Shannon's Shared Feed

It's Time to Design your Twitter Page

Orli Yakuel — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:38:00 PDT

Two weeks ago I wrote about Twittergallery, a service that allows you to share your Twitter theme or download the ones that you like. Today I bumped into this cool site that offers you wonderful background patterns that you can freely download and use in your Twitter account.

Need some inspiration?

My Bailout Post

Aimee Greeblemonkey — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 07:10:00 PDT

OK, I didn't think I was going to post about this, since so many others have done so and certainly have done it more articulately than I ever could... but every night Bryan and I talk about the situation and get more and more FUCKING PISSED BEYOND BELIEF I just had to say SOMETHING. Like I literally think my teeth are going to fall out of my face from clenching my jaw for a week straight. It got so bad last night I finally threw up my hands and yelled, "That's it! We have GOT to stop talking about this!"

My ever-dependable husband calmly replied, "You're right. Let's talk about porn."

He always knows how to make me laugh.

Because, really, there is not much to laugh about.

WHY are we going to give 700 BILLION DOLLARS to people who have mismanaged their money in the first place?

WHY can't we just let them fail and give that money to families who need it after the crash?

Oh. Because THAT would be welfare.

Just a few more random tidbits that piss me off:

- When the first deal went to the table, there was no stipulation to protect CEO's from gathering their fancy bonuses when these companies recover. Luckily Congress saw through that little ploy, but my question is... why do these CEO's even get to continue gathering a SALARY? I've heard this bailout is going to cost each and every one of us $3,000. Which is A LOT of fucking money to some people. I say let those CEO's contribute at least half if not more of their massive salaries to the bailout and learn to live like regular folks for a while.

- What kind of lesson are we teaching? As my friend Christina has pointed out to me, what is the NEXT big industry that will be on the verge of failing and will need a bailout to survive and stabilize the economy? Are we not just rewarding bad business practices? Isn't the POINT is capitalism to let the cream rise to the top and the sludge sink to the bottom? Wouldn't this just be called a MARKET CORRECTION? Granted a very large one, but still. I am most certainly a liberal, but I also have always believed there is something beautiful about working hard and being rewarded for it. I think most liberals (and conservatives too!) feel that way - and this bailout sends the WRONG MESSAGE.

- What do we get out of it? Believe it or not, this has happened before. In Sweden in 1992. Their government more or less ended up buying stocks, gaining ownership in the companies, and then receiving a return on investment when the market righted itself. While some people will scream this is borderline socialism! - and oh my god! - that will make heaven fall to earth and babies just start randomly aborting themselves! I am thinking our government handing over 700 billion dollars to companies would be far worse than owning a piece of the action.

- Are people being fooled by the politics behind all this? I sure the hell hope not! The good news is, all I hear is more and more PISSED people talking. At the grocery store, and the gas station, at the bank. PISSED PISSED PISSED. Which I am so glad to hear, actually, because it means that people are not just going to take it lying down. McCain suspends his campaign to ~~avoid the debate~~ work on this? The man who has admitted several times that economics is not his forte? And still makes public appearances all over the place, and is running ads, thus making me wonder if he understands what the word "suspend" means? And then Bush, oh lordy Bush, he goes on TV and tries to scare the fuck out of every single American so he can push through one final swan song, something that will saddle the next president, whoever he is, with so much debt, that no tax cuts will happen, no health care reform will happen, NOTHING will happen for a very long time.

Fuck.

Bryan had the right of it when he suggested we talk about porn.

Because think about it, the porn industry has been the leader in most technology advances (I am not kidding) - they were the decider in the Beta vs. VHS war, they led the charge for secure online ordering... I say let's give THEM the 700 billion and see what they come up with.

You know it would be a hell of a lot more fun.

5 Awesome Firefox Add-ons

Sam — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:00:49 PDT

image by mileswu

Firefox has singlehandedly, in my opinion, changed the internet browsing experience. Never before has it been so easy and so much fun to peruse through your favorite sites and find new content.

Firefox has the ability to allow “add-ons” (which are simply different tools) to customize its usefulness for each and every user. It’s a browser that can be unique as each and every user!

Five awesome plug-ins you need? I’ll tell you!

