WS blog

Great 80s cover band: Sixteen Candles

2006-09-18T19:35:00.000-05:00

I saw the band Sixteen Candles play in Palatine, IL at Durty Nellies this Friday, and they are a goofy bunch. Actually they're just fun to watch on the stage - lots of energy, jumping around, crazy dancing, and an updated sound for all those 80s songs that I thought had lost their cool. They don't dress like they're from the 80s. They don't act like they're from the 80s. In their words: "we only play 80s music, that's all we know".

Intel research breakthrough

2006-09-18T18:46:00.000-05:00

Judging by my computers' average five year lifespan, I'll be getting a new one in the near future and then again when these guys come out.

The Facebook scare

2006-09-09T22:50:00.000-05:00

Have you ever gotten a phone call from an unknown number only to learn that the person got it from your Facebook profile? How about an unexpected instant message? Welcome to your lifetime membership into the "Facebook generation" - or so say those people who feel like every descriptive age group needs to run around with a catchy generation name.

Facebook has rubbed me the wrong way from the first time I saw it. I didn't need the recent News Feeds controversy to tell me that Facebook was a stalker network. My first exposure was from a girl who would soon join a giddy sorority - she already had hundreds of friends in 2003. I joined the Facebook some months after that only because more and more people suggested doing so. It picked up the popularity of AIM.

After looking around I quickly de-activated my account finding it creepy, materially useless, and analogous to a glorified "away message network". I was already sick of my own compulsions to check away messages instead of do homework and so Facebook didn't seem necessary.

This isn't to say that I hate Facebook and don't have an active account (indeed, I do). If you have a real life, though, the silliness of Facebook is apparent. Imagine a girl checking out a guy in her class and then once she hears his name being called on attendance goes and finds out more about him on Facebook than she probably would on a first date.

Here she unknowingly becomes part of this complicit, concealed culture with an amplified and true sense that we all know more than we're telling. What ever happened to the world of natural human relationships?

You could say that my best friends:

- can be hilarious and appreciate humor when others throw it around,

- understand that Facebook is another big joke in life and shouldn't be really used all that much,

- can hold a conversation no matter what the topic.

- have a tolerance for what "normal" people call "weird".

In closing, people should stop actually using Facebook or else realize that it's all a big showy joke, and keep in mind it's creator, Mark Zuckerberg, rolls in money and has a goofy name.

TED speeches

2006-09-02T18:14:00.000-05:00

I recommend watching these free Google Videos on the TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) Conference. Particularly good was a speech on supporting creativity in education made by Sir Ken Robinson.

Helping Google with Image Labeler

2006-09-02T17:58:00.000-05:00

In the event that you're bored and have the desire to help corporate research then you can try the Google Image Labeler game where you are paired up with another person with the goal of matching up terms that you associate with a given image. Kind of neat, it's cool to think that the users can be so connected with Google engineers' research. This reminds me of a recent Google blog post that has to do with Neven Vision, an image recognition company Google just acquired.

Blogger Beta review

2006-08-30T10:37:00.000-05:00

Since I use Google's Blogger for all of my online work, I wanted to post my reaction to the new beta version. The bottom line is that it's fantastic to finally have a dynamic infrastructure that's more akin to Gmail than a dinosaur web program from 2001. It was almost an embarrassment that Google was allowing the old Blogger to just sit there given its popularity and connection to all their other world-class applications.

There are the obvious bugs that come along with a beta version and the personal wished-for features. For me, I would most like to be able to edit the new templates with my own html raw coding. Also scheduled time-released publishing would be nice in order to pace my posts without me having to pace out my time. It just makes sense for me as a publisher and for readers who would rather have a steady stream throughout the day as opposed to a few massive batches of blog posts.

I'd also like to see an autosave feature with the new blogger beta, as Gmail does. However the other new dynamic features overshadow the absence of this. The new dynamic template editor runs like a polished version of Google Page Creator ( a simple, smart web based WYSIWYG editor) and gives you nice options too. You will notice, however, that I have not switched over to the new templates yet because it eliminates a few back-end modifications that I like to have in place. Other nice additions: post labels, more detailed template customization (fonts, colors, backgrounds, buzzwords), and of course the integration with your Google account (finally).

Ambitions!

2006-08-26T11:13:00.000-05:00

One of my general ambitions is to get my feet wet and become familiar with all of the goods and services that Google offers. I feel this necessary because deep down I have a strong sense of the unique role that Google plays in our society as engineers connecting with the lives of people, and that is powerful.

