Atlantic City and Lucy Too

Image via Wikipedia The weather is here, wish you were wonderful.

The Jimmy Buffett show in Atlantic City was a great day. From the pre-show party at Bally's beach bar to the show in Caesar's Boardwalk Hall, to the post show party at Trump's beach bar, what a day.

It has been years since I was in AC and it has changed dramatically. We had a great stay and look forward to going again.

We also did a quick side tour that is very unique. We stopped in to see Lucy the Elephant in Margate. This is not just any old elephant, it is a 60 foot wooden elephant that was built over 100 years ago. She has been designated as a National Historic Landmark. She stands right off of the beach and tours are offered regularly. Yes, you can go inside and up on top. She has an interesting history and has survived many difficult times, but she is still standing and worth the quick trip down from Atlantic City just to say you saw her.

Jimmy Buffett or Bust

Image via Wikipedia Atlantic City here we come.

For any Parrot Heads out there you probably are already aware that Jimmy Buffett will be playing this Sunday in Atlantic City NJ. I am relatively new to the scene, but I have been to shows in Pittsburgh and Toronto.

But somehow this one feels different. Maybe its the fact that its at a beach community, maybe its just been a long time since my last vacation. I don't know, but I am really looking forward to grabbing a couple of cocktails and forgetting about everything else.

If anyone is going to the show, I hear there is an after party at the Trump beach bar. I expect to be there, hopefully some of you will be there too.

Lake Ontario Parrothead Club

Google Reader - Headlines on One Page

Image via Wikipedia Now that I have found some sites that interest me and I make regular stops there during the day to catch up, how can I make the process a little easier and more efficient? As you can see in the headline below, the answer is a reader.

U.S. Elections: Obama and McCain Start Sharing in Google Reader

In this story you can see that both of the presumptive presidential candidates are using the Google Reader to follow updates on specific sites that they think are important and appropriate for them. This is more advertising for Google than anything else, I doubt that either of the candidates are picking the feeds on their own without advisers reviewing each selection.

The Google Reader is a service that compiles updates from the sources that you identify and posts them in a single convenient interface for you to browse. All you need to do is find the sites you like and add the feed. Most sites have a way to subscribe.

On this site take a look over in the left column, there are two buttons under the 'Subscribe to' heading. One allows you to subscribe to all the posts as they are added and the other includes all of the comments that are added.

First thing you will need to do is create an account for Google Reader. If you already have an account for any of the other Google services you will be able to use the same one. When you have the account there are only a few questions about the basic setup and sharing of feeds that you may want to look into, but in general its a pretty simple process.

If you know the path to the sites you want to follow you can add them directly, but I typically go to the site itself and use the subscribe options there. In many cases you have multiple feeds that you can pick from. If you are going to a newspaper site, there may be a different feed for the headlines, sports, arts, local news, or any other section you can find on the site.

You really just need to look around the site, find the things you typically browse and add them. Once you select the section you want and hit the subscribe button, you will usually see a list of readers that the site supports.

Of course you can see from this article that I use the Google Reader. If you select the Google Reader, you will then be asked what you want to add the feed to, in this case that would be Google Reader. You may also see an option to add to Google Homepage, I won't go into that in this article maybe in a future review.

That's all it takes.

You now have a common site to catch up on all of your sites and review the headlines. You get varying amounts of information depending on the site and what they want to share, but in most cases it makes for a simpler process for getting caught up on all of whats happening in your world.

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Delicious - Social Bookmarking and More

Did you ever find a web site that you knew was going to be useful and you wouldn't want to be without? What happens when you find it at work or on your laptop, how do you make sure you can get to it when you are back at home or on another system?

If you are like me you probably bookmarked the site where you were, then emailed the site to yourself so that you could go there later and bookmark it all over again on your other systems. A very imperfect solution, but one that has been around for a while and I have tolerated so far.

What is delicious?

I guess that can be a very subjective question, but in this case it is a web site and a great service. I found it earlier this year, February 2008, and for the past six months I have not bookmarked a site. At least not using my browsers bookmarking function.

They call it 'Social Bookmarking', I call it convenient.

I have come to rely on two features of the site and can't see myself without this capability.

Bookmarking

The ability to bookmark a site and have access to that information from any browser anyplace at anytime is essential to me now. If I find a site that is related to something I am doing at work or at home, I will 'Tag' that site and have access to it immediately. I can share it easily with others or just reference it when I need it.

When I am using a different system, the only thing I need to remember is the path to delicious and my account name. With that I can access my bookmarks from any system, running any browser and have full access to every bookmark and all information that I saved with it. And of course on any system I use regularly, I have a tab open up to my delicious account. No need to keep multiple browsers up to date with new bookmarks.

Tag

Tagging is bookmarking plus more. When you create a bookmark in your browser, typically you would add it to a folder to help you keep things organized. With 'Tags' you have multiple levels of organization.

Lets say you are writing a technology blog about twitter and you find a site that really fits your needs. In this case when you 'Tag' the site you could enter as many unique tags as you need (technology blog twitter). Back in delicious when you select any one of those tags this site would appear in your list.

This flexibility allows you to 'Tag' sites across different subjects and to reference it when you need it, without having to remember which folder you added it to originally.