Dictionary: This add-on provides real-time spell checking ANYWHERE you insert test throughout the browser. Whether it’s a comment box, a post, or an email, the dictionary will notify you immediately with a dotted red line below the questionable word. Download it here.
Colorful tabs: Okay so it’s not entirely that helpful, but it’s FUN! Each open tab is given a different color, which helps with navigation and deciphering one tab from another. You should totally have this one, even if its sole purpose is to make your browser pretty!
Greasemonkey: This is a script-based plugin that allows you to add scripts created by users to enhance services. Greasemonkey is an amazing tool which has totally changed how I surf the net and work online. There’s scripts based on improving and customizing anything, from Gmail to replying to comments where you’re a website administrator. There’s even a Greasemonkey add-on to improve Flickr! If you’re so inclined to try Greasemonkey, Userscripts is also a site that has numerous other scripts.
Undo Closed Tabs: Ever close a tab by accident and forget how you got to that site? This add-on creates a history of recently closed tabs so you can get that site back in a jiff! Save time and aggrevation.
Cooliris Previews: Ever curious about a link, but you don’t want to navigate from the page you’re at? Cooliris Preview is just for you! All you have to do is hover over the little icon that appears when your cursor is on a link - and the link will pop-up in a new window. If you’re interested, you can click to open it in a new tab, or just peruse it in the Cooliris Preview window.

So there you have it. Five awesome Firefox add-ons - and if you’re not using Firefox? You’re dead to me. Let’s discuss why you should change! If these add-ons were enough to convice you, go here and get it NOW!

–

Samantha is a mother of two little boys who blogs regularly at Temporarily Me, and also designs weblogs at Temptation Designs.

Twitter Launches Election Mashup, Could Be So Much More

Josh Catone — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:11:05 PDT

With the US presidential elections just over a month away, a lot of sites are rushing to get in on the action and launch a candidate watching page. Site’s like YouTube, Digg, MySpace and even PriceGrabber have had them for ages. A late entry is Twitter, which launched an Election mashup tonight. Given how much Twitter has been a hotbed for election chatter in the United States during the course of the election cycle, it makes sense that the company would try to feed off the publicity with an official channel.

The site, dubbed simply “Election 2008,” pulls in tweets that it knows to be about the US election, streams them in real time, and parses them into separate topical pages for the candidates and their running mates, Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden, and Sarah Palin. The top of the page features trending election related topics with links to relevant Twitter searches, as well as the latest tweets from the candidates themselves.

When logged in, users can tweet directly from the page and the normal “What are you doing?” question is replaced with the more topical “What do you think?”

Compared to the third party Twitter election mashup Politweets, which also parses election related tweets and has been around for at least half a year, the Twitter mashup is probably a bit better. It updates in real time and includes the hot topics tidbit, which points to trends in the chatter (though Politweets does also pull in related data from Flickr, YouTube, and Wikipedia, which is nice).

Both sites fall short of what is possible, though, and I especially hoped for more from the official election mashup from Twitter. Of course, this doesn’t just apply to politics. Twitter is a gold mine of all sorts of information that isn’t being put to good use. As Joseph Smarr, Dave Morin, and Nova Spivack said at the EmTech conference this week, there is a major problem that must be addressed in archiving and curating all the valuable social data that people are creating right now.

Twitter’s election mashup is a great example of that problem. There’s a ton of awesome data streaming in 24/7, but it’s not being properly archived (at least not in any useful way for users), and it certainly isn’t being curated or mined to its full potential.

After seeing the preview of the new Facebook Lexicon that was released earlier this week, it is hard not to be at least somewhat disappointed with Twitter’s election channel. Where is the demographic information? Where are the trend charts a la Twist? Where are the sentiment charts? Summize, which Twitter bought and now powers their search engine (and presumably the new election page), was actually doing a lot of work in reading sentiment on Twitter — in fact, it started life as a review search engine that specialized in determining sentiment. So why isn’t that being put to use here?

There is a absolute truckload of very useful data being created on Twitter every day, so it’s a shame that no one is archiving it and truly digging into it in really useful ways. A stream of election-related tweets might be fun to watch for political junkies, but it’s not super useful and will likely be impossible to follow during high content time periods (like during the debate tonight). It feels like Twitter took the easy way out when they could have done something really special.

And as I said, this doesn’t just have to apply to politics. Sentiment, trending, and demographic data culled from Twitter could have a broad range of useful research applications. Imagine, for example, if you could track sentiment in tweets about a Steve Jobs keynote, and then compare them year-over-year to see how strong the Reality Distortion Field was. Or imagine if we could watch demographic data on tweets about specific sports teams to see where fans are really engaging. The possibilities are endless. We hope someone at Twitter or somewhere else is working on something like this (and please, email us if you are!).

Get More From My Posts

chrisbrogan — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:54:35 PDT

Stuck for blog topics? You might not know this, but I love to share. I’m a big fan of it. In fact, all the text on the site is released under Creative Commons license. (The pictures often belong to other people, like the one to the right, and I don’t have rights to them. But MY stuff? You can use it, provided you follow the rules listed here. (It’s pretty easy to see where the dividing line is.)

I want you to share. I want you to take my posts and use them as part of your other work, to build on, to add to, to remix in other useful ways.

The only thing I want back is that you credit me for my work, with a link back to [chrisbrogan.com] at the least, and if you can, to the specific post. That’s how it works.

So, feel free to search through and find things you want to use as source material. How about some of these?

And all you have to do is link back. Easy cheesy, eh?

So, swing by [chrisbrogan.com], look at the tag cloud to the right, and see if you can’t scare up the kinds of posts you want to run with on your own blogs. That’s what it’s there for: for you to learn from, for you to share, and for you to expand upon.

Happy sharing! : )

Photo credit, Okaggy

Act NOW to Stop The "Education Begins At Home" Act

noreply@blogger.com (Susan Critelli) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:38:00 PDT

$700 Billion

noreply@blogger.com (Kat) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:50:00 PDT

Dear Candidates: Go To Washington And Do What You Were Elected To Do

Judy Aron — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:26:00 PDT

As much as I loathe John McCain, he has the right idea to suspend his campaign and get back to his desk in DC and go to work on this financial mess. The fact that Sen. Obama wants to continue with scheduled debates and pretend it's all business as usual is quite odd for someone who is advocating "Change".

One could say that McCain is just stalling for time regarding the debates, but the truth is that we probably wouldn't be much in this mess if Senator Chris Dodd wasn't traipsing around the country running for President when he was supposed to be doing his job as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and keeping an eye on these sub-prime mortgages. But then again he was also too busy getting his own sweetheart deals from Countrywide. We need our elected officials to do the job we sent them to DC to do.

Debates are stupid anyway. They omit other candidates from being heard and they are for the most part all blather about what the candidates "will do" or "might do". How about Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain actually SHOW US what they can do, by tackling this problem and coming up with a real solution to stabilize the situation. That's what we elected them for in the first place! They should be working towards a solution that won't burden the taxpayer with a $700,000 billion dollar bailout of mismanaged Wall Street firms. Sorry guys, but I am NOT interested in owning a piece junk mortgages and bad debt. I am NOT interested in profiting off of this as a taxpayer either. I also do not think it is the government's job to dictate how much money a CEO can make or how any company should run their business.

I am disgusted that President Bush is trying to ramrod this $700,000 billion bailout package with fear tactics. Nice work to try to scare the already outraged public into thinking that if we don't accept this bailout package tomorrow, as he and Paulson and Bernanke seek, that we will all suffer with job loss, failure to get student loans, car loans and home loans. The bogeyman told us last night that if we don't swallow this bailout we'll all get punished severely.

I have news for President Bush: We are already being punished severely and he needs to find another plan. The American people have had it with emptying their pockets and having their wealth stolen on a daily basis as a result of policies coming from both major political parties. There are other means to fix this problem that has been in the making for the past decade. The government created this debt crisis by allowing and encouraging and rewarding banking institutions for doling out money to people who they knew could not make good on their promise to pay it back. Now that that very bad experiment in public financial policy has failed miserably, we are all expected to pony up.

If credit dries up that could very well be the medicine that this country needs. We should be encouraged to be savers and not to spend money that we do not have. Unfortunately we have learned to depend on "OPM" (pronounced Opium) which of course is "other people's money". This notion follows right through to President Bush, Barney Frank, Hank Paulson and Ben Bernake. They also want to use OPM to fix this problem: OPM in this case is OUR tax dollars. I think we ought to tell them to take a hike.

Government caused this mess, but we now need them to encourage non-government solutions to fix the problem.

Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain need to get their collective hindquarters back to Washington DC and come up with a solution that will not involve tax dollars. Maybe the answer is for them to do nothing at all and to simply let Wall Street and their markets figure this out for themselves. (Now there's a concept). Warren Buffet has already put his billions up to help Goldman Sachs. (Paging Bill Gates and Richard Branson). Other such individuals can also pitch in and maybe even profit from their help.

