Tim Berners-Lee: A Tribute

It's hard to be impressed anymore. But when I learned of the phenomenal achievements of Tim Berners-Lee, I became not only impressed, but awestruck.

Tim Berners-Lee is credited with inventing the World Wide Web. And what did you do today?

The World Wide Web is the portion of the internet which is basically involved with websites, as opposed to other internet usages such as email or FTP.

Fifteen years ago, there was no web and only a very rudimentary internet. No Travelocity. No iTunes. No Ebay, Amazon or American Singles. No Mapquest. No Google, Yahoo or AOL.

But then came Tim Berners-Lee.

In 1989, at the European Particle Physics Laboratory where he worked, he proposed that "a global hypertext space be created in which any network-accessible information could be refered to by a single "Universal Document Identifier"."

A year later, he developed the of the language of the web, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), along with the rules by which information flows across the internet, HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), and the web addressing method, URL (Uniform Resource Locator).

In order to demonstrate this new technology, he was also involved with the development of two other essential firsts: a web server - the computer which hosts web content, and a browser, the software which enables users to access web content.

In a classic example of technology enabling its own replication, some of the first content posted on the first web server was the specifications for HTML, HTTP, and URL. This allowed academics, and later business people across the world to set up their own web servers and connect to the web.

Soon, in 1994, he organized theWorld Wide Web Consortium at MIT, and also in France and Japan to promote ongoing development and uniform implementation of new protocols. Reality check: that was only 11 years ago!

Now a few quotes from Mr. Berners-Lee to demonstrate the largeness of his thinking:

"The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential: the fact that a hypertext link can point to anything, be it personal, local or global, be it draft or highly polished."

There is a "great need for information about information, to help us categorize, sort, pay for, own information..."

"There was a second part of the dream, too, dependent on the Web being so generally used that it became a realistic mirror (or in fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we work and play and socialize. That was that once the state of our interactions was on line, we could then use computers to help us analyse it, make sense of what we are doing, where we individually fit in, and how we can better work together."

These words point to a vision of a global interconnectedness which could actually help us understand ourselves better, at many different levels, and assist us in realizing our optimum placement within the global community.

Berners-Lee does not stop at that utopian vision, he goes on to map out where we need to go next:

"...very few people in practice have access to intuitive hypertext creation tools."

A next step, therefore, would be to develop and disseminate the tools to create web content, so that the mass of web visitors become not just surfers, viewers, searchers and downloaders. They become creators, too.

Now, in 2005, it is estimated that over 700 million people, or over 10% of the world population have internet access. From 1994 until present the web has grown an average of 275% each year. All of this and much, much more has stampeded into and created our future as a direct result of the work of Tim Berners-Lee.

As I said, I am awestruck.

Quotes from Mr. Berners-Lee were taken from his website, which I highly recommend: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Overview.html
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Tim didn't write Poingo software, but it's good anyway. Check it out.
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Observing the Protocols: HTTP, WWW, URL and HTML

Many among us sail through our lives blissfully ignorant of the reason our web addresses start with the secret code "http//:" Increasingly we think it is superfluous because when we omit entering it into the address line of our browser, usually we arrive at our destination regardless.

I have even seen people dropping the "www." part of the web address, and they sometimes connect anyway. What does it all mean?

Let's start with http. It is an acronym for the tongue twister HyperText Transfer Protocol. When you type this into your web browser, you are telling it that you intend to interact with the internet according to a specific set of rules (protocols), and the internet will respond in return.

Your web browser, such as Internet Explorer(tm), is software which helps you communicate with the internet by sending your requests out and retrieving the files you are seeking. When you search the internet or type a URL (Uniform Resource Locator, or web address) into the address bar of your browser, you are in effect requesting to view files.

These files could be text and images. Your browser assembles and displays them according to more rules, this time the rules come from the language of the internet, HTML ("Hypertext Markup Language").

When you navigate to a website, your browser looks for a file named index.htm. This file contains the basic structure of the overall site, and tells your browser what other files to look for and how to display them on your screen.

When you click on a link, your browser sends out another request, and either replaces the page you are viewing with a new page, or opens an entirely new page and displays the files.

