Dom.net

Leo Sagolla

2008-03-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

We have a son!

Everyone, meet Leo;
Kid, this is everyone.

In this picture, the boy is one month old, laying on his grandmother's quilt.

Leo has a shortcode: 13o.org.

He's just smurfy, thanks!

For Which I Stand

2008-02-08T00:32:00.000-08:00

Here are a few things for which I stand:

I stand against:

Greed
Bullshit
Ignorance

Just so we're clear.

XO Hack-a-Thon

2008-01-29T12:57:00.000-08:00

Got an XO?

Let's get it together!

XO Dev Camp

Visit this group

Give One, Get One

2007-12-31T01:37:00.000-08:00

The Give 1 Get 1 promotion ends today.

You should go for it!

Because OLPC the Real Deal.
Because it'll help someone you'll never meet.
Because it will change the way you think.
Because, trust me.
Because the XO is entirely Open Source.
Because the support is incredible.
Because it's instant 1337.
Because it will teach you things.
Because Nicholas is right.
Because Seymour is right.

But mostly, because you're going to want mine - and by then it'll be too late!

2007 Retrospective

2007-12-31T01:13:00.000-08:00

I can be pretty tough on myself.

Every year about this time, I get bummed out, thinking about what I haven't yet achieved in my life.

Well, this year, I'm going to nip that in the bud by listing all of the things I did do this year:

Hmm, that's not a bad list.

Ok, I feel better now.

My Local Break

2007-12-12T00:16:00.000-08:00

It's just a draft - set to some silly music that was handy.

I wanted to share what it's like where I surf.

More on the way!

10 Rules for Twitter

2007-12-10T00:30:00.000-08:00

I've posted to Twitter almost 1400 times, and have come up with a few rules for myself, a "style" if you will:

Be Unique.
Try to be Descriptive or Declarative.
Limit yourself to one sentence only.
Avoid "right now" or other superfluous speech.
Avoid repetition.
Avoid all caps.
Links are nice.
Use @reply to provide context only - "D" instead of @reply for one-off conversations.
Don't hate, appreciate!
Stop and think about the words you are using, and who will be reading them.

I actually find #3 to be the most difficult one to follow, and #10 to be the most valuable. Again, these are just my own personal rules for me.

Must Twitter better!

Recently Played

2007-12-06T17:07:00.000-08:00

Created using iTunes Signature Maker (just like last time):

Key:
Title
Artist
Album
Starting At
Ending At

If You're Going To San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)
Scott McKenzie

0:00.0
0:05.2

Why Should I Cry For You? (extended mix)
Sting
Why Should I Cry For You? (Single)
4:22.8
4:26.0

Mad World (Remix)
Gary Jules
Donnie Darko
2:32.0
2:36.6

Jessica
The Allman Brothers Band
A Decade Of Hits 1969-1979
2:19.6
2:23.0

Tupac & Dr Dre - California love

1:10.5
1:14.9

Travelling Riverside Blues
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin [Disc 1]
5:00.6
5:03.6

Clocks
Coldplay
Rhythms del Mundo: Cuba
0:16.8
0:22.4

Friends
Joe Satriani
The Extremist
3:21.9
3:25.5

Surfing With The Alien
Joe Satriani
Surfing With The Alien
4:00.4
4:04.4

Reckoner
Radiohead
In Rainbows
4:35.6
4:37.8

Johnny Appleseed
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros

0:35.0
0:40.0

Exodus Honey
Honeycut
The Day I Turned To Glass
0:00.0
0:03.8

Special Thanks
Dominic Sagolla
Home Again
0:00.0
0:02.8

Banana Pancakes
Jack Johnson
KFOG Live From The Archives 13
2:55.4
2:57.8

Untitled
Rodrigo Y Gabriela
KFOG Live From The Archives 14
3:17.9
3:20.5

Dominic Sagolla - Rock Yourself to Sleep (loop)
Dominic Sagolla - Music
0:04.2
0:08.4

Keep On Growing
Derek & The Dominos
Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs
0:00.0
0:05.8

Surfer Girl
Beach Boys
1:12.1
1:16.9

Let It Die
Foo Fighters
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Gr
0:48.7
0:54.1

Pressure Suit
Aqualung
Memory Man
4:18.5
4:24.5

Fun!

Addicted to Apple

2007-11-21T14:24:00.000-08:00

95%

I think I didn't get the A+
because I wasn't taking the test on my iPhone.

Standing Wish List

2007-11-21T01:02:00.000-08:00

I'm building a Standing Wish List.
Just, you know, in case.

This site is Green

2007-11-14T00:39:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Dreamhost!

