While looking at the beautiful and fast implementation of this project,
http://mingle2.com/blog/view/how-i-built-mingle2
I ran across this fun and simple geek quiz.

The stripper in me is disappointed the percentage wasn’t one digit higher, like twas here:
http://fundiva.wordpress.com/2007/08/12/get-real-check-out-the-percentage-i-manifested/

68% Geek

Created by OnePlusYou - a Free Dating Site

Click on the green link to take the quiz yourself. FYI, this is a dating site, but very nicely you don’t have to sign up for anything to take the quiz. Which makes me delighted as a r+++ (read: happily married geek) http://geek.funDiva.com/

I’m also sad to have spent many more than 67 hours thinking about moving my blog to real hosting with wordpress. It’s going, but I’m switching registrars and know that the hosting is one area I do not want to go with what I got and fix later.

Knowing that Matt will get a trackback, I’m embarrassed that a random person I’ve never met, whos work I admire and probably could not afford to hire or leap to learn to emulate (read:steal and hack source code) is going to see this, my wp.com hosted blog.

Lately, I have had to reaffirm “You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going” which is what is holding me back. I want valid HTML, beautiful CSS, as little java as possible and all that takes me more time, allthewhile I haven’t implemented any of my 742 ways of making money online with products or consulting services. Or bothered to get off the computer and actually write.

: Sigh :

On a happier and “I feel so dumb” note, I just realized I can make keywords for bookmarks. Duh! Two years of firefox and I just figure that out NOW? I already have js keyword shortcuts for a bunch of stuff that I execute from the address bar, and I am slowly but surely doing the best that I can to migrate away from the mouse, which in my case is a trackball. My new favs: CTRL+l = jump to address bar (that’s a lowercase “L” just don’t want to confuse elsewise twould be ctrl shift L and that will stop time) CTRL+w = close tab (Umm don’t try this now or you’ll go byebye, oh wait, CTRL+Shift+T = re-opens the most recently closed tab, neato) An oldy but goodie, Shift+Tab = navigate back a field, ya know, for when you goof a form fillout? I also love anytime I use the tab key as it reminds me of Homer, “Where’s my tab?”

Homer: [reading screen] "To Start Press Any Key".  Where's the ANY key?
        I see Esk ["ESC"], Catarl ["CTRL"], and Pig-Up ["PGUP"].  There
        doesn't seem to be any ANY key.  Woo!  All this computer hacking
        is making me thirsty.  I think I'll order a TAB.  [presses TAB
        key] Awp...no time for that now, the computer's starting.
         [reading screen slowly] "Check core temperature, yes slash no."
        [types] Yes.
        "Core temperature normal."  Hmph.  Not too shabby.
        "Vent radioactive gas."  [types] NO.
        "Venting prevents explosi-on."  Heeheee...whoa, this is hard.
        Where's my Tab?  Okay, then, [types] YES, vent the stupid gas.

Baby steps are fishpaste. I want a golden goose NOW Daddy! (Umm, Dad not you really, it’s from Willy Wonka.) I love talking directly to people thru my blog that I know are in my feedblitz.

EDIT - Solved: Four Seasons Spring Allegro - Antonio Vivaldi (Found my Idiots Guide to Classical Music CD) Duh, I use his largos as background music for my homemade meditation mp3s

…..Original Post…..
My Mom guessed Handel’s Water Music, but I can’t find which piece and she could be wrong. (Clip only 12 seconds)

comment here or tell me on twitter @funDivaChristy

I knew about the sites below, but I have an actual mp3 clip so it’s pointless to try humming and I tried recording the song with melodyhound and it was garbage.

Isn’t there a site that allows me to upload an mp3 clip and use that?

(from yahoo answers)
These sites below lets you search for a song, by tapping/humming

http://whatsthenameofthatsong.com
http://www.midomi.com
http://www.melodyhound.com
http://www.songtapper.com/s/tappingmain.bin
http://nanalala.com
http://www.bored.com/songtapper/index.html

http://www.namemytune.com

The true story about how I got my nickname

My nickname is funDiva and occasionally people ask me what’s a funDiva? Here’s the answer.

Back in 2002ish, I was ready to create my own web page, rather than continue using the pre-made overview sites I had been using, and just redirecting my domain to them. I already owned ChristyHoffman.com but since there are many ways to spell both christy and hoffman, I thought I’d better come up with something shorter and easier.

I have always been a happy extroverted person so I started with the keywords of happy, happiness, fun, smile, stuff like that. And then I was looking for a word that would describe that I was an individual like guru, master, gal, etc. I’m particular and demanding so diva was a great choice on that list.

I wrote them all out in a spiral notebook* and started combining and checking them in domain lookups.

I actually did not buy funDiva.com right when I had discovered it, I waited a few days. Back then I don’t think there was such the domain kiting that goes on today, including the suspicion I have that some domain search spinning sites actually track your searches and kite the names based on lookups.

In retrospect, it’s one of the most phenomenal choices that I happened to luck in to, it’s a really great name, it’s short, memorable and really describes my personality well.

However I have to wonder sometimes if I have grown to be more of a funDiva as a result of having the name and branding myself as such. Hmm. OK so I made up the name funDiva, but did I make up the personality to go with it?

Based on this ingenious happenstance, I refer to myself as a branding expert, but you have to pair my really great domain/image with the fact that I have shamelessly marketed myself as funDiva. Even when I’m just a guest on conference calls I always introduce myself as “funDiva Christy Hoffman from Las Vegas.” You can easily follow the funDiva trail online as I register everywhere as funDiva or funDivaChristy. (My SEO greatly lacks for fun diva as two words or christy hoffman, but I’ve never bothered to fix it. Paul, yes you pMcTosh - what do I do thats fast, and do I care now if I am moving my blog/site to self hosted WP next week?)