The huge portion of the internet which uses http:// to find websites which in turn use HTML language for displaying files is called the World Wide Web. Thus the URL http://www.website.com is basically saying:

Ms. Browser, please use the HyperText Transfer Protocol to access the World Wide Web and obtain files from website.com. Then display them on my screen according to the rules written in the file index.htm, which is written in Hypertext Markup Language.

And the amazing thing is... it does!
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Visit the Poingo website. Written in 100% real HTML! No fillers. No cheap substitutes.
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The Brain Drain

Am I the only one, or does it seem harder and harder to remember things?

I remember long ago, somehow I made a barely-conscious decision to purge useless information from my brain. This was probably to make room for newer, more exciting information, such as the name of that cute girl over there or the latest interpretation of the Special Theory of Relativity.

It was a double edged strategy. I was able to process loads of new data, but the mundane, such as remembering to wear matching shoes, suffered.

I moved through life controlled by a CPU which more resembled RAM (random access, or temporary, memory) as opposed to archival hard-drive storage. But oddly, I was able to conjure up weird pieces of exhaustively researched triviata which held my rapt attention for an intense half-life until they decayed and lay abandoned on the trail behind me.

Such is the world inside my head. A place where fascination can be triggered by the profoundly mundane, held under laser and electron microscope until all secrets are revealed, only to be abandoned like a pregnant hillbilly girlfriend.

As an older fart, the strangeness of my mind-space becomes even more noticeable. Now I have old-timers disease as well as Einsteinitis. I know I should be drilling down to some essential truth, I just can't remember what it is. I may even be drilling unconsciously without even knowing it.

So here I am, like millions in my demographic, who can't remember shit.

I am sure I get amazing amounts accomplished, I just seem to have lost track of what these accomplishments actually are.

Which is why I developed the Poingo Bounceback Server. Think of it as Ginko Bilaboa on steroids, except that it can be validated.

Here's how it works: When I send an email which requires follow-up, I send a copy (or a blind-copy) of the email to the Poingo Bounceback server. If, for instance, I want the email to bounce back to me in one week, I copy the email to 1w@poingo.com. One week later, when I have thoroughly forgotten the incredible urgency of the project, my email reappears to refresh my decidedly unfresh memory.

At this point I will decide whether to issue yet another emailed nudge or hock-a-chinik in some other way. If I send out a reminder email, again I will copy the Bounceback Server for whatever interval I think will make me look incredibly efficient to my nudgee.

You might be surprised at the number of emails you could send out, even in one day, which would be be candidates for this type of reminder system. I send emails to the Bounceback Server between 5 and 10 times a day. In addition, I also open emails bounced back to me from the Bounceback Server another 5-10 times a day.

The bounced back emails typically come around midnight, so they are awaiting me when I start my work day. I quickly process them, deleting some completed items, following others, postponing others for a later date. My projects maintain momentum. People know I care. Progress takes place.

I appear to be at the top of my game even though in truth I am operating on maybe one last badly worn but highly experienced brain cell.

I use Bounceback Server not only for business followup, but also for anything requiring remembering, such as buying birthday presents, changing furnace filters, paying estimated taxes or taking showers.

This service is available to you for the pitifully low price of $14.95 for 1000 bouncebacks. That is less than a small handful of bootlegged Aderals and it won't attack your liver. You can even send emails using up to three different email addresses, and the Bounceback Server will still recognize you as a friend. Sign up now at www.poingo.com before you forget.
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You're starting to forget already. Sign up now...........really! NOW!!
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Megapixels of Doom

There seems to be a file size disconnect between pictures routinely snapped by most digital cameras, and the desire of many amateur photographers to share their pics as email attachments or online.

Photographically, most of us are using an elephant gun to shoot a flea. We respond like addicts when each camera ad offers to place yet more megapixels at our disposal, and we brag at cocktail parties that ours has more than yours. But such are actions of the uninformed.

In the real world, unless you are a pro, all those pixels are unnecessary and can bring trouble.

A very average digital camera will take a snapshot which is 2048 x 1536 pixels (dots). If you multiply the two numbers, you get 3, 146,000 pixels, or dots which comprise your picture. This is the number (3.1 megapixels) the camera companies tout as being more wonderful than sex and drugs taken in unison.

