Microsoft is losing… I’ve been using Opera now for months, and I only use IE for a few sites that misbehave. I got so sick of Outlook’s UI and flaky IMAP sent-mail handling that I went on an mua search a while back, and now I’ve been using Mozilla Thunderbird now for a while. It’s solid, the UI is clean, it has good (and customizable) keyboard shortcuts, and IMAP works reliably. The only thing I still use Outlook for is contacts, calendar and task list. Outlook’s calendar and task list are actually pretty good, but what I’d really like is an app that would replace those functions, integrate with Thunderbird, and also make my PIM data available online automatically. Anyone?

I spent the entire day today building the scow pier for Hoofers. Driving the crane barge and running a team of volunteers to lay steel girders and decking out into the lake so I can sail next weekend! It feels great to do physical work, and building that pier required a good bit of problem-solving and finesse with the outboard. Reminded me a bit of the old shipyard days. Good stuff.

Veen mentioned cycling in the rain the other day — I think the same day that I rode home from school in the rain myself. I’m trying to be more of a bicycle commuter — and yes, I probably look like a dork with my fenders and clip-on briefcase, but again the physical activity feels good. I actually find myself wishing that I lived a little farther from school & work, because it’s not really far enough to make for a real ride. It’s quick & convenient, but when I get going, I wouldn’t mind going a bit farther.

A follow-up note on my last post: really, formal ontologies have always seemed largely a waste of time. Most efforts to classify information fail to add more value than they cost to produce and maintain, not to mention the friction they introduce in terms of spurious classification. I think that a lot of the reason that ontologies (e.g. email folders, the “open directory”, Yahoo’s categories) have seemed so important in the past was the lack of robust immediate search functionality. An ontology is essentially an attempt at an index of a summary of the whole body of information. That summary is only required when you can’t efficiently index the information directly. With search like Google and mail tools like Opera’s M2, you don’t need to introduce a layer of categorization to find what you’re looking for — you simply search for the original content. With the need to categorize for the purpose of summarization eliminated, we can now use “categories” to add meaning in a social context, which is what del.icio.us does.

I had an idea for a del.icio.us-style app last night… One thing del.icio.us lets you do is discover who happens to have the same taste/interests in webstuff; its main facts are people and URL’s, and you can pivot on either. I think it might be interesting to do this in a more product-focused way… Ever want to know who other listeners of your favorite but obscure radio station are? Or the digital camera that love? Or your favorite book, booze, or band? You could see who else has the same del.icio.us bookmark, but a service designed specifically to let you affiliate yourself with specific products might work better. Or maybe it’s the same thing. Thoughts?

Looking through the language tags on del.icio.us, I ran across the the Plain English Campaign… Timely because I just had a very lengthy discussion with a business associate about the value of being purposefully imprecise. He was arguing that we should use a phrase like “coming under the wing” to describe a partnership, so that it could be interpreted in different ways in different contexts. To me, that just seems plain wrong. Why say something that pretends to explain a relationship, when the statement creates more questions than answers? (i.e. what in the world do you mean by ‘coming under the wing’ ?!?) Why oh why! would we want to use such a meaningless phrase, when we could just say what we mean? Just say it. I think I convinced him. Stay tuned.

There was a piece in The Isthumus (Madison’s free weekly) this morning speaking against an ongoing effort to get a light rail system built here in Madtown. The author noted that well-designed express bus service (aka Bus Rapid Transit) can do everything light rail can do, and serve the same ridership for an order of magnitude less cost. I agree. Trains are sexy, but if you can make a bus look and act like a train, and it costs 10x less, there’s no argument.

A detailed review of the latest Nokia that I have been thinking I want finally came out, and it backs up my statements the other day about Nokia falling behind. I love their UI, but if this is best they can do, I’m going to keep looking. Anyone seen the Sharp GX32?