Here are some links that I have collected, some are friend's sites and some are just great sites that I've found on the internet. Check them out if you have time.
Laborer Alexander Robinson of Mobile, Alabama,
redefined the limits of tactlessness when he
opened his eyes after surgery to restore his
sight and said agreeably to his wife: 'Boy,
you sure have got fat in four years.'
People in happily committed relationships may skip this section and go back to knitting scarves and listening to the "Love Actually" soundtrack. Or whatever the hell it is those people do.
So you saw Avatar together, and made out behind that 7-11, but it's really nothing- Oh God, she found your office. And she's carrying flowers, a box of chocolates, and a fuzzy sea otter with your name on it. At least the thank you note you scrawl on a Starbucks napkin will prove you're a quirky slacker who's not looking to get serious, but doesn't want sex completely off the table. It will, right?
You don't really talk per se, but there's definitely an unspoken Jim/Pam thing going on. Luckily, your gift of flowers, chocolates and a plush sea otter with your name on it will finally crack all that seething romantic tension wide open. A few awkward sentences later, you quickly downgrade from "crack tension" to "explain you're not the guy who delivers her mail everyday." You should have kept the damn chocolates.
Damnit, you're the non-committal loner. It takes half the fun out of it when she also feels she could do better. Still, since basic algebra dictates that apathetic sex > zero sex, you let her know (via text message, anyway) that nothing should keep you apart on this special day. ("Nothing" = An above-average 30 Rock, her meeting someone with better abs then you, eating a burrito, forgetfulness, either of you not getting drunk enough to go through with it.)
In addition to enjoying international sucess as a stand-up, Arj Barker appeared on Flight of the Conchords as Brett and Jermaine's American friend Dave. His newest album, LYAO, is currently in stores. For information about shows and to sign up for his mailing list, visit ArjBarker.com.
Your new album is called LYAO (Laugh Your Ass Off), and all the tracks have Internet acronyms for titles. Have you used the Internet to grow your fan base?
I actually didn’t instigate a lot of my Internet presence. The only clip I’ve ever put up is just a video of me trying to teach people how to putt. That only has, like, 4700 views. Nearly every video of me on YouTube I didn’t put up.
So you aren’t constantly blogging or tweeting.
I don’t always have something to say to Twitter. I’d rather say nothing than share something I don’t care about. I’m lazy, too. Sometimes these things are a little like homework after a while. A voice in your head going, “Have you written on your blog today?” But thankfully I think my work does its own self-promotion. I try to just be a good comedian.
Some people should probably just focus on that instead of Twitter.
I would never comment on other comedians, but I definitely think that most of the good things that happen to me came because I worked hard as a comedian as opposed to promoting myself.
How did you become involved with Flight of the Conchords?
I was over in Australia working with those guys. We became friends, and I guess they liked my comedy because they had a show and they really wanted me to be on it. It was quite lucky and fortunate. Television is really the most powerful way for people to remember you and know you. The Internet can be awesome too, obviously, if something goes viral. < />
It's been an entire week since your last confession and there's been a lot of good, solid sinning going on across the country. Check out the top 5 and don't forget to submit your misdeeds to our submission page!
You're a great roommate, but the facebook pranks got kind of old. Sorry about inserting that line into the middle of your resume declaring your innocence of the crimes for which you served 3 years in state prison, I didn't think anyone would take it seriously. Chris H., Kalamazoo
My roommate this past semester was a hateful, pathetic nuclear engineering major with a three foot long pony tail. She never bathed, shed her nasty hair everywhere, smelled, and went to bed between the hours of 8:30 and 10 pm every day of the week. If I ever got too loud at night, she would always wake up and "tell me to take my activities elsewhere", even if it was only 11. When i didn't comply, she stole my $100 calculator, took my food, broke one of my lamps, and never let me watch TV even if a game was on. All the while she would ignore me and do homework 24/7 unless I did something wrong. By the end of the semester this year, I had had enough. Notice a little trim to your hair? I cut about 6 inches off, but I dunno if you will notice. That's what you get when you leave your Rapunzel ass ponytail hanging off your lofted bed at 11 p.m. when your asleep. Claire Botner, Purdue
My roommate freshman year moved out during our second semester because I didn't say hi to him three times and it was making his life unbearable. Go figure. Tim T., School Not Given
My roommate is the kind of guy that takes steroids and spends every waking minute at the gym and he always has his ipod in and I barely talk to the guy. I always figured he would be listening to something heavy, the screen said ABBA. Andrew T. School Not Given
It's time to focus. As someone who is constantly spitting in the face of the legal system, you need to find away to avoid being apprehended. You know those people that are always chasing after you? They are commonly known as 'police'. Though if you listen to hip-hop music you may know them by one of their many street names such as '5-0', 'po-po', or 'chief executive officer'. People try lots of things to get away from them. Some choose to get in great physical shape and out-run them. Some use the millions of dollars they inherited to build tunnels that create a series of intertwining escape routes leading to their underground lair seven miles outside the city limits of Boston. You don't want to do any of that though. What you are going to do is quite simple: disguise your identity.
Have a custom mask made. If you just toss on a balaclava, you'll look like any old thief. What's the point in disguising yourself if you just end up looking like a criminal? Might as well install Windows on your Mac. What you need is a custom-made mask with the image of your face on it. If police see someone wearing a mask with your face on it, they will assume that the person is someone attempting to be you. After all, are you really stupid enough to hide your face with your own face? Yeah, stupid like a fox.
Lie. Do lots of lying. Lie about absolutely everything. A complete lack of consistency will make you difficult to track down. When you are asked your name, you give a different one every time. When you are asked where you are from, you give a different place every time. Asked if you want freshly-ground pepper on your salad? Say yes, even though you didn't want any. Lie. Lie. Lie.
It's the Monday before Valentine's Day, which means you only have seven days to convince your girlfriend that of course, totally babe, you knew that. Luckily, I'm here with a day-by-day breakdown of what you should be doing.
Reservations, Not Indian: Technically you should already have a restaurant reservation, but I know you don't, so make it today.
Coy Fish: Once you have the reservation, make sure your girlfriend knows it. Coyly confirming that she's 'not doing anything' around 8, 8:30 on Sunday will not only make her giggle, but will reassure her that you're on top of shit. Very barely on top of shit.
The Giver: Start thinking about what you could get your girlfriend as a gift. If it's a good gift, you'll have to make some effort to get it beforehand. And no, on the way to dinner doesn't count as 'beforehand'. I mean, yes, technically it's...ugh, just start thinking about it, come on, it's the easiest part of this whole list.
Just moments after giving a speech in which she mocked President Obama for using a Teleprompter, Sarah Palin was seen answering questions with the help of her Handprompter.
As TMZ put it, "Palin was back in 10th grade biology class," reading crib notes off her hand to help her answer pre-screened questions at the Tea Party Convention in Tennesse.
The words "energy," "budget" (which was crossed out in favor of "tax cuts") and "lift American spirit" were clearly visible on her hand.
Here's a roundup of more Handprompter hilarity from around the Internets:
Notes on your hand,
Notes on your hand,
Lookin' like a fool
With your notes on your hand. -MadKane
"Palin Dodges Question About 2012: 'I Need to Check With My Hand First'" -Andy Borowitz, on Twitter
"I figured I would do the same thing today, just in case the prompter broke." -NBC's Andrea Mitchell, showing notes on her own hand during "Morning Joe"
"On a positive note, this demonstrates that she can read." -seltaeb4, on Digg
"I guess the next time meanie liberal elites like Katie Couric ask Palin what she reads, she can say, 'My hand.'" -freedomjoe, on Digg
"Hey that's how she got through college. All eight of 'em it took for her to graduate." -IrishJoe, on Digg
"She can compre-hand." -clvngodess, on Digg
"I'd like to thank Sarah Palin for bringing a visual definition to 'talk to the hand.'" -@bleahy4, on Twitter
"Sarah Palin should sell ad space on her hand. She could make a fortune." -@KristeeKelley, on Twitter
Update: Sarah Palin struck back at her critics by writing 'Hi Mom' on her hand during a campaign appearance with Gov. Rick Perry in Texas.
"President Obama is having a big Super Bowl party. This is very shrewd. He has invited a group of Republicans to come to the White House for his Super Bowl party. He's going to seat the 'you lie' guy next to the 'not true' guy." -David Letterman
"President Bush told Obama, he said, 'Listen, you get 10 Republicans to show up, and I'll drop in and choke on a pretzel.'" -David Letterman
"Elizabeth Edwards announced that she and John have separated. So it looks like it's not just Nancy Pelosi that's going to lose the house this year." -Jay Leno
"I am stunned that John Edwards made a sex tape. Do you realize this guy is basically Paris Hilton with better hair? That's all he is." -Jay Leno
"And, of course, Edwards has no remorse. Today, he called ABC to see if he could be the next 'Bachelor.'" -Jay Leno
"Here's big news: United States Senate reconfirms chairman of the Fed. Ben Bernanke was reconfirmed. So he'll have the job for four more years. I just hope we have an economy for four more years." -David Letterman
Chances are you'll host or attend a Super Bowl party on Sunday. And chances also are approximately 97.8-percent of the people in attendance will know absolutely nothing about football. Not a problem! Just pass out copies of this handy Super Bowl cheat sheet, and soon all your guests will be talking football as expertly as any ex-jock (who has suffered multiple concussions).
>>> SOME CONVERSATION TIPS <<<
Don't Question: "Why do we care what Tim Tebow thinks about a complex issue like abortion?-
Instead, Announce: "I guess it really is a shame when something dies before it ever even comes to life…like Tebow's career as a pro quarterback!-
Don't Wager: On the outcome of the game. You can't win. Vegas is too good.
Instead, Bet: On the outcome of the coin flip. People will tell you it's random chance, but heads is a lock this year.
Don't Say: "Why is the Who playing the halftime show? Isn't Pete Townsend a registered sex offender?-
Instead, Announce: "God, I hope this means next year's halftime show will just be a series of short films by Roman Polanski.-
Don't Say: "The Colts' pass defense doesn't look very good." Instead, Jeer: "A cover-two? What is this, 1997?" Don't worry about what this means. Only three or four people in the country know what a cover-two defense really is, and the chances of one of them being at your party are infinitesimally small.
Don't Ask: "Who is winning?- Instead, Look: At the screen and figure it out yourself. It's somewhere on there. No, not that. That's the game clock. And no, over there is little promo thing for a CBS show. And below that are game stats. And above that is just random scribbles on the screen done by an apparently drunk announcer with a telestrator. You know what? Just wait until the end of the game. They'll probably announce the score then.
Don't Say: "I just watch the game for the commercials.- Instead, Say: Nothing! Keep your trap shut! You might talk over the commercials!
The late-night comedians took on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" this week, joking about the push to let gays serve openly in the military.
"Everybody's talking about the military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy. Admiral Mike Mullen said it's wrong to force people to lie about who they are in order to serve their country. Then Congress was like: 'Who cares? We do that every election.'" -Jimmy Fallon
"I think it was Bill Clinton who popularized the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy. But don't confuse that with another Clinton policy -- 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell Hillary.' That was a whole different policy." -David Letterman
"'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' could be a thing of the past, very soon. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, says he believes gays should serve in the military, all gays, whether they want to or not." -Jimmy Kimmel (Read the latest late-night jokes)
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, meanwhile, both slammed John McCain for his hypocritical stance on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Colbert mocked McCain for flip-flopping on the issue, saying McCain wasn't content with the opinions of "low-ranking" officials like the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense, and the Commander in Chief.
"We haven't heard a peep from the Commandant of the Coast Guard, the Chief of Naval Operations, Cap'n Crunch, Major Garrett, Sgt. Slaughter, Lt. Dan, 'Private Practice,' or Col. Sanders," Colbert quipped. (Watch the video)
In another swipe at McCain, The Daily Show's John Oliver argued it's time to stop letting old people serve in the Senate: "These Senators work long days in close quarters. It's not fair to the other Senators trying to work on legislation, never knowing if one of the 'olds' is gonna come up behind them and offer them a hard candy...These people can't control themselves. " (Watch the video)
Dating someone? Well great! Send your craziest, funniest, most embarrassing dating related stories to me at dating.itscomplicated[at]gmail.com!
When I was dating my ex-girlfriend, I took her out to a nice little Italian place on our first date. Not knowing that she was a vegetarian at the time, I ordered the Veal Parmesan. When it came to the table, I got a disgusted look from her and proceeded to take a large bite and say "MHMMM BABY COW!" She didn't really talk to me for the rest of the date. -Anonymous
I one had a girlfriend who, for no logical reason, absolutely refused to put the relationship status up on facebook despite the fact that guys hit on her mercilessly. Her first attempt at a solution was to make it so that her status wasn't up but this did nothing to stop the would-be suitors. Then, instead of adding me as her boyfriend, she put her guy best-friend up as "married". She didn't get why I was so pissed....we broke up a week later. -Anonymous
Me and my girlfriend study IT school. She NEVER saw original Starwars trilogy. I am so embarrassed... -Martin, Czech Republic
In high school, I convinced my girlfriend of the time that the "H" in the name "Jesus H. Christ" stood for "Hoobastank." I further played on this notion by telling her that the band Hoobastank was a Christian rock band. The best part was getting to watch her tell other people this "fact" like she knew something special. -Ted
Do your parents not understand technology? Do they ask you stupid questions? Do they send you absurd text messages? Do they use words like "MyFace,""SpaceBook,"or "The World Wide Web?"
If you've got an example of your Parents Just Don't Understanding, submit it here!
And thank God we'll never be as dumb as they are!
When my parents go to the mall, they bring a set of walkie talkies with them so they can "call" each other if they get separated. denise v
My parents recently put in hardwood floors and my dad wanted to send me some pictures so I could see how it was going. In the subject line he simply wrote, "hard wood." I almost deleted because I though it was porn. denise v
I work as an online news producer at a daily newspaper. Shortly after news broke about the death of actress Brittany Murphy, an elderly woman who works here was heard to frantically remark that "Twitter killed Britney Spears!" Tom D.
My dad asked me for some help on a slide presentation that he needs to do for work. He sent me the file so I can take a look at what he's done so far. He wrote the whole presentation on an Excel spreadsheet. Jay C, BCIT
My parents still use Sacagawea dollars. Steve H, Waubonsee
Old people genitalia spotted Steroid use Concern that your balls are shrinking Weights lifted Number of successful encounters with girls you've met at the gym Number of successful hypothetical encounters with girls you've visualized at the gym Horrible, crippling bench-press accidents Embarrassing boners
Brown, who famously posed nude for Cosmo in 1982, is shown in the skit repeatedly interrupting a meeting of Democratic lawmakers and driving each of them to distracted fantasies with his pretty looks and suggestive winks.
For Sen. Barbara Boxer, Hamm appears as a sexy shirtless doctor: "I'm against the public option but I can offer you a pubic option. Because I just found a lump - in my underpants."
For House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Hamm is a gyrating disco dancer: "I want to introduce something to the floor. It's called - your panties."
And to Congressman Barney Frank, he's a scantily clad construction worker: "You worried about a filibuster? 'Cause I'm about to filibust out of these jean shorts." (Watch the video)
Brown said he approved on the SNL skit, telling National Review Online that he smiled as he watched it.
"Thank goodness I like a good laugh. That was pretty funny. I wish I could host SNL some day. I've been watching it since I was young. Jon Hamm is great."
But what about Hamm's Boston accent? "He did a great job," Brown said. "He doesn't really sound like me, but it was very funny."
SNL also spoofed Obama's State of the Union address in a skit cutting together clips of Fred Armisen as Obama with actual shots of displeased Republicans and ecstatic Democrats.
Referring to the Massachusetts Senate race, Obama declared, "Our nominee Martha Coakley was the single most incompetent candidate ever to seek public office in this nation's history. Martha Coakley, you are a disgrace. You couldn't beat Dick Cheney for mayor of Berkeley." (Watch the video)
"After President Obama spoke, the Republicans gave their rebuttal, during which they pointed out that Obama has repeatedly failed to solve any of the problems they created under President Bush." -Jimmy Kimmel
"Tomorrow night, President Obama will give his State of the Union address. The White House says the speech will focus on American jobs. So, I guess he's going to talk a lot about India." -Jay Leno
"Well, tonight in Washington, President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress. Joint session sounds like more fun than it is." -Jimmy Kimmel
"There are rumors that there is a John Edwards sex tape. People say it's twenty minutes of Edwards caressing and stroking...And that's just the part where he fixes his hair." - Craig Ferguson
1. Bush, Clinton Have A Little Trouble Filming Haiti PSA
A Dutch comedian does some very clever editing to the awkward Haiti PSA Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton put out earlier this month, showing ol' Dubya flubbing his lines repeatedly.