Photos are saved in JPG format, in medium-high compression. The file size for one photo will be about 2/3 of one megabyte. For math fans, that works out to 1 kilobyte of storage memory controlling 2/3 of one inch square of picture.

"So whazza problem? Got my camera, it gots the mega-whatevers, my chick digs it, evateeng's cool, man. No?"

Not quite, cool dude. Because when you try to email your chick pics of her fine accoutrements, your email gonna choke after just a few hot shots. And if you try to upload some of the better images to www.neighbors-in-labor.com or some such amateur site, she might look a little diseased after the website downsizes her.

Why? Because even the biggest typical screen (17"), with one big picture filling the screen would only use about .8 megapixels. If you wanted her picture to display on the screen the size of a 5x7 photo, that would only use 1/10th of a megapixel. You shot 3 megapixels too many, sucker!

That's not the only problem. Your mega pictures will choke her email system and possibly not deliver if you send too many at once. When you hit "Send", it will take a while and possibly forever.

If your photo were optimized for screen viewing, your 5x7 photo would use only about 40 kilobytes (4% of one megapixel!) of storage memory and would look every bit as good. You could send a bunch to her and all your friends.

Thus we arrive at the crux. You could share and send 16 pictures using the amount of memory you used to store a single photo from your fancy-shmancy camera. But don't feel bad. You are definitely not the only one.

The solution, by the way, is to find a camera which allows you to take lower resolution pictures. If you see an art shot you might want to print out at 8x10, crank the resolution for that shot only.

For the bloated pictures you already own, get photo editing software which allows you to downsize the photos while monitoring quality and file size.

Adobe Photoshop is the big name in this field. When you get good at it, you can even create a "droplet", a small icon which sits on your desktop. With Windows Explorer running next to it, drag the folder containing your fat photos over the droplet icon. The entire batch will be immediately downsized according to your instructions.

Now that is something to brag about!
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Get a lot of image attachments? Use Outlook? Get Poingo Outlook Image Editor.
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Son of Adventures with the GPL

Dear Readers,
Last episode ended as Poingo-man stood on the precipice of a very important choice: to give up the secret code and fall in with the forces of the Open Source (motto: "May the Source be with you"), or to spring for some other method of converting to PDF while jealously guarding the source, in the interest of capitalism and self.

All sides presented negative arguments. If Poingo-man gave up the source, zillions of Open-Sourcers could turn out trillions of uncontrolled copies of Email-Printer with nary a nickle tickling Poingo-man's pocket.

Or, Poingo-man could keep Email-Printer private, but have the user separately download Ghostscript, as is done in some other similar apps. Within the GPL, but chintzy.

Or, Poingo-man could say he was going open source, but in reality put out faulty code which would prevent "unauthorized" dissemination. A sure way to bring down the wrath of the warlord GNU.

Or Poingo-man could actually pay retail to have a really smart developer create his own path to the holy PDF, but hey, that costs bucks. Anyone who develops and markets new software knows that the need for bucks is a swirling vacuum which would put Hoover to shame.

The golden revelation came from a conversation with Miles Jones, president of Artifex Software Inc. who oversees the commercial licensing of freely-available Ghostscript. I observed that there are different demographics would want the executable as opposed to the source. The Open Source dudes would probably never pay for Email-Printer anyway, whereas the "I need the function" folks would never take the time or effort to compile. Miles agreed, and he is a guy who should know.

Further. allowing the source to spread could create opportunities for the Open-Source folks to be exposed to other Poingo offerings, which are priced so competetively that even they might buy something, but further, the spread of the source could prompt a corporate deal which could actually be profitable.

So Poingo-man decided, purely for business reasons, to go open source with Poingo Email Printer. The source code is freely available at www.poingo.com. When you get there, feel free to have a look around.


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My Adventures with the GPL

Being relatively ignorant about 1 1/2 years ago when I embarked upon software development, I did not grasp the significance of a comment was made to me by one of my coders.

We were working on Poingo Email Printer, an app which converts documents to either PDF or JPG formats, then does a few more stunts such as date/time stamping the filename and sending large files via FTP.

