Asavin Wattanajantra recently wrote a list of things he’d learned in his first 7 months as an IT journalist. Which pretty much covers it, but since this week marks my second full year working for Micro Mart, I figured I’d, er, shamelessly steal the idea and write my own list.

1. Free stuff is great. I utterly agree that we love getting free stuff, particularly when you don’t have to give it back.

2. You rarely get the free stuff you want, though, because everyone else wants it too.

3. PRs often have a radically different idea of what constitutes a “high-res” image than we do.

4. Nothing you’re actively looking for, be it story, specifications, or pictures, will ever show up until after the deadline has passed.

5. … but on a weekly magazine you can usually just use it next week, instead.

6. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

7. Anything that can’t go wrong - because it’s all sorted out, everything’s fine, everyone knows what they’re doing and there’s loads of time left! - will go wrong. Things that will easily destroy any sense of organisation: illness, injury, weather, trains, and babies.

8. Speaking of trains, somehow you still always manage to go through a tunnel at exactly the most inconvenient moment in a mobile phone conversation.

9. I will never learn to carry a laptop around. Those things are heavy.

10. Apple product launches are hypnotic (and people will re-fill your wine glass when you’re not looking, which adds to the effect). If Steve Jobs is enthusiastic about it, I will want it. The effect takes a couple weeks to wear off.

11. … admittedly, I’d still quite like an iPhone, though, so that’s not really worn off at all.

12. Just because a product is billed as the fastest/most efficient/quietest/smallest/etc, doesn’t mean that’s actually true. And even if it is, it’ll only stay true for about a week.

13. Making puns based around Flash Gordon references for stories about flash memory stops being funny really fast.

14. Getting noticed by Google News is awesome.

15. The more often you update your blog, the more attention you’ll attract. (Actually, I think I learned this one from just blogging, generally, in a non-work sense, but shhh.)

16. No matter what you write about, someone somewhere will disagree with you.

17. But hey, at least that means they’re reading!

18. I really don’t understand how or why to use Twitter, but I’m sort of trying. In between waiting for it to stop being broken.

19. The best sentence I’ve written so far is “Take these rats off my Internet face!” Context? Er, no. I’ll just let that one stand alone.

20. There can never be enough coffee.

Robert Scoble’s blog post this week on Has/How/Why Tech Blogging Has Failed You made for interesting reading. He makes a lot of good points - definitely worth thinking about, whether you’re a tech blogger or, really, just a blogger of any kind - but it’s his analysis of what’s gone wrong with commenting on blogs that really resonated with me most:

Our commenting systems really suck. I didn’t realize just how badly they sucked until I started using FriendFeed. My comments here are gummed up with moderation, with spam filters that only sorta work, that don’t have threading, and have many other problems ranging from needing to be signed into, to not working on mobile devices very well, to requiring you to enter weird numbers or do math just to be able to post a comment.

What does this mean? Only the most motivated will leave comments. That’s usually someone with an axe to grind. I’m so tired of those kinds of conversations “Scoble, you’re an idiot.” Hey, I already know that, remember my conversation with Jurvetson and Williams? Why can’t commenters be nice, the way they probably would be if they were face to face? That’s cause we’ve failed you. We haven’t moderated jerks out of our commenting system so now no normal person would go close to anything resembling a modern commenting system.

As if to bear out his point, David Edelstein blogged at NY Magazine about the online reaction to his less-than-entirely-positive review of The Dark Knight. It’s easy to say that he should just ignore the comments entirely; after all, he’s a professional film critic and the commenters hadn’t even seen the film, so their personal attacks on him had very little grounding in reality. But obviously he couldn’t just ignore them - Edelstein felt the need to reply, to justify himself. And I really can’t blame him; I’ve been there myself (albeit on a much smaller scale!). After the initial indignation and urge to defend my opinion, I eventually had to just let it go and accept that writing anything on the Internet invites criticism. While that can be useful - and obviously I’m not saying all criticism is ungrounded - it’s important to be able to separate that which is actually justified from, well, abuse.

Eventually, you just have to accept that if someone is ranting and raving about what a complete idiot you are and how you should be banned from writing anything ever again, they’re unlikely to change their mind - but you also don’t have to care. (Unless they’re your editor, in which case, er, you probably will have to.)

But what does it mean for the Internet, and for Web 2.0, if virtually all discussions of anything online get derailed? If all comment sections become places anyone with any sense wouldn’t dare to tread - and writers are afraid of writing anything even remotely contentious for fear of the reaction? If we’ve failed by letting things get to this point, how do we rectify that?

I wish I had an answer.

