MacBreak Weekly 74: Hot Lips and Hawkeye

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Andy Ihnatko, and Rich Siegel

A look back at Macworld, Office spreads out, MacHeist, .Mac future bright and cloudy, certain gestures and more.

Here’s a direct MP3 download of MBW 74.

I think this might be one of my favorite episodes of MacBreak Weekly. Say what you will about the podcast medium, it’s amazing to be able to pull an articulate person like Rich Siegel into your conversation midway — (~00:38:15) — just via IM and a phone number. Very cool.

So. That said. I really want the promoters and developer-fans of MacHeist to have their opportunity to respond to what Rich (and we) had to say. Clearly we all think a lot of the Mac indie community, so it’d be valuable to continue the conversation in a way that’s fair and civil for everybody.

Directions on how to get your voice heard appear around (~00:57:11) of this episode.

update 2008-01-25 08:21:01

 read more »

How To Take Back Your Time And Attention — Merlin Mann — InformationWeek

Wow. Mitch Wagner did an ass-kickingly thorough job of summarizing my talk at Macworld about wrangling your time and attention. Really nice work, Mitch — thanks, man.

“When the value of your times is set too low, or not at all, it leads to waste and abuse,” Mann said.

This is a particular problem for knowledge workers. (How do you identify knowledge workers? “Look for someone with girlie smooth hands who can go to lunch whenever they want,” Mann explained.) Knowledge workers have huge amounts of freedom in how they work, they aren’t micromanaged, they just have goals to achieve. That freedom is dangerous. “You can find yourself at two in the morning staring at Wikipedia covered in pizza crusts,” Mann said.

Up top is a snap of the slides from my talk, which I’ll try to get up on Slideshare when I get a chance to tidy them up.

[Pimp: here’s information on my speaking gigs and how to bring me in to speak with your organization]

update 2008-01-21 12:39:42: Okay, she’s up. As ever, I’m not sure these’ll make much sense without me standing there, yammering, but here’s a clickable version of my slides:  read more »

43 Folders is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.  read more »

MacBreak Weekly 52: Ten Cents A Dance

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Scott Bourne, Andy Ihnatko, and Alex Lindsay

We take a look at Apple’s new iMacs, and iLife and iWork 08…

Here’s a direct MP3 download of MBW 52.

Of course, when I chose iCal as my anti-pick, I said it with love. Much love.  read more »

43F Podcast: Inbox Zero - Google Tech Talk

A lot of folks with slower connections (or who just aren’t crazy about internet video) have written to request an audio version of the Tech Talk on Inbox Zero I gave at Google last Monday. Google has very kindly permitted me to share that with you, so here you go. Thanks to everyone who wrote to request it.

Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen from here:  read more »

TWiT 101: Moon over Google

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Wil Harris, Steve Gibson, and Denise Howell

Google Street View and privacy, Michael Moore and piracy, hackers and Safari…

• Leo has begun to use Facebook for only people he knows personally.
• Facebook has recently allowed for applications which enticed Leo.
• The People Aggregator will allow you to create a social network using your login from another social network.
• Create your own social network with Ning.
• Steve Jobs keynoted the WWDC conference announcing Safari for Windows, but no API.
• Apple has plugged several security flaws that were discovered in the Windows version of Safari.
• At WWDC, numerous new OSX Leopard features were unveiled.
• Steve Gillmor had a post called iPhonomics regarding the possibility of Google Gears coming to the iPhone.
• Linspire has made a deal with Microsoft to share numerous technologies.
• Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu, somewhat chastised Microsoft regarding software patents.
• Microsoft has also partnered will LG for their Linux-based devices.
• Owen Thomas, the Business 2.0 editor, has been to Valleywag.
• Sicko, Michael Moore’s new controversial documentary, has been leaked onto Bittorrent.
• The Manchester Cathedral is complaining to Sony about their appearance in the game “Resistance: Fall of Man.”
• Google has launched a “Street View” service that are fairly recent. Leo’s buddy Patrick Norton was actually caught on it crossing the street. Check out the top 15 sightings on Google Street View.
• Keep track of Google Street View sightings at StreetViewr.
• Audio is a Facebook application that allows people to upload audio - giving way for piracy to happen on the site.
• eBay threated to take their ads off of Google.
• It is the 50th anniversary of the Frisbee.

Download MP3 file

These are lower threshold links to stuff I’ve recently enjoyed.

• The Macalope On MacBreak Weekly - “Yes, it’s true. The Macalope will be on next week’s edition of MacBreak Weekly.” The MBW crew seems to remain convinced that I am the Macalope. Tune in this week, and we shall see…
• Daring Fireball: iPhone SDK, iPhone SDK! Wherefore Art Thou iPhone SDK? - Gruber’s analysis seems spot-on to me: with a product this big, it pays to manage expectations and hold out the possibility of an unpromised lagniappe or two.
• How to talk to the press | fortuitous - Mathowie talkes to the press a good bit more than I do, so I learned a lot from this. Love the tip about listening for frenetic typing.
• Jonathan Coulton » Blog Archive » How I Did It - JoCo tells the story of how he got where he is with his music and the internet. Essential reading for those who want to go indie on the web today. Would love to see more of these from other folks as well.
• Rosetta Stone for Unix - (PDF) - Ginormous table that lets you compare commands between different flavors of Unix. (via: adurity’s bookmarks on del.icio.us)
• MailTags 2.0 leaves beta, goes official - The sine qua non Mail.app plugin goes 2.0. Can’t imagine using Mail without this guy plus Mail Act-On.
• Twitter Blog: Are You Twittering @ Me? - “In other words, if somebody Twitters “@biz liking the new Replies tab!” it will get saved at Twitter.com/replies.” I love this feature. I can’t keep up with the (gulp) 2,300 folks who’ve been kind enough to “friend” me, but at least now I can see when they’re saying something in my direction. Very cool.
• Facebook | Merlin Mann - In related news. I succumbed. Largely because of this awesomeness. (links require Facebook membership)

Submit your ideas for links to del.icio.us, and be sure to include the tag “for:43folders.”

002: Interview: Jonathan Coulton | The Merlin Show

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My new video podcast launches today with an interview I recently did with Jonathan Coulton.

JoCo is an internet troubadour and former developer who may be best known for wonderful songs like “Code Monkey” and “Skullcrusher Mountain,” although he also has gigs podcasting for Popular Science as well as playing guitar for his best friend (and sworn nemesis) John Hodgman.

We talk about life as an independent artist, including how Jonathan captures ideas and may or may not be similar to Michael Jackson.

We’ll have a new episode of The Merlin Show every morning this week, then slide into an (approximately) once-a-week schedule for new episodes.

Please consider subscribing via iTunes or Democracy, or just point the “podcatacher” of your choice at http://feeds.themerlinshow.com/TheMerlinShow

The Merlin Show arrives Monday, February 26th, at thirty theoretically productive frames per second.

Subscribe for free via the iTunes