When the Twit Hits the Fan.

It was brought to my attention today that I'm too contradictory on Twitter in my replies to people. I think it's something that should be addressed. Making people feel uncomfortable about twittering or because of one of my tweets is bad. If that's the case, I apologize because I'm not trying to do that. I'm interested in what my friends have to say, which is the whole point of replying to them.

There are a couple of problems. One is that you can't relay tone very well through written communication. So I'd imagine sometimes things I type that I think are funny or playful come across as arrogant or condescending. I don't really know what to do about that - it just comes with the territory. It isn't intentional.

More often than not, I think I come across like I always have to be right, or like I'm argumentative. This is often true, I'll admit. But most of the time I like to play Devil's advocate or offer contrary ideas. It doesn't mean I am arguing vehemently for my opinion or crapping all over your opinion. I'm just doing it for the sake of conversation, and I don't know I've ticked anyone off until after the fact.

I thought having a dialogue was part of the point of Twitter, or of basic interaction with others, for that matter. If we all have the same opinions, it makes the world a pretty boring place. I'm not asking to be excused for being a dick, I'm saying I'm not trying to be one in the first place.

So in the future, I will try to be a little more aware of what I write and more selective in what I reply to. I just wanted to clear the air and explain myself, and explain where I'm coming from. (Trust me, if I fundamentally disagree with what you have to say, I will make that abundantly clear.) But I do feel I have something to contribute, or else I wouldn't use Twitter in the first place (or blog, for that matter).

Everything But The Kitchen Sync

I did some browsing yesterday and decided I had lived in chaos long enough.

I have a Treo 650. I have a Sun calendar. I have Yahoo! Mail. None of these things are in sync. I have a calendar appointment to manually duplicate appointments from my Treo to my work calendar. This is stupid.

Having already been curious about using some of the Google apps, I spent most of my day hammering away diligently to get my contacts and calendars in order.

1. I already use Thunderbird for my work e-mail and the Lightning add-on for my work calendar needs.
   
2. I signed up for Google Calendar and Gmail.
   
3. I used fbCal to import my Facebook birthdays and events into Google Calendar.
   
4. Sun has something called Sun Java System Communications Sync to sync Sun Java System Calendar Server with Outlook, Palm or Pocket PC. I had no idea this existed. After some tinkering, I set it so the Treo calendar would overwrite the Sun calendar, and it would not sync contacts or tasks.
   
5. I installed CompanionLink for Google to sync my Palm Desktop contacts and calendars with Google. This is the only software that costs anything; it is $30 after the 14-day trial. Unfortunately, I ran into a hiccup because the Sun software turned off the Calendar Hotsync conduit. After much tinkering and cursing, I found out you could restore the Calendar conduit by clicking the PDA icon in Communications Sync, clicking Configure, and unchecking "Calendar / Date Book" in the "Manage the following Hotsync conduits" section.
   
6. Some duplication issues made me decide, as with the Sun calendar, to make the sync one-way from Palm Desktop to Google. I plan to get this back to synchronized at some point.
   
7. Next, I set up GCALDaemon to set-up two-way sync between Google Calendar and Lightning. It also let me set up those contacts I had synced over as an LDAP address book in Thunderbird.
   
8. Lastly, I installed Yahoo! AutoSync to sync up my Yahoo! Mail and Palm Desktop address books.
   

With the dust settled, I have almost everything all synced up and without permanent damage to my data. There are only two wrinkles to the master plan: one is that I have to do two syncs (one with the Sun Communication Sync conduit, and one with the Calendar conduit), and the other is that CompanionLink is not two-way yet due to all the duplicate events in the calendar. That's something to work on another day.

I even set up my Yahoo! Mail with Thunderbird's WebMail add-on, and added GMail's IMAP server, so all my mail, contact, and calendar data is in Thunderbird/Lightning. And all my contact and calendar data from all sources is in my Treo. One device to rule them all.

UPDATE: A couple of wrinkles with Communications Sync. For one, it replaces the Calendar conduit with one of its own. Here are the steps I take weekly:

1. Sync as normal, making sure Hotsync Manager has the Calendar conduit.
   
2. Launch Communications Sync.
   
3. In the Current Profile box, I click the Palm icon and choose "Configure." Under "Manage the following HotSync conduits", I check "Calendar/Date Book" and click "OK."
   
4. From the File menu, I choose "Force Full Synchronization", then "Calendar".
   
5. Click "Synchronize" and confirm I want a full sync in the next dialog.
   
6. I hotsync the Treo.
   
7. When it asks, I tell it to overwrite the Sun calendar records with Palm records.
   
8. Almost every time it fails with an "Unknown Error." I just repeat Steps 5 & 6. The second or third time it will work. I think it may be a network issue with my calendar server.
   
9. After the sync is successful, I click the Palm icon and choose "Configure." Under "Manage the following HotSync conduits", I UNcheck "Calendar/Date Book" and click "OK." This restores the Calendar conduit, so the Treo will resume syncing with Palm Desktop.
   

JavaOne 2008!

If you're reading this, I am hopefully already at JavaOne 2008 in San Francisco's Moscone Center, drinking some coffee and waiting comfortably for the keynote to begin.

Hopefully, I am not still asleep in San Jose. Nor am I waiting in some interminable line for my pass. Nor am I wandering the streets of San Francisco, because I was somehow unable to get into the keynote address and the Pavilion isn't open yet.

Why wonder what I'm doing when you can find out? I will be live blogging my first trip to JavaOne (after eight long years looking from the outside in) on my Twitter feed.

Playing Catch-Up

Almost two months since my last post. I suck at this.

Let's hit the high/lowlights of March and April:

• I started Twittering (Twitting? Tweeting? Damn Web 2.0 doublespeak). Well, in any case, Twitter is sort of like a mini-blog, where you can post short entries about anything, no matter how mundane. My three most recent "tweets" are in the sidebar on the right of this page, or you can sign up and "follow" me. I have been spending a lot of time on this lately, probably slowing down my blog output.
  
• In sports, out with college hoops season. Out with Ben Braun. In with Mike Montgomery. In with baseball season. Out with Giants' playoff hopes, then back in. (Same for entertainment value of 2008 Giants.) Out with Warriors' playoff hopes. In with Cal NFL prospects, out with little remaining faith in the 49ers' front office. Lastly, out with Sharks hockey.
  
• Democrats still haven't picked a player. Starting to wonder if an election seemingly ripe for the taking will go by the wayside. Hilary doing McCain's work for him. Obama unable to close the deal. Sigh.
  
• Back flare-up two weekends ago. Using leaf blower and doing actual work apparently through me all out of whack. That's all gone now but still some nerve impingement in my leg, and I think that is still causing me some weakness (although the pain is mostly gone). I am convinced the extra thirty pounds I put on after my wedding is causing all this, and I need to lose at least twenty. So all-you-can-eat ribs tonight were probably a bad idea.
  
• Layoffs on the way at Sun. What else is new? Seriously, I love working at Sun so I'm hoping that I (again) will make it through unscathed. I think they are on the right track and were just stung by the sluggish U.S. economy. I put full blame for our current stock price on the guy in the white house on Pennsylvania Ave.
  
• I have four (yes, four) fantasy baseball teams this season, including two in 20-team leagues. That is taking up far too much of my time.
  

That's all for now. See you in ...July?