Things I intend to start learning about:
- Google Enterprise solutions (Google Mini and Google Search Appliance GB-1001)
- How it is to be a Google Checkout vendor
- How Google Checkout compares with PayPal
- Froogle
- Google Mobile services (Maps mobile, SMS mobile)
- Google Base (I've only dabbled with it, never integrated it into my life)

Google Checkout update

2006-08-26T10:56:00.000-05:00

A whopping 2-3 weeks later...

So as I said in the last post, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try out Google Checkout and get a free t-shirt with all that cool stuff on it. Well, I went ahead and bought a 40GB LaCie external hard drive from Buy.com costing about $82, and I now use it to help manage my 2001 Dell laptop which runs fine but has been approaching its storage capacity. The 40GB house my music, pictures, movies, all that static type stuff.

As for the t-shirt, well that came about a week later. Google only issued size Large which isn't a problem. They also made the shirt in high-quality 100% combed cotton. On the font it says "Google Checkout" with the shopping cart logo, and on the back it has small print saying "I checked out Google Checkout [line break] August 2006". Pretty nice side benefit to getting a great product from Buy.com.

My experience with Google Checkout proved smooth and exciting. The smart concept of attaching your Google account with your checking account in this way will definitely change the way consumers and vendors approach Internet business. Think about somebody who wants to sell something online but they don't necessarily want to have all the infrastructure that an online store requires. Checkout allows them to sign up with Google and more quickly open up a sort of Internet mom 'n pop shop (at least this is my understanding of the way it works). Though I haven't done the research on it yet, I will report later on how this solves deficiencies in the PayPal format. Perhaps it simply integrates the service with an online presence that people can more readily identify within their lives (the world of Google, that is).

Tempting offer from Google

2006-08-10T15:17:00.000-05:00

On the Official Google Blog today there's an attractive offer (attractive for Google nerds like me anyway) for anybody to get a free Google Checkout t-shirt if you spend $20 at an online store using Checkout. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do this given that the shirt just looks irresistible.

What should I buy? I'll keep a record of what happens with this and report here...

How fast can you type?

2006-08-10T15:14:00.000-05:00

This is a cool web site to test your typing speed - I got 95.6 wpm.

Yahoo weirdness

2006-08-10T14:40:00.000-05:00

Here's an odd thing I noticed on Google Blogoscoped - if you go to Yahoo and type in "google.com", the search results are there but above the first search result they have placed a search bar trying to entice you to search with Yahoo. It's noteable that they don't do this for any other searches or for searches of any other search engines besides Google. Apparently MSN pulls the same tactic.

It's a war out there between the search engines; everyone wants your clicks and eyeballs.

Dusty Baker: "Cubs still in it" ... huh?!

2006-08-10T11:53:00.000-05:00

I know he's the manager, and the manager has to have a positive outlook, but I was still just laughably surprised to see this article. One of the things I really like about baseball is some of the psychology you can glean from how people involved in the sport think and work:

"What do you want me to say -- it's over?" Baker said. "I can't say that, because I don't believe that. I can only say what I believe. Even if you don't, you still have to play. You finish as high as you can finish. That's what playing baseball is all about. If nothing else, you have something to build on next year."

Cool, go Cubbies!

AOL defaults on user privacy policy

2006-08-08T09:51:00.000-05:00

It's pretty amazing that this hasn't gotten any press from traditional news media sources, but it's all over the blogs. A few days ago AOL published thousands of search queries and profiles of users based on a collection of their searches. In some cases this has made it incredibly easy to learn very private information.

Philipp Lenssen's Google Blogoscoped, has been covering this extensively, most recently with a detail of the kinds of profiles AOL was compiling.

He notes:

"...the database of intentions gives you a deep look into the human psyche. At times, we reveal more to a search box than we’d reveal to our close friends... perhaps knowing that some company processes this data, but never expecting the company to make this data public."

Pathetic Wave

2006-08-07T12:28:00.000-05:00

According to the Chicago Tribune, Wrigley Field has sadly been infested with half-fans who did the wave during a recent game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Nothing against the wave - plenty of respectable fans do it for other teams in other places. But you have to understand that doing the wave for the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field is like serving Harry Caray a glass of non-alcoholic beer.

Hilarious: "Terry Tate's World"

2006-08-04T11:56:00.000-05:00

This has been around for a few months, and I think I've seen versions of them on TV, but the longer videos on You Tube are great. They seem to be uncensored too, which is even funnier.

Great things come on Fridays

2006-08-04T11:30:00.000-05:00

The best Google-related item I found today has been a nice update on Google Maps. Now you can have saved locations and label them. So, now when I type in "home" on Google maps, it will take me right to my house's specific address. Same for "work", etc. Great addition.

New project: Literature reviews

2006-08-03T10:24:00.000-05:00

One of my hobbies is reading great writing. Naturally, people are never surprised to see me going through books, spending too much time and money at bookstores, and lately seeking out good writers on the Internet.

In an effort to foster this literary environment online, I will start to write reviews of the works that I spend my time reading. This won't be limited to just fiction novels. I'll keep it open to non-fiction, poetry, short story collections, and anything else.

Most recently I've finished reading Truman Capote's non-fiction work In Cold Blood, so a review of it with my impressions will be the first to appear on the Writer Shore blog.

My current reading material is Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi, and we can expect a review of that to come second.

I think it'd be awesome for the readers of this blog to suggest anything you'd like me to read and write a review on. Just go to the comments and leave your suggestion, anything goes!

How much do professional bloggers earn?

2006-07-30T00:47:00.000-05:00

Great question. In this post from ProBlogger.net, Darren Rowse sheds some light on how he's doing; and though he never provides any specifics, you get the sense that he's doing rather well.

After reading Darren's blog for a few months, it's become clear to me that he takes a proactive approach to earning money and being straightforward with everyone about his methods. Through doing this on his ProBlogger blog, managing one of his 20 other blogs, and working on a consulting basis he claims to make at least $100,000 a year.

A philosophy of mine, however, is that you cannot focus on the money when it comes to a creative medium. Darren doesn't do this, but those thinking about blogging are met with the temptation to think "how can I make money being creative?" This should be replaced with the more appropriate "I'm creative, weird somebody just gave me money for it!?" It's not the businessman CEO mentality, but it aligns with the Google business model that if it does the best to serve the user (in this case, the reader), the rest of your project will fall into place.

In connection with this I have been talking with someone in the last few weeks regarding the Writer Shore community generated online literary magazine project. As a prospective writer for the site, this person expressed concerns about executing their "first publishing rights" on an online literary magazine that's freely searchable and available to the public. I understood this concern and we left it at that. However, I think that sooner or later the attitude of those responsible for giving us really great content (good writers) will shift toward accepting publicly searchable mediums as a positive audience rather than a trash can for our marketable publishing rights.

The Internet as a publishing medium doesn't get much respect from those who consider themselves professional writers. With the proper visibility, the size of an audience a writer can get from the 'net is mind boggling. By default we have access to readers in any part of the world where somebody has Internet access. Just this week the Writer Shore blog has received visitors from Hawaii, Seattle, Florida, New Jersey, Chicago, China, Wisconsin, Australia, Detroit, and Italy. My intuition tells me the potential is there for serious writers. It's just up to the writers to take a bold step and deliver that content.

For more content related tips on Internet blog writing, Darren Rowse has been steadfast in his solid preaching.

WritersDigest.com writing prompts

2006-07-27T19:20:00.000-05:00

Have a look at this amusing list of prompts that just gets you thinking about weird, random writing ideas.

World Trade Center, September 13, 2001

2006-07-27T00:11:00.000-05:00

I found this on del.icio.us, some photography from the 9/11 aftermath.

Why is the president ignoring our laws?

2006-07-26T17:50:00.000-05:00

Lou Dobbs impresses again in his CNN editorial indictment of the president for not following the rule of law. The last few lines of the article particularly resonate:

As Abraham Lincoln said, if bad laws exist they should "be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously observed." President Lincoln devoutly believed that rule of law assured that ours would continue to be a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
And that should be the first demand of every American today.

By the way, what ever happened to CNN being a mouthpiece for the government? At least they've got people writing stuff like this. People just need to act on it. Read more at www.cnn.com/2006/US/07/...

Some Writers Digest gems

2006-07-26T15:37:00.000-05:00

I started reading a web site called Writers Digest , and here are a couple articles I read on my first visit.

The first is a slightly obvious prose primer, but it's always good to see if there's something "obvious" that we don't already know.

The second talks about villainous personalities and how to align them with actual disorders to make for a good story. I happen to think this discussion feels a bit cookie-cutter, but it's a good start for thinking about the topic and connecting it to real problems.

Google shares its suspicions on click fraud

2006-07-26T10:15:00.000-05:00

About a week ago I was having a brief and rather nerdy conversation with a friend who was saying that Google will soon fail because they don't have a product to offer, and because of that the click fraud problem will overwhelm consumers' trust.

I don't think Google will go under because of this, but he's right in identifying morality, trust, and confidence as the main items Google peddles. It sounds very much like accounting firms which drive significant value from their seal of approval that they place on verified and reviewed financial statements. Google maintains a similar but more globally visible portfolio of trust.

