July 2005


Collaborative Filtering - (almost) for free 2005-7-5 (979 words)

One of the bigger projects I have been working on in the recent pat that came trough my beloved RentACoder (more on why I love it so later) - was a request to build a 'Collaborative Filtering' functionality for a series of news-oriented weblogs. I'm calling it 'almost for free' because the system needed very minimal changes to the weblogs per se to function. I will try to outline and describe the system and the concepts behind in brief here. My agreement with the buyer pervents me from posting actual code, but maybe that's better anyway (it's not much code after all). Please feel free to ask any questions you might have directly.

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August 2005 2005-8-1 (0 words)

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writing assignments 2005-7-21 (229 words)

Once I stopped groaning and whining about my lack of financial safety and lack of paying jobs and actually stared thinking about what it is I would like to do, all of a sudden I find myself with not only one but two writing assignments for topics that are realy dear to me.

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I have been using a mantra 2005-7-26 (88 words)

... and it actually works. It goes "people want me to work for them." - And what can I say: they actually do. I've had a number of queries, positive feedback to applications etc....

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a tool for divergent thinking 2005-7-24 (204 words)

I was reading this post about "convergent and diverget thinking" on TarotTools.com, and it got me thinking about what I am aiming at with my own work on "assosiative text".

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eMail coaching musings 2005-7-15 (397 words)

I have started doing the eMail-coaching thing again I wrote about some time ago. And interestingly I hit the exact same kind of 'block' with my clent as before. See my post 'reluctant volunteers' for more on that. But here a pattern seems to form....

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keeping the newbie eye 2005-7-27 (79 words)

I'm currently exploring new territory. I'm evaluating the HOP. My current 'newbie insights' might actually prove very valuable in the near future, if everything works out. Organizing and writing user- and developer documentation can benefit tremendously from keeping the newbie experience fresh even after one knows the system. To many technical docs are written by knowlegable folks for other knpwledgable folks. But it should be written for people who do not yet know.

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re-interpreting contemporary classics 2005-7-22 (410 words)

In my favorite literary genre - Science Fiction - there is a wealth of vibrant settings and compelling stories. So mayn in fact that there is hardly a shortcomming in thing to read and be entertained. But sometimes there are those things one should read but somehow never manages to. In my case I have a long tradition of being totally fascinated with Frank Herbert's DUNE cycle of books, but never managing to actually read the books themselves. I tried alright, several times. I never got far. I know the setting and the history of event outlines must be totally intriguing, and I see very many parralels in the Warhammer 40000 universe. ...

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more Tarot and Tinderbox 2005-7-28 (35 words)

Back in April Gordon Meyer had a nice post outlining his use of Tinderbox map views and adornments to record a card spread.

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visual outlining in Tinderbox maps 2005-7-21 (250 words)

Outlines have their uses. Especially when writing longer, structured papers. A good outline is as usefull as a good table of contents. As a long-time Userland Frontier user my natural Tinderbox view of choice has been the outline view for a long time now. But what has always bothered me about outlines - then and now - is their strict hierarchial structure. Tinderbox maps have given me a way to outline w/o rigid structural constraints.

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Tarot as a storytelling tool 2005-7-23 (65 words)

I've been talking about this for some length now, but somehow never really explained what it looks like....

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Tinderbox for designing a Tarot deck 2005-7-20 (484 words)


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marketing genius 2005-7-23 (105 words)

R/C Mircroflight might be as extreme a niche market as you can get. But if I had to name my 'marketiing genius of the year' Bud of Plantraco would be the one. ...

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a cloud of ideas 2005-7-28 (80 words)

Here's another screenshot from my use of Tinderbox as a visual outliner tool. This one illustrates nicely how I move from a "idea cloud" towards an outline like structure. That is something you will not be able to do in traditional outliners, or with strict hierarchy for that matter....

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Why choose me? 2005-7-28 (187 words)

Hah. Well. Now. "Can you define in a few short sentences why we should choose you for this job?"

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alles Bild, Text und Tonmaterial ist © Martin Spernau, Verwendung und Reproduktion erfordert die Zustimmung des Authors