2. Stephen Colbert's State of the Union Speech
After making a grand, SOTU-esque entrance (that included delivering a baby), Stephen Colbert sidled up to a podium and proceeded to rip apart the Republican rebuttal to the State of the Uniion address, delivered by "our alternate universe white president."
3. Chris Matthews 'Forgot Obama Was Black'
After watching Obama's State of the Union Address, MSNBC's Chris Matthews declared he "forgot he was black for an hour." This is the same guy who was so excited during one of Obama's 2008 campaign speeches that he said he felt a "thrill going up my leg." As Jon Stewart quipped, "I swear to God, this guy's one scotch away from being Ron Burgundy."
4. Don't Sell Out America
In this clever spoof video presented by Funny Or Die, President Obama reacts to the Supreme Court ruling allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to buy candidates .
5. Jon Stewart Warns Dems Against Latest GOP Ploy
As Republicans call on Democrats to move to the middle, Jon Stewart calls it a ploy, saying, "Don't you get what the Republicans are doing? They're f**king with you."
Break out the whiskey and shot glasses -- it's time for President Obama's first official State of the Union Address.
As you know, the Constitution requires that from time to time, the president shall give to the Congress information on the State of the Union, which is best digested by the citizenry while completely hammered.
Thankfully, there are several State of the Union drinking games floating around to help you accomplish this. We took the liberty of compiling the best parts of all of them into a single Definitive State of the Union Drinking Game designed to both amuse and intoxicate you as quickly as possible.
"Let me be clear" - sip
(If he's actually clear - pound)
"Healthcare" - sip
"Obamacare"- pound
"Scott Brown" - sip
"My name is Barack Obama, and I also have a truck" - pound
"Pants on the ground" - pound
"Death panel" - sip
"Sarah Palin is a genius" - pound
"It reminds of my childhood in Kenya" - pound
"That's why I'm naming Glenn Beck as my new Secretary of State" - six pack
"For the record, Ayla Brown is no longer available...if you know what I mean" - pound
"Party crashers" - sip
"Which is why I won the Nobel Prize" - pound
"That is why our newly signed pact with the devil will help" - pound
"We are all Kenyans now" - pound (Read more...)
Joe Wilson yells something - Do two shots
Obama yells back - Finish the bottle
Obama says "jobs" - Do one shot, two if you're unemployed
Obama says "health care" - Do not drink, you will not be given a replacement liver
Nancy Pelosi claps like a seal - Do one shot
Nancy Pelosi becomes a seal - STOP DRINKING FOR THE LOVE OF GOD
Obama mentions Bo - Put beer in your dog's water bowl
Obama uses the term "Congressional leadership" - Do two shots carefully as all that laughing will make it difficult to swallow
Obama says he's "fighting for you" - Do one shot, two if you believe him (Read more...)
Proposes a future beer summit - take 1 drink
Says cap and trade - swap drinks with the person next to you
Says corporate greed - take 1 shot of Goldschlager or Cristal, preferably sipped from the navel of a stripper
Refers to the Mass. special senate election - take 1 drink, 2 if you also were a Cosmo centerfold
(Read more...)
• Every time Barack H. Obama says "Democratic leadership," the first person to stop laughing is exempt from drinking 3 shot glasses of beer.
• If either the vice president or the Speaker of the House gets caught napping on camera, last person to sing the chorus from "Wake Up, Little Susie" has to drink 4 shots of beer. If Senator Robert Byrd ever appears awake, everybody has to drink 6 shots of beer.
• If the President relates a touching heartfelt story of some poor unfortunate denied health care, Rags gets to kick everybody else once. Twice, if the subject of the anecdote is in the audience. Three times, if he/she is sitting next to an astronaut. (Read more...)
Lottery tickets offer us the dream of escaping to a different life. Often I find myself wondering what it would be like if I didn’t have to work full time. I always imagine spending more time on my open source software projects, getting in better shape and doing some freelance consulting to pay the time.
About ten years ago I got to see my parents make the transition from working full-time to retirement. It wasn’t an easy switch for them. There was some sadness, a lack of motivation and a lonliness as they lost the human contact the workplace gave them each day.
For the past two months I’ve gotten to experience what it’s like not to work every day. I was laid off from my previous job with severance. While I money wasn’t tight, there wasn’t enough to jet set off to Europe or go on any big vacations other than the ones I already had planned for the summer. I was stressed out most of the time until I found myself a new job. After I accepted the job offer, I gave myself a big window until I had to start so that I could relax and enjoy my time off.
This was the longest stretch of time I had booked off; it has been 14 years since I’ve had that much time to myself all at once. When I was working, I imagined all the web projects I could do if I didn’t have to go to work. The reality of the experience was quite different. Once you have the freedom to do anything you want with your day, sitting in front of the computer is the last thing you want to do.
For the first few weeks I found myself irritated by 3pm every day. I quickly realized that it was the lack of structure; if I got myself out of the house the feeling went away. So time was spent walking around the city, going to the library and reading in coffee shops. The beautiful weather really helped. Why stay inside on a sunny day if you don’t have to? Part of it was a desire to be around real people, instead of the virtual people I usually associate with if I’m stuck on a computer.
There was a definite priority shift. With the freedom to do anything I wanted with my day, it made so much more sense to focus on those long term, important but not urgent goals. Organizing things around the house. Getting a new family doctor. Renewing my passport. Getting new contacts. Removing clutter from my house and my life. I had to laugh one day when I found an old to-do list from 2006. There was stuff on that list that was important to my life and my well being that I was finally getting around to.
I found it amazing how much clearer it was to process my task list and choose the most important tasks for the day. Because I felt no urgency in any of my tasks, I was able to make much better decisions about what was important vs what wasn’t even worth doing.
I’m about to enter the workforce again, and I hope I can take some of the clairity I currently feel with me.
I’m one of those cogs who uses Apple mp3 players simply because I feel they do really good job. I tried to fight iTunes for the longest time, but I eventually gave into it because, like Microsoft Outlook, it’s the default music program that everyone uses and every 3rd party application supports.
I’ve been using a couple of 3rd party application to enhance my iTunes experience. I use last.fm to keep track of what songs I’m listening to so that I can display them on my Facebook/FriendFeed profiles. It also does a good job of suggesting new music to me based on my listening habits. What last.fm can’t do is generate random playlists based on the music I already have in my library.
I had been using software from the Filter for generating random playlists. Unfortunately, since I updated their software I can’t find the “create playlist” feature anymore. That made me pretty excited about the announcement today that iTunes 8 will support generating random playlists using a new feature called “iTunes Genius”.
The Power of Random
I’ve been an iTunes_iPod user for four years. In the past month I picked up an iPod Shuffle because I usually leave my 60 GB iPod at the office, and I wanted something more portable and more suitable to an active livestyle. I’ve been really impressed with the batterly life and the portability of my iPod Shuffle.
What I’ve enjoyed the most is the “Zen of Shuffle”. Since the shuffle only selects and plays random lists of music, I’m having more and more occassions of “wow, I love that song! I haven’t heard it in so long!!” instead of listening to the same 10 albums I’ve been listening to for the past month.
The Gotcha
Of course, the big gotcha with Apple’s new iTunes Genius feature is that you have to sign up for an iTunes Music Store account. At first glance, you might think this means you have to give away your credit card information, but click the None button to make that all go away.
Keep reading if you don’t see the “None” button.
How To Unlock the iTunes Music Store
A lot of people don’t bother turning on the iTunes Music Store because it requires a credit card. Actually, there’s a couple of ways of bypassing the credit card requirement. The most common method is:
Find a free iTunes “redeem” code somewhere on the web
Open iTunes and go to the iTunes music store
Click on the “Redeem” link (on the right side, near the top)
You’ll be prompted to create an iTunes music store account, but with the “None” option unlocked so you don’t require a credit card.
The first time you try to use Genius, it’s going to take a while. Especially if, say, you try to use it with a 100 GB music library on the day the Apple iTunes music store opens up for the first time. I’m guessing it’ll take around an hour to scan your library, so you don’t want to try it for the first time while sipping a latte at the local coffee shop.
It took an hour for my library to scan so that I could start using Genius.
Using Genius
Play a song and click on the atom icon at the bottom right hand corner to start using Genius. Unlike TheFilter, you can only use one song to “seed” a random playlist. Playlists can be saved, but they aren’t saved automatically. The playlists are named with the name of the song you used to start the playlist.
Genius playlists are limited to 25, 50 or 100 songs in length. They can be refreshed to get new tracks.
The good news is that you can create even larger smart playlists based off of multiple genius playlists. This could be a great way to build a large constrained random playlists for your iPod Shuffle.
Unfortunately the playlists are stored in your iTunes metadata file, so there is no easy way to access them from your Xbox 360. Sounds like a good idea for a new freeware app. :)
I’ve been browing through my local photographers looking for family portrait photographers and wedding photographers. As someone who is very familiar with the web, I’m always struck at how poorly some people do their web portfolioes.
How Do They Find You?
Like anything, the most important thing about a photography site is how it ranks on google for location + keyword searches.
I chose my wedding photographer because he uses a blog to display his pictures. The pictures are big enough that I can see the quality, there isn’t anything hiding the images, and enough pictures load all at once that I can get a good indication that I want to see more without having to click on each individual photo. Blogs also have the added feature where I actually can tell that the photos are recent work. With some sites only the hairstyles give any indication of when the photo was taken.
There were a few Ottawa wedding photographers who use this approach of having both a blog and a flash-based gallery, and I have to say I was impressed with all of them.
The blogs are photo galleries all on their own. None of them mix personal blog posts in with the photos.
The Bad
One of my biggest pet-peeves with photo gallery sites is having to click on each individual photograph to load it. It isn’t so bad if I can middle-click on them to open them in a new tab to look at later, but with some flash- or javascript-based sites it takes forever! I have to click on each individual picture, wait for it to load, look at it, then click again… it ends up taking 20 times as long to view the entire gallery vs a blog-based sites.
If you use a flash-based site for displaying your photos, it has to be FAST. Use something like SimpleViewer instead of coding it yourself.
One of the worst things I’ve seen is watermarks embedded in the image. We all understand that you don’t want other people to steal your livelyhood, but much like how digital rights management shouldn’t prevent people from watching a DVD, the embedded watermark in a photo shouldn’t prevent your potential customer from seeing how good your pictures are. I can’t appreciate a photo when the writing on top of them is too distracting.
Google Chrome has been public for all of about 30 minutes now. I am very impressed with how fast it downloads and installs, with almost no need for user prompts (except to close your web browser so it can import bookmarks/passwords). It’s fast as fast can be.
I can’t get over how fast it is. If you type “about:memory” into the address/search bar you’ll see a memory comparison between Chrome and any other web browsers you’re currently running. It uses so much less memory than Firefox.
Lifehacker has a good round-up of what’s “new” in Chrome, as well as ways to tweak Firefox to get the same features. But I can’t switch to Chrome because of my dependency on multiple profiles and my Firefox extensions.
Profiles?
Multiple profiles let me log into Gmail with different user accounts at the same time, and keep my browsing history and bookmarks separate from my girlfriend who shares the computer with me.
Heck, I keep my blogging related bookmarks separated from my Joe Public bookmarks for my day-to-day email, Facebook, and job related stuff so I can be more productive.
Plugins?
I can’t log into my accounts without Password Hasher. Not only do I not use the same password for every account, I don’t even KNOW my password for most accounts.
I don’t want to surf the web without Ad-block.
I’ve written so many custom Greasemonkey scripts that are unavailable on Chrome.
I don’t want to even think about doing any kind of web stuff without Firebug at my beck and call.
I’m missing my Delicious tag button for bookmarking.
RSS?
There doesn’t seem to be any RSS auto-discovery in Chrome. I hate how painful it is to subscribe to feeds in Google Reader using Internet Explorer, it looks like it’ll be even worse in Chrome.
Chrome looks very cool, but I think anyone who has been reading Lifehacker for the past few years is going to find they’re missing too much of what is “essential” to them. It’s really too bad, because I’d love to run some Greasemonkey scripts inside of Chrome with it’s better memory debugging. I’m hoping that one of the big brained Googlers figures out a way to transparently run Greasemonkey userscripts so we don’t have the same Firefox vs Opera vs Internet Explorer vs Safari development sinkhole.
On the other hand, Chrome might be the best thing ever for people who use Internet Explorer and aren’t co-dependent on all of Firefox’s wonderful extensions.
Much like how doctor’s get bombarded with medical questions, being the alpha geek in any family or group of friends means you’ll get asked questions about computers. There’s only one way to stay sane: get everyone you know to run the same software.
Outlook vs Gmail
Case in point, I’ve had to support Microsoft Outlook for over a decade now even though the last time I used it was in 1997. Even though I switched from Outlook to Thunderbird, and then Gmail I’ve had this albatross of questions hanging around my neck. If I could convince everyone I know to switch to gmail I wouldn’t have to worry about problems like:
I was a long time Azeurus bittorrent user, but I’ve found it hard to explaining to anyone else how to use the program, not to mention how poorly it performs. uTorrent is so much simplier to use, and it is so much easier to explain to other people how to use it. These are the uTorrent settings I use to work well with Rogers Canada.
uTorrent seems to work better than Azureus or the original Bit Torrent client, and I really like how it defaults to selecting individual files in a torrent to download. It also seems to have much less virii than the older quality P2P applications like Limewire and Soulseek.
There are quite a few legitimate uses of bittorrent. A lot of excellent free software is distributed using bittorrent, and as older movies, books and music comes into the public domain it is being hosted on bittorrent networks. People are sharing their public domain podcasts and video casts using bittorrent as well.
Norton Antivirus vs Anything Else
The other big problem I run into as the computer tech person is “my computer is slow”. The culprit is an easy find: Norton Antivirus. Norton Antivirus is a virus because it is more detrimental to your computer performance than actually having a virus. Nobody likes Norton Antivirus.
We’ve been trying out AVG Free as an alternative, but ran into issues with how user unfriendly it is (finding virii in the Recycling Bin, finding virii in the Outlook Deleted Trash and the difficulty in deleting the virii). Leave a comment if you have any suggestions of which antivirus to use for casual home users who aren’t tech saavy.
Here’s a stupidly easy tip for web browsing that can be a real time saver. It works in Firefox or Internet Explorer (and maybe even Safari). The trick is to bookmark all of the websites you commonly visit as one group so that you can open them all at once when it comes time for your daily maintenance.
Keep using Ctrl-T or middle-click to open sites in a new tab until you have a list of all the sites you normally visit at the start of a day.
Step 2: Bookmark the open tabs as a group.
This is where the magic happens. Instead of individually saving the bookmarks, you save them as a group/folder so that you can open them all at once.
In Firefox, use Bookmarks >> Bookmark All Tabs (Ctrl-Shift-D)
Hot Tip: Save to group under Bookmarks Toolbar so that they’ll be accessible from your Firefox toolbar.
In Internet Explorer, use Favorites >> Add Tab Group to Favorites
Step 3: Organize your bookmarks
If you want to remove a link from your group (because Facebook is a timesink) then you can use the organize feature of your web browser to add or delete bookmarks, or to reorder them.
In Firefox, use Bookmarks >> Organize Boomarks (Ctrl-Shift-B)
In Internet Explorer, use Favorites >> Organize Favorites
Step 4: Opening the group all at once
In Firefox, you can navigate to your bookmarks using the toolbar or the Bookmarks drop-down menu (depending on where you saved them in step 2) and choose Open All in Tabs.
In Internet Explorer, it’s a bit more complicated.
Click on the Star (for favorites)
Click on the arrow beside the tab group you just created
After that’s all done, you’ve probably saved yourself a few minutes a day of having to switch between sites you check out very often. Because they all start loading at the same time, it’s pretty quick to jump between them and grab the information you need.
