As I already use LastPass, I think this is a good fit.

Xmarks has also rolled out their freemium pricing scheme: $12 USD per year, or $20 when bundled with LastPass Premium. Makes sense to me.

The Xmarks service will evolve to have both a free component and a premium component – we’ll share all the details once the deal is done.

Cool.

But this raises a good point: Xmarks got to this point not by any lack of popularity, but by never managing to come up with a way to become profitable. Consequently, they’re now forced to either close up shop, or sell Xmarks to a new owner – one who is not guaranteed to be able to turn a profit either.

Web users have come to expect free services to remain free and many such services can’t always make the move to a “premium” subscription model. When there is an opportunity for a formerly-free service to move to a paid model–any paid model–they should expect to lose a significant number of users.

MailChimp and Second Life are both good examples of freemium services where the necessary infrastructure simply falls outside the ability of the average user or organization to effectively duplicate, but Xmarks’ functionality falls dangerously close to the same problem that ultimately killed Netscape:

Four hours later, the Wall Street Journal was delivered, and it already contained an article describing what we had just done. “Clients aren’t where the money is anyway,” ran the quote from Marc.

– jwz, 12 October 1994

By the end of the 90s, the idea that you’d pay money for a web browser was alien to all but the most devoted members of the Church of Opera. And today, many web professionals have never heard of Netscape’s early server software at all; it’s since been all but replaced by Free Software-licensed Linux and Apache.

So what’s the moral here? If something comes along and replaces Xmarks, and it manages to do so for free, isn’t that better? Maybe. I suspect most Xmarks users wouldn’t have been terribly inconvenienced by having to use the native Chrome or Mozilla syncing tools. Still, that’s not where Xmarks’ value is for me: I need to sync bookmarks between different browsers. There would have still been options available, but Xmarks shutting down would have been extremely inconvenient for me, to say the least.

Maybe the moral is that if there’s software or a service we use–particularly ones we can’t do without–we should buy the paid version when the opportunity and means present themselves. At the very least, it sends a message to the creators–and any potential investors–that the service is valuable enough to someone that they’ll shell out money for it.

In response to the cries of “noooo” from those of us who rely on Xmarks to sync our bookmarks cross-platform, Xmarks have opened a PledgeBank list asking users to pledge if they would pay $10 a year for a premium version of Xmarks–functionality to be decided later.

Currently, about 3000 users a day are pledging, which is significant, but not sustainable–so if any of this is news to you, and Xmarks is a service you rely on, sign up now.

If you’re like me and subscribe to hundreds of different feeds, it’s important to figure out a good workflow that helps you focus on what’s most important. Not all of us have three or four hours a day to read blogs!

Read the post: RSS: the quicker way to stay up to date

Today, I’m going to complain about what’s wrong with it.

Now, to be fair, I’m quite pleased with the whole Notational Velocity package. Simplenote’s team are quick to respond to problems on Twitter, and quickly tackle bugs as they crop up. Notational Velocity is a well-developed app that can only get better since it’s been open-sourced.

So what’s missing from Notational Velocity if I like it so much? Actually, not much! I can only actually think of three real issues, and two simply aren’t that big a deal. Unfortunately, the third has proven to be surprisingly disruptive to my workflow.

1. Markdown Formatting
Notational Velocity supports bold, italicized and underlined rich text. Simplenote, on the other hand, does not. I’d love it if Notational Velocity had an option to save rich text formatting when exporting to plaintext–at least for bold and italicized text, that is. Markdown doesn’t care for underlines.

This would let me preserve rich text formatting round-trip from a file created in Notational Velocity, edited via Simplenote’s website or on my iPhone as plaintext, and displayed again in Notational Velocity, bold and italicized text intact. It looks like I’m not the only one who thinks this is a good idea, so I’m hopeful we’ll see this at some point in the future.

2. Multiple Windows
I get the philosophy behind Notational Velocity’s two-pane, no-buttons design. I do. I also get that, as such, it’s unlikely I’ll see this last feature without forking the codebase and adding it myself, which goes directly against my philosophy for using Notational Velocity and Simplenote: because it’s straightforward.

That said, I’ve occasionally found myself wishing that I could have two (or more) Notational Velocity windows. Why? Easy: sometimes I need to refer to a daily “to do” list while also referring to a second notecard, and sometimes I need to cut and paste between a couple different notecards, particularly when I’m breaking one up into smaller subcategories.

3. The Icon
Yes, seriously. Hear me out!

A rocket-powered filing cabinet. I can’t think of anything more appropriate to illustrate what Notational Velocity does.

Notational Velocity’s new “filing cabinet/rocket ship” icon is a huge improvement over the terrible, terrible “NV” icon it had for years. It’s clever, well-designed, and the metaphor, a rocket-powered filing cabinet, is both appropriate to what Notational Velocity does, as well as being a play on Notational Velocity’s name. It’s great. I wish I’d thought of it.

