Now that AT&T is very publicly getting hit with a large fine for throttling unlimited data plan customers, I'm seeing cries of throttling being a Net Neutrality violation.  It's not.

A violation of Net Neutrality is when an Internet Service Provider (ISP) serves some content slower than others.  In other words, a violation is when an ISP gives priority to certain traffic.  If an ISP slows down only your Netflix speeds, or prioritizes your Google Search results, that is a violation.  Simply slowing all traffic across the board is not.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not super stoked about the throttling issue.  It's a bait and switch.  But, I understand why they (might) have to do it.  Infrastructure can only support so much traffic, and as mobile tech gets better, the systems in place strain under the load.  I experience this every day, when in dense areas, I've got full signal, but no data is coming through.  It might be the case, that AT&T has to take measures against huge data usage, and break it's promise of unlimited data to grandfathered customers in order to preserve the experience for the group as a whole.

Or, they might just be manufacturing artifical constraints to move people off the plan...

Regardless, I don't want to see the Net Neutrality card pulled in this fight.  Net Neutrality is an important concept, but is hard to understand.  Misleading the public into further confusion about what exactly it is will hinder progress in that separate (and more important) issue.

I saw some links to The Oatmeal's Net Neutrality article today. While I'm super happy Inman is bringing up this important topic in his socially digestible fashion, I want to make sure we fight the fight properly. He uses the Comcast vs. Netflix deal as an example. The problem is that it's not a good example.  Check out this article.

The problem we have here is that while net neutrality is very important, it's also technically complicated and nuanced. It's going to be hard to get people fired up about it to the point where they can learn about interconnects. I'm not sure how we can address this issue.

I started making a comment on Morgan's Inbox -1 blog post, but ended up with something lengthy enough to make a post on it's own.  So here it is.  Go read his article first, as this is really just an addendum.

I use Gmail's keyboard shortcuts, K and [.  K goes to the next email, [ goes to the next email and archives the one you were looking at.  So, I start with the first unread email in my inbox, skim it and hit K or [, depending on whether I need to take action.  That gets me to an inbox of only things that need action.  As, I just skimmed them, I'll take action on urgent items first.  And then, if I have time, address the others.  On the my daily ferry ride into the city, I'll clean up the non-urgent tasks.  You'll have to enable keyboard shortcuts from the settings.

Gmail also has great auto-categorization.  It's got the option to sort your emails into tabs: Primary, Social, Promotions, etc.  But, I don't like using those.  I don't get those tabs on my phone, so everything there is lumped together.  But, I do use the auto-category that is applied to get the tabs to work.  I've set up a filter to have any "bulk" email skip my inbox.  I then use Gmail's "Multiple Inbox" feature to display all unread bulk emails.  This keeps all my bulk email out of my inbox, but gives me a place to read them later, not to mention a great place to "mark all as read".

(category:social OR category:promotions OR category:updates OR category:purchases OR category:travel OR category:finance) AND !filename:invite.ics

Note: The last rule keeps invitations out of my bulk folder.

is:unread AND !in:inbox

I've been back-of-mind thinking about some subtle cultural issues in the tech industry.  We've heard at length about the obvious ones, the gender and age gaps, etc., but I've been trying to pinpoint particular unsavory traits that arise among developers.  I hadn't quite put my finger on anything.  But then, I was listening to JS Jabber (podcast; check it out), and one of their "picks of the day" referred me to Hacker School's manual.  In it, they have a section outlining a code of conduct which hit home.

They talk about Fear, and how it hinders their students from succeeding.  In particular, the fear of looking stupid, which keeps students from asking "Why?", or saying, "I don't understand."  This fear is perpatuated by traits that have developed within tech culture, and HS's code of conduct calls them out.  I don't want to simply copy pasta their write up into this post, so take a minute and go read through their Social Rules.

https://www.hackerschool.com/manual#sec-environment

They strike at the root of behavior I'd like to see go away.  I'm going to be particularly focused on ridding myself of these behaviors, as I know I'm a culprit.  Seeing a list makes these actions easier to keep in mind and address.

I’ve got a great iPhone tip for you.

iOS has a feature hidden deep in the settings called Keyboard Shortcuts.  The idea is that you can type a short phrase that gets expanded into a longer one.  Your iPhone (and iOtherStuff) comes preloaded with an example.  Type “omw” and into any text input, and it will give you the option of expanding to “On my way!”.  It will feel like an autocorrection, in that the full phrase will pop up next to your shortcut.  Press “space” to expand, or the tiny little “x” icon to get rid of it.

Yeah, that is kind of handy.  But I’m not usually so canned with my communication that I will always resort to the same phrases.  But then I realized I do type something over and over: my username and email address.  I’ve added shortcuts for these, and now logging into apps or websites has gotten a lot eaiser.

Sounds good.  If you were as excited as me about this revalation, you’ve probably gone and set it up even before reading this far.  If not, here is a quick guide.

Drill down into your Settings app: General -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts

Now, when it comes time to enter your email address, just type your shortcut, and then let the magic happen.

There is a lot of Internet out there to keep track of.  You shouldn’t have to do it on your own.  At the moment, I keep track of 154 different websites.  But I certainly don’t go to every one of those every day.

RSS stands for “really simply syndication”.  It is a way for a website to publish it’s content in a way that it can be aggregated and retreived by RSS readers.  You can choose and use a RSS reader to keep a list of websites whose content you want to keep track off.  Your RSS reader then becomes your hub for reading Internet content.  It takes your list of sites, grabs all the content and puts it in one place.  The magic part is that it keeps track of what you’ve read, so it can show you only the new stuff.

I log into my RSS reader and it’s like opening the morning paper.  I’ve sorted my favorite sites into categories, so that I can read all the local news, then read a bunch of online comics, and then catch up on trends in web development.

I also track websites that don’t have new content very often.  When I find such a site, I throw it into my RSS reader and forget about it.  When the site decides to get off it’s butt and write something, it pops up in my reader.

I keep track of professional blogs, blogs of my friends, and even what’s new on Craigslist.  I track a feed for the Craigslist search results for “canon lenses”.  If anything pops up in the feed, I’ll find out about it.

When I was searching for homes to buy, I tracked RSS feeds of real estate listings.  I’d get a list of new houses on the market daily.

RSS readers come in all shapes and sizes.  I like Feedly because it is just a website, and as such, it’s accessible wherever I can get a connection.  Other readers are downloadable software and provide a richer experience.  Many readers provide more features than just giving you a list, like the ability to share the content you’re reading with others.  Feedly provides links at the bottom of each article that allow me to share the article on Google+, Facebook or Twitter.  I can also send someone a link to the article in an email, or mark an article as a favorite for later review.

Acronyms on the Internet are easy to dismiss as nerdier than useful.  Geeks can’t just give something a pretty name.  It needs to be a Highly Technical and Perfectly Unambigous Prepresentation of the Phenomenon (HTPUPP).  Have you ever tried looking at the resume of a programmer?  It’s all caps.  HTML, JS, CSS, PHP, MySQL, AJAX, etc.  That lowercase y seems to have slipped in there.

My point is that the RSS technology has the potential to help out non-nerdy types.  It’s a great way to get content, and shouldn’t be  squirreled away from the masses.  So, next time you find a fun website, that you’d like to keep in your pocket, look for the RSS icon, and add the site to your reader.