Yesterday I posted a link related to the death of JG Ballard. I think this Guardian article sums up why Ballard was more than a mere science fiction writer, and it elegantly condenses my fascination with Ballard in a sole paragraph:
The young science fiction author “wasn’t interested in the far future, spaceships and all that”, he explained; rather he was interested in “the evolving world, the world of hidden persuaders, of the communications landscape developing, of mass tourism, of the vast conformist suburbs dominated by television – that was a form of science fiction, and it was already here”.
Normally I’m not the guy that uses a task management scheme (which, I have the feeling, sometimes only exist to fill its creator’s pockets) or similar procedures. A good old Excel sheet, or nowadays a task-centric web app, always provided all the task management I needed. Despite all that i have to admit that Tracks (local installer here) looks quite promising. Especially for freelancers, where the line between private and professional tasks is often a blurry one.
Some terms are too often used with only a rough and blurry definition of what they might contain and in which context they can be applied. I am as guilty of this as is every information worker. So, to make sense of terms like Knowledge Management, Internal Communications and eCollaboration, they have to be defined first. Regarding Information Architecture and User Experience, this article tries to incorporate these topics in a unifying concept. It is thoughtful, written with insight, and only the first in an upcoming series, so you are hereby ordered to read it – not only because it accomplishes the feat of simultaneously coining and explaining a new term along the way: the Enterprise-Wide Information System.
How to install and configure Wordpress when you are stuck with one of the worst hosters in the world, like some friends of mine were:
- Make sure you have the appropriate hosting package, at least one that features the so-called ‘Weblog Pro’ option.
- In the Strato Customer Center you can install Wordpress (which is the software behind the fancy ‘Pro’ name) with a few clicks. There is only one thing to keep in mind: You cannot install it in a subdomain.
- After you are done you can access a brand new Wordpress installation with only a few minor shortcomings. Of course, I am being sarcastic here, the few minor shortcomings are 1) no possibility to upload files or images via the admin/edit-interface (FTP only) and 2) no working WYSIWG editor either.
- To fix number one, create a file named php.ini (filename in lowercase, please) with these lines of code within:
memory_limit = “16″
safe_mode = off
- Upload this file via FTP to your main Wordpress-directory (to make sure that the PHP-settings are applied to all directories on your webspace you should also upload it to your wp-admin, wp-content, wp-includes and your upload-folders) and number one should no longer be a problem.
- I don’t know why the WYSIWYG-editor works fine now, but here is what solved it in my case:
- Install the FCK-Editor plugin and activate it
- Edit any post with it
- Deactivate it…
- … and now the default WYSIWYG editor should work fine.
This is obviously not a very good way to spend some of your precious hours. And i haven’t even mentioned the circumstances of working with more than one domain in the same Strato account yet. I am just so glad to have marksimon.de hosted on a reliable hosting provider that made the setting up of this site a breeze.
As i mentioned here before, i think that a sociological perspective might be able to shed light on the much-debated Enterprise 2.0 & ROI-topic. Well, so how could a starting point for this approach look? This list of social software usage offers some promising hints. Granted, these examples are all formulated in a way that measuring hard figures might seem nearly impossible at first, but you have to keep in mind that social interaction between employees can also yield a measurable revenue – even if it is only one employee posing a question.
Definitely a tool to keep an eye on: ThoughtFarmer. In contrast to SharePoint, this seems like a really easy-to-use and intuitive portal and collaboration suite. And on a related note, this must be one of the neatest intranet rollouts i have ever seen.