Courtesy: @applecrispmusic

Being an early adopter is an exciting game with ups and downs every day. Sometimes, you get yourself into an awesome service before they close the doors and tell you you’re not allowed in. Other times, you end up paying more for a product than you probably should have. And sometimes, you get to see something so early that it you see it start, grow and die before it gets the chance to go mainstream.

As one of people behind the Limestone New Media Group initiative, I’m always keeping Kingston – and Kingston’s businesses – in mind as I browse the web. Fairly early on, I had a feeling that Twitter was going to get pretty big, and I registered a number of account on behalf of local businesses. I did this again earlier this year.

Twitter’s position on these names is pretty clear: Don’t do it. According the the use policy, bulk registrations, impersonating others and trying to sell names back to corporations for profit is a clear no-no and will end in a suspension of the account – as well as potentially other accounts you manage/’own’. I have, twice now, flown straight against this rule and registered a whole bunch (8-10 each wave) of accounts.

I bring this up because I got a wonderful email the other night that allowed me to turn over another account to a local business. I didn’t charge them anything, didn’t have them buy a time share and didn’t even add their email to a mailing list. They wrote to me – and I simply replied with the password.

While it may be that Twitter’s not shutting me down because the haven’t found me, I’ve also been very careful about what I’ve done with the accounts:

1. I don’t tweet on their behalf. In fact in the second wave, I only post a single tweet that reads “This account has been set up as a placeholder. If you feel you should have it (It’s free!), follow the link in the profile for details.”
2. The profile links to this page – which is a letter explaining who I am, what the LNMG is, why I’ve ’stolen’ their account, and what to do to get the password.
3. I don’t edit defaults: The background, icon and everything else stays to whatever Twitter says it is.
4. Once I get an email, I check who it’s from. If it’s from the domain I’d expect it to be, I just turn over the account. If not, a few quick Google searches will usually confirm who the person is. In either case, once I can verify the person, I blank out the profile link, delete the tweet and send them the password.
5. I don’t market them – I don’t want to be seen as ‘that guy’ who’s squatting the names and approaching people with them. Though I’m not asking for money (Or even suggesting they turn to me for a strategy or consulting), I know that “cold-calling” in this way is frowned upon, so I just don’t do it.

My entire first wave of accounts went to their proper owners in just over 6 months. This second wave is taking a little longer to be disbursed - but I crossed the halfway point by turning over @applecrispmusic recently.

It makes me SO excited to see so many Kingston companies beginning to to adopt social media tools – and I’m honoured to be able to play a small role in helping them along.

Courtesy flickr: way2go

Just a super-quick post from me this morning!

Some of you have seen a handful of changes around what I do online in the past few months. Some things have morphed slightly on my Twitter feed, I updated a few things on WordPress By The Minute and I completely overhauled how I connect to people on Facebook.

These changes were complementing some other changes in my life, too – A haircut (I need a new avatar at some point), a new office, I’m shopping for new glasses, we tore up some of the yard and threw a few new coats of paint on the house, too.

And I’ve barely scratched the surface: There’s a whole list of changes behind-the-scenes that allowed some of these other ones to happen, and a whole list left to start in on. One of the places I’d been making very few changes so far, though, has been this blog. But that’s changing now, too.

I’ve been running my own website for nearly 15 years now, and I’ve always enjoyed having the chance to completely refresh it every so often. Usually, these are more evolutionary changes than they are revolutionary ones, but every now and then I really mix things up and go all out. This one falls under the former in terms of appearances, but the later for what it means.

I’m going to reveal more bits and pieces of this – ahem – web every Monday for the rest of October. For now, though, swing on by the site and take a look at the pretty new layout.

I’m experimenting with IntenseDebate for the comments on my blog and need a whole bunch of comments, tweets and so on to test it out.

If you can come over to this post on my site and leave a comment, that’d be great. You can do it anonymously, just leave your name OR you can sign in with ID, Facebook or Twitter to identify yourself.

Please pass this along, too – the more comments, the more I can test this thing out and see how it works.

Thanks.

Facebook has always been an odd place for me. It’s the only place, really, where my ‘online’ and ‘offline’ worlds collide. Sure, some people I know from my ‘offline’ life are now on Twitter, or have connected through LinkedIn, but for the most part, Facebook is the place where those people are interacting with me. And I love that. It’s nice to have a place where my ‘offline’ world can gather and interact – pictures, wall posts, notes and everything. All of the people who I get together with for dinners, who my wife and I double-date with… who we go out with and have over… Plus past co-workers from my pre-web life… and old high school friends… It’s my spot for all of that.

But it’s also where a lot of my ‘online’ friends gather, too. While we’re all over Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, FriendFeed and who knows how many other networks, we’re in Facebook, too – so it’s expected that I’d be there for this type of activity, too. And this leaves Facebook right in the middle.

Now, several of my friends are stuck in this same boat… And to the best I can tell, there are three solutions. You either split your list by creating a second profile, you simply accept that the worlds are going to collide, or you try to manage it all under one profile using privacy settings. I chose to do the later and did so using friend ‘groups’. Here’s how:

First, I divided my world into two groups (I’ll talk about the third in a bit) – ‘Personal’ (Represented in light green below) and ‘Web’ (In the teal-like colour). The rules were pretty straight-forward: If we initially met because of offline activities (high school, work, friends of friends, former customers of mine and so on) OR if we met online but you’ve worked your way more into my personal life (AND are local – the people I could just go hang out at a coffee shop or bar with) you were personal. Everyone else was web.

After I had my divisions , I broke them up even further. The personal group was divided into 4: All Access (For the absolute closest people in my life – they get to see everything because I don’t hide much – if anything – from them, Family (Which is pretty self-explanatory), Personal Friends (For people I regularly see, hang out with and talk to) and Acquaintances (For people I’m still connected to but don’t really often ever talk to). The web side broke into two: Trusted Web, and Web – with the divider essentially being people who WOULD meet the criteria for personal friend, but they aren’t local and we met online.