For this reason, Google must keep a finger on the pulse of how they're viewed worldwide. This article below specifies a situation where Google had to take care of important business.

I could use a humanoid

2006-07-25T10:11:00.000-05:00

A human helper robot would probably help out, but I have no idea how it would get involved in my current life. I guess I would make it my slave. Do we all crave slaves? I think it sounds like a good idea to enslave computers if we could do it. Google is basically like a computer search servant. For now though, dream about this robot.

Text Link Ads idea

2006-07-24T20:36:00.000-05:00

One of the topics I'm interested in as a web content developer is the progression of Internet advertising technology. Indeed it fuels much of the internet from Google to your local blog writer.

To be part of the Internet world you've got to be in touch with what's going on with blogs, popularity sites like Digg, del.icio.us, Technorati, and the like. A site that I read from time to time - CyberWyre - discusses such Internet traffic issues.

At this site they talk about a new advertising structure called Text Link Ads which highlights words in the content of a web page and links ads that pop up directly over those words. I'd like to hear what people think about that method, and if you could see yourself returning to sites that vie for your attention in that way. You can see it in action and more explanation at the article: www.cwire.org/2006/05/0...

Speak your mind to Google

2006-07-20T10:45:00.000-05:00

Amnesty International has started a campaign to convince the major U.S. search companies to stick to their better principles and not aid China in their extensive Internet censoring over there.

irrrepressible.info outlines the situation and gives you a direct way to contact Google, Microsoft, Yahoo... take a look.

Google may post higher income on search, ad surge - MarketWatch

2006-07-20T09:56:00.000-05:00

Google's earnings come out after today's market close, and with an article lilke this, who wouldn't go buy a few thousand worth of shares and make a few hundred bucks in the process?

However, I can recall times just like today (when Yahoo came out with flat earnings the previous day) and everyone thought that it was because Google stole their ad market share, when in reality the overall Internet advertising market was just flat, and Google had flat earnings, and the stock went anorexic and dropped sixty in a day.I'm just staying put.

Dobbs: Not so smart when it comes to the Middle East - Jul 19, 2006

2006-07-19T11:36:00.000-05:00

Lou Dobbs always seems to have a good take on complicated issues. Here's his commentary on the current Middle East situation:

Google's doodle artist

2006-07-19T09:48:00.000-05:00

I think this has been public for some time, so I'm not sure why CNN is calling him an "unknown artist". But anyway, now we know a little bit more about the guy responsible for this questionable 4th of July 2006 cats drawing.

Anti-penny, pro-rounding bill introduced in Congress

2006-07-18T16:22:00.000-05:00

This article about halting production of the penny sounds like a good idea. Apparently something similar to this is done in Europe.

Writer Shore growing pains

2006-07-18T13:19:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back I began posting on a writing web site called theNextBigWriter.com in an effort to network and interact with other Internet writers and to promote the new Writer Shore project (at least indirectly). Apparently people on a blog called SelahWrites noticed my link to this blog in the profile I created. At the time it had a small blurb about what the Writer Shore project, with one part reading: 'Writers come here and we aggressively promote the best talent to the reading, writing, and publishing communities.' In some ways this is still part of our goal. My profile alias was (still is) TheNextBigReader, and there was some speculation / confusion about what Writer Shore actually is.

This all happened before writershore.com launched, and I'm hoping the mission and intent are more clear now with the new site. As it stands this is still an experiment, and adjustments will be made as it moves along and grows.

Some questions they asked:

- am I a banned former member of TheNextBigWriter.com? Nope. No skeletons like that.
- am I an agent? Not really. But Writer Shore is what me make it.
- am I working in connection with theNEXTBigWhackO? Haha ... ask people who know me. The answer is most likely "yes".

My Firefox extensions

2006-07-18T11:41:00.000-05:00

This space is intended as a supplement to the Writer Shore community generated literary magazine web site, and as such the content of it will be pretty broad. I see that as a positive necessity.

The great part about this post, in particular, is that I've finally found the fix to tear me completely away from Internet Explorer. Previous to only a few minutes ago, I had wanted to use Firefox because I knew that everything about it was better than IE. The only thing keeping me faithful to IE was the fact that the Google Toolbar (BETA) didn't have the Bookmarks functionality (a petty reason, I know). Maybe I'm a slow Internet user in terms of geekiness and the ability to find all these things, but today I found a Google Bookmarks Button FF extension. It should accomplish exactly what I seek.

Great stuff, let's see how it goes. Check the thing out yourself.