How to Master the Short Form

2007-10-18T17:44:00.001-07:00

Become a modern-day Hemmingway:

Live an interesting life. Each day = thousands of words.
Take pictures. Each one = ~1000 words.
Start blogging. Each hyperlink = ~100 words.
Get into Twitter. Each post = ~10 words.
Write fewer words more often. Each haiku = less than 10 words.

Pretty soon you'll find yourself thinking in short, finely-crafted phrases perfect for script, poem, or list publication.

Just remember the words of the great Jack Dorsey, "One could change the world with one hundred and forty characters."

On Top of the Bay Bridge

2007-07-19T23:42:00.001-07:00

signal light
Originally uploaded by unaesthetic

No, I didn't take this (I wish), but it is completely rad nonetheless.

See the whole set on Flickr.

Rad.

There's our house.

Microconsulting

2007-06-22T22:52:00.000-07:00

For you, I have a tiny consulting service:

Wis.dom.net

$4.99 for 140 characters or less.

Made with TextMarks.

See also, the Blog.

Think small.

Get wise.

iPhoneDevCamp at Adobe SF

2007-06-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

It all started with a twitter.

Open source evangelist Chris Messina asked the world where to host iPhoneDevCamp from July 6th-8th. I wrote back, "What about Adobe?"

Adobe loves Web developers!

Chris introduced me to BarCamp organizer Raven Zachary, and we managed to book the entire Town Hall at Adobe San Francisco (site of ApolloCamp). Now we have room for hundreds of people, with Guest WiFi and everything.

Everyone here is excited about having folks over for a long weekend of coding and sharing ideas. Because iPhone hasn't been released yet, I put together this FAQ to help answer questions about the event.

Personally, I'm just excited to attend, but now I really must get my hands on one of those phones before July 6th!

Unofficial Media Lab Summer Reading List

2007-05-26T20:36:00.000-07:00

Recently I came across the following list, compiled in an informal email survey by someone on the MIT Media Lab's mailing list. I wanted to share it with you, just so that you don't have to take my word that each of these books is excellent (ones I've read are in italics):

Recommended by More Than One Person:

Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
Godel Escher Bach - Douglas Hofstadter
American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Also Recommended:

Stiff - Mary Roach
Dispatches - Michael Herr
The Age of Wire and String - Ben Marcus
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
Dance Dance Dance - Haruki Murakami
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
Deschooling Society - Iván D. Illich
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
The Glass Bead Game - Herman Hesse
Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins
Assassin's Apprentice trilogy - Robin Hobb
His Dark Materials trilogy - Philip Pullman
Dies the Fire - S.M. Stirling
The Way Things Work - David Macaulay
The World is Flat - Tom Freidman
The Emperor's Children - Claire Messud
I, Robot - Isaac Asimov
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
Princes in Amber series - Robert Zelazny
Count Zero - William Gibson
Dune - Frank Herbert
Babbit and Main Street - Sinclair Lewis
The Beautiful and Damned - Scott Fitzgerald
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
How to Lie with Statistics - Darrell Huff
Betting on the Muse - Charles Bukowski
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
Tropic of Capricorn - Henry Miller
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - Levy
The Language Instinct - Steven Pinker
The Code Book - Simon Singh
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Blink - Malcom Gladwell
Tipping Point - Malcom Gladwell
Freakonomics - Steven Levitt
Running with Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
You Got Nothing Coming - Jimmy Lerner
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

What's on your summer reading list?

9 Websites That Change the Way You Think

2007-05-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

Flickr
You'll find yourself taking pictures with certain people in mind, or you'll find yourself anticipating the note you'll write on top of the picture!
Twitter / Twittervision
You'll start to think in short, pithy phrases about where you are and what you are doing.
VoIP Info
Realize that phone companies actually do suck, and that there are better, free tools out there that can change the way we communicate.
GMail
Stop thinking about folders and hierarchies, and more about searches.
Basecamp
You'll start to get really excited about checking things off!
Google Earth
Start to think in three dimensions about your city.
Blogger
You'll realize that blogging isn't as complicated as it's made out to be.
del.icio.us
Create your own mental taxonomy.
Wikipedia
Information is free, and anyone can be an expert!

Are there any other sites that have changed the way you think?

Follow Dom for Adventure

2007-05-09T15:39:00.000-07:00

Follow me over the next three weeks, and you'll be sure to hear about:

Juneau, Ketchikan, and Sitka, Alaska
~~New York City, New York~~
[Update: not for me this time]
Los Angeles, California
San Francisco, California

First, a vacation with Mer and my parents (long overdue). Then, business for Adobe, and finally a surf tour over Memorial Day weekend. It'll be a blast, but you don't have to follow me to find out about it - just check my Twittervision page!

