WebAlongItude

Identity Theft in Nashville and Davidson County -- A Reason Not To Vote?

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 08:47:00 +0000

My wife called this morning, mentioning a story concerning a break-in at the Davidson County Election Commission. It's a heavyweight town and area here politically. As we drove down Woodlawn Avenue yesteday, we wondered, "Oh, is that where Albert Gore's new home would be?"

Maybe those direct mail campaigns from the credit card companies were in line--pay your $20 a month and be worry-free. Vigilance in monitoring--this would appropriate action, especially now. Right this minute. Perhaps the insurance wouldn't be a bad idea. Will this be a tipping point? An even bigger escalation in the identity theft epidemic?

Were the thieves looking for cash, for crack? It seems those in government woke up, for the moment anyway; but it's reactive. With limited budgets and other agendas, how could it not happen? Audit is allegedly in progress.

The web could take this to a new level--there would be little time necessary to go and start spending money at an accelerated rate should further credentials be obtained. Maybe there will be a phone call from a credit card company asking if I really did order that Mercedez Benz from the Albuquerque dealer.

As far as computers go--these laptops. Were the hard drives encrypted? Perhaps the audit will make that determination. In government work I've done, that became a requirement. That might have come as a reaction to a theft--or perhaps Sarbanes-Oxley was an influence.

This will be a chance for the powers that be to restore my faith in government. If only there would be a way to hold out for a world where none of these extreme security measures would be necessary. Keeping my hopes up, that's the game. But until that perfect day arrives, the shredder will be buzzin', and we'll keep all close to the vest, practicing vigilance.

Why, oh why, did I have to vote?

Blogger vs. Wordpress Revisited: A Work In Progress

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 06:10:00 +0000

I am in the midst of deciding which blogging platform is better--Blogger or Wordpress (yes, I'm ignoring some major contenders). It's a tough decision. A Google of "Blogger vs Wordpress" yields a sizeable result set. Looks like WordPress is coming out a bit ahead.

I decided to go the self-hosted WP route, to get a bit closer to the PHP, dig into the database as well. A point made by some was that the plugins were more plentiful in WordPress, and there was greater SEO control. WP's import features were convenient. The two blogs will be in sync for a bit. One of them will be retired, perhaps left as an archive, if the kind hosting powers that be permit it.

All in all, both are terrific CMS packages, allowing customization, convenience. They're easy to use. The WP was a bit of a challenge to deploy, as there was a need to hit the command line for a good while to get things up and running. A GUI is preferable to me vs. a text editor--but it's handy to know both. And sometimes, truly, you need both.

You are encouraged to comment here, drop a line. Tips on great widgets or plug-ins are welcome!

Adaptor and DVD Misadventures, MacBook Grey Screen of Death, and the Troubleshooting Thereof

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 08:00:00 +0000

My fingers were a flyin' across the ol' Toshiba laptop keyboard. Fiercely concentrating on my work, it took some time for it to sink in: The faint smell of something like gunpowder. Gunpowder? "Have a look and a sniff around," I told myself. Nothing found.

More typing, reviewing, and such. And the gunpowder smell returns. Hmm, maybe I'll have a look over toward the right. Lo and behold, the adaptor is fried, and the fire is starting. This is my second PA3237U-1 ACA. They ain't cheap either. A nice gaping gash right near the casing. Sparks, smoke, and a little bit o' flame to wake me up and power down. Yikes! I ordered two PA3237U-1 equivalents online. I now need to be "adaptive" shall we say....

Luckily there's a handy MacBook Pro lying around. Off to see a client, armed with my spiffy new Leopard installed. Some video on a DVD to convert and post. No problem. Inserted DVD. Not much of a response. The DVD is home-made. The video finally plays. Great.

Now I'm back home, ready to cruise on the conversion and upload, as there was much else to discuss at the meeting. We're on our way. But wait a minute, I'm staring at a non-responsive system. Hmmmmm. Our video is still choking a bit, and actually now the whole computer is performing eratically. So it's time to power down. Coincidentally, internet goes down.

I'll restart. Hey, maybe I won't restart. Yeah, I've got a BSOD variant, a GSOD! Yikes. Shucks, I can't google it either. Hard copy documentation? What's that? I haven't picked up a pen in four months! Thankfully the dubdubdub returns, and I find a number of explanations on "MacBook Pro fails to boot", etc., none of which seem to apply. Uh oh, toast. But let's try the alternative, "eject dvd...".

