Weekend Thoughts

I just installed GIMPshop on my (no longer new) MacBook. And the interface looks a lot simpler.

And I received a Skitch invite. I don’t like the pink heart icon much. Kitsch.
But I somehow managed to get past that and watch the introductory video (!). The features look very useful. It offers a direct upload to Flickr. Looks like a good tool for quick screenshots. OS X’s Grab only offers TIFF, which isn’t recognized by the Flickr Uploadr for some reason or other. And which means opening GIMP or GraphicConverter or Preview. 20 clicks more.

BTW, I’m sitting in a train to northern Germany and there are quite a number of free seats for a Friday evening… (and a power plug right next to me: hope it works). I guess, the strike warnings caused a lot of people to reschedule.

(Insert pause to take a snapshot of setting sun near Karlsruhe, will be uploaded when I find adequate WiFi access)

Quite a few regional trains have been cancelled. The official reason given via the pa is “wegen Notfall” (Translation: cos of an emergency).
Why not say strike? Emergency sounds like accident or natural catastrophe (can’t spell, too much German on my brain).

Wondering out loud:
Would the new PR approach be more direct and advise the German railway company to use the word “strike” or would it find a roundabout way to describe the situation?

(I forgot to take “The New PR” book with me.)

(I like the size of my 13″ MacBook. Just right for travelling.)

Anyway, “the new PR” book has got me thinking a lot more about buyer personas.

Who am I writing my marketing collateral, company blog posts, and technology announcements for? What kind of things are they interested in? How does a buyer persona search for a new service provider? Keeping your target audience in mind while writing is nothing new. Buyer personas, though, are on a more detailled level, describing a character and a typical work/leisure setting.

And it also reminded me of Bogo’s talk at the STC Transalpine conf in Zurich last April. He stressed the importance of agreeing on personas to develop adequate tech. documentation and user interfaces.

I signed up for Redbubble.com a couple of days ago. It offers a service to upload, sell and print artwork via the web all-in-one. Payment is transferred by Paypal or cheque. There’s a minimum price for the printing and production costs. And you as the seller of the artwork can decide on the markup (i.e. your gain/income/profit). I stumbled across this service via Ozczecho’s Flickr profile. My first impression of Redbubble.com is very positive and IMHO this could develop into a viable Flickr and Etsy alternative.

Still on my list of fun to dos:
Buy a DSLR
Set up an Ubuntu laptop
Learn more Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts (zoom in and out with command + option and ^ or ‘)
Install WordPress 2.3
Try out Pixelmator
Write a book (LOL)
Go on vacation

Disclaimer: at times Chiperoni.ch is my personal online thinktank and my half-geek playground.