I can’t use it.

I tried. I really did! Even after four months of using the new Notational Velocity, my brain simply can’t get around the idea of a note-taking application’s icon not looking like a notepad or book. I’m not setting out to criticize Colin Cody’s ingenious rocket ship icon; indeed, I’m astonished that I can’t seem to get my head around the thing.

Human-computer interface expert Jef Raskin wrote about this issue in his 2000 book, The Humane Interface. He later summed up many of these points in an email to Tom Gilb:

Definition: A gesture is an action that you finish without conscious thought once you have started it. Example: For a beginning typist, typing the letter “t” is a gesture. For a more experienced typist, typing the word “the” is a gesture.

Rule 1. An interface should be habituating.

If the interface can be operated habitually then, after you have used it for a while, its use becomes automatic and you can release all your attention to the task you are trying to achieve.

Consequently, when an interface can’t be operated habitually, we run into problems. Since I started using Notational Velocity, I’ve experienced this exact issue on a daily basis: I’m reading a blog post. It’s interesting. Full of good ideas. I think, “Hey, this is related to that thing I’m working on right now! Why don’t I copy the URL and make a quick one-sentence note about the way the information therein can be tied into the project? Sweet!”

I select the URL, hit Command-C to copy it, Command-Tab to switch applications–and pause. Wait! Where’s my note…thing? My eyes dart around, as my brain’s needle abruptly skips across the surface of its record. ¹

Suddenly, I’m forced to switch from purposefully performing a task–one that requires me to immediately jot down my current train of thought–to consciously trying to remember and recognize which icon I’m looking for. It’s really disorienting, and I’ve found it to be the one consistent hiccup in my Notational Velocity/Simplenote workflow.

Worse, because Mac OS X’s application switcher lists active applications in the order in which they were last used, I can’t even train myself to click a specific area of the screen, as I would, say, if their icons were instead ordered alphabetically. (Yes, I’ve tried Witch to switch between windows rather than applications. I like the idea, but it’s just not what I’m looking for.)

Incidentally, this quirk of OS X’s interface goes against another of Raskin’s points:

“Rule 1b. To make an interface habituating, it must be monotonous.

Commentary. “Monotony” here is a technical term meaning that you do not have to choose among multiple gestures to achieve a particular sub-task. Crudely, there should be only one way to achieve a single-gesture subtask.”

Here, Raskin’s criticizing the practice of giving the user more than one way to do a task, (To copy the URL of the aforementioned blog post, we can choose between the keyboard command, the Edit menu, right-click menu, etc.) but application switching in OS X is even more annoying. Depending on how many apps I have open, Notational Velocity can be anywhere in a horizontal list of a dozen other programs.

So I changed the icon.

Now that’s an icon you write things in!

Instead, I’m using DeviantArt contributor ^pica-ae’s beautiful Red Moleskine icons.

She’s also created a number of similar icons in more traditional Moleskine colours, but I find I prefer the red one. It stands out against the other applications I use, and as a bonus, feels easier to associate with Notational Velocity’s functionality than the black icons. I’ve used the red icon for about a week now, and it’s worked out well. Is that strictly because it’s an inherently more appropriate icon? Not at all. Perhaps it’s simply easier to find because I’m subconsciously recognizing the effort that went into thinking about the problem and finding what I felt to be a more suitable icon.

This is by no means a perfect solution. I’m frustrated that I couldn’t ever get used to using the rocket-cabinet icon, just because it IS so apt and clever.²

Another option might have been to simply train myself not to use Command-Tab to switch to Notational Velocity. It’s in the same position on my Dock. I tend to keep the open Notational Velocity window to the left side of my desktop, where it does tend to peek out from behind other apps. Couldn’t I have just learned to click the open window rather than looking for the icon? Couldn’t I have used Exposé?

Sure, there were plenty of options available, but changing the way I switch apps might actually have been an even greater change for me to deal with. Consider this: I’ve switched applications the same way on Mac OS X since 2002. I’ve used applications with pads-of-paper for icons to jot down notes since Windows 3.1. Perhaps four months with Notational Velocity and its new icon was simply not long enough for me to learn a new mode of behavior.

My experience here has demonstrated something I think we should all take to heart when designing interfaces: a change to established practices can be really, really hard for users to accept, even if they agree the change makes complete sense.

1. Tch, your MOM has synesthesia.
2. And purpose-designed! Sorry, Colin Cody!

I’m pleased to confirm that, yes, I will be at WordCamp Vancouver 2010 on June 12. I’ll be speaking with Tris Hussey about the upcoming (Possibly just-released by then!) WordPress 3.0 and child themes. For more information about child themes, check out Tris’ blog.