The Federal government has no place, nor do they have the Constitutional authority, in getting any piece of any business, or directing the operations of those businesses - otherwise we have truly become a Socialist country.

Thomas Jefferson Speaks On The Banking Crisis

Judy Aron — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:00:00 PDT

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
-Thomas Jefferson

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
-Thomas Jefferson

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds…[we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers… And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for[ another]… till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery… And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.
-Thomas Jefferson

Unfortunately, I don't think Mr. Jefferson is being invited to the meeting at the White House this afternoon.

Psst! A Secret to Scheduling Success! by Cindy Rushton

Technorati Search for: homeschooling — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:05:36 PDT

Want to know one of my biggest secrets to homeschooling the easy way? Want to know one of my biggest secrets to scheduling success? This one secret can make your daily schedule finally fit. It can end your scheduling frustrations forever. I am not a “schedule by the minute” type of person. (GRIN) I fail with schedules like that. They don’t meet my needs. My life includes too many areas that have different needs daily. Timed schedules just do not work for me. So, what has worked for me? Setti

New Wordpress Theme Agregado Designed for Lifestreaming | Lifestream Blog

(author unknown) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:53:21 PDT

We've seen quite a bunch of Wordpress plugins released this year for Lifestreaming which has been great. Now we are finally starting to see theme developers incorporate Lifestreaming into their designs. The Agregado theme was designed from the ground up specifically with Lifestreaming in mind.

Let’s Take Our Country Back | Ron Paul .com

(author unknown) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 14:40:03 PDT

The presidential election is a well designed charade that makes us believe we have a real choice, when in reality both parties are virtually identical and controlled by the same interests.

UsableLogin Gives You One Login For All The Web

Sarah Perez — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 08:00:00 PDT

Torn About Homeschool Scheduling

christinemm — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:48:00 PDT

I am torn about homeschool scheduling. I am talking specifically about having a written schedule, a check list for the kids to work from.

I own EduTrack but don’t think I will use it this year. I find it has too much data entry ahead of time then I was adjusting it in the computer to make it reflect reality. That was a lot of editing and changing. It was time consuming. The second option is to make a schedule (handwritten or computer written) then to mark what was done on the actual paper.

I tried this last year and did it for a few months. I made a schedule in Word. It was not too detailed. I then printed it out on paper. I three-hole punched the paper and put it in a one inch thick three-ring binder. For example the lesson said “Read fiction 45 minutes”. The curriculums such as math that had lesson numbers I did put down “Math-U-See 13C & 13D”. I then used a highlighter to mark off when the work was done. Ideally all the work in one day would be done. The rule was no television unless the lessons were done. What happened in real life was that they would be several days behind in one thing, a day behind in another, on time or even ahead in other subjects. This was a mess. Not only did the kids go days and days without television but it was an organizational mess. Worse, it was an emotional mess. It didn’t take very long to have a constant feeling of inadequacy (for me and them). Some things were so behind that it was too much of a mental drain to ever catch up. For example if I doubled the math or tripled it in order to catch up, that was too much work for a child’s brain to handle in one day.

Another reason why I tried that schedule was also hoping my older so (then age 10, grade 5) to be doing some of this pacing on his own and I was overseeing and marking off the book for my younger son (age 7, grade 2). I wanted them to see also, the schedule laid out visually so they could see when they were done and when their television time was earned or not earned.

The last thing that was a pain was they were self-scheduling the timing of it. In an effort to give them more freedom they would choose what subject to do when. This completely backfired because often they would both demand that I do something with them at the same time. For example to give both kids their Spelling Power pretests at the same exact time. That is impossible. The other bad thing that happened was they’d drag out when to do certain subjects and they ended up rushing and asking me to do a certain lesson with them when I was preparing dinner or even after dinner. In my home I do not want to do homeschooling lessons past about three in the afternoon. By the evening I have no energy or patience to do homeschooling lessons with my kids. I resent being prodded and demanded to administer a lesson at a time when I’m trying to do something else that needs doing or something that I want to do (like read emails after dinner or whatever). I needed boundaries around my time and my availability too. I did not intend for that schedule to suddenly make me a slave to my children’s whims. I never intended for the kids to somehow run the household’s entire schedule based on when they felt like doing lessons and demanded my assistance.

