Bit Literacy - Mark Hurst [63]
Finally, you may prefer to avoid e-mailing photos altogether and instead upload the pictures to an online photo-sharing website. Such sites automatically resize the images to display nicely on the Web page, and there’s no danger of filling up recipients’ e-mail inboxes. However, these sites often require recipients to create an account and endure distracting advertisements just to see your photos. These irritations may make it less likely that recipients will bother to look at your photos. Especially if you have only a few photos to share, e-mailing resized images may be the best option.
Saving bookmarks
Bit-literate users should stay on the lookout for tools and online resources that can help them improve their skills. This isn’t referring to “productivity blogs” that gush about the latest tips and tricks, or technology-worship sites that lavish praise on the newest, shiniest gadgets. Rather, users should watch for the rare site or tool that offers something genuinely useful for getting a job done. Whenever they find such a resource, users should save a pointer to the site in a bookmark.
All Web browsers have a bookmarks, or “favorites,” feature that allows users to store links to their favorite sites. It’s useful to have a handful of your most-visited sites saved this way in the browser, for easy access. However, it’s common to come across a site (or individual page) that you only might want to get back to some other time. In these situations it’s best to use an online bookmarks service. My favorite is del.icio.us (also available at delicious.com); furl.net is a popular alternative. Sign up for a (free) account on one of these services and save your bookmarks there, adding tags, or keywords, to each bookmark so that you can find it again later. This is one situation where tags are genuinely valuable.
For example, I recently bookmarked (in my del.icio.us account) a Web page showing how to create images in the Pop Art cartoon style of Roy Lichtenstein. I won’t access this page frequently, and I may never look it up again, but if some time in the future I think, “Whatever happened to that Roy Lichtenstein thing?”, I can click into the “art” tag in my del.icio.us bookmarks—or search for “pop art” or “lichtenstein”—and the link will come up. Also, by storing these bookmarks on a website, I can access them from any computer—not just my own.
Playing games
I’ve saved the best for last: games. For years I’ve maintained “Good Experience Games,” a list of well-designed, fun, free games that I’ve come across online. (Find it at www.goodexperience.com/games.) This is for more than amusement; each game exhibits an interface element, or some aspect of the user experience, that is worth experiencing and learning from. Game play is a great teacher about what works and doesn’t work in online experiences and user interfaces. While it’s not productive to sink endless hours into a game, it can be relaxing—and instructive—to occasionally take a break for a few minutes of game play.
Future additions
Users who master these “other essentials” and all the methods of previous chapters will be bit-literate, or close to it—working more productively, and in a healthier way, than they ever have before. But no list can account for every possible skill necessary in every possible context. The technology world changes fast, and there will surely be new essentials added to this list in the coming years—even as the basic philosophy and goals of bit literacy remain the same.
Chapter 13: The future of bit literacy
The age of bits has just begun. Bits are taking on massive importance in our lives and work, and they have only just arrived. In such early days it’s hard to grasp even the scope of the changes that are occurring, let alone meet the challenges themselves. This makes bit literacy especially important, because bits will change the world more quickly