I was livid with facebook for removing the funDiva part of my name, they get their undies in a bundle over such the wrong things, I can’t be funDiva Christy Hoffman, but you allow tens of thousands of crappy spammy apps?

Aren’t you delighted you asked?!

*I have notebooks, I love notebooks, I have them dating back to 1998 that I can find this instant, and now I’m inspired to dig for the rest and organize them. I would love to find the one containing April 2003 so I can get to my original notes about my domain spinning for funDiva. It has really changed my life.

One of my favorite authors Steve Chandler reports this great quote about notebooks by one of my favorite directors: “Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino says the spiral notebook is the most high-tech invention of our lifetime because you can take it anywhere, you don’t need an electrical outlet or batteries, and you can write anything in it.” [From Reinventing Yourself: How to Become the Person You've Always Wanted to Be, Steve Chandler, page 185,
preview thru google books ]

I sent a cheezburgered issue to facebook about the new forced chat application.

—–Original Message to Facebook—–
From: Christy Hoffman
To: info@facebook.com
Subject: INBOX: DO NOT WANT

Description of problem: I do not want chat. I can opt out of all the other apps, why not this one, it could be the most annoying yet.
—–End Original Message to Facebook—–

Hi Christy,

While you cannot completely remove the Facebook Chat client from your profile, you can turn it off. If you would like to stop receiving chat messages, click the Chat icon in the bottom right corner of your Facebook page and select the “Go Offline” link. While you are “Offline” you will not appear in anyone else’s Chat. You cannot completely remove the Chat feature because you will still receive notifications about your Facebook profile through the Notifications icon, even if you are set to offline on Chat.

If you wish to start using Chat again, just click the “Go Online” link and this will allow your friends to contact you. Also, please keep in mind that these chat availability settings are not related to the pre-existing “Online Status” that allows friends to see if you are signed into Facebook. Let me know if you have further questions.

Thanks for contacting Facebook, Skye-User Operations-Facebook
—–End Reply from Facebook—–

And in the meantime I had found a nifty & simple userscript - Facebook Chat Killer - that did the trick of at least hiding the stupid bar.

I said I would test it, so here’s how it works: Before logging in to facebook, disable Facebook Chat Killer. If you have greasemonkey displayed in your status bar (the gray thingie at the bottom) you can RIGHT click to toggle userscripts on and off. Only userscripts that apply to the page you are currently browsing will show up in the popup, so go to a facebook page first so it will show. Then login, let the stupid thing load, then toggle the chat to off. Then enable Facebook Chat Killer and refresh or go to whatever in facebook how you would normally.

If you use Facebook Chat Killer without disabling chat first, friends can pop in at you. The most annoying thing was that while testing, when a friend poped in, it took over my tab header and flashed “SpongeBob is messaging” (OK I don’t remember exactly what it said, and I would have taken it if it had been SpongeBob!)

Or if you do like chat but just want the extra real estate that the bar takes up, use it like that on purpose.

Chat for me has always been a huge distraction, and let’s face it I’m easily distracted enough as it is.

So if you already use Firefox & Greasemonkey, this should be a no-brainer for ya. If I’ve totally geeked you over, let me know and if the demand is warranted, I’ll dig up some instructions. Ok nevermind this looks decent

What is firefox and how to install:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/firefox.htm

Greasemonkey:
http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748

Facebook Chat Killer:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25453

It was useful to me to know that chat availability settings are not related to the pre-existing “Online Status”. And unless they are going to change it, you can still always get to your notifications thru http://www.facebook.com/home.php - click the facebook logo on the upper LEFT (it was like four days before I noticed that!)

But there’s a lot of room for improvement on facebook’s part to make this much friendlier and less invasive. As chat rolls out there will likely be more userscripts or more development, I keep an eye on them, but let me know others if you see them.

EDIT: For really pretty instructions about just turning chat on and off see the brilliant diva of networking Mari Smith here:
http://whyfacebook.com/2008/04/23/how-to-turn-off-facebook-chat/

There’s a bunch of controversy whirling around about sneaky and manipulative Internet Marketing sales tactics.

Having been to multiple IM seminars, I know all the tricks, and wasn’t interested in another pile of stuff that might be really great but I don’t have the time for. It’s also a good clue to the upsell backend nonsense when I was sent so many affiliate links. Now why would you need an affiliate link if the only dollar is going to charity?

HOWEVER, prompted by this post (thank you Jeremy), http://www.surefirewealth.com/blog/marketing/marketing-lesson-on-trial-offers I just went and got the $1 offer using the new PayPal Secure Card. I’ve been meaning to try it out, but we will have to wait and see how it works in this scenario.

It’s basically a temporary virtual credit card to be used online, that can be limited to one-time or single merchant use. Info from PayPal Help here: http://lnk.in/secureCard
Or log in to your PayPal account and look for the upper LEFT link “Tools”->”PayPal Plug-In”

It took a bit cuz ya gotta download and install and restart your computer. But it’s kinda neat, I generated a MasterCard # on the fly and made it a One-Time use only. As soon as I waded thru all the upsell pages, I went back to PayPal and CLOSED the temporary card.

Although, interestingly, there are two items showing up, a $1 authorization and another $1 temporary hold, which I’m guessing is either another charge to see if I was gonna have enough to continue with the membership or PayPal has flagged the merchant.

I’ll keep ya posted on how this turns out.

And for the record, I do not know Matt Bacak (although we are facebook friends) and I know a lot of people are upset, but I’d at least like to give him kudos for including a charitable cause.