33 1/3rd Party

2007-04-30T17:39:00.000-07:00

First Kegger
Youngest Visitor (6 months)
Most People Over (33 people!)
Most People Sleeping Over (5 souls)
First Song Written at the House (Vote Obama!)
First Plasma Pong Tournament
Dom with Dom
Mitchell's Ice Cream Cake
Longest Party (9 hours!)

Thanks to everyone who came - we had a blast!

Quotes from a First Time Mac User

2007-03-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

Dad got a new iMac last night, his first Apple product (besides the Shuffle) since his Apple IIe. Here are the highlights:

"Where's the computer?"

"How do I click this mouse?"

"Get an iChat account? What's Jabber?"

"Woah!! Ho ho ho!"

"I could actually watch things on this."

"Are there more Widgets?"

"Oh, wow."

"Wow."

"Let me say it backwards: wow."

"Your mother wants to press my Menu button."

"That is just beyond modern."

"I must buy more Apple stock immediately."

And that was just the first day. :D

The Death of Twitter is a Myth

2007-03-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

Getting overwhelmed with SMS or IMs from your Twitter list? Annoyed by random friend requests? Tried Twitter at SxSW and now you think it's about to Jump the Shark already?

Ease back on the throttle there, Fonzie. Twitter is no different than MySpace or Flickr or Blogger except in its immediacy and constant freshness, which accelerates everything. Every social web app goes through the same cycle of use/abuse/acceptance. You just have to master it, and not let it master you.

As I've experienced them over the last year, here are
The 12 Stages of Twitter:

1. Curiosity
2. Interest
3. Novelty
4. Excitement
5. Inviting everyone you know
6. Optional: Inviting the wrong person (skip to 9)
7. Massive use / Addiction
8. Slight abuse / accidental use
9. Annoyance / Frustration
10. Cutting way back
11. "Going dark" (or going "private")
12. Acceptance (back to 1)

This morning, my best friend from high school announced the birth of his baby boy on Twitter. You can't tell me that Twitter is dying when there are moments like these to be shared. Quickly!

My advice to you: skip to Step 10. Try Jaiku for a while, if you absolutely must post from your phone. Get Twitteriffic or Twidget or the forthcoming Twitter Apollo app in order to deal with the deluge.

But remember one thing: folks younger than you don't mind the interruptions, the constant Tweets. They adapt. They turn off their phone's text alerts. They cull their friend list. They write some code to help filter their information.

Twitter does not jump sharks. People use Twitter to jump sharks. The Death of Twitter is a Myth, people. You ain't seen nothing yet.

How to Climb a Tree

2007-02-16T17:53:00.000-08:00

Certified arborist Martin Arnest took my headcam into our 50-year old, 5-story tree, after two days of cutting and trimming, and showed us how it's done.

Unfortunately, the sound didn't turn out as great as I'd hoped, so we miss many of Martin's observations, but if you listen close you can hear him whistling. See the photo stills.

Simplicity in the Dock

2007-02-13T15:09:00.000-08:00

I'm a "down Dock" kind of person. Also, I tend to keep only the Open apps in there, along with a few shortcuts to Parallels, remote machines, links-du-jour, and my network drive.

Then, I just use Quicksilver to lauch or find anything, or even to drag and drop onto an app.

This reduces visual clutter, and saves me valuable milliseconds when parsing my work environment. There is less to see.

Another habit that I've nutured is: constantly review what's in the Dock. This mostly means removing things. but occasionally I'll add things temporarily.

This practice is easy to remember:

Reduce visual clutter,
Reuse the space in your Dock,
Recycle valuable mental processes as a result.

Dom.net for your Inbox

2007-02-09T10:50:00.000-08:00

Brought to you by Feedburner.

SMS to Email

2007-02-08T16:15:00.000-08:00

I've developed a good habit (which I stole from Case) that has pretty much ruled my GTD system for almost a year now: SMS to Email.

Yes, most SMS plans include an email gateway (T-Mobile's has been known to crap out occassionally, but it's been better of late). Here's how to exploit it:

0. Get an unlimited SMS plan. Do it.
1. Get an Idea.
2. Open SMS app on your phone.
3. Instead of using a number for the destination, use your GMail address (or whatever GTD destination you employ, like a BackPack page).
4. Distill idea into 160 characters or less.
5. Send, then Forget About It.

Later, in the Batcave...

6. Categorize Idea in GTD system of choice.
(I also auto-label all messages from my phone into =Log.)
7. Get That Done, then Archive.
8. Enjoy Fruits of Labor (usually an apple, or sometimes an orange, or maybe a satsuma).