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December 09, 2008
links for 2008-12-08
- Great Article about how we set our Children up for failure by not allowing them to fail today
December 08, 2008
How Children Cope With Failure
Found a great article at a site I read regularly. I was going to post on this, but VA does a much better job than I do. (BTW, If strong language makes you wince, you may want to refrain from reading, but it’s your loss)
How Children Cope With Failure
Posted using ShareThis
December 04, 2008
LifeCast - iPhone/iPod Touch App
LifeCast is a new app for the iPhone/iPod Touch created by SleepyDog Ltd. It is, essentially what is says it is in the name, a blogging and journaling application that will allow you to keep a running journal on your life’s events, or publish them for the world to see on a WordPress, Tumblr, or Blogger blog. Seeing this as an opportunity to try a new method for posting to this blog, I decided to give it a try. My post on November 25th was my first test with the application.
The program is described by the vender as:
LifeCast is the latest offering from Sleepydog Ltd, who were the ideas factory behind the BAFTA-winning Buzz! on PS2.
LifeCast is a blogging and journaling application you can carry in your pocket. Record your daily events and activities in photos and text, time-stamped and geo-located. Set up a connection to your blog and post your entries online.• Create multiple LifeCast timelines : one for work, one for home, another for a special event or maybe a vacation tour.
• Optionally connect each LifeCast with a blog. You can have a different blog set up for each LifeCast.
• Enter text entries with a title and body text
• Take a photo, or choose one from your library, and give it a title
• Fix the location of any text or photo entry. View the locations of past entries using the Maps application.
• Post your entries to your blog* Choose which entries to post and which to keep to yourself.
The current version is compatible with Blogger in text only, Tumblr with text and pictures, and WordPress. The web site does not describe any limitations for WordPress, however I stumbled into one possible limit/bug, but more on that in a bit.
I have an iPod Touch and will not be getting an iPhone anytime soon (I am on a gadget diet until after Christmas at the earliest) so I did not know how well this program would work for me. The first screen when starting the application is where you select which Lifecast you want to use.
This screen is very straight forward. If you have alredy setup your LifeCast, you would select it here or click on the plus sign to add your information. The information you need is fairly straight forward when setting up the LifeCast. You have to name it, decide on a photo size, turn on or off Auto-Locate., which I REALLY recommend for the iPod Touch unless the location finding via wireless access points works better for you than it does me., and if you want your LifeCast posted to a blog. If you don’t select a posting option, your info is on your phone/iPod only and the program becomes a basic journal. Choosing a blog type, however does require an internet connection, so make sure the wireless is on when you try unless you’re on the iPhone. A couple of interesting aggravations to note at this point. If you exit the program during a LifeCast setup, it will be created anyway rather than discarding the info and starting over. That;s OK, I guess, if you can figure out how to edit the settings of a LifeCast after it is setup. It took me a couple of tries to find the edit settings button, and no it isn’t the button on any page labels edit. Also,make sure you test your blog connection as it took me a second try to get that right. It’s not hard, just not as intuitive as I would like to see.
After you setup your LifeCast, you can now enter text posts as well as select (take) pictures and add them to your Tumblr and possibly WordPress. The Developer’s website does not mention a text only restriction for WordPress, however I received an “forbidden” error when trying to do post a picture, so I am not sure all of the kinks are worked out yet.
All in all, it is a pretty good application for the price (free at the time this was written), but I am not sure it will become my iPhone App of choice for posting to my blog. I will keep it and use it for some personal journalling for now and as the app matures, see what features the Developers add to it over time. I recommend it, if for nothing else than it’s ability to be a decent Diary/Journal with the option of posting if you want to do so. Plus, I doubt you’ll find a better free option in the App Store. Overall, I’d rate it a 3 out of 5 point scale.
December 03, 2008
Simplify!
As I continue to think of the madness that was Black Friday here in the US, my mind goes back to a decision my wife and I made about 3 years ago. We agreed we had way too much stuff when it took a fully loaded tractor trailor to move us from place to place as I changed jobs. As we unpacked in Memphis, we agreed things had to change. We had “stuff” stacked in corners, over filled closets, kitchen cabinets with more unitasking appliances than we ever could use, stacks of books we’d read a few times, and other gathered knick-knacks. Our son’s “stuff” was just as overwhelming as he had well over 1000 to 1200 Hot Wheels. We committed to each other we would change our ways and see if we could clear away the clutter.