This year right now I have nothing but a plan in my head. I have drafts of plans on the computer and others handwritten in notebooks. Because we are not fully on task with our regular homeschooling yet I am not beating myself up about this. We are still in travel mode and summer is not yet over for OUR family. We will get down to serious homeschooling business on September 15th this year.

I really want my older son to be more self-pacing with his work. I’d like him to be able to work ahead in some subjects if it so moves him (like the other day when he did 16 math lessons in one sitting). I’d like him to take more personal responsibility for doing his work. I was reading in “The Well Trained Mind” that the authors feel that starting in grade 5 the student should be working from their own daily planner with a schedule all laid out. They say the parent-teacher should do about ten minutes of instruction then let the student loose to do an hour of lessons all by themselves. This is moving the student toward self-teaching and independence with learning plus having responsibility for themselves. I think that is an ambitious thing to expect a ten year old to do, especially if the child is not super left-brained and does not like schedules or plans. A more right-brained learner who loves spontaneity cringes at the idea of that.

I was hoping that if my older son, now age 11 and in sixth grade, was more in charge of his own home education that he’d not feel as stifled and bossed around by me, his mother. There is a shift of power happening as this boy begins puberty. The more testosterone that surges through him the less he seems to want to take direction or to constantly be monitored over by me. Yet at the same time he tells me he resents the idea of me laying out a homeschooling plan and sending him off alone to do the work. He still does want me right there by his side and to feel that (these are my words to describe what he has said) –he wants me engaged and fully present in the moment with him and wants me available to him for immediate question answering and help giving.

My attempts already to give him book based learning or workbook based learning and sending him off alone has failed (last year and years prior).

One friend suggested that I begin giving him more online courses where he is being taught by a third party and has deadlines and class times that he must adhere to. That would keep him on task and not falling behind, if he has an appointment to do the class he would have to do it. Period. That friend suggested History in Our House. I don’t feel ready for that. I did however switch from Math-U-See to Teaching Textbooks this year. I plan to share more details about that later. For now I will say that so far this is working great, he chooses to learn the lesson from the computer (CDROM) and then he does his work all by himself and seeks help from the computer based curriculum when he needs it and I’m the last resort. He loves that independence so far.

Soon I will commit to some type of scheduling plan and we’ll try it out. I don’t know if it will succeed or fail but we have to do SOMETHING.

I see this issue as one of my challenges with homeschooling my kids. This part is not easy for me, balancing my role as a teacher and task master with my role as a flexible loving mother. For a long time in my children's early years I could put things off or be more laid back, but now that my oldest is in sixth grade I feel I need to really buckle down and be disciplined about his homeschool lessons in order to get stuff done and to try to fill some past gaps and to try to prevent new gaps from forming. Homeschooling like parenting is a process that is always shifting and changing. I'm in 'nose to the grindstone' mode (about my older son) right now. With my younger son I'm still in the more laid-back mode of thinking we have a lot of time in the future to do things and that overly pushing him to do more than I ever thought was reasonable for his older brother doesn't feel right.

Technorati Tags: homeschool schedule, homeschooling self-teaching, Teaching Textbooks, homeschooling computer based learning.

Running a Campagn

Headmistress, zookeeper — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 06:22:00 PDT

Among his qualifications demonstrating his ability to lead the nation, Obama has included his campaign, somehow reasoning that running for office qualifies you for that office. But recently he undercut this theme in a statement he made on the campaign trail.

He reversed himself on Wednesday, when, in a campaign stop where he complained about the Republican's stupid, stupid, stupid (sorry, but I think this was so dim of the Repubs) complaint about his lipstick on a pig comment, he said this about the McCain camp:

They're not good at governing, but they're good at running campaigns

.

We were listening to NPR in the van on the way down to midweek Bible study, and I was astonished. I was frustrated, but not surprised, when the NPR commentators didn't pick up on it.
This has been a key theme in his discussions of his qualificaitons. He brought it up again when comparing the funds and personnel he works with running his compaign to the city of Wasilla, where Sarah was mayor (there's a reason he'd rather compare his campaign management to Wasilla than to the entire state of Alaska where Palin has been Governor for two years).