In my efforts to actually get off my ass and get things done, the Remember the Milk (RTM) to-do list software has been a life saver. Two weeks ago I decided to try out a bunch of 3rd party extensions to RTM like Jott.
Jott is a speech to text service. You call up a phone number, say something, and what you say will be emailed back to you (along with the voice message), send to a contact, or send to another service like Twitter or Remember the Milk.
My first experience testing the RTM integration blew my mind. I could call the number and say “job interview tomorrow at 9am” and it would show up in my Remember the Milk todo list as “job interview” with the due date set as tomorrow at 9am.
!!!
But all good things must come to an end, and after less than a week of trying out the free service (that admittedly, had been around for over a year before I tried it) Jott switched to a pay service. You can still record 15 second voice mails for free, but to get the Remember the Milk intergration will cost $4 a month (well, $3 a month if you were using the service while it was in beta).
Is it worth $40 to $50 a year worth it to be able to Jott my to-do list to Remember the Milk?
Judging by the way my girlfriend rolls her eyes every time I try to Jott something, the answer is no. When you add to the fact that I’m likely paying airtime fees when I Jott from my cellphone [1], then we’re talking around $150 a year for a service that isn’t even my main to-do list application.
It might be my cellphones fault, but often Jott would have trouble understanding me. Having to prefix my messages with “me” or “remember the milk” gets old fast when I have to say “remember the milk” five times before I can start recording. Why can we set up a speed dial hotkey for services so we can hit a number instead of saying a name?
One of my non-tech friends summed it up well when I tried to explain Jott to him over breakfast: “isn’t that something you can just do with an app running on your cellphone?” Yeah, or with a pen and a piece of paper.
Does anyone read books anymore? When I was growing up I was a voracious reader, often devouring more than one book a week. A few years ago I was in a second hand book store that used to specialize in science fiction/fantasy and the owner was lamenting to me about how he’s lost his customer base — they’d all rather be playing World of Warcraft than reading Forgotten Realms.
I can see the effects of this at my local drug store where they’ve moved the books and magazine section from a place of prominence to a rack in the back of the store. The local library used to have shelves upon shelves of paperbacks but now they have at most two shelves for each genre. Even the video stores have slashed their back catalog of movies, have expanded their video game sections and are focusing on reselling “previously viewed/played” movies/games.
But does this mean dire times for the book industry? Trends show that the gaming industry is increasing 9% per annum while the book industry increases 3% per annum. I find the drug stores and supermarkets are the place to watch for what is happening in the mainstream. They were the last places to abandon VHS and widely adopt DVD. Yet I already see a huge sign on the local drug store advertising the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.
There are no great solutions for accessing the Internet while travelling. Bringing a laptop has the convience that it is much easier to find free wi-fi than it is to find a computer with Internet access, but then you have the pain of bringing a laptop with you.
One solution is to use a USB key (USB thumb drive) to store your commonly used applications. So long as you have access to a computer with Internet you’ll be able to access the net with the applications, passwords and settings you’re comfortable with even if it’s at a pay-by-the-minute café, the business center at your hotel, or dial-up at a relative’s house. You don’t have to worry about your login information getting stolen because you aren’t leaving anything behind — everything is stored on your USB key.
You may even want to do this for any personal computer in a corporate environment. Lay offs could be around the corner, and you’ll be secure in the knowledge that your work PC won’t have any personal traces left behind after you’ve left the company because there was nothing personal on it in the first place.
This guide will show you how to:
Build an Encrypted PortableApps Drive
Download Portable Apps on to Your Encrypted USB Drive
The one problem with storing everything on a USB key is what happens if you lose it? You save yourself any worries by setting up an encrypted partition on the USB key so that you have to type a master password before you can access any of the files.
Step 1: Format your USB key, or at least remove the crud that has collected on it.
Step 3: Unzip the file and follow the instructions in Readme.html to the letter.
You may want to override the version of TrueCrypt that comes with CryptableApps (4.3a) with the latest version: http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads.php (6.0a at time of writing).
Follow the cut-and-pasted instructions from CryptableApps. My edits are in italics.
Unzip the contents of cryptableApps.zip to the root of your USB drive. This installs the CryptableApps application as well as the TrueCrypt software.
(Optional) Overwrite the version of TrueCrypt that comes with CryptableApps to a newer version.
The first step is to set up your TrueCrypt volume These instructions walk you through creating a reasonably secure volume; however TrueCrypt allows you to chose many options that will increase the security of your drive at a cost of performance. For more information on the many options available to you, visit http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/.
To do this start TrueCrypt from the TrueCrypt folder on your USB drive. For example, click Start.. Run and type F:\TrueCrypt\TrueCrypt.exe.
(Choose “Create a file container” if using TrueCrypt 6.0a)
Choose “Create a standard TrueCrypt volume” and click next
Click the ”Select File” button and create a new file in your USB drive. The location on the drive is not important, but it is probably better to tuck it away in a folder rather than leave it in the root, so that it is less visible. For example, “F:\Source\store.dat”
Click Save, then Click Next
For an Encryption Algorithm, I recommend Twofish, which is reasonably fast and secure. However, any algorithm will be fine. Any Hash Algorithm is also fine, you can just accept the default and hit Next.
Select the size for the Volume (the Free Space on the drive is shown). I recommend that you leave enough space to carry around some files on the unencrypted space on the drive- the correct amount here depends on too many variables for me to make a recommendation.
Type a password. Read the recommendations on the screen for passwords on the screen. If you want to add an extra layer of security, you can choose to add a keyfile. If you don’t know what a keyfile is, then skip this for now. TrueCrypt will allow you to change the password and the keyfile for your encrypted store at any time. Hit Next
You may get warnings about password security. Read them :)
Click the “Format” button to format the partition. When TrueCrypt tells you that it has created the volume, click OK, then Exit.
Make sure to ues a size smaller than the total drive so that you can still use it as an unencrypted file store.
Now you’ve got TrueCrypt configured, so it’s time to configure CryptableApps. You can do this by just clicking running cryptableApps.exe from the root of your USB drive (Start.. Run.. F:\cryptableApps.exe). A warning pops up that you need to answer a few questions.
The first question is what drive letter you’d like to mount. Choose a letter that is not in use on any of the systems you regularly use (the default is X).
If you chose to create a keyfile, enter the path to the keyfile. If you did not, leave this choice blank.
Enter the path to the encrypted Volume File from the root of the USB drive. If you chose to follow the example above, choose “Source\store.dat”. Do not include the drive letter.
Choose if you’d like TrueCrypt to cache the password and keyfile for the volume in memory. This adds a bit of convenience at the cost of some security.
CryptableApps may ask you if you wish to delete some unneeded TrueCrypt files. If you choose yes, CryptableApps will delete the PDF documentation file and the “TrueCrypt Setup.exe” file- neither of which are needed to run TrueCrypt in traveler mode. This will save (minimal) space on your USB key.
At this point, CryptableApps will mount the drive letter for you. You can now download PortableApps from http://portableapps.com/and install it on your new drive, or restore your files you moved to your desktop.
Once configuration is complete, you can specify applications to automatically run from the encrypted drive when it is mounted if you like. To do this, create a file called “autoRun.LST” on the root of the encrypted drive (Start.. Run.. “notepad x:\autoRun.lst”)
Type a line for each application that should run from this drive when it is inserted. Be sure to include quotes around any path that includes spaces. You can also specify parameters to pass to the application.
For example, to automatically start Miranda, \PortableApps\MirandaPortable\MirandaPortable.exe
If you want to start an application minimized, you can add a “-” in front of the path. For example:
-”\PortableApps\putty\putty.exe” -load sshProxyTunnel
Now when you insert your USB drive, you should be prompted if you would like to Run TrueCrypt in Traveler mode. When you want to remove your drive, you can go to “My Computer” and right click on the “TrueCrypt Traveler Disk” and choose “Exit all apps from Crypt and Dismount”. This will attempt to close all applications running from the PortableApps drive and dismount the encrypted store. Once that is done, you can safely remove the drive.
Close Firefox before launching Firefox Portable. You can start a local version of Firefox on the PC after loading Firefox Portable.