Deciding to do it was the easy part. Actually doing it, on the other hand, was painful, especially for me. Those of you who have known me personally for any length of time, know what kind of a pack-rat I am, especially where books and electronics are concerned. If it is a gadget, my overwhelming desire is to buy it, even if I don’t really have a need for it and keep it forever. You never know when that Creative Nomad MP3 player will be useful, or the cable connector to convert a Sun Grapics Monitor from the funky DVI connection to VGA will be needed. And USB cables, you’ve got to have at least 3 cables for every device and extensions for backup right? I was just as bad about software. I had OS’s back to CPM including PC and MS Dos, Windows 1 through XP, including a special autographed copy of WindowsME. I even had 8 in floppies in a box, never used. I had more video cards, network adapters, and multiple caseless hard drives all boxed, and “ready to use.” I don’t know WHY I gathered so much stuff; maybe I was secretly hoping to single handedly save the world after the collapse of society with my antiquated, yet good as new technology.
My wife started us out by going through the kitchen cabinets and closets. Shoes we didn’t wear anymore but still had some usability went into the donate stack, the others, to the trash. I went from 7 pairs of shoes to 3. She dropped by more than half as well. She took out any article of clothing she knew she hadn’t worn in over 6 months, not including seasonal items (she did eliminate a few of those based on what she liked) and set it all aside for good will. I was a bit more difficult.
Being a typical guy, I knew there were some things in the closet I hadn’t worn in a while, but I couldn’t tell you what those items were. (I am also “that guy” who sees 5 different shades of red as “red”, but that is another story.) Instead of agonizing over the clothes, I used a tip someone had given me a long time ago. I turned all of the hangers around backwards. Over the next 4 weeks I dressed as I normally would, most of the time forgetting the hangers were backward and getting frustrated when they didn’t come right off with the first pull. After the clothes wee washed they went back in the closet the right way. Doing this began to show what I was wearing. After a month or so, I looked to see what clothes had not turned around the right way and learned a few things.
- I am very boring. I wear the same 8 to 10 shirts all of the time
- I am EXTREMELY boring. I wear the same three colors of pants all of the time, Black, Tan, and Blue
- I am SO EXTREMELY BORING. All of my shirts look very similar and can go with any of the three color pants of the handful of jeans I own
Besides realizing I need a fashion intervention, I discovered several shirts I had purchased and worn once or twice still on the backwards hangers after 6 weeks. I did two things, first I went through the clothes I wear constantly and retired about half of them. The clothes in decent shape went to Goodwill, the others went to the rag pile or trash. (I never donate something that is not still useful.) I then went though the clothes I hadn’t worn and donated the clothes I knew I’d never wear (Like a REALLY green shirt, you know the kind, the green is SO green, it hurts to look at it) and filled in the gaps from the older clothes I had removed. The rest were, you guessed it, donated.
I gained a huge amount of space in my side of our closet and felt better not having so much stuffed in there. Now, my wife and I operate on the principle of buy and replace when it comes to clothes. When we buy some new article of clothing, unless it is a special piece, like a Christmas sweater, etc., we remove an equal or greater number of older clothes and donate or eliminate as the case may be. We do this with my son’s wardrobe as well and it is remarkable how much easier it is to close the drawers of his dresser.
Clothing was probably the easiest thing for me to let go of because, as I stated above, I am boring when it comes to how I dress. Moving on to the library (read stacks laying everywhere) of hundreds of books and magazines was an adventure. I’ll tell that story another time, but now I’d like to hear your thoughts on this idea of Simplification. Do we have too much “Stuff?” What do you do to eliminate the extra fluff in your home and life?
November 30, 2008
Why Twitter will always be the “One” or, “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha”
In the old TV show “The Brady Bunch”, Jan Brady always feels she has to live forever in the shadow of Marsha, her older, better looking, and more popular sister. She is always trying to outdo Marsha and get the attention to center on her instead of her sister. Jan’s schemes would ultimately backfire on her and Marsha would get even more attention prompting her to cry “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha, all I ever hear is Marsha.” This on-going story line was used countless times throughout the series and played up even more in the campy movie remakes of a few years ago. The conflict created loads of laughs, often at Jan’s expense.
