Jon Todd

I’ve been working a lot lately which has actually been really nice. Its funny how absence makes the hear grow fonder even when it comes to work. When you work in the field of computers and you take a few months to live you realize there’s a lot of catchup to do.

For example, after finally getting invited to use google analytics and finding some fun tools like google sitemap I’ve gotten a new appreciation for how the internet works and really how information works in general. Plus I learned that there are quite a few people coming to this site even when I don’t update it. 85 page views on Sunday? That’s more than a few people who weren’t in church.

We all know the internet is about free information. Way more than we could possibly imagine. However what few people realize is their importance in this process. If the internet is the closest we’ve come to a true democracy then we certainly must be involved it.

What has changed for me is that up until a few days ago I saw the internet as a tool, a reference, a form of entertainment and distraction. Something which I was simply using without giving anything in return. Sure we all have paid for a few “services” online, but so few of us are actually contributing information when we have so much to give. Think about how many times you’ve used a search engine to find some information. Now how many times did someone else use one and find something that you created? I’m not saying we all need our own web site or blog but I do think that we could share more about what we are learning as consumers and members of society in concise and relevant ways.

I used to think of blogs as glorified mass email where the long winded could unleash some steam and the tech savy could showoff their latest and greatest widgets. Regardless of content blogs extremely powerful and far reaching, with good content they provide quick and easy answers to some hard questions to answer.

For example, do you know anything about shifting a manual transmissions without a clutch? After doing it for the past few days I decided to hop online and find out if it’s actually hurting my car as all I knew about it at the time was that it was possible and that I could do it if I thought about what speed my engine and tires were going. How stuff works is probably one of the most helpful sites for understanding your car and just about everything else. After some time spent there and on various forums I learned that shifting without the clutch isn’t bad if done perfectly but it can be pretty bad when you mess up. It makes sense, why have a clutch if you don’t need one?

The point here is that the internet allows us to be very well informed people and since free and open flow of our opinions makes a democratic society, which we supposedly live in believe it or not, its our darn jobs to make a difference.

So will you see more posts here? Yeah a few more. I’m certainly not going to make promises, but I do believe that we can all have some impact on having a more informed society.