card? Or forget what I was supposed to write down in the first place?
That’s why many people find they need an “external brain” like Evernote, Producteev, or any number of other similar apps. Patrick Jones, a Catholic deacon who suffers from traumatic brain injury, uses Evernote to remember just about everything. Because of repeated concussions, Jones has an extremely low short-term memory bank.
“I sought out tools that would help me compensate — finding computers to be a powerful ‘wheel chair’ for the brain. With the advent of the iPhone (and other smart phones), I had a portable external brain. Tools like www.Evernote.com gave me a bucket to place all my notes. Not having to waste brain energy trying to do what my brain doesn’t do well, I’ve been able to accomplish a lot more, all while being close to my family,” Jones writes, on his website Mind Your Head Co-Op.
While I don’t have a traumatic brain injury, I do have ADHD so I can understand why Patrick Jones wants to export his memory and thoughts into a more reliable place. Last week I wrote about how I tried Evernote for a few days and really enjoyed the convenience. But Evernote’s cloud-based technology brought up some concerns, and I decided that I don’t trust the cloud with my head contents. I even struggle with trusting God sometimes, so I really can’t fathom trusting a network of servers to keep my brain safe. I deleted my account a few days later.
Guess I’ll just stick with index cards. They are highly portable. You can tape them to things and tack them to bulletin boards. And they come in different sizes and colors, some lined for neat writing, and others totally blank for vivid brainstorming and mind-mapping.
But more about that in the next post…
What Writers Should Know about The Cloud
Posted by annaldavis in Cyberculture, Tips and Ideas, Writing on August 26, 2011
Are you in the cloud? Here’s a hint: if you can access it from anywhere, wirelessly sync across different devices, or share with another user via a web browser… then you’re in the cloud. This includes Facebook, GoogleDocs, Google-anything, Yahoo-anything, WordPress, Blogspot, Evernote, Twitter – the list goes on and on.
Convenience and “security” are key selling points for the cloud. Since quitting Facebook, I’ve had more time to learn about other web tools. I briefly signed up with Evernote, a cloud-based notetaking app that enabled me to access my notes from anywhere. I could start a note from my phone, and later on my PC I could pick up right where I left off — that easy. No saving or file transfer or anything. I could even grab links and bits of the web, attach pictures, and everything was arranged in a very user-friendly format. It was great, but then I started wondering: where, exactly, does all that information go? When Evernote autosaves, where does it save to?
I did some research, talked with an expert, and looked at the facts. Here’s what I found out:
Cloud-based apps save data to the web server. Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to delete (not just deactivate) a Facebook account? That’s because your Facebook page is stored on the Facebook web server indefinitely, whether you like it or not. When I type something in Evernote (or Producteev, or whatever), the app autosaves to the web server. If I have second thoughts and delete that info, I’m trusting the app to delete it from the server as well. But how would I even know? Anything you have ever sent, received, or stored on a cloud-based application most likely still exists somewhere in cyberspace, filed away on a web server.
The Cloud lacks privacy and safety. People love cloud-based apps because nothing gets lost. While this is a top selling point, it’s also a huge risk. Hackers have become increasingly sophisticated and organized, all while the rest of us grow more comfortable online and more willing to sacrifice privacy for convenience. But we shouldn’t kid ourselves – leaving sensitive information on the web is no different from leaving your wallet and notebook on a busy train at rush hour. Maybe someone honest will find it and keep it safe. But maybe not. Anything stored in the cloud can also be subject to federal subpoena, even without your knowledge. This is fine if you write about celebrities or fashion. But what if you write investigative, hard-hitting, or politically controversial material? Should you trust the cloud with your notes, your thoughts, your location, and your sources?
While channel-surfing the other day, my husband and I finally decided on the 1993 movie “The Pelican Brief,” based on the book by John Grisham (which I’ve read several times). The premise is that a law student and a reporter work together to reveal a huge government cover-up related to the death of two Supreme Court justices. I’ve posted the trailer below. If you ever have a chance to watch the full movie, you’ll laugh at the low-tech research and reporting methods – pay phones (seen any of those lately?), library card catalog, VHS recordings, phone tapping. But even back then, investigate research and writing were risky.
Now there is even more risk.
So here’s the bottom line: writers, tread lightly on the cloud. It’s an amazing tool for publishing and networking, but not really safe for idea harvesting, data-storage, or notekeeping.
And yes, after only two days of use, I deleted my new Evernote account. (But is it really deleted? Or still out there somewhere? The world may never know.)