“What does this have to do with Twitter?”, you ask. Quite a bit actually. In the online Social Presence, Micro-Blogging, or slow motion chatting world, Twitter is the Marsha to all the other services Jan. Twitter is the older sibling who gets all of the attention and praise, and even if it fails and all you see is a whale, it can’t seem to loose for winning. Some of the other sites only see heavy traffic when Twitter is down for any reason, only to see everyone flock back after using their service as a stop gap. There was a stretch of time where it seemed Twitter went down every few hours. People were upset, cried out in anguish, and threatened to leave Twitter for good, only to giddily post Twitter’s resurrection on whatever site to which they had evacuated and promptly leave to run back to Twitter.
What makes Twitter so irresistible that people are willing to put up with the issues to stay online? I wondered that same thing myself for a while. After much thought, I think I know some of the reasons why Twitter is on the top of the heap and is destined to stay there unless another service can figure out how to push them off the top.
The first reason is, well, it was the first, or close to it, to engage people via text and web presence. Twitter is designed around a mobile interface, hence the character limit. (And you thought it was to keep you from being long winded). The idea you could use text messages to keep your friend updated on your status and have their updates SMS’d to you where ever you are in the world was revolutionary. The service gave people a central point to keep up with each other and connect in ways they hadn’t thought of before Twitter. Being the first on the scene builds a lot of inertia that is very hard to stop.
Second, Twitter is VERY simple to use. As a matter of fact, the hardest thing for me to do on Twitter is confine myself to 140 characters. The site is simple and intuitive and with its SMS short code, even easier to use on a mobile device. If you can text message, you can post on Twitter. Following is easy, you just click where it says “Follow.” Simple and to the point has won the hearts and minds of its users.
Another reason for the devotion is it’s roots. Many of the early adopters of Twitter were the “Digerati” as well as the technically and socially connect folks on the west coast especially in and around San Francisco. People like Robert Scoble, Kevin Rose, and Leo Laporte started talking about it and the rush was on. Even now, these are some of the most followed on Twitter. Leo alone has a following so large he can bring a web site to it’s knees if he mentions it while video casting live. From those movers and shakers and moving outward, Twitter has consistently gathered mass until I feel it is now past the tipping point of moving from early adopter/Geek applications to a real world tool and service that is very close to breaking into the mainstream of consciousness. This critical mass is yet another reason Twitter is destined to stay on top of the heap. Why leave where most of the people you’d want to talk to are staying?
The final reason I am going to talk about is the acceptance by many of the Twitter standard. What I mean by this is most sites which want to build a social component into their own offerings almost always either allow your Twitter Friends to be imported or allow you to cross post from their site. This de facto recognition of Twitter’s status has drawn even more people to it.
Twitter is rapidly growing up. Just this past week, Twitter became a major source of information for the whole world during the terror attacks in Mumbai. News was breaking on Twitter more rapidly than the cable news networks could broadcast. This is why Twitter is on top of the heap and is very likely to stay there. This is not to say other social sites will not be around or used. There will always be other sites, but I think many of them will fall into the niche category.
All of the other sites seem to be destined to sit in their corners crying out “Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, all I ever hear is Twitter.” for some time. What does the future hold? Well that’s a post for another day.
November 29, 2008
November 25, 2008
Trying A New App
I am trying out a new iPod/iPhone app called LifeCasting. I will review it at a later time.
Posted with LifeCast
November 24, 2008
The “Perfect” Big Brother - Twitter
I can’t begin a series of posts on social web sites, without first looking at the one every site ALWAYS gets compared to over and over again - Twitter. I go to a new site and it’s “Well, Twitter does it this way” and “I like the way Twitter handles this better” or “Twitter is cleaner” and until recently, “Is Twitter down for you?”
It seems everything has to live up to or surpass some unwritten “Twitter Standard” (Twindard?) for the masses to accept and/or use the new service. Twitter is like that “Perfect” older brother you always get compared to when you bring your grades home from school. If it helps you understand the context, you can call it the “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha” Syndrome. Always being measured against a standard you know is almost impossible to attain. Since all of my reviews will HAVE to compare the site to Twitter in order to form a frame of reference usable by most who read this blog, I decided to start by talking about Twitter and why I think it is so dominate now.