Ah, this is where people are getting solutions to the GSOD, other than "call Apple and return the unit". Various possibilities--

hit eject button while booting,
hold down tracking area,
stick credit card or switch blade in dvd slot,
stick head between knees and kiss butt goodbye

One said that the computer booted while they were on the phone with Apple. Well being in another room on computer #3, I returned to find the MBP booting up. All on its own. Apparently there's a 10 or so minute delay before what's perceived to be a DVD boot disk is ignored and boot occurs from hard disk.

Gosh, I thought I had destroyed two computers in one day. Maybe next time?

A Year From Now

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:42:00 +0000

A Year From Now

A Year From Now
I will be better
A Year From Now
I will be fine
A Year From Now
I will write
In somewhat poetic lines

A Year From Now
I will know more
A Year From Now
I will know less
About the world
About myself
About the unequivocal guess

Oh yeah, and a year from now, I'll have better hair.

I am thankful for this year, for kind people, for learning, for health, for so much.

May this be a great year for all.

The Continuing Adventures of a Leopard Convert

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 00:13:00 +0000

Gosh, a late night last night, watching the Leopard install. Leopard started to look like Leopold, Mozart's father. My wife said this was a spotty installation. My eyes. Do I have eyes? My friend Thom Bresh was raving about this latest version of OS X, so I had to give it a whirl I'm going to iChat it up with the man.

What a phenomenal interface--but it's slower. Investigate. The plans here are to go with virtualization, bootcamp, maybe vmware. Shucks, I'm going Mac and not going back. But I have a rear-view mirror with thousands of $ in PC software. Before I fork over another 4 figures for it on the new platform, why not use it in BootCamp if possible?

Another great component here is access to Darwin, the guts of OS X. A BSD implementation/variant that shreds. Unix/Linux will be in this virtualization scheme. So I'll be in hiding with thousands of physical and virtual manual pages, sifting through for answers. Will I have enough hard drive space?

There will be answers. I will settle for nothing less.

David Meerman Scott and The New Rules

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 10:38:00 +0000

A friend recently recommended a book to me: The New Rules of Marketing & PR, by David Meerman Scott. It's one heck of a readable read. There's an enthusiastic style here, with straightforward comments and insights on how the web has altered how businesses reach customers.

There's the old way and there's right now. Get on board with your blogs, podcasts, and other means of communicating. The book is rich with case studies and pointers on strategy for the new paradigm. Good stuff. In print. What a concept.

The Things You Learn

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 07:22:00 +0000

One of the things you learn is that there's always more to learn!

Can you do it all? Can someone do it for you at a reasonable price? What's applicable--or not? Is there a formula for this? Is there a page on youtube? What does a google search yield?

Can you memorize php.net? Are control structures ringing in your head?

Ahhh, some things to do and/or ponder for 2008....

Let The Good Times Knol Over Wikipedia?

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:55:00 +0000

What will become of Knol? Hearing about it certainly sparked curiosity and speculation. Google does no wrong, right? I recall just a bit ago seeing a story concerning Knol, along with an assertion or two that it will overtake wikipedia, seemingly overnight.

At the source, it seems that there may be a little bit more control built into the content, with credit being given to authors. The official Google blog intro seems to be where this all started, and the wikipedia page sheds a good deal of light on this. Interesting descriptions of the project include "private beta", i.e. invitation only, and there is the idea that it actually may not ever be released.

Then there's the idea of the conflict, concept of organizer of info vs. provider. Hey, you can be all things for all people, all of the time, especially when you're Google. More to come I am sure.

Web 3.0, Widgets, API's

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 10:34:00 +0000

Is what you're looking at on your computer local, or is it the web, or is it both? You may not know unless you look under the hood (oh yeah, and make sure you're connected--unless you've already done some work on REMEMBERTHEMILK.COM, as it, should you give it permission to do so, will keep your tasks offline, let you work on them, and then sync them up on the web once you log back in and decide to go ahead with sync).

On initial look at what Web 3.0 is referring to, the hallmark of the next gen is the blurring of these offline/online distinctions. It seems to me to be old news--but perhaps the fact that it may become the norm vs. the exception is what may make this a key characteristic.

In working as a developer a few years ago, discussing MS Interdev, the object explorer revealed browser embeds within a standard client server GUI. I don't remember what the class name was, or Method/Property combinations, but I did enough to realize that it could happen relatively quickly, via controls or quick instantiations.

It's become much more slick, however. The integration will be getting tighter, more sophisticated. Active content, Flash, widget embeds for great presentation. Real thorough incorporation of RSS feeds, mashups, conglomerated from who knows where. I'm looking at SpringWidgets, there appears to be a claim of desktop/site embeddibility. Google Gears, same thing. Springing up, like virtual flowers.