He told me that the part of the software which does the actual conversion to PDF was free, an application called Ghostscript.

Free was a word I thought I understood, so I easily agreed.

When marketing time came, and site visits and downloads were numbering in the hundreds, I discovered a new meaning for the word "free".

Guess what, there is a whole world out there which takes "free" software very seriously, and "free" doesn't mean what I thought. It was the "open source" crowd, a vast underground of intelligent developers who write code essentially for free, for the betterment and advancement of free software everywhere. Think Linux, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla and many, many more. Somehow, in very short order, they found my software and its dirty little secret.

The open source community is a refreshing countercultural experience, in stark contrast to the uber-capitalist Microsoft steamroller. These guys actually write for free and, based on brains and discipline, have actually presented a credible threat to Big Bill.

Like it or not, I had to face them and figure out where I stood. The first step was a no-brainer: I immediately pulled the software from the site. The harder step was figuring out what to do next.

I exchanged ideas with two terrific guys. The first, Philip Chinery, wrote PDF Creator, an open source program with similar functionality to Email-Printer. The second, a real gentleman named Miles Jones, President of Artifex Software Inc. oversees the commercial licensing of freely-available Ghostscript.

With their generous assistance, I was able to sort out my options. First, they directed me to the GNU GPL, the GNU Project General Public License. It is worthwhile reading available at www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.

The first thing I noticed was that it was written in a funny non-legalese language called English, a language poingologists are particularly fond of. You could actually read it without keeping a scorecard of the whereas', wherefors and reverse-double whammys normally found in legal documents.

Next, it made a distinction between free, as in speech, as opposed to free, as in beer. The GPL people care much more about the former, and not very much about the latter. You can actually charge for the service of distributing free software, as long as you pass on to the next guy the same rights you inherited under the GPL.

In other words, make the source code freely available.

So there was my choice. Give away my precious source code, or find another way to make PDFs.
In the next chapter... my choice.


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10 Steps Toward Better Business Communication

Ultimately, no matter how high-tech your business tools, development and implementation of new initiatives will depend upon effective, productive communication between real live people.

Why do some business meetings result in boredom and lack of focus, whereas others send attendees charging out equipped to wage battle? Why do some supervisors confuse their workers with vague, contradictory suggestions while others support their charges with vision and assistance and help them build their own path to success?

It boils down to good ol' human interaction - a subject somewhat out of vogue since the advent of the motherboard - but guess what? It ain't going away. Without good clear human connectivity, a mile-high stack of computers won't save your company from faltering.

So here is our list of steps you can take to improve your business communication.

1. Remember your vision. You are doing things for a reason. What is it? When you remember why you are doing something and can really feel its importance, that is the time to share your vision with others. Encourage them to speak of their vision for the future. Charge each other up with thoughts of where you want to go. Catch a buzz from envisioning the big picture.

2. Keep the vision alive. People will get mired down with the day to day. Find times to stoke the dream, even informally.

3. When a mutual vision is established and accepted, it is time to talk about how to get there. These talks have two distinct parts: brainstorming and action planning. In brainstorming, you share ideas about what kinds of actions can get you to your goal. But these ideas should be loose and a little wacky. Pick a few uncommon ideas and throw them out to model creative thought. Let your co-workers know that it is time to think freely without criticism. Have fun and laugh. Have a posterboard and write the ideas for all to see, in order to foster associations which could lead to even better ideas.

4. When the ideas seem exhausted, it is time to get serious and build a plan. Cross off ideas which are clearly unworkable. Boil the ideas down to 3-5 action items.

5. There should be one person assigned with overall responsibility for each action item. That person is accountable for its development. She might solicit others to assist. She might assign tasks. Nonetheless, she is the key person for that work item.

6. Follow-up is a fundamental business activity. Without follow-up, all the good work and ideas which are in play will wither and die. Meetings or other follow-up venues must be scheduled regularly to keep all the pots boiling. The top person for each action item must be asked about progress by the person responsible for the overall plan.

7. Review and analyze results and make necessary adjustments. Then build on the good and drop the bad.

8. Do not stigmatize failure. Remember that failure is necessary for success. If you can really internalize this idea, you will be able to fearlessly and logically parse the good and bad in your plan. If you truly embrace failure as a part of the success process, you will be able to make the review/analysis phase engaging, creative and extremely useful.

9. Notice when people do good things and tell them. Some very hard working people toil for a very long time without hearing even one positive sentiment. It's an idea as old as Andrew Carnegie and Reader's Digest, but it may be even more important today. Our computers separate us from human contact even as they connect us. Reach out in a human way. Pay a well-earned compliment. Then watch the startled, then untrusting, then relaxed and very gratified looks you get back in return.

10. Remember that you are a role model. People watch you. If you act fairly, they will trust you. If you are mean or egotistical, they will dislike and undermine you. If you help them, they will help you. Think of the people you most admire. Think about their effect on you. Can you absorb some of that goodness and pay it forward?
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Be a better manager with better follow-up. Use Bounceback Server. Never forget to follow up again.
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Shortcuts and HotKeys

Anyone who has been confronted with a screenful of overlapping windows can appreciate the need to execute the tasks from the keyboard rather than from the mouse.

Our vote for most-needed keyboard shortcut is the one which clears all your open windows to reveal a blank desktop, thus enabling you to access the "Start" menu and all of your desktop icons. This great, but little-known shortcut is "Windows+D" (the Microsoft Windows button at the lower left corner of your keyboard, pressed at the same time as the letter "D"). It is a toggle, so after you get what you need from the desktop, press "Windows+D" again and all of your open windows will reappear.

Unfortunately the most well known shortcut is Control+Alt+Delete. Most of us know that one all too well because it is the only thing you can do to try to fix your computer when it gets stubborn and locks up. Pressing it once in Windows XP gives you the Task Manager, which allows you to shut down programs which are behaving badly.

The second most well-known keyboard shortcuts are "Control+C" (copy), "Control+X"(cut) and "Control+V" (paste), probably because of their frequent usage as well as their usefulness in almost all software applications. Sometimes these shortcuts work even when right-clicking fails to produce the drop-down menu containing the "copy" and "paste" choices.

Another great HotKey combination which works with many applications and is wonderfully useful: Control++ (Control plus the plus sign) and Control +- (Control plus the minus sign). These allow you to enlarge or shrink your screen display and make things easier to view.

For an exhaustive list of Windows(tm) keyboard shortcuts, check out this article:
support.microsoft.com Article on Keyboard Shortcuts

Individual software applications also are HotKey friendly. I am sure that many of you have noticed the underlined first letter in each word across the top of the screen of almost all Windows-based applications. You know,


Did you know that you can invoke those commands by pressing "Alt+ the underlined letter"? When the drop down menu appears, it too has underlined letters which allow you to continue HotKeying your way to functionality. With HotKeys, you can pretty much keep on working even if a fun-loving but unscrupulous co-worker puts mucilage in your mouse.

Here at the Poingo Productivity Research Lab (motto: "Quick, run out and get me a motto!"), we estimate that less than 1 in 10 computer users actually use HotKeys in their daily work, even though Hotkeys can save them time.

Our skilled technicians, after a preponderance of pondering and a couple of beers go on to theorize that the reason is, HotKeys are hard to remember. And why are they hard to remember? Um...we forgot.

Just kidding. HotKeys are hard to remember because they require rote memorization and practice. In our stimulus-blasting environment, it can be tough to remember even a small piece of information, let alone practice it enough to make it stick.

The best, and most long-lasting memorizations take place when the new information is meaningful and relevant, when the new knowledge builds upon previous knowledge, and is somehow interacted with by the memorizer.

Forgettable: "The New Deal began in 1933."
Better: "The New Deal is widely credited with ending the Great Depression."
Even better: "The New Deal helped my ancestors get on their feet after the Great Depression."
Very better: "My grandmother came to the United States in the depths of the Great Depression. New Deal programs gave her employment and benefits which helped her and her new-born daughter, my mother, rise up from poverty."

Which is one reason (memorization, not the Great Depression) Lightning Navigator was developed. Lightning Navigator, a member of the Poingo Productivity Suite, allows you to create your own HotKey combinations. The HotKey combinations always start with "Control+Alt" so you only configure a single key to perform your task. You are challenged to use your creativity to select a HotKey which is relevant to the task and meaningful to you. Because you select the key, it is much easier to remember.

Obviously the trick would be, for instance, to pick Control+Alt+W for work files. Truly creative users will select, for example, Control+Alt+A for files pertaining to Uncle Morty, because once you saw an armadillo in his yard.

But even the best memory-imagery specialists need a little help. That is why Lightning Navigator also prints your HotKey list so you can cheat and take a peek when you need.

For an inexpensive ($14.95 from www.poingo.com) little app, you can do an awful lot of shortcutting. You can launch applications, navigate to websites and ftp sites, navigate to files and folders within the browse windows of many popular programs, create emails, even pre-addressed and pre-written, paste pre-programmed text and graphics into your documents, and even selectively grab screen contents for pasting into your documents.

It works great, and carries the Poingology Seal of Approval. Try it for free!
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Try the best hotkey shortcut software in the galaxy. Download Lightning Navigator for free.
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The Importance of File Names

Unless you place your faith in internal search engine software or document databases to track your work, consider a relatively low-tech enhancement to your work methods. I promise it will pay big dividends.

Think about how you name your files and folders. Have you missed an opportunity to clear the clutter and make your work more accessible? When you look at file names within a folder, do they sing out to you with sweet meaningfulness, or are they a cacophonous jumble of confusing heiroglyphics?

The eye likes symmetry. The mind loves order. When you create files and they pile upon one another over time, does their accumulation reflect a master plan or a disaster unplanned? When you view your list of files, is your eye happy, your mind content?

With all of your experience with computers, how often do you discuss file & folder naming strategies? Is it a topic in your company? If so, I would like to hear it. Basically, filenaming is an unrecognized art, and you can be the artist.

Let's start by considering the basis upon which files should be ordered. I will jump to the punchline and say it out loud: chronologically. To order files chronologically, have the filename start with a datestamp prefix such as YYYYMMDD- or YYMMDD. If you do this, your files will always sort themselves chronologically and you will have no trouble finding the latest and greatest work within a folder.

By the way, Poingo Email-Printer has an automatic date/timestamp filenaming feature which is worth investigating (www.poingo.com). What a coincidence, all three date formats offered in Poingo Email-Printer put the year first so files always sort chronologically.

What you do following the datestamp prefix depends upon how the file will be used. If the file travels to someone else as an email attachment and then returns back to you after some sort of review, I recommend having the second portion of your filename be a locator.

The locator can be a 3-5 character abbreviation which will give you a solid hint about where the file needs to be refiled upon its return. You develop the locator so that you and others in your group recognize it as an abbreviation for a project. When they see the datestamp prefix and locator, they will already have much information about the contents of the file.

After entering the datestamp prefix and locator, now you can write a nice, meaty descriptive text (descriptor). Use as many characters as you like, just beware that beyond a certain length, the filename will be truncated during display, and you will lose, rather than gain information. Consider 30 characters to be a maximum filename size.

Subtracting 7 characters for the date stamp and 3-5 characters for the locator, this gives you 18-20 characters to tell your story. The way to know if you are doing a bad job with descriptors, is when you see the identical descriptor in multiple files. Don't repeat descriptive text unless you specifically want to highlight the similarity between the two files.

Tip: NO spaces in names of files or folders. Spaces are not FTP-friendly and you may be FTP-ing sooner than you think.

Tip: NO unnecessary capital letters and DEFINITELY NO TEXT WITH ALL CAPS. It's not only irritating, but it also takes away a useful tool, that of using upper and lower case text for better conveying your message.

Tip: Find a style and stick with it. For example, if you like the looks of hyphens separating datestamp, locators and descriptors, then do it that way every time. If using underscore between words in the descriptor feels right, then make it a habit. Even artists can have discipline, you know.

Tip: Use language to the greatest extent possible. In other words, use words more than acronyms. Cutsey corporate acronyms, after the first dozen or so, get pretty boring.

Examples of good file names:
050727-par-FieldTesting.doc
2004-o4-21-oak-Access_to_site.xls
Bad file names:
article.doc
Work Project.xls
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Poingo Email Printer automatically timestamps filenames. Try it for free now!
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