Personally, I’m excited about the new content types and menu features available in WP 3.0 and I’m looking forward to seeing what people do with them. Remember, WordPress isn’t just for blogs!

As a longtime Drupal developer, I’m particularly impressed to realize that all but three sites I’ve ever worked on could be implemented in WordPress 3.0 as or more easily than the Drupal, ExpressionEngine, or Plone backends they were built with. As such, I’ll be paying close attention to the “WordPress as a CMS” panel discussion with Christine Rondeau, Cam Cavers, and Dave Zille.

I’ll also be volunteering at the WP Genius Bar, where I’ll be free to answer any questions you might have or help fix any problems you might be having with your blog. I’m particularly happy to offer advice on WP 3.0 or child themes, topics I enjoy doing more than just give talks about.

If you don’t already have tickets to WordCamp Vancouver, I’m afraid they’ve sold out, so tough beans. However, as the WordCamp Vancouver site notes:

Tickets are currently sold out, but we’re hoping to release a few more before the event, so hang tight!

Fingers crossed!

I hope to see you there–and if you have any questions about child themes, leave a comment on this post! I’d love to hear about what people are interested in.

So I got it, only to discover that all the config fields were empty. Apparently version 1.6.4 has a bit of a problem with not prepopulating the fields with the proper strings and escape characters. Whoops.

Fortunately, Tris found a site that had a giant screenshot of the actual settings here. So in the event that you’re taking advice about the version 1.6.4 of the All in One SEO pack for WordPress, do check that out, won’t you? You’ll have to retype everything, but still, awesome.

I really don’t want to see this yellow “All in One SEO Pack must be configured” message at the top of all my posts, and hey, better SEO stuff would be super, too, so I’m fixing that right now.

If you’re not using it, you should be. More hits are better hits.

(Thanks, Tris!)

However, I couldn’t help but notice a number of interesting searches by which people are coming here.

Okay, that’s different.

This sums up my day fairly accurately.

Other bewildering search terms people used to arrive here include:

• bridget botelho chocolate sweet deal
• omega.com robot chat
• pentagon demon
• the omega point that could make the end
• vacuum ejaculator

You people. Seriously, what the hell?

I’ve been convinced for a long time that the biggest threat to free speech in the 21st century is not, as in past eras, some kind of trend towards authoritarianism, but rather, intellectual property encumbrances. The idea that VANOC can trademark lines from O Canada is appalling to me. It’s bad enough that the Olympics have become so branded and mired in the exclusivity of the brand that they’ve threatened Olympia Pizza in Vancouver’s West End, to say nothing of the actions taken since then.

Thus, I wholeheartedly support the choice to the True North Media House in response to the line trademarked by VANOC.

But I’ve been thinking about situations where The Authorities have confiscated memory cards or deleted photos and so, I’m wondering about technical workarounds to this: I would consider using an EyeFi card in my camera to tether with a 3G phone (say, a jailbroken iPhone or possibly something with reasonable battery life.) to automatically upload my photos to my website or Flickr so that I wasn’t actually storing any pictures, I was posting them live. Short of jamming or Iranian-scale network monitoring and packet inspection, there would really be little anyone could do, assuming the images themselves were legal.

If I take a photo of a poster with the Olympic Rings, is distribution of that photo a trademark or copyright violation? Is my use of the words “Olympic”, “2010”, “Winter”, or “Games” in this post actionable? No, but what if I’m doing so in protest of something involving one or more of those words?

I mean, I don’t seriously consider myself at risk for having the last name “Winters”, or for writing under that name, but it’s so important to explicitly affirm that I have the right to do so when proposing –or passing!– any law that purports to restrict speech.

From the TNMH website:

We intend to create a space in downtown Vancouver to serve as a media resource centre with high-speed internet, audio and video production facilities, green screen and interview space, press conference space and workstations.

This project was launched by a group of media makers who covered the past several Olympic Games as un-accredited media. The organization has grown into a extensive group of volunteers from various industries and bringing diverse skills and motivations to the project.

Nice, right? Dave notes that they’ve been careful to identify as a group distinct from anti-Olympic protestors as well as the IOC itself. He says that his interest is in finding the stories the mainstream media can’t or doesn’t cover. He wants to make friends with people from other countries, hang out with them and enjoy a game or two: this is what breaks down the differences between us and makes it hard to hate people from “over there”, wherever that may be.

And he’s right. Studies demonstrate residing in large, diverse cities, or international travel — even religious pilgrimage — increases tolerance, respect and understanding for people lucky enough to be able to make the trip. And isn’t that what the Olympics are supposed to be about?

Unlike a few friends and bloggers, I’m not a huge sports fan myself. At the same time, I’ve been known to enjoy watching a game, taking in an event. But it’s the stories Dave’s interested in telling that are most interesting to me. And that’s why I’m going to go to the next TNMH meeting.