Jun

4

Absolutely the best explaination of Social Media — Common Craft delivers, again!

Filed Under Blogging, How to, Social Media | 1 Comment

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A great and video explanation of Social Media. Wikipedia couldn’t do better :)

I’m sure you’ve heard the buzz. may be the next big thing. What’s it all about? This is in Plain English.

Let’s take a visit to Scoopville - a town that’s famous for ice cream. For over 20 years, Big Ice Cream Company has been making high quality ice cream with a big factory in town.

A few years back, the company did focus groups and found out that they could maximize profits by offering three flavors: chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.

May

29

Use Web 2.0 tools to save time and be more productive

Filed Under How to, In the life, Social Media | Leave a Comment


Someone's Lost Schedule Book
Creative Commons License photo credit: ASurroca

For a while I’ve been using a few 2.0 applications that, on their own, are great, but when when partnered with other 2.0 apps, become superstar efficiency optimizers.

The applications
Consider Jott, IWantSandy, and Twitter.

Jott is a to text . You call a number, say your message, and moments later it’s emailed to you (or a group), turned into a reminder, added to a list, or sent to 2.0 applications (called Jott ).

IWantSandy is a ‘virtual assistant’. She’s able to manage your , build and manage lists, manage groups, and share your lists with others.

is a ’status update’ that allows you to post your status (your to the “What are you doing?”).

Connections are key
Standalone, they’re all good, solid, 2.0 applications. But where they really begin to shine is when you let them talk to each other, and other applications. Here’s a example:

  • Use to have Sandy remind you to backup your blog on the 13th of each month
  • In the window type d s r the blog on June 13, 2008 @monthly
  • which means Direct message to Sandy (s is Sandy’s name), Reminder (r) …(the text Sandy is to remember) on June 13, 2008 (the start date of the reminder) @monthly (a special Sandy tag to make the event repeat.

Depending how you’ve got Sandy set up, you’ll be reminded through , or SMS message to your mobile device (or all three).

AFK? Use Jott When I’m out and about, I use Jott to work with Sandy to get things done. Here’s the same example using Jott:

  • (Dial into local Jott number, Jott answers) Who do you want to Jott?
  • (Me) Sandy.
  • (Jott) Sandy.(repeats to confirm) Is this correct?
  • (Me) Yes.
  • (Jott) Got it. BEEP-TONE-TO-RECORD
  • (Me) Reminder. the Blog on June 13th 2008. Tag Monthly.

Extending further
, Jott and IWantSandy all embrace openness, to varying degrees. Depending how you configure each, they can update your calendar ( Calendar, 30Boxes, etc), your local through CSV or iCal files, really the sky is the limit.

So, what have I missed? How are you using these (or other applications) to make your life easier?

May

23

On time management and GTD

Filed Under Doing, Review, Social Media | 6 Comments


Moleskine Concept Diagram 1
Creative Commons License photo credit: jazzmasterson

Lately I’ve been working with a few that help me streamline my various tasks and workflows. Over the next few posts, I’ll dive into them and my reasons for using them.

First off, the Two Minute Timer.
If you’ve been been under a rock for the last few years then this to David Alan’s , Getting Things DoneOn time management and GTD (image: ) and the Two Minute Rule applied to Processing will be meaningless. The following is for you (via Wikipedia):

Process

When processing a , a strict workflow is followed:

  • Start at the top.
  • Deal with one item at a time.
  • Never put anything back into ‘in’.
  • If an item requires :
  • Do it (if it takes less than two minutes), OR
  • Delegate it, OR
  • Defer it.
  • If an item does not require :
  • File it for , OR
  • Throw it away, OR
  • Incubate it for possible later.

If it takes under two minutes to do something, just do it immediately. The two-minute rule is a guideline, encompassing roughly the time it would take to defer the formally.

The Two Minute timer in actionAll right then, you’re up to speed on the Two Minute Rule. The I’ve been using to help me keep track of two minutes isn’t the ‘official’ two minute timer, rather an un-official one created with .NET.

Elegant in its simplicity, the Two Minute Timer works. Plain and . Easy to read, and easy to use. Not much more to say but that’s part of beauty. It simply works.

May

14

Engaging in ‘high risk’ activity - moving my blog

Filed Under Blogging, Doing, Web | 2 Comments


Engaging in high risk activity - moving my blog (image: 20562069_7cf1e2aaec_m)I’ve decided to take the plunge and move my blog to a more traditional .com type (rather than the .net that I currently use). I’m going to keep the .net for more esoteric things, private server, etc.

If you’re this on the old blog (blog.bradgrier.net), then please jump over to the new one, bookmark it, and check it out to make sure it works as you expect. You can find it at blog.bradgrier.com.

The dot-com is more , have a standard ‘expectation ‘of a site or blog when it has a .com address. A .net address seems to have a different ‘expectation’. And I felt the need to try out a new provider.