Make sure you read the tips on the official Firefox Portable page for performance before you start. There’s some good advice there about copying over your profiles, and disabling sessions store / caching and history to improve speed. You may want to do all your tweaking on your local hard drive and then copy it to your USB drive when you’re done because it will be much faster than writing to the USB drive every time you install an extension.
You may want to change the default download directory to go to your USB drive.
Firefox Portable and Profiles
Firefox Portable doesn’t support the profile manager. If you want to use multiple profiles (I do so that I can have multiple gmail logins open at the same time) you can copy Firefox Portable multiple times for different profiles.
Copying Profiles
The easiest way to get up and running with Firefox portable is to copy over your existing profile(s). DO NOT COPY OVER A FIREFOX 2 PROFILE TO FIREFOX 3 PORTABLE. It’s a pain in the butt. You’re better off setting it up from scratch.
If you’re planning on using features like Google Gears for WordPress Turbo then you can test them with a Google Gears sample app.
Installing a Live USB Linux Distro
I haven’t tried this myself yet, but you should be able to put a Linux distro on the USB key as well for access to Unix if you boot from a USB Device.
Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a good/free way of using virtualization to run Linux inside of Windows off of a USB drive without administrator access. For more information check out MokaFive (needs admin), MojoPac (pay, needs admin), or VMWare ThinApp (pay). Qemu Manager might be an option.
Portable iTunes on Your iPod
If your portable device is an iPod, you’ll want to install YamiPod directly onto the device so that you can edit the songs on your iPod on computers that don’t have iTunes installed.
Portable Remote Desktop Using LogMeIn
If you have a computer at home that is always on, you can use LogMeIn.com to access your computer at any time.
Visit LogMeIn and install the software on your home PC.
Open your Firefox Portable, visit LogMeIn and install the necessary plugins.
Even if you lose the portable drive, your information is safe because no one can access it without the master password to your TrueCrypt volume. If you use the LogMeIn software to VNC back to your home machine then your network traffic should be safe even if you on an unsecured network.
Make sure to put a plain text file in the root directory of your USB key with contact/reward information if you do lose it so that the person who finds it can return it to you.
Now that you have your USB key drive setup you’re reading to travel with the knowledge that you’ll be able to access the Internet with all your usual applications and settings with no fear of leaving personal information behind.
Stream Netflix to your computer and then to your Xbox 360 if you have Windows Vista
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
Social Media — What is it Good For?
I took a three month break from blogging and social media sites so that I could focus 100% on a critical project at work. Strangely enough I didn’t miss the flow of information; I was still able to find interesting links for coffee break time by browing Hackers News. Here’s a break down of my experience from leaving for so long and rejoining it.
Building a Better Job Search Site
Job hunting is a massive industry, but unfortunately it’s one that that always leaves job hunters feeling unsatisfied. Monster and Dice are painful to use. The hierarchy trees of job categories are often incorrect and confusing to someone who is looking for a job.I’d love to see something different.
How the Xbox 360 Can Reinvented Itself
The entertainment industry is shifting. Video games dominate all forms of media as an estimated 46 billion dollar industry. Your local video chain likely carries as many video games as it does DVDs. Blueray has beaten HD-DVD as the new media for watching movies at home, but it has the potential to be squashed by digital downloads. Not watching movies on your computer, but rather watching them on a box that is already hooked up to your entertainment system: your gaming console.Here’s what I’d like to see changed about the Xbox 360
Weekend Reader - programming, drm, api, google, copyright
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. You can follow this list of links as I post them on Friend Feed or on Twitter. Or you can get the weekly update by subscribing to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.[CODE] Neal Stephenson on programming, lambda-the-ultimate.org
I took a three month break from blogging and social media sites so that I could focus 100% on a critical project at work. Strangely enough I didn’t miss the flow of information; I was still able to find interesting links for coffee break time by browing Hackers News. Here’s a break down of my experience from leaving for so long and rejoining it.
Blog
Blog traffic went down -26% (vs -12% for the previous period).
Feed subscriptions up 9% (vs 12% for the previous period).
My blog email address is inundated with press releases and the very occassional question about an old post or tool.
My blog comments are a horrible nightmare of spam that I still have yet to wade through. WordPress has an annoying bug that when you click “Mark As Spam” it always returns you to the start. There’s been 20 pages of comments. It’s likely that most are spam.
It makes me wonder how much time a day I was spending on blog maintenance. The time sink in blogging isn’t writing posts; it’s all the related activities.
News
Surprisingly, I didn’t miss out on much by not having my lips attached to the news firehouse. Some crazy PM is trying to put me in jail with a new Canadian copyright bill that someone needs to question him about how it benefits his constituents. The iPhone is finally available in Canada, and the data plan is almost-but-not-quite liveable. Facebook has a redesign in the works. Xbox has some cool ideas for release next fall.
I’m sure there were plenty of things happening that I could have gotten worked up about, but nothing happened that directly affects my life that I would have found out about on the Internet.
LinkedIn
I’ve had a strict policy of only using LinkedIn for people I’ve actually worked/went to university with, and it’s been a good tool for contacting ex-coworkers years later about new job opportunities. Spam free.
Facebook
I try to keep Facebook to “real life people only”, and that works well for me. I only use it for group emails, and for photo sharing. Spam free once you get rid of those people who invite you to use applications.
Google Reader
I’m oversubscribed still. When you check your RSS feeds once a month, it becomes much more about the people who consistently keep you thinking or providing good information. Of course, information is only useful if it has impact on your life.
We, the information overloaded, collect new information but I wonder how much of it is retained and has lasting impacting on our lives?
Twitter
I didn’t feel any pain of Twitter downtime because I didn’t log into it. I need to cull my friendslist to make it more useful. But I found Kathy Sierra on twitter and if that’s the real thing then it’s a good sign for twitter having the potential for making me think vs phasing it completely out of my life because of the constant self-promotion.
I still like twitter for chatting with other bloggers that I respect.
Friend Feed
Still not sure if I like rooms or not. The Friend Feed hacking community is kicking even harder lately with a ton of new greasemonkey scripts thanks to Hao Chen. It looks like Lou Cypher is getting involved in Friend Feed as well which means even more cool little hacks.
It might be time for me to abandon delicious for something new to use for bookmarking. The future does not look peachy for delicious with Josh leaving Yahoo. Maybe it’s time to look at Google Reader shares as an alternative.
Last.FM
I’m still using it, still finding great music because of it. I do like The Filter for making lastfm-esque playlists of my own music collection.
Real Life
I’ve been enjoying the summer and having more time for family, friends and non-Internet hobbies like reading, movies, and games. I really appreciate the knowledge I’ve built up with the programming I’ve done. I plan to continue that in that direction: releasing useful free software and delving into creating my own web apps. I want to spend less time participating and more time creating.
Job hunting is a massive industry, but unfortunately it’s one that that always leaves job hunters feeling unsatisfied. Monster and Dice are painful to use. The hierarchy trees of job categories are often incorrect and confusing to someone who is looking for a job. There are a few places that are doing something different:
LinkedIn - resume and networking tools to keep in contact with ex-coworkers. The best way to find a job is often through people who know you. You get a job, they often get a referral bonus — win/win.
Peter’s New Jobs - regional tech job searches in Ottawa and Toronto, worth the yearly subscription even if you have a job because it’s a great way to stay current with the job market and how companies are doing.
There are a few things I’d like to see in a job search site.
LinkedIn Integration
LinkedIn has taken over as the business contacts networking tool and it has a robust resume feature, yet we’re still forced to manually enter our resume into most job sites.
No Job Categories
Job sites like Dice and Monster all suffer from bad usability with elements like the job category navigation that takes several minutes to fill out. It’s so much simpler to have saved search agents for keywords in resumes and job postings.
Google Maps
I’d really like to see all of the job locations on a Google Map centered around my home address with different colours based on how the fresh the listing is. Job decision is often based on locality and I’ve yet to see a job search site that lets me easily list.
Stock History
For publicly trade companies there is no reason not to integrate a stock ticker widget so that job applicants can quickly see how a company is performing.
I want to start this off by pointing out that I knew that I was wrong. No matter how convincing I sound in my explanation, remember, I was wrong. This will come in handy for later when I get into the gist of my essay here.
Ready? Here goes.
So the fiancé and I [...]
Last week I was at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Research Symposium and Summit 2007 in Las Vegas, which, in my mind, is one of the "must attend" yearly conferences.