A Gartner report - which has been picked up by various news outlets - reckons that the computer mouse’s days are numbered. Apparently, the fact that we’re all into new kinds of human-computer interfaces means that we’ll be getting rid of our mice within three to five years. Instead, we’ll all be using motion sensors (like the Nintendo Wiimote) or touchscreens (like the one in Apple’s iPhone) or even devices designed to interpret facial expressions and eye movements. But I have my doubts about this. I don’t think we’re ready to give up our mice just yet - or at least, I don’t think I am.

If you’ve got a laptop, do you use the built-in touchpad for mouse functions? Or, like me, do you just plug in a mouse and use that instead? I’m used to mice; using one is intuitive now, though I’ve re-taught myself to use various designs of trackball mice over the years before eventually reverting back to the tried-and-trusted model. (Though admittedly I have a rather nice ergonomic laser one, which is miles better than the ancient ones I learned to use at school, which had balls in the bottom that kids would routinely steal. That wasn’t just my school, was it?)

Obviously, innovation is great, and I love playing with all the new sci-fi-esque interfaces that seem to get invented on a daily basis, but I don’t think three to five years is long enough for us to change the way we use computers.

Cue an embarrassed blog post in 2011 when we’re all wiggling our fingers at sensors and blinking to scroll down..!

I’m sure my attention span is getting shorter. Any film that clocks in at over 90 minutes (or, heaven forbid, longer than 120 minutes) will start to try my patience, and I’m only willing to give new TV shows a couple of episodes to prove themselves before I’ll move on to something else. The whole “instant gratification generation” thing definitely applies to me. So Joss Whedon’s newest project - an online series entitled Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog - couldn’t be more perfect. There are only three episodes, and the first one, which went live today, clocks in at under 14 minutes.

Starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion, Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is pretty much what the title suggests - the musical adventures of a would-be supervillain. Er, so why am I writing about this on an IT-related blog? Well, it’s interesting because of the method of distribution. Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog owes its existence to the Writers Guild of America strike; Whedon decided to produce something completely independently of the studios, and distribute it over the Internet himself. But unlike, say, LonelyGirl15, Whedon has a plan for turning Dr Horrible into a legitimate commercial entity - the three episodes will be published over the course of this week, and will stay available until July 20th. Then they’ll be removed from the free site, but you’ll be able to pay to download the episodes from iTunes, and a DVD containing all the episodes plus extras will be available shortly too. The Dr Horrible website seems to be suggesting that there’s merchandise on the way, too, and there’s a Captain Hammer tie-in comic available through Dark Horse.

Obviously, the difference between Whedon’s project and other Internet dramas like LonelyGirl15 is that Whedon has already been around the block - he’s worked in TV and film, he knows how that works, and with Firefly, he knows what the power of a loyal fanbase can do. So it’s not surprising that this seems to be a much more professional enterprise. But it’s maybe the first indication that the Internet might become a really and truly viable distribution method for entertainment in the future, and that’s really exciting.

(Doesn’t hurt that Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is also really, really good, of course.)

I was all set to write a blog post this morning… and then, in the course of my catching up with the Internet, noticed that Mike Skuse had pretty much done it for me. Actually, I’ve written about something similar before too, but I’m going to add another post to the pile anyway. Last week, I took some time off work - and banned myself from my laptop as well. I set up away messages on Facebook, in my Gmail account and in my work e-mail account, letting people know that if they needed me, they could call my mobile but that I wouldn’t be checking any online messages at all. Then I powered down my laptop, closed the lid, and left it alone.

I did consider locking it in the back of my wardrobe or something, just to put the temptation well and truly away, but didn’t bother in the end. Which is probably why I ended up cheating a couple of times.

Monday felt really odd. Usually, getting up and eating breakfast sitting at my desk is part of my morning routine, but Internet access was banned, so instead of switching on the computer I switched on the TV and watched the news. I had planned to walk into town or do some exploring (shamefully, since I moved house in March I really haven’t explored enough of the local countryside) but the weather had other ideas, so I spent most of Monday curled up on my sofa reading a book with obnoxious pop music playing in the background and rain battering against the windows. Which isn’t all that far away from my idea of the perfect day, actually.

By Tuesday, I’d more or less acquired the knack of not sitting at a computer all day, and since the sun was shining I went out and explored. Wednesday was another rainy day, but I was better prepared this time and spent the day baking cupcakes, and on Thursday… well, I did some backsliding. My boyfriend called from Euston to say that all the trains were cancelled, and I wanted to find an alternate way for him to get home, which naturally meant hopping onto Google. I’m not proud - but how on Earth did people cope before there was Google, anyway?

While I was online, I took the opportunity to clear the 500-odd post backlog on my RSS reader, and to read/delete the 50 e-mails sitting in my inbox. I spent about an hour on the computer before forcibly prying myself away and moving into the kitchen to cook, and then settling down with a book again.