I guess they don't want you to notice that he just admitted that running a campaign doesn't actually qualify the person running it for the presidency.
-------------------------------

*#NPR
Obama Hits Back At 'Lipstick' Flap

by Debbie Elliott

Lifestreaming is just the beginning

Charlie Anzman — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:46:00 PDT

I'll qualify this piece briefly by saying that I feel strongly that organic 'Search' is still No.1 for most websites or blogs to reach a target audience. Target ad buying is second for most marketing campaigns on the Internet, and there's more places than ever to do it potentially suited for YOUR target audience.

I've read a lot lately about bloggers having a hard time monetizing or losing readers RSS feeds. Some are just getting started, many have been around a long time, while still others are 'Net Vets' starting new ventures.

While there are many ways to build an audience, the most recent 'experiment' to achieving my own personal goals has been to 'cross-platform', starting in the space where I'm the most active as a launchpad.

It's no secret, I'm a huge Friendfeed fan. I'm there several times a day. I find it entertaining, interesting, informative, thought provoking and just fun .... and the new beta finally lets me 'turn up the noise' a little (IE: Find new people).

I visit all the major social networks during the course of a week, and yes, they're all getting even more social. The reason is obvious (and the competition healthy). They all want you to make them number one.

Those who've read this blog for a while know I just don't keep any secrets. If I find something neat that works, I pass it on.

I did a little research this week. I really like doing my own research and testing, and for lack of a better way of putting it, leading and not following. Things just change too dynamically on the 'Net.

Yesterday's big thing is tomorrow's old news.

Like many, I got a little put-out when Facebook firmly decided to move to their new format this week. I needed more time. I later changed my mind after giving it a good run and wrote about it here. (Incidentally, the petition to delay the change won, and Facebook has confirmed it's giving users more time to get used to the new format).

People tend to highlight almost every social network except Facebook. The reality is that Facebook is HUGE and the changes are positive and interactive. Facebook still has the potential to be one of the biggest IPO's in tech history (if it even gets that far .... before someone buys them).

My activity on Friendfeed automatically translates to Twitter followers. Facebook too. I enjoy it because my scope continues to broaden into new spaces, and a world of opinions (and yes, unfortunately, a few spammers?!). The friend or follow requests come. I do look at their stuff, and 9 times out of ten, I green light them.

This week it was time to re-visit sites I had ignored for a while and I decided that for my immediate purposes, LinkedIn would be a primary target. It had changed a lot since I last visited (for the better). My network was old and small. My profile was completely outdated.

I made a simple post to Friendfeed, a brief note on Twitter, imported my Gmail contacts and had an active and decent showing in less than a day.

One of the highlights was the same thing that had happened when I first started using Friendfeed. I discovered someone I hadn't spoken to in years, and that was, well, just cool. A good friend.

I am not a 'professional social networker'. I have no desire at all to visit 29 (or 40?) networks every day.

I want my Internet to be informative, thought provoking, profitable, and fun .... (and still have time to visit 'the real world' once in a while :)

The point? Start where you are the most active. Chances are, people have grown to 'follow' you, hopefully respect you, and will answer a simple request. When you cross over into the next space, you may just find people that you've never heard of ..... but could be your next best friend or ....

..... your next big client.

Edited 9 AM ET Sept 12 cba

Tools I use: A close look at Feedly

Mathew — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:54:04 PDT

A feed reader is a pretty personal thing for a lot of people, including me. It’s one of the main ways that I collect information — along with things like Twitter and FriendFeed and Techmeme and so on — and so I’m pretty particular about what I use, and I’m sure others are too. Some like NetNewsWire or FeedDemon, or they like having feeds in Netvibes.com, or maybe some other homepage portal. I used to be a huge fan of Netvibes, but I don’t use it as my feed reader any more.

Why? I switched to Google Reader about a year and a half ago, and despite some issues with the interface (calling it plain would be a compliment) I got used to it, and came to depend on it — primarily because of the “share” feature, which lets you share items with others and see items that they have shared. It’s like a little mini meme-tracker that makes it easier to find interesting things (my shared items are here).

I still use Google Reader, but I only go to the website every once in a while now, because I’ve been using a new app (a Firefox plugin actually) called Feedly.com more and more — in fact, I’ve become quite addicted to it. It’s effectively a front-end to my Google feeds: it takes them and displays them in a much more pleasant and easy to understand way, and it has all kinds of cool features.

