Posts Tagged the cloud
Got Ideas?
Posted by annaldavis in Cyberculture, Social Media on September 7, 2011
“Mass Idea Abortion Threatens Global Future.” That was my first title for this post. But during revision it seemed a bit dramatic and sensationalistic, like something we might read on the cover of a tabloid, right next to a photo of the three-headed alien in Lady Gaga’s dressing room.
Lady Gaga. Now there’s an original idea, right? We watched her hatch out of an egg, wear slabs of meat, and dress like a man in a temporary gender switch for the MTV Video Music Awards. I don’t know where I’ve seen anyone quite like her… oh, wait. I’m having flashbacks now. Yes… I think I remember something similar about some obscure pop star from the 80’s. Well, nevermind. I guess Lady Gaga isn’t so original after all.
Seriously, where are all the new ideas? Where’s the ingenuity? What happened to thinking outside the box (of commercialism, consumerism, you name it)?
Some say that we live in a “post-idea” world. It’s all been done, and you can read about it from any device with an internet connection. We are drowning in information, like those hoarders featured on A&E. We need help, and cloud-based service providers have a solution. The Cloud is like The Container Store for digital chaos.
But we’re only organizing it, storing it away in a virtual box. There’s no time (or desire) to process that information by actually thinking.
In an article titled “The Elusive Big Idea,” professor and journalist Neal Gabler wrote, “Ideas are too airy, too impractical, too much work for too little reward. Few talk ideas. Everyone talks information, usually personal information. Where are you going? What are you doing? Who are you seeing? These are today’s big questions.”
Gabler goes on to explain that social networking sites play a big role in our mental laziness.
“It is certainly no accident that the post-idea world has sprung up alongside the social networking world. Even though there are sites and blogs dedicated to ideas, the most popular sites on the Web are basically information exchanges, designed to feed the insatiable information hunger, though this is hardly the kind of information that generates ideas,” Gabler said.
I like that wording: “the insatiable information hunger.” Reminds me of the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. Yum… info. Need info now… CRUNCH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH.
So what’s the big deal anyway? Who cares if we can’t think deeply for ourselves? What difference does it make that our collective minds overflow with the minor details of celebrity gossip and distant friends-of-a-friend-of-a-friend?
If you’re destined to remain the average American consumer, plodding through life from one new product to another, keeping track of the decades via TMZ, just hoping your retirement fund stays intact so you can quit work and watch Glee on a flatscreen, then no problem. But then again…
What if you actually have something original to offer? What if there’s an idea inside of you, something that can change even a corner of our world for the better, an idea whose time has come, ready to be hatched?
Oops, I almost forgot – Lady Gaga already did the hatching thing. Oh well. Guess I’ll just go read more about it online, maybe I’ll chat with my peeps and see what they thought of her latest recent photo shoot (did you hear? She didn’t wear any makeup! None at all! Can you believe it?).
“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”
(Quote by Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, civil rights advocate, international author / speaker, and ranked in the top ten of Gallup’s List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century.)
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.)