Along with Jake McKee, I was one of the official conference bloggers. Being a designated blogger is a very different experience that being a regular attendee or even a speaker, and having now worked in that capacity, I have a much deeper respect for what goes into such a seemingly easy task. Aside from the typical challenges of racing from one session to the next, making sure your computer battery doesn't run out of juice when there is no available plug, being flexible with program and panelist changes, and writing without the luxury of reviewing and editing what you've written, there is the responsibility of trying to record the highlights of the covered sessions in such a way that readers are able to get value from what you've posted.
Between the Research Symposium and the Summit, there were over twenty sessions on research and measurement. Additionally, attendees received the excellent Measuring Word of Mouth: Current Thinking on Research and Measurement of Word of Mouth Marketing, WOMMA's third annual research volume (available for purchase as well) that contains over twenty papers covering a wide range of topics with a particular emphasis on the influencer model.
What's also useful within the research volume is the section on WOMMA terminology, which aims to "provide a unified framework for describing and measuring word of mouth marketing." It provides definitions of word of mouth ("the act of a consumer creating and/or distributing marketing-relevant information to another consumer"), work of mouth marketing ("en effort by an organization to affect how consumers create and/or distribute marketing-relevant information to other consumers") and WOM Episode ("a single occurrence of word of mouth communication, which includes Participants, Actions, WOMUnits, Venues, and Outcomes"), among other things. There is also an excellent visual summary of what happens during a WOM Episode, along with the associated qualities thereof -- namely a participant taking an action on a WOMUnit in a particular venue that then results in an outcome.
Social Media's ability to help businesses engage with their members, users and audiences is becoming increasingly more common, and something what many in the communications field have actively been encouraging their clients to do.
What's particularly interesting, though, is social media's broader ability to quickly share and disseminate critical information when things go wrong, wrong as in threatening, dangerous, and frequently life-altering, which we're seeing right now with the California wildfires. CenterNetworks points to some of the recent coverage of the fires on sites such as Flickr (see the search term "california fires" for recent images), YouTube ( see the 2000+ results for "california fires") and Wikipedia (see "California Wildfires of October 2007") among others. CNET reports how microblogging site Twitter is being used by news organizations such as KPBS and L.A. Times and individuals Nate Ritter to give updates. And Ustream.tv is showing live coverage of the fires.
Meanwhile, on-the-ball international organizations such as the American Red Cross are using social media tools to help serve as vital and up-to-date information sources -- see the Online Disaster News Portal, as well as the Red Cross and the Safe and Well Twitter accounts.
My prediction is that within a relatively short time frame, say perhaps three years, the majority of disaster relief organizations, both government and private, will fully implement real-time information dissemination via text messaging, microblogging and an assortment of additional tools and social networking sites.
Well, as you can probably tell by the headline, I'm pretty excited. Earlier this year I joined the team, then Voce hired Scott Sigler, and now Josh Hallett is on board too. Of course let's not forget that Media Guerrilla guy who started it all and had the foresight to put this all in motion. You can read the full account here.
We've also relaunched the Voce Nation blog, so go check out the new cool multimedia design.
Yes, so this is a feel-good, rah-rah post... and I'm ok with that.
Today is Blog Action Day, where thousands of bloggers -- over fifteen thousand and counting, with millions of combined readers -- write about a single important topic: the environment.
Well, "protecting the environment" has been a buzz phrase for a very long time now, and just as there are many people and organizations who understand that environmental protection isn't antithetical to business and can go hand-in-hand with it, there unfortunately are detractors who are more comfortable being cynics than taking steps that, on a combined scale, will make positive long-term change. Fortunately, important events such as Al Gore's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, lend great credibility to the importance of environmental causes and place them on the global stage.
Ultimately every action starts with an idea, though. And so, I'd like to share, in his own words, what a very special young boy, with the wide-eyed innocence of youth, suggested we can all do to "help the earth."
Watering your lawn and watering your garden.
Feeding wild birds in the winter.
Cleaning up your toys.
Picking up garbage outside.
Don't burn tires, or don't use your car too much since that can pollute the air.
Keeping the lakes and rivers and oceans clean.
If a six-year old can come up with ideas and get excited about how he can contribute, surely the rest of us can too.
Back in July I got a Twitter notification that someone named Madeleine McCann wanted to be myTwitter friend. I didn't recognize the name and decided to have a look to see who this was.
The first thing I noticed were pictures of a little girl who looked like she was only a few years old. The second thing I saw was the Twitter bio, "has been abducted in Plaia da Luz, Portugal." I made "Madeleine" my friend and read her website where I learned that, as of today, she's been missing 116 days after being stolen from her bed.
While Madeleine's father, Gerry McCann, implied that he is concerned about the case becoming too sensationalistic and may return home to the U.K. with the rest of his family, one hopes that the strong online attention will soon help lead to a break in the case.
Recently I was part of a new business pitch for a technology company. My agency was one of several invited to present our A-to-Z strategy and ideas on how to take the company to the next level, and we spent a lot of time putting everything together.
The big day arrives, we walk in and get started. Within minutes we knew that the company had fallen in love with one of the earlier presenting agencies, and was only going through the motions with us. No, it didn't actually say so, but after you've been at this for a while you can tell. And the occasional yawns and other stuff that came later simply solidified the team's initial impression.
Yeah, you win some and you lose some. Happens all the time, and the sooner you get used to that the better. But here's the deal: Even if a company's already picked a favorite, there's no need to be obvious about it until everyone's finished -- there's time enough later to make it official.
Barring genuine interest, at least fake it until we've left the building.
Alright, the title is obviously written tongue-in-cheek, but people have been getting in touch wondering whether I'd either fallen into a hole or taken up blog residence somewhere else. Well, neither is the case.
Rather, I've been listening and taking in what's been going on in the online, social media, and communications environments. Yes I know that's the standard line ("listening" sometimes being substituted for "playing hookey"), but in this case it's true. And I've actually been around -- on Twitter and Jaiku and Flickr and Vox and MySpace and Facebook and a bunch of other places, as well as talking and meeting with people in person -- just not here.
Which brings me to an observation I made during these past weeks as people would ask where I'd gone. They didn't put my name into a search engine, which would've shown the recent hangouts. Instead, they must've just assumed that if I wasn't here l wasn't anywhere. What does that say about social networking sites and online communities? Well, it drives home the obvious point that while there is some overlap between friends/contacts across groups (and in the PR & social media circles probably more so than average), all-in-all it's less than one would expect.
There is some news I'd like to share though, for those who haven't picked up on the clues along the way. As most of you know, I was based in the greater Washington D.C. area. And while that will always be home to me, I recently made the leap to the West Coast to, where else... San Francisco. I'm very fortunate to now be working at Voce Communications as a New Media Strategist alongside this Media Guerrilla. I'm thrilled to be here and look forward to mixing it up.
Black Star, the legendary New York photo agency and leader in digital photography, today officially unveiled its new blog, Black Star Rising.
Aimed towards photojournalists, corporate photographers, marketers who purchase photography as part of their work, as well as others interested in learning more about the photography industry, the blog's goal is to educate readers and serve as a venue to share ideas and best practices.
Columnists and contributors include stock-photography expert Jim Pickerell, photojournalist Dennis Brack, Black Star executive vice president John Chapnick, and other noted photographers and industry experts (stay tuned for those announcements). Idea Grove president Scott Baradell is Black Star Rising's editor, and both Scott and I will serve as contributors as well.
So have a look around (you can subscribe to the main blog here and the photoblog here) and let us know what you think. And of course, if you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to get in touch. We welcome your participation and look forward to hearing from you.
Below is the e-mail I received claiming I won the "online cyber lotto." If there is a hell, there's got to be a special dungeon just for scammers. At least I hope so.
LUCKY No: X-XX-XX I.D RESULTS STAATSLOTERIJ.NL AWARD. No 21 MANNI-STRAAT 1309HA AMSTERDAM/NETHERLANDS FROM THE DESK OF THE DIRECTOR: BATCH No: XXXXXXX-XX/2007 TICKET No:PP XXXX /XXXX-XX SERIAL No: XXXXX LUCKY No: X-XX-XX WINNING EMAIL NOTIFICATION [FOR CATEGORY "A" WINNER ONLY].