Join In

If you would like to see my bookmarks and what I have saved, all you need to do is get your own account on delicious, its free, and then add me to your network. Everything I save will be there for you to see. (In case you are concerned there are also controls on the site to allow/block access to your network or bookmarks.)

http://delicious.com/stevenwillis

Here is a nice video they did to explain the general capabilities. They go into more on the 'Social' side of the tool, but for me I am sold on the basic concepts that I showed here.

How to Explain Delicious to Your Parents

Twitter - Micro-blogging Takes Off

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown "What are you doing?"

That's all that Twitter asks. The answers can vary from direct to totally unintelligible. Of course some of those answers come back in a foreign language, so unintelligible to me, may not be to you.

When I first heard about Twitter I didn't see much value and didn't pay much attention to it. But after reading about it on numerous blogs and seeing how others used it, I finally decided to set up an account and see what was going on. Setting up is free and pretty painless. You can supply as much information as you like or next to nothing at all. (Note: Don't believe everything you see on Twitter, I think there may be several Barack Obama's on there)

I think I'm addicted now. Maybe addicted is too strong, but I find myself checking in whenever I'm near a computer. For those truly addicted, you can even setup access to your cell phone. I'm tempted, but not ready for that level of commitment.

There are three things that have really made the difference for me and why I believe in this service.

Friends Make Twitter Friendly

The first is I took the time to set up 'Friends'. In Twitter you can watch all of the conversations going on in a continuous overwhelming flow or you can find interesting people to follow. I currently have about 70 'Friends' that I follow. That means I only see updates from this list (this is configurable in Twitter) and that right now is very manageable. I have a mixture of people I follow from industry experts, to fellow employees, to people that I find interesting. I also have found people around the world to follow.

Twhirl Tames Twitter

The second thing that really made using Twitter easy is an app called Twhirl . One of the drawbacks I ran into originally when using Twitter with their web interface was that I only would see an update when I refreshed the page. A minor issue, but just a little inconvenient.

Twhirl is a desktop app that runs in the background and checks for updates on a regular basis and shows a pop-up when there are new posts from your 'Friends'. Its very unobtrusive, but convenient to use and easy to set up.

Twitter in Action

The third thing that sold me on Twitter happened recently and was a series of events.

August 8, 2008 saw three major events occur in a relatively short period of time. In a matter of hours I saw several hundred posts that covered the Olympics opening in Beijing, the conflict beginning between Russia and Georgia beginning, and John Edwards admitting to an affair he had tried to conceal during his run for the presidency.

I found myself anticipating the pop-up's coming through Twhirl and watching for updates. I have 'Friends' set up around the world, so while we waited for the opening ceremonies at the Olympics in Beijing to broadcast tape delayed, I was getting updates. Not complete, but bits and pieces of things to watch for later that night. Kind of a direct feed preview with a few funny comments added along the way.

I have also found some news agencies that post short 'Breaking Stories' and they were coming across with updates constantly on the conflict in Georgia as it unfolded. I could of course always go over to CNN or any of the other news services that are on the web, but this combination brought the message directly to me.

That is why I find Twitter interesting and useful. You may try it and not catch on, but if you give it some time and a little effort I think you too will also become a fan.

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Welcome to my Blog

So I have a blog. What will I add to the discussion that makes any difference to anyone and why would they want to read my opinion?


I see myself somewhere between the geek and the masses. I work with technology all the time and enjoy when I find something different and interesting, but I am not the early adopter and I don't see myself doing many beta evaluations for new services. What I hope I can do is continue working with the tools that I know and look for new technologies as they grow.


Here is a post that I ran across recently from Regular Geek. They put together several other opinions with their own opinion summarizing, what is the difference between the "Passionates" and the "Non-Passionates" (those are Robert Scobles terms). I don't think I would put it quite that definitively. I think there are true fanatics (Passionates) and they are the ones that really go after the tool and provide first rate feedback to the developers. After that I think there is everybody else.


Personally I have used several tools for a while and have begun to use others that I think are going to be useful. Here is a quick summary of the tools I will be discussing in future posts;

• Facebook is the industry leader when it comes to social networking. I don't generally spend much time there, but I will keep an eye on it as I start contributing more to this blog.
  
• LinkenIn is Facebook for your career. I do spend a lot of time here and have a good list of people I know and keep in touch with through this.
• Delicious is a simple concept (many of the best things are simple) that I really think works. They call it social bookmarking.
  
• Twitter is just about as simple as you can get. It asks the question, What are you doing? The answers can be addictive.
  
• Google Reader is something new I am trying and getting interested in quickly. It compiles all of your favorite sites into one page and lets you know when something new is posted. Still just looking, but it is very handy so far.
  
• Disqus is a tool to compile all of your activity on the web, from your published pages on your blog to comments you leave on others sites. Still trying to decide how useful this is, but I am still kind of new in this arena.
  
• Blogger is the tool I chose to publish this blog with. There are a few options out there, but I decided to keep it all in the Google family of tools.
  

I also expect to add a few other things that occur in my life, if I think they are interesting.


So that's what I am planning for this blog. I picked a name, Tech4EveryoneElse, that took more thought than you might expect, that I hope means a little bit about the content and is appropriate for the opinions I will provide.


I hope this catches the eye of a few of you out there and if you want to add a comment please do. I will try and reply back when I can. If you have suggestions for other tools or blogs that you think would be interesting please add them also.