Feedly says it provides a “magazine-like” interface for your feeds, and that’s exactly what it looks like. It has a number of different views, but the main one (the “What’s New” view) is a multi-column layout with some brief items, some lists and then a long center column with some short excerpts. Next to the excerpts from your feeds you can see thumbnails of any images, and when you click on the excerpt or blurb, the entire post drops down right in the page via a cool Ajax-y rolldown. Clicking “minimize” makes it roll back up (videos play right in the page as well).

You can click “mark as read” right underneath the headline, and you can also click “more” and choose to recommend the item (which is the same as sharing it in Google Reader), or you can save it for later, or post it to Twitter, or email it. If you prefer a “river” view of your items, you can choose that from the top menu, or you can go through your folders one by one. There’s also a dashboard view, and a dynamic “screensaver” view, which shows you individual posts vacation-photo style.

The bottom line for me (and others) is that Feedly provides a much nicer view of my feeds, some great layout and presentation features, and also makes it easy to share items and integrate my reading with Twitter, FriendFeed and other networks. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a winner.

When To Use Magazine-Style Themes For Blogs? | How-To | Smashing Magazine

(author unknown) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:48:52 PDT

A growing number of blogs are moving away from traditional blog layouts in favor of magazine-style themes; however, the layout and presentation of content has a major impact on visitors and there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Universal Health Care? No, Thank You! | BlogHer

(author unknown) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:03:37 PDT

It wasn't that long ago that people were actually responsible for paying for their own health care. No one expected a government entity to swoop in and save them from themselves. In fact, many of our parents and grandparents probably paid for a doctor

Go2Web20.net - The complete Web 2.0 sites directory

(author unknown) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:18:12 PDT

A comprehansive index of logos of the latest web 2.0 sites, applications and services. Find what you need. Discover what you don't...

Free Stock Photo Sites - DIRECTORY | PhotoshopSupport.com

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 06:54:11 PDT

Socialbrowse: Don't Surf Alone - ReadWriteWeb

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:09:15 PDT

Are you a Stay at Home Mom (or Dad) Interested in Earning a Monthly Income?

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:46:32 PDT

Remember 'go outside and play?' - Los Angeles Times

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:10:06 PDT

Remarkable Parents

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 06:34:34 PDT

New site covering parenting and technology.

100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:14:35 PDT

Color by Numbers and Color by Letters

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:25:28 PDT

My daughter eats these up.

Update the Feed Links on Your Header Section

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:05:46 PDT

All WordPress users should be sure their auto-discovery feed link is pointing to the right place.

Twitter Back On Track? - Raises API Limit To 100 Requests Per Hour - ReadWriteWeb

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 04:31:08 PDT

Well, we'll see!

Syncing My Friends, Feeling the Social Media Burn | sarahintampa

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:40:27 PDT

Sarah makes a great point. What is the sense in having all these social media apps if we don't have decent data portability. It's just getting to be a time-sucker.

Lively

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:49:57 PDT

Google's virtual rooms

Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:26:27 PDT

Type in any URL and this site generates a tag cloud of frequently used words. This is VERY cool!

EverythingTwitter

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:41:27 PDT

Gnip: We got $h*t to pop

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:55:50 PDT

This looks pretty exciting.

Blogging Idol Is Live!

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:36:42 PDT

Fast Food Free Vacations

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:32:27 PDT

Tips for eating healthy on the road and on the run.

Minggl | Manage Your Social Networks

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:58:42 PDT

yoono

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:57:33 PDT

100 Personal Branding Tactics Using Social Media | chrisbrogan.com

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:23:25 PDT

Comprehensive "to do list" that's sure to enhance your social media strategy.

Five Tools I Use for Listening | chrisbrogan.com

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:41:37 PDT

Great tips for gathering information using social media. Listening is just as important as participating.

How Do You Turn a Profit from Blogging? Finding and Joining an Ad Network : StartupPrincess.com

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:59:52 PDT

Includes links to many blog ad networks.

Quiet loud toys with caulk

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:15:28 PDT

Good tip to quiet those really LOUD toys!

Making Light: Newsweek invents an alarming trend

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 05:07:10 PDT

A three-page Newsweek article sensationalizes a book about a mom getting plastic surgery that will likely never make the bookstore shelves.

The Busy Dad Blog - Weekend Blog Hoppers

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:27:37 PST

PreschoolRock.com - Welcome to PreschoolRock.com

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 05:29:07 PDT

preschool crafts, activities & projects