Kim Heintz » Thoughts

Me and my knowledge

Kim — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 02:33:53 +0000

Two articles passed my way which involved the book is going to die and the web is dead. There’s a lot of “death” going on. I view the book, the web, internet, etc as tools. They are tools at which I gather information to increase my knowledge. To understand, to know, to laugh, to cry, to…something. It helps us to connect to something. That is the heart of everything.

As my knowledge increases, I find that the tools that are available to me is not enough. Now that data has become more open, better tools are needed to organize, manage, and understand. So that is my current focus. I’m on a mission to come up with a solution to best find and organize this information.

Because seriously, the ones out there right now ain’t cuttin it.

Brain dump (Part Deux!)

Kim — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 02:42:52 +0000

As stated in an earlier post, I’ve been working on trying to come up with a strategy on managing my brain dump. My brain dump consists of all types of information such as notes (on actual paper) and internet links/articles, etc.

I have moved beyond bookmarking. It does not work for me anymore. It’s gotten out of control. So what is it that I am looking for? Here are my requirements:

I need to be able to merge the physical (ex. handwritten notes) and non physical information together (ex. internet information).
Back up the information.
Host it myself. I do not like relying on a website to host my information. What if the website disappears or does not allow me to export the information that I have gathered?
Internet information:
1. Need to be able to snag a screenshot of the website
2. Automatic citation
3. Ease of saving, sharing, etc.
Allow the use across various devices and platforms.

Apps that I have looked at/used:

Delicious
Zootool
Zotero
Evernote
Google Docs
Tumblr
WordPress
Posterous

Apps that I need to try:

All the software by Omnigroup
Yojimbo
Devonthink

GAH!

Brain dump

Kim — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:09:38 +0000

I’m currently in the process of working on figuring out a solution on my brain dump. I have lots of information that I have bookmarked, linked, etc. As I thought about it, this phrase popped in my head.

Hypothesis: The lack of persistent information can discredit said information.

Twitter / Liz Strauss: It’s harder to market some …

Kim — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:51:03 +0000

It’s harder to market something people have never imagined or experienced. 11:31 AM Aug 2nd via TweetDeck link

This statement makes me…sad in a way. I guess it’s because upon reading it, it implies that is impossible. But then it fires me up and challenges me to prove that acceptance of innovation is possible. This would be the ideal side of me. In the end, the story of the shopping cart is what keeps me going.

The last time I updated was a year ago!

Kim — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 16:44:17 +0000

A lot has happened since I’ve last updated my “professional blog”. I’ve been experimenting/playing with lots of things as well as starting to teach as an adjunct at RIT. Here’s a brief overview:

Movable Type – (see rit.kimheintz.com and kaizen.iciskaye.com)
- I’ve been playing with it and getting a sense of how it works in comparison to WordPress.
- Will make a post on my thoughts.
Flogr
- I’ve installed it here and will hope to come up with a theme.
Flavors.me
- a lifestreaming service content gatherer of goodness. Here’s mine.
- Will make a post on my thoughts.
InfoVis conference – I am contemplating on going.
Making the Gull Website w/ Kampy
- I learned how to make a theme in WordPress.
Reading the book Getting Things Done
Photography – Old school style!
- My dad sent me his Polaroid camera (uses 600 film) and his Canon EOS 2000 along with a telephoto lens. I will be using straight up film and will be having fun along side with fellow Jacob Barber who is into the non-digital cameras.
Adjunct Teaching – I taught one course so far (Interactive Digital Media – an intro to Flash), and am currently teaching my second one (2D Animation).
- Will make a post on my experience thus far.
Kung Fu and Tai Chi – I am on a quest to learn!
My online web presence. I am constantly doing battle with this. I have two. isallcaps – the personal side and iciskaye – the professional side. Should there even be two? Or just one. I will end up writing a post to weigh in on this. This will be my next post.
Building my sundial calendar app.

Let’s think about what type of data

Kim — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:40:29 +0000

Before I start coming up with some sketches, it is important to figure out what type of data will be in this application as well as how the data will correlate with each other.

My thought process will follow Ben Shneiderman‘s Visual Information Seeking Mantra of:

“Overview First, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand“.

In this post, I am going to brainstorm the types of data that I will be using and in future posts, take each section and break it down.

Calendar data - Time-based with various events/appointments generally falling into three type of categories:

Time-specific – ex. Doc Appt
All day – ex. Birthday
Span/range – ex. Vacation

To-do lists or tasks - Can or cannot be time based and can fall into two type of categories:

Deadline
Ongoing

Personal data – Data that you want to use for your own reference so that you can see patterns. Some examples:

Sick/Illness – ex. Flu in November and Sinus Infection in December
Car maintenance
Moods
Food diary

Social data – Data from social sites. Some examples are:

Blogs
Photos
Bookmarks

Other data – Data that doesn’t fall in the above categories, but I think it will be interesting to see how it meshes with the other data. Examples:

Weather
News events
Pop culture
Historic events

The next post, I will do some deeper brainstorming into the Calendar data.

From calendar to…?

Kim — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:35:10 +0000

When I first came up with this idea for my Thesis, I originally wanted to come up with a way to visualize calendar data. Now, I want to do more. I’ve been interested in the concept of lifestreaming for quite some time now as well as managing your personal information. Wouldn’t it be nice to see a graphical representation of when you were sick so you can see patterns? For example, I always come down with a sinus infection every few months, but I’m not sure exactly when because I don’t write it down.

My goal is to turn this calendar application to a personal diary/calendar/lifestreaming/personal information manager and using information visualization techniques and going beyond that. Imagine my Capstone calendar demo + lifestreaming.

You are probably thinking I’m crazy and that it’s not possible. Or who would use it. Well, this guy talked briefly about a calendar UI for lifestreaming. Also, I am making this for me…cause I’m that kind of a person.

I will be posting some initial concept drawings soon.

Beginning/Continuation

Kim — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:21:03 +0000

About a year ago, I had my Capstone Defense and passed. I put the calendar project, on the back burner to take care of things and get my brain off of it. But now I’m ready to begin again.

I have fresh eyes and new ideas. I am ready.

Let the fun begin!

Lifestreaming

Kim — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:33:56 +0000

Lifestreaming is “an online record of a person’s daily activities, either via direct video feed or via aggregating the person’s online content such as blog posts, social network updates, and online photos.” (Wordspy)

I was reading this post from Flowing Data, and it got me thinking why people are either interested or not interested in social data.

Lifestreaming is something I’ve been following for quite some time now. Heck, I have one of my own that I have been testing out. Unfortunately, current lifestreaming applications as well as the one I am using, does not quite meet my needs.

I view lifestreaming as my personal online diary. Therefore, when I aggregate all of my social data into an application, I want ALL of my data (including private/protected entries – for example: a protected Twitter account or a Flickr photo that is only viewable by my friends) to show up in the application. Which leads to a big issue: data portablity.

Case in point: Can you export all your Facebook activity to something?

There are other things that I want bug me which I won’t get into. But I do plan on doing something about it…