When Good Software gets Trapped in the “Cloud.”

One of the challenges of living in an era where software applications and their associated files are rented instead of owned is that there are moments when I find something that I really love that is completely broken.

I really like what Notion does. As a project management tool, it is an amazing piece of software. On a very basic level, it is a simplified document and project management system, but that is really under-selling its capacity. The genius of the software is in its simplicity and accessibility. I can build a rapid version of project tracking database in less than 30 minutes, add a documentation space, connect it to a Slack channel for regular project updates, and be good to go. Courtney and I have been using it for our game design project. I am tracking my dissertation work and my job hunt via the site, and it has been quite useful. I have no complaints on the use of the software. There is no denying that.

If Notion was a software package I could buy, I would already own it. Sadly, it’s not. It’s a web-based application. If I use it, I place all my critical …

“Blog Engine Revamp - Full Cirle”

Ghost 2.0 was just released. In a lot of ways, it is an excellent release. The entire engine is elegant and easy to use. I can absolutely see why so many people love it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t love it as much.

Here are the issues that I saw. I want to note here that these are issues that are tied, very clearly, to my corner case. I think that the Ghost developers are making a product that best suits a large portion of their user-base. They should. I am just not a part of that base.

Editor

The new editor is gorgeous. The dynamic cards absolutely add excellent functionality. They also make the editor far busier and much more clumsy.

Ghost claims that:

Ghost’s editor is still about doing one thing, really well: Writing.

I don’t think it is. I think the editor is more about providing formatting tools and rich content than it is about writing. From my own experience, the writing process was certainly degraded by the cards. The movement away from a simple Markdown editor (or at least leaving it as an option) definitely figured heavily in my decision.

Note, too, that in …

How to Contact and Comment

In my last post, I talked about why I block comments on most media sites. You might have noticed that I don’t have comments here, either. I know I only have a few readers (at best), and most of the comments I have received have been helpful and constructive. I don’t really need to block comments, but the truth is that I don’t find comment communication constructive or helpful. Most of the time, it becomes a chore where I monitor comments for automated spam. That’s the problem with a comment system. It encourages low-effort interactions that don’t tend to create any lasting connection. I don’t want that on my site.

If you have do have a constructive question or a comment, please feel free to email me. I like email because it remains in my email. I have a really high level of control, and email is deliberately, obviously, asynchronous. I am allowed to read, process and respond without fear of additional comments or explosions that derail entire conversations. In short, we can actually communicate. In the same way, that control means I don’t need to respond to trolls in my email. At …

The Internet is More than Social Media

I wanted to take a moment to talk about Brian Chen’s article, “The Internet Trolls Have Won. Sorry, There’s Not Much You Can Do.” in the New York Times. It’s an interesting piece for a lot of reasons, and I like a lot of what Brian and Dr. Papacharissi have to say. That said, I have trouble with an approach that accepts the status quo as inevitable; especially, when that acceptance helps to normalizes a reliance on corporate governance as the only possible way to fix the internet and networked communications.

Chen isn’t wrong. His article just appears assumes there is only one option, to continue using and relying on the problematic platforms developed by those corporations and hope they “fix” it for us. They won’t. The Internet trolls have “won” because the corporations that drive modern social media platforms make a ton of money off those trolls (see my Valve discussion) for more on that). Until they stop making money (this is something that Facebook may actually be grappling with) the trolls will win. Of course, they only win on those platforms.

If you rely on those platforms, you’re sunk. So you have …