For those of you among us who are not “Technorati” or technology early/over adopters, you may ask your self, “Why are we talking about bird sounds?” (Note: for the Early/Over adopters, you may want to skim down a few paragraphs as you will find this section a tad boring. It’s OK, go ahead, the rest of us will catch up to you in a bit) Well, we are not talking the sounds of a bird, or light giggling, the “other” definition of twitter - to talk lightly and rapidly, esp. of trivial matters; chatter. In the briefest possible definition, Twitter.com is a site dedicated to light, rapid chat in an environment which would make the most ADHD among us squeal with glee.
Use of the site is quite simple, after you sign up for an account, you can post anything that comes to mind as long as it can be stated in 140 characters or less. This is called a “tweet” among those in the know and displays on the screen as you enter it. While this posting to yourself can be a fun way to get a lot off of your chest, it quickly looses its luster and you are left staring at a screen with your random thoughts staring back at you. A rather scary proposition for some of us. The “fun” in twitter comes in finding and following interesting “Tweeple”, or other people who are out there posting tweets at the same time as you. These people come in all varieties and ideological flavors which can give rise to some interesting discourses.
To find someone to follow is as hard as it is simple. You can start by looking at the public time-line and seeing if anyone has said something interesting in the past few seconds; that’s the simple part. Here’s the hard part of this exercise, figuring out what’s really interesting and what is reply fluff or TwitterSpam (More on that later). If you don’t see something that strikes your fancy, just refresh your page and I am VERY sure you will have a whole new list to look at and choose from. the reason for this is the huge number of people who use Twitter and the even larger number of their posts. Once you find a tweet that seems interesting, you can click on that person’s ID and read other posts by that particular user. If you like what you see, click on the little button labeled “Follow”. The person you just “Followed” will get a message you are now reading their posts and you may or may not get “followed” back in return. By the way, if you follow one of the “famous” Technorati, don’t expect to get followed. Some of those folks have a HUGE list of followers (Leo Laporte has over 50,000 folowers!) and if they followed everyone, it would be like drinking from a fire hose.
Ok, now you’ve Tweeted and followed someone, what now? Well,…um…really…, that’s all there is to it. Yes, there are other features, such as importing your address list and seeing if people you know are already on the site, or looking for and finding other people, that, essentially, I have given you about 75% of what Twitter is all about from a USAGE point of view. From here everything gets a bit mushier/”insider”ish and involves social memes, twitter spam, and echo chamber discussions. You’re welcome to continue reading or go play with Twitter a bit and come back.
For those of you skimming, this is the place to reconnect.
Yes, I know Twitter is more than what I just said, but I didn’t want to frighten the new folks. Some of this stuff is almost better if it is self discovered over time, but we DO need to talk about it for a bit. First, the Echo Chamber effect. I have discovered it is VERY easy to only follow those who hold the same view as you on various topics. Humans tend to shy away from conflict and gather in groups who are “like” they are in various ways, either in appearance, social standing, ideology, of MAC vs. PC preference (DO NOT GO THERE.) We do that in real life and we also tend to do this in our Twitter life. When this occurs, you end up in an echo chamber which parrots back to you your own ideals and it becomes VERY easy to imagine the majority of people feel/believe the same way as you do on various topics. A great example of this is the recent vote on Prop8 in California. Regardless of your views on the Prop itself, I was in an interesting position on Twitter. I had a number of people I follow on both sides of the issue that did not have friends from the opposing side. Each side thought they were in the majority of popular thought because of the posts they read on Twitter and at least one of those groups turned out to be surprised on election day.
We need to stay away from the Echo Chamber if at all possible while following people. I make an attempt to follow folks from across the spectrum, even those who make my blood pressure go up with each post. I don’t do this because I am trying to have an early stroke, but to make sure I am seeing a multitude of ideas and information. Good ideas come from everywhere and limiting yourself is ridiculous.
Tune in next post, where I will try to finish up my thoughts on this “perfect” big brother and see why all of the other sites have the “Marsh, Marsha, Marsha” Syndrome. Also, feel free to send me your favorite Twitter application hints or leave them in the comments and I will aggregate them as a future post.
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