So, this will mean a bit of :

  • feeds - already moved my feedburner redirects so there should be no disruption
  • Incoming - not sure what to do about this yet. Incoming add value to your ranking, so this transition will cost me some of that precious Google Juice
  • Site duplication - some of the articles I’ve been about domains suggest maintaining duplicate sites for a few months. I’m thinking about this. It may work, but I’d customize the so that some sort of ‘ moved’ message is appended to the feeds etc

But, I’m not the expert here, just the guy doing the work. Do you have any thoughts or opinions about domains? What should I watch out for? What should I do differently?

: David Asch

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Jan

16

Can’t get Guitar Hero III for the Wii? Frets on Fire will ease your pain.

Filed Under Doing | 8 Comments


Cant get Guitar Hero III for the Wii? Frets on Fire will ease your pain. (image: 200px-Fretsonfire4)

My wrists are cramping. The was not designed to be used like this, but I’m having a blast! Damn you Frets on Fire!

I’ve been looking forward to getting Guitar Hero III for the Wii since before Christmas. But, as anyone not living under a rock will know, GH3 has been sold out everywhere since its release.

Perhaps, Activision (the publisher) is holding up shipments until they get through fixing the mono output bug.

Until that time, I’ll have to make do with Frets on Fire, an Open Source and freely downloadable Guitar Hero clone for , and Mac.

The I tried it last night, and must admit, it’s a blast! A fairly game, you hold your similar to a guitar, with the fingers of your left hand curling around the (from the back to the front) to hit your ‘frets’ (F1 - F5 keys). The Enter key is your ‘pick’.

The rest is all in the timing.

There’s a pretty entertaining tutorial, and three songs included, as is a song editor. packs are also available , from the usual bittorrent sources. And you can also import tracks from any of your Guitar Hero DVDs. Very .

Frets on Fire will also let you use your USB Guitar, should you already have one. Alas, I don’t, so I’ll have to get used to holding that damn …

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Jan

11

Online Photo Albums made easy — Video

Filed Under Photography, Social Media | 3 Comments


Once again the wizards at Common Craft make the complex seem easy. Sharing in Plain English is simply that. Well done, and Enjoy! And as you can tell by the little widget in the right hand column, I’m a flicker user :)

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Jan

5

Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2)

Filed Under Doing, In the life | 7 Comments


Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2) (image: 300px-G15) After a lengthily exchange with Logitech customer support (started October 22, 2007), I’ve just received my replacement Logitech G15 keyboard.

The key problem (pardon the pun) was that the black paint on a few of the keys was wearing off, allowing the backlighting to shine through obscuring any key lettering. This was around a year old..maybe less.

Now, since I’d started the process, Logitech updated and revised the G15 with:

  • Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2) (image: 300px-Logitech_G15_v2)Reportedly improved paint
  • Orange backlit (the first one was blue)
  • Reduced the number of programmable Gkeys from 18 to 6(!)
  • Reduced the size of the LCD display by appx. 40% though keeping the number of pixels HxW
  • Removed the ability of the LDC display to swivel
  • Removed the volume control wheel

Frankly, I was hoping for them to send me another v1 G15. I was comfortable with the footprint it had (huge), I liked the availability of all those programmable keys, and I liked the size of the LCD display.

But now I’ve got a v2, and here are my initial impressions:

  • Key depress feel is soft…maybe mushy?
  • sits differently on my …I have to hunt initially to place my fingers on the home row properly
  • footprint is smaller. I like this. I now have more for my mouse and Wacom Bamboo tablet.
  • LCD Display is very slightly out of alignment in it’s housing. Not too noticeable, but when I do it’s a minor annoyance.
  • The drivers and were easy to install and setup
  • Logitech maintained compatibility with LCDStudio, so my custom displays run properly
  • Not sure I like the smaller LCD display…we’ll see how it goes.
  • I *think* I’ll like the orange backlight. It seems to glare less.
  • The volume buttons work ‘ok’, but the wheel seemed nicer — like the wheel on an . Upside is I can still use the wheel/spot on the Wacom Bamboo :)
  • Marketing: the Box and some literature do NOT mention that the has 2 USB ports. I was worried because the v1 G15 does have these, and I didn’t want to lose the ability to plug in thumb drives..etc.
  • Am I missing the extra 12 macro keys? I’m not sure yet. The layout is different, but since I also have a Nostromo n52 , I’m sure I can map any missing functionality over to it.
Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2) (image: ) Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2) (image: )
Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2) (image: ) Logitech G15 Keyboard upgrade (v1 - v2) (image: )

Conclusion: For now I’d say I’m satisfied. The process took a while, I’m not convinced the paint on this will last better than the last. The reduced LCD display size could be an issue…but I’ll reserve judgement on it for now…and I think I like the orange backlight.

Nov

2

Earthrise on the desktop — an Apollo 8 image

Filed Under Photography | Comments Off


Earthrise on the desktop -- an Apollo 8 image (image: )Today I was feeling the need to update my , and decided to look around for a 1280×1024 version of Earthrise. I couldn’t quickly find one…so I did the next best thing, grabbed this 2400×2400 version from NASA and cropped it. Feel to grab my version here.

** Update Feb 17, 2008 **

Since I’ve got a new 22″ wide format monitor, I needed to rebuild my Earthrise . So here it is, in 1680×1050 rez.

Full credit to the NASA and the Apollo 8 crew (Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders)

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