Insert Map feature of Windows Live Writer…not bad..not good either
November 29, 2008 by Ben Shoemate
This is a short test to see how the insert map feature of Windows Live Writer works. I think I am ready to give this product my endorsement. The push pin is a bit ugly though…I mean come on.
Information Visualized - all the water in the world
June 27, 2008 by Google Reader
all the water in the world (or 1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc. (left). all the air in the atmosphere (or 5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density (right). both shown on the same scale as the Earth.
[link: phiffer.com|via boingboing.net & benfry.com]
see also relative size of our world.
Justification of Ockham’s Razor as a principle of reasoning
May 6, 2008 by Ben Shoemate
Scientists use the principle of Ockham’s Razor as their guide. Ockham’s Razor states that when there are multiple consistent theories are being considered, the choice should be the simplest one. Simple theories have an intuitive appeal, but that is not a justification of Ockham’s Razor as a principle of reasoning. A justification should demonstrate that preferring the simplest compatible theory is better at finding the truth than any other competing strategy.
This article does a good job with great cartoons of explaining why this principle is valid. Very insightful. Here’s the link.
Update: here is an animated older version. The link above goes to the version 2 story board which has not been animated.
Powerpoint on Powerpoint - rules we should all use
December 27, 2007 by Ben Shoemate
Here is a great presentation on how to use powerpoint.
7 Email Visualizations for Thunderbird
November 13, 2007 by Ben Shoemate
Now that I have all my old email in one place, my next project will be to create some visualizations to start analyzing it. What do I mean? I’m talking about graphs, charts, tables, heatmaps, grids, networks, etc that illustrate patterns in the email. For example - I have roughly 40,000 emails (closer to 20,000 or so were sent by an actual human, and fewer still were sent only to me - but I don’t know for sure and thats part of the problem). My goal is to have a set of Thunderbird plug ins that will allow me see patterns like these. These are 7 visualizations I think Thunderbird (or Gmail) needs. If I get a lot of interest, I might actually build them so let me know what you think in the comments (no registration needed but I do moderate so it might not show up right away). Read more
How to organize your hard drive
November 10, 2007 by Ben Shoemate
This is a problem every one struggles with: what is the best file structure for old files? The problem is actually compounded by the need to do routine back-ups. As I was going through all my old hard drives as part of my email project to upload all my email into Gmail. I took note of the various ways I organized my files over the years, the various folder structures I adopted. My digital life is dominated by projects - personal projects (most half-baked and half-finished), client projects (with thousands of files each with multiple versions), and team projects (like personal projects only with multiple people). Then, like everyone, I have downloaded files (in the form of mp3s, images, videos, and saved web pages), personal photos, and miscellaneous documents.
Here is my strategy… Read more
Google more popular than sex (at least according to google)
October 16, 2007 by Ben Shoemate
I was playing with Google Trends yesterday. With a few keystrokes you can satisfy your need for both useless trivia interesting facts and the data to back it up. Where else can you discover that basset hounds are more popular in Hungary, that Hillary Clinton is finally more popular than her husband, or that in spring of 2007, google became more popular than sex: 
Here are some more fasinating trends (at least to me). Read more