ATTENTION! We are pleased to inform you of the result of the last final annual draw of our LOTTERY INTERNATIONAL Programs. The online cyber lotto draws was conducted from an exclusive list of 25,000,000 e-mail addresses of individuals and corporate institutions,picked by an advanced automated random computer search from the internet. No tickets were sold.After this automated computer ballot, your e-mail address emerged as a winner in the category "A" with the following numbers attached Ref Number: XX XXXX XX XXXX,Batch Number: XXXXXXXXX-XX/2007 and Ticket Number: PP XXXX /XXXX-XX.You are therefore to receive a cash prize of $1,500,000.00 (One Million, Five Hundred Thousand Dollars) from the total payout.
CONGRATULATIONS!!! Your prize award has been insured with your e-mail address and will be transferred to you upon meeting our requirements, statutory obligations, verifications, validations and satisfactory report. To file in for the processing of your prize winnings, you are advised to contact our Certified and Accredited claims agent for category "A" winners with the information below: Name: Donald Asbury
To file for your claim, please contact our /your processing agent. CONTACT:
********************************************** Name : Donald Asbury Email: Donaldincome@aol.com Tel : +31-619-703-844
********************************************** You are advice to provide him with the following information: 1.Given Name (As Stated in your ID) 2.Telephone/Fax number: 3.Nationality: 4.Age:: 5.Winning reference and Batch numbers:
NOTE: All winnings must be claimed not later than 14 days, thereafter unclaimed funds would be included in the next stake. Remember to quote your reference information in all correspondence. Members of the affiliate agencies are automatically not allowed to participate in this program. Furthermore, we call on you to make sure that you save a copy of this mail and note every letter clearly as stated for we will not be held responsible should there be any complications in this transaction due to laxity on your part. Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program. Should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible. Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program.
Yours truly, Walter Jones Promotion Manager. THANK YOU AND CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Last year was exciting on the communications front. From the introduction of many new and useful technology tools (ok, also some where you just wanted to go "huh?"), to talk of whether we're nearing another bubble, to the social media news release and its variations, to discussions about the value of virtual reality environments, to several online scuffles, to talks of the death of this or that, to the umbrella term "social media" and everything it encompasses... things were moving so fast. And this year looks like it'll be just as stimulating, with, I hope, lessons learned and a little bit of maturity added in.
One development that gained traction last year and will become even stronger in '07 is the development and growth of local information and sites. As Mike Driehorst says in the aptly named post Localize. Localize. Localize., "if newspapers can involve their readers in their revived local focus, newspapers will again become communities' mainstay for news and information."
Last November, Fast Company published an excellent article, Hyper-Local Hero, about the approach Rob Curley, now Vice President of Product Development for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, took in making newspapers and newspaper sites more valuable to their readers. Curley expanded on some points within the article in this blog post, in which he wrote:
"Anyone who has worked with me for even an hour knows how much I *love* huge enterprise stories....
...if you were to ask a roomful of editors or reporters if they would rather work on a huge enterprise series or a big package that gave a nice overview of one of the big events that happen in most people's lives (such as the prom), my guess is that the majority of those journalists would say they would much rather do the big investigative piece. And that's not a sin, or even a wrong response as I see it.
But to me, there also is nothing more honorable than documenting the living history of a community and that's one of the things I strongly feel a local newspaper should do. People turn to their local newspaper for so many reasons, and I don't think as an industry we should overlook that many of our readers look to us for a sense of community."
Another development that I've been eagerly watching is Placeblogger, which just officially launched. As the site explains,
"Placeblogs are sometimes called 'hyperlocal sites' because some of them focus on news events and items that cover a particular neighborhood in great detail -- and in particular, places that might be too physically small or sparsely populated to attract much traditional media coverage. Because of this, many people have associated them with the term "citizen journalism," or journalism done by non-journalists.
Placeblogs, however, are about something broader than news alone. They're about the lived experience of a place. That experience may be news, or it may simply be about that part of our lives that isn't news but creates the texture of our daily lives..."
What's exciting is that the site lists not only blogs from within the United States (although that's the largest group to date), but also ones from around the world. Check out what others are saying. And if you're curious what the Top Ten Placeblogs in America are, have a look here.
As your face gets scruffier, you may become overwhelmed with the urge to drink Starbucks or buy a McIntosh computer. This is a natural side effect of a bohemian lifestyle, and should be avoided at all costs.
When did toothbrushes morph into frightening mutant creatures? Most modern toothbrushes have handles bigger than a Schwinn's, which is unfortunate unless you have a bicycle rack in your bathroom.
This is crazy. I just had a look at how many different accounts (and corresponding passwords) I have, and I'm up to 29. And I know I'm not at the top of the list as these things go. There's the usual such as Typepad and Technorati and Del.icio.us and MySpace and Flickr and Yelp and There.com and Second Life and NowPublic.com... and most recently Twitter.
I can't decide whether I love or hate Twitter. But from the mundane to the inane to the insane to the occasionally hilarious, its darn addictive.
Susan Getgood tagged me with this newest meme, probably as a subtle hint that it's about time I posted again. So here goes...
1. I become kind of grumpy if I don't get to drink my mug of coffee in the morning. And yes, I mean mug, not those mini-size cups they serve you in France.
2. I'm addicted to hugs, the real and the <H> kind. Hey, there's worse things.
3. Ok, I probably dance like a white girl, but from now on, that's not going to stop me.
4. One of the most important things I've learned in life is that love is magical, but without trust and acceptance, it just isn't good enough.
I had the great pleasure of speaking to a combined audience of marketers and technology professionals at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. on December 8th.
Many thanks to Sam Smith, Head of Online Corporate Content at the university, for making all the arrangements, and to Liz Murphy, Director of Student Recruitment, and Ian Upton, for asking me to present the two sessions, one on blogs and social media, and the other on Second Life (which was held in the magnificent HP Visual and Spatial Technology Centre, making the SL demo even more life-like).
At the end of the day, Sam gave me a brief tour of the beautiful campus. Here are a few pictures.
While I was in Europe the past two weeks, I didn't mind living out of a suitcase and traveling from one city to another every few days. I didn't mind the exhaustion, brought on by a six-hour time change and staying up late every evening to catch up with people I was trying to see. I did mind having almost no Internet access during the first week (ok, about five hours worth, but come on, that's pretty much nothing for an entire week). With work to do, a presentation to put the finishing touches on, and needing to stay on top of what was going on in the news, being virtually cut off like that was disconcerting (and made worse by the fact that my cell phone doesn't work outside the U.S.). Fortunately I managed to get done what I needed to get done by doubling up my efforts once I got access to high-speed Internet in Birmingham. But still, my forced withdrawal drove home the point, once again, how reliant I've become on online information and communication.
I did succeed in fulfilling one of my goals, however, namely to memorialize my trip by taking lots of pictures. If you're interested, have a look at my Flickr photostream here (as well as The Adventures of Telly for kids).
There are a few people I want to thank for making my trip really enjoyable and giving me the benefit of having someone locally show me around. There are Claudia Troescher and Robert Szasz of Augsburg, Germany (as well as Matthias Troescher and his lovely family who invited me over for Advents tea); Edgar and Inge Guenter and their dog Emma of Hannover, Germany; and Sam Smith of Birmingham, U.K., who arranged for me to give two presentations at the University of Birmingham. A big thanks also to Serge Cornelus of Belgium who traveled to Paris to spend the afternoon taking in the sights with me.
In New England, they have strict regulations for drivers -- you must have a valid driver's license, proof of insurance, and a large, styrofoam Dunkin Donuts cup in your hand at all times.
From all of our responses we’ll randomly select one reader who will win a Nintendo entertainment system. Don’t be surprised when the winner looks like me in a wig.
In Hollywood, good ideas are like oil -- they're becoming harder to find, more expensive to produce, and all the good stuff has been coming in from overseas.
An English judge, growing weary of the barrister's long-winded
summation, leaned over the bench and remarked, "I've heard your
arguments, Sir Geoffrey, and I'm none the wiser!" Sir Geoffrey
responded, "That may be, Milord, but at least you're better informed!"
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Break out the whiskey and shot glasses -- it's time for President Obama's first official State of the Union Address.
