The Friday Wrapper . . .and introducing Atom Atomic

By Tom Foremski - July 29, 2005

Atom Atomic: a pseudonym for some of my writing, when I want to be a different persona, and also for all of us.

Atom Atomic is a character and name that others will use; and you, dear reader, are also welcome to use it as a pseudonym. And you can use variations on the name, as well.

I think there is value in using different names as labels for different personas. Using pseudonyms is not necessarily to hide identities; but more to allow for different kinds of expression.

Pseudonyms help label the tone of an online voice; and labels are very important in this changing media.

Plus, many writers can take on the identity of a pseudonym, and develop a character, a personality, maybe. And it shares identity among a group of writers.

So, introducing Atom Atomic: sometimes it's written by the Atom-in-me persona; and sometimes it's written by the Atom-in-you. I'm not yet sure what Atom's voice is; but that will develop as others take part.

So, are you an Atom? Atoms are everywhere--send us an atom-item or leave it as a comment. Or use your real name :-)


Friday Watcher: Must-have servers/gadgets for CEOs
By Atom Atomic

The new must-have for top executives: your own personal mail server


Microsoft often invites customers to its Redmond HQ, AKA the Fortress of Solitude, and wows them with a tour of its soggy campus, and also its state-of-the-art IT center.

A recent visitor to the world's largest center of innovation, in the greater Seattle area, brought back some interesting tidbits.

Inside the Microsoft data center, visitors are led to a particular, special server: it's a mail server, and they are told it is Bill Gates' personal mail server. They are told that a personal mail server is by far the best way to manage and secure Bill Gate's secret email address.

Mr. Gates, like many of us to a lesser extent, had to abandon his main email address, and head for a personal mail server, because he gets 4m e-mail messages per day. And that's after it has gone through the spam filter.

I'm told that there are two luckless drones going through the email messages daily to check for anything worth saving.

Imagine hitting the delete key all day long... then doing it again the next day. I wonder how long someone would last in that job?

If I was in that job I'd stay up all night working on my projects; then I'd just dump the entire inbox first thing every morning. Then I would say I was beta testing a neat technology from Microsoft Labs that lets users control computer screens through REM under closed eyelids.

It's an advanced form of computer user interface that lets me delete, save and forward BG's email all day long --all through eye movements. Silence and low light are optimal, occasional drooling and snorting noises are a side effect; we're still trying to get the bugs out.

Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if Redmond's brightest weren't already at work on such a technology; and that would be a killer user interface. That way, we could do our computer work and catch up on our sleep!

Can you imagine how much value that would contribute to the human race?! No more grumpy people; everyone gets their beauty sleep. Bill Gates would be made god.


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By Tom Foremski - July 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comment | Category: Friday Watch
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Comments (2)

David:

From a June 2005 Fortune interview with Bill Gates (and Ozzie):
"How many e-mails do you get per day?
Gates: If you take nondistribution lists just from inside Microsoft, I only get 30 or 40 e-mails a day that are really targeted at me, that somebody expects me to do something about. I also have certain defined names and domains that I treat like Microsoft—e-mail from Intel, for example, or from Warren Buffett's assistant. (Buffett doesn't have his own e-mail address.) Then there are Microsoft distribution lists. Depending on how many I put myself on, I can get 30 or 40 e-mails where we're discussing a competitor or a new project. With e-mail rules, which I use pretty heavily, you can have those only show up in a folder. Then there's e-mail from outside Microsoft.

Now I just use the normal whitelist and blacklist capabilities that are in Exchange. My whitelist is Microsoft and people I correspond with, and the blacklist is for those big distribution lists people put me on. Then for everything in between there's an assistant—just one person—who sits and looks at something like 300 a day. If it's somebody who should talk to me directly, my assistant just drops it in my in-box. "

Posted: July 29, 2005 7:10 AM

will:

Atom Atomic is kinda like Robert X Cringley. . . mainly used by one person as a handle but sometimes used by others as well.

Posted: July 31, 2005 2:45 PM

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