Follow-up

• The Docker piece I mentioned last time is up. Check out the summary on my blog, and 451 clients can read it behind our paywall.

• Because Docker links always come in pairs, here's the recording of the closing panel at DockerConEU, where I was one of the panelists. Software Defined Talk listeners will notice I'm wearing one of my recommendations. No Kirkland products, though, sadly.

Tech & Work World

Whatever happened to "mark as read"?

Like most old cyberspace people, I lament the death of Google Reader and RSS daily. I still use Feedly (coupled with Newsify it's alright - I wish Flipboard would work with Feedly but, you know, it doesn't, because monetization or some crap, I guess), so I have that going for me.

Now that are so many other options out there for "reading interesting links," I find that what I like about RSS readers is that they mark a story as read. Things like Flipboard, reading tumblr, HN, and all that seem to lack that feature - I don't want to see the same thing twice, or, more likely, five times.

Which brings us to the "fun links in your social networks app du jour", Nuzzel. It's nice enough, but like all the other apps like it, it has no mark as read feature. I keep seeing the same stuff over and over. (And if you recall how I actually use Twitter, ignoring my "real" timeline in favor or a list I made, apps that depend on the Twitter timeline are borked for me).

As I alluded to above, Flipboard was the best when it worked with Google Reader - I could load up all the social crap it works with, and Google Reader, and it was tidy, marking as read my RSS stuff and letting me swipe through all the other nonsense that would sate my FOMO goblins.

So, a plea to all you FOMO app people: add mark as read to your app. Even better: add Feedly integration, they must have APIs or something, right? Make in an in-app purchase! I bid 20 quatloos on the new comer!

(The reason I really like Newsify - the one feature I can't live without, as it were - is that it marks as read as you scroll, like the old Google Reader! The Feedly app sort of does that, but it doesn't have real scroll, instead it flips through pages, making me have to shift my eyes from the bottom of the screen to the top each time I "scroll." I know, this seems like a tiny thing, but when you read as many feeds as I do, it's now.)

Quick Hits

Like most folks, I was gone for two weeks. These may be a bit stale.

Never take criticism from someone you wouldn't hire.

— Nassim Nichol Taleb (@nntaleb) December 31, 2014

• What Happened When Marissa Mayer Tried to Be Steve Jobs - it's a good read, if only to confirm that running big tech companies is hard, esp. "old" ones. It's also good because it's the "primary content" for all those follow-on stories in blog land that excerpt from it. Now, that's value!

• PaaS for Realists - I can't get enough PaaS talk now-a-days. Send any good pieces you've found.

• The Open-Office Trap - there was a lot of writing about open offices and remote working over Christmas, the second prompted by a recent Paul Graham piece (which I still haven't read). This rebuttal piece is the best so far, and there's some good ideas in an HN thread which prompted some slight commentary from myself. Also, this from Sinofsky.

• A Dispatch from Cloud City - 2014 Retrospective - this has been going around and it's a good read for one of those links that keeps popping up in my "links from your social networks app du jour" (this week: Nuzzel, see above).

Fun & IRL

• Smugglin' cookies!

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