We'll see how it shakes out....

Map Your Mind -- No Charge

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 16:38:00 +0000

FreeMind is a terrific brainstorming tool. As its name implies, you can get it for no charge. The software falls into the category of mind-mapping, i.e., getting concepts, essays, songs, web site structures, marketing campaigns, anything you can think of into a graphical, flexible, easily modifiable form. OK, you might just be happy with a pencil or pen and paper--but this application allows you to drag branches/nodes of your mind map from one to another instantly, including all sub-branches/nodes. No eraser required!

Among other things, you can embed hyperlinks in these nodes and assign styles and graphics to them. You can link to files on your own computer as well. I recently used FreeMind in a cowriting session (my cowriter's willingness to try working this way is much appreciated), and we both found it to be quite useful in our quest to get to the bottom of a hook we liked. The icing here is that you can save your files in outline and/or picture form, right to a web page of your choice--so your map is structured with collapsible/expandable branches or categories.

You can download FreeMind here: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page Happy mind mapping!

NanoIndependents

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 08:15:00 +0000

I'm one of the nanoindependents. Trying nanomarketing. Let's bring it all to the subatomic particle level, okay?

The power of small. Coming to a pinhead near you.

del.icio.usly Digging BlinkList

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:00:00 +0000

I'm del.icio.usly Digging my blinklist feed.

As if enough time isn't already spent checking out the syndication sites, software, social bookmarking and more. It's a quest though--see which page, which tool works the best. It requires time to do this, but the effort seems worthwhile. Who will come out on top with the best centralization of all of this? How does one choose the champion? Seems like there's great opportunity here. The ultimate one stop shop, whether it's desktop/web.

I'm really not stoned. Just enthusiastic about this technology and all of the brilliant folks assembling it, debugging it, attempting to make it profitable. There's a win-win here.

RadioHead, MP3's, Music Is Dead

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 22:50:00 +0000

At the top left in my IGoogle is the SEOBook blog. Search Engine Optimization interests me. How we are in this electronic jungle, and the primates have to come up with the tool to end all tools, to gain some form of dominance.

It entertains, it frustrates, it challenges. What can we do technically to build the advantage and keep it?

So in my looking at this top blog, I discover these potent comments on our musical world: Aaron Wall spoke of RadioHead's offering of a free download--it looks like the entire album. I also saw a great take on it in the Lefsetz letter. Not sure why it has to be news, but it is. Members vying for attention, position. TIME writes, people react, servers get overloaded, and the name gets memed. Stickiness achieved.

Round here, it seems like music is dead, or dying, or just flat out being victimized. But what's new? I hope my own music will be listened to at some point without my having to pay people to listen to it. All this woogydeedoo is inspiring me.

Mashups - So Now, So Future, So Yesterday?

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:27:00 +0000

I've been blown away by web software mashups. Just getting my feet wet at this point with Yahoo Pipes, Microsoft PopFly, others. I'm curious what folks will be coming up with. It seems that FeedBurner's one mashup example. The possibilities seem to be endless, creating remixed content, all dynamic.

wikipidia's got a killer page on them.

A whole new dimension to our fair cyberworld is taking further hold. Can't wait to dig in more here. The quest continues...

Get Your Keyword Feet Wet Now

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 19:16:00 +0000

What a difference keywords make in the songs we write, in our conversations and stories, and in our efforts to discover and be discovered on the web.

Here's a pretty easy way to get your keyword feet wet: go to http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com. This is a "lite" version of a subscription-based keyword suggestion tool (there are many of them), but in just seconds you can catch some insight on what people are searching for on the web. Results are sorted from most popular search on down ("nashville music" showed some healthy results). Focus on where you fit in. What do you do? How are you known? How do you want to be known? Have at it and see how many searches are done daily on what you do. Use these numbers as a springboard to clarifying your marketing message. If you have Internet Explorer 7 or FireFox, you can also click http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/plugin/freekeywords.xml to get the keyword search tool added right to your browser। Have Big Fun!

Pundits, Spongemongers

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 22:17:00 +0000

Would it be real to assume the tendencies of the milieu?

Soggy afterthoughts dominating the landscape of our shaky subtleties.

Welcome to Late at Night, Obfuscating Cerebralosity

noreply@blogger.com (WebAlong) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 08:58:00 +0000

This is definitely way too late at night, way tooooo late. It's beyond late at night.

Late at night
Causing a stir in the washroom
With the agnostic chair listening intently.

Welcome to Late at Night