Friday and the weekend were mostly taken up with social engagements, but I did let myself back on the computer to reply to e-mails and to clear my RSS feed again (er, and to look up a recipe. Oops). I didn’t check my work e-mail addresses, though, so this morning has involved yet more ploughing through - it’s odd, because I generally deal with e-mail as and when I recieve it, to see a week’s worth of mail all piled up like that. I use the Internet for absolutely bloody everything, from planning travel arrangements to keeping in touch with friends to planning shopping trips and finding recipes and playing games and generally keeping myself entertained and up to date with the world, and I’m not entirely sure that I even accomplished much in my week away from the ‘net, apart from lots and lots of cooking and ploughing through three novels, but somehow, it felt good to cut the strings for a little while, to liberate myself from the constantly-in-touch world and just … relax.

Still, it’s 11:24 right now and time for a nice big coffee, I think. Lots to do, lots to do…

I’m a great believer in complaining. If something’s not good enough, I’ll generally find a way to make a complaint and try to get it fixed. Working in journalism, I’m well aware that I’m not the only one: if there’s something in the magazine or on the website that people don’t like, I’ll hear about it via the forums, comments field, editorial e-mail address, or whathaveyou.

Somewhere along the line, though, I’d come to believe that making complaints online isn’t very effective; half-memories of e-mailing people about problems only to never, ever hear back until I got on the phone or sent in a physical letter bubbled away in the back of my mind, convincing me that there was no point in complaining electronically.

Until recently.

Obviously, the only time I had an opportunity to complain was when something was actually wrong, but since I’m plagued with preternaturally bad luck, that didn’t really hold me back.

My first e-mail complaint came about after I bought a food item from Sainsbury’s that, despite having been refridgerated carefully and being well within its use-by date, had gone off. Emphatically, stinkily off. Diligently noting down the tracking codes, purchase date, sell-by date, and everything else I thought might be relevant, I used the complaint form on Sainsbury’s website to fire off an account of my displeasure. I got an automated message back, and then, the very next morning, an e-mail from a human being apologising and asking for more details. Since I’d thrown out the offending item (well, would you fancy having rancid meat hanging around your kitchen?) I couldn’t give her the barcode number (… there’s a tip, there, for anyone else who might have cause to similarly complain) and so the incident couldn’t be investigated any further, but I was offered a Sainsbury’s voucher in compensation. It arrived in the post 2 days later. Bravo, Sainsbury’s!

My next complaint was slightly more trivial. I’d ordered some DVDs from Amazon, and when one of them arrived it was packaged, not in Amazon’s usual ultra-thick cardboard packing, but in a thin card envelope, bereft of any bubble-wrap. I actually, stupidly, thought it looked a lot tidier, and would be easier to recycle (plus the Amazon logo was far less apparent, making the package less obviously attractive to thieves), but once I opened it, quickly changed my mind, since the DVD box inside was broken. One end had completely shattered.

Buoyed by my success with Sainsbury’s, I headed to the Amazon website to have a moan, but discovered that Amazon’s complaints process was rather more streamlined than any others I’d come across - perhaps too streamlined, since all the complaint headers were pre-defined and there weren’t any that exactly fitted my problem. I’d received the item, it hadn’t gone missing, it wasn’t the wrong item, it wasn’t irredeemably broken (the DVD itself was fine) but I wanted to moan about the rubbish packaging and the broken box. I ended up using the wrong header, explaining thoroughly in the text of my complaint, and sending it anyway. Again, I got an automated acknowledgement of my e-mail, and then a real person the next day. I declined their offer of a replacement, mostly due to laziness and not wanting to send back the DVD that did, after all, work, so they refunded my postage costs instead. Hurrah!

Less recently, I had to complain to Play.com when they sent me the wrong item. That involved getting a complaint reference, sending back the wrong thing by recorded delivery, and then receiving a refund to my credit card and the correct item in the post the week after. In all three cases, I’ve found that response is quick - instantaneous, actually, since the auto-response is triggered first - and efficient, with customer service types happy to help. It’s actually nicer than having to return things to most bricks-and-mortar shops!

To balance out the relentless tide of negativity, I’ve been making an effort to also contact companies if they’ve done something especially worthy of praise - or, y’know, if I just really liked something they sell. This has been less successful, which is either weird or to be expected; after all, I’m not actually asking anyone to do anything, just e-mailing to say “hi, you’re ace, please keep doing what you do!” Of three e-mails, I received no response whatsoever to the first one (and that’s after I found the correct e-mail address, since the one on the product bounced back!); got a confused and confusing response to another, advising me to ask their in-store staff for help (um…); and got a lovely e-mail from the last, even if I did get the vague feeling they thought I was a bit mad for e-mailing them just to say I was especially happy with one of their products.

In summary, then - complaints via e-mail seem to work wonders, but if you’ve got compliments, might be best to deliver them in person.