I then broke down every setting Facebook would allow me to split up by group and handed out access to each group. It took a lot of tweaking (Probably about 3 hours total) – but in the end, every person belonged to a single list, and each list had it’s powers and privileges. I did the exact same thing with application settings, too.

But what about the ‘Limited’ groups? Well, they’re mostly there for decor right now, but they’re set up as more of a ’step down’ type of group. If someone gets on my bad side, or I want to block someone without actually blocking them, these two groups give me the ability to do that. I also use ‘Limited’ as a sort of training period – somewhere I place people who want to connect with me, but I don’t know off-hand and don’t have time to look into.

The groups also give me the ability to ‘promote’ or ‘demote’ people between levels. For example, someone I meet online who’s local… but that I begin hanging out with regularly, could easily move from ‘Web Friends’ to ‘Personal Friends’ jumping not only lists, but sides as well.

An alternate method I’ve seen used is the “no” groupings. Setting up lists called “No Basic Info”, “No Personal Info”, “No Status And Links” and so on… This would let you take a person, add them to whichever groups you need to, and control information on a very specific level. Not something I’m interested in right now (That would be VERY time consuming to set up and maintain) – but it’s something I may keep in mind for later. A hybrid could work well – say, a “Personal Friends” and “No Home Address” pairing as an example.

A few notes

• Yes, ‘Personal Friends’ and ‘Family’ look the same in that chart… and for the most part, they are. My ‘Family’ group has more application access, though –  specifically to things like family tree apps.
• Very few people get to see who I’m friends with – in fact, between the two groups who CAN see them, I’ve got 4 people. I’ve had some mixed run-ins sharing friends with everyone… So I’m a little shaky handing that one out.
• Yes, ‘Acquaintances’ and ‘Limited’ are the same. These groupings are currently ONLY for an easy distinction on my side – but can also be used later to redefine privileges without having to re-group everyone.

It’s Not Perfect

… But no system is. There’s a lot of stuff lacking from the privacy controls – and a lot of stuff that could be (and should be) super-easy to implement. Actions (joining groups, fan pages), for example are missing – and there’s no way to control who can comment on things. For the most part, though, this system has been working well for me to allow me to keep both lives in one place and under a single sign-on. We’ll see how that changes in time.

How do you have your Facebook set up?

Well, this isn’t being published in Facebook, and I’m not tagging anyone… But I turn 25 today – so what a better day to do post this?

1. I once owned a full-sized arcade cabinet. I can’t remember which game it was – it wasn’t very good. I saved up 40,000 tickets at the arcade for it, though. Then I sold it to buy a Wii.
2. Speaking of which, I’ve never owned a non-Nintendo console. Portable or home, all of my systems have come from them and I don’t picture that changing any time soon.
3. I often relax by folding origami… And have done so for years. I don’t memorize models, but love the activity of folding them. I just started work on a big project, too.
4. I’m a Disney fan – and that applies pretty much across the board. My iTunes has specific playlists for Disney music and my DVDs were (and will likely be again) sorted Disney-first for the longest time.
5. Pixar comes before Disney. While they’re the same company now… they weren’t always. I’ve seen almost every pixar in theatres – most of those on opening day… Some of them several times.
6. I also adore board games. A night of Monopoly, Blokus, Scene It, Bohnanza and Reversi trump a night out at a bar any day.
7. Though I’m very much a dog person – I considered owning a cat for a brief period after I left school. I was working a hectic schedule, and didn’t feel I’d have time for proper dog care… but missed the companionship. The ‘no pets’ rule where I was living quashed that plan, anyway.
8. I built my first personal computer in 2001 using a bunch of parts I was given, and $5.40 for a power cable. It ran for 4 years as my desktop and is still in use today (Though, with new hard drives and a new case) as my home theatre PC.
9. Through high school, I was much of a “shutter bug”  and ALWAYS kept a camera around. I ended up with hundreds of pictures… mostly of floors, ceilings and fingers… And no longer carry a camera most of the time.
10. I did go to college for four months – then left with a smile on my face. After speaking with the professors and dean, I realized that I already knew much of was was going to be taught to me… And concluded that simply paying in time and money for a piece of paper was silly.
11. I’ve known my wife since we were both young. We met at the campground our parents had sites at and saw each other every summer until my family stopped camping there. Her parents are still there, and we make it back up the the campground every summer now.
12. I’m a regular blood donor and a volunteer with Canadian Blood Services. One of my best friends got me interested in donating blood just after my 17th birthday.
13. I recently committed to running the triathlon in August of next year, though will be falling back on a duathlon if I can’t nail the swimming bit.
14. I really like making people smile. It brings me nothing but pleasure to know – even if someone won’t admit it – that I’ve brightened up their day… or even just a part of it. I want to do this more often.
15. My music tastes very WILDLY. So much so that iTunes shuffle simply doesn’t work. Country and techno are among the top genres in the collection… But I’ve got everything from acapella to musicals to Disney (see #4) in it too.
16. I am an Olympics nut – but not for the sports… I love the spirit of the games. The thought of wars, battle and fights pausing for a few weeks so that every nationality can come together in peace to play appeals greatly to me. I actually have an Olympic flag I’ll ‘fly’ in some form during the games, and used to have the Olympic anthem as my cell ring tone.
17. Speaking of cell phones – I hate them. That’ll surprise some people, given how long I’ve owned one. I love being connected to people, places and the web all of the time… but hate that pretty much every phone I’ve owned is a pain to setup or use.And I ALWAYS forget to charge them.
18. