Comments on: Internet–Friend or Foe for Productivity?

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:22:01 +0000

@Adrian – I would guess that most people using the Internet don’t even know what NNTP is and have never been to a newsgroup. Higher bandwidth connections have helped drive people away from protocols designed to sync your communications and toward just using HTTP. The same thing is happening with email–many people just use the browser to check their mail now.

I like the idea of creating an NNTP addon for forum software. The was some discussion about creating a forum application by My Dream App–something that would basically recreate what NNTP clients do. I don’t think it was ever build though.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 02:32:54 +0000

One of the worst abominations to hit the internet was the invention of the web-based forum, an ugly poor imitation of a newsgroup that forces you to go to it, rather than it coming to you, and along the way forces you to endure its own cumbersome interface and the mandatory advertisments and other cruft slung along.

Sadly, very few implementations of forum software have an NNTP interface and fewer still make use of the one they have. From the site owner’s point of view its all about hit rates and pageviews, so they couldn’t care less.

By: Jacob Share

Jacob Share — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 20:08:31 +0000

Mark, you’re right to say ‘resist the urge to jump to your browser’ but what if you work in your browser? The mind wanders when you wait for pages to load.

I wrote up some tips on avoiding distraction here:
http://jobmob.co.il/blog/you-too-can-avoid-distractions-easily/

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:11:17 +0000

@Steve – I’m glad I’m not the only one this happens to. :)

@Corey – It is impossible to spend less than 20 minutes at IMDB. Too many links that look interesting.

@The Dude – Since black death! Wow. I knew it was bad, but had no idea it was that bad. :)

I worked for a large health system about 10 years ago that was switching from their text based word processor to MS Word. Even though the text based system was a little kludgy, it was amazing to see how much everyone’s efficiency went down using Word. The problem was Word was too powerful for what was needed. Before they couldn’t change the font. Now documents took much longer because they had to make so many more decisions (font, clipart, margins, page numbering, columns, etc).

By: The Dude

The Dude — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 14:45:53 +0000

easy access to the internet from work is the greatest blow to productivity since the black death…

By: corey

corey — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:22:58 +0000

The biggest problem that I run into like this, is that so much more information is available beyond what i wanted to know. So instead of now knowing how to spell artichoke i also know their peak harvest cycle, who produces the most of it, how much is grown here in washington, the best ways to grow them in your back yard, and a complete culinary history. I should have stopped twenty minutes into the research. The worst is trying to do a quick search at the IMDB.

By: Steve Roesler

Steve Roesler — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 02:36:44 +0000

Mark, you had me laughing at myself in the first paragraph. At least something tells me I’m not alone…oh, a loon…hmm, yes I could use a low-interest loan…

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

#4 on the list has me thinking. I nearly always go to an internet cafe so I can be connected. Of course, that leads to lots of connectedness but not necessarily genuine productivity.

Thanks for the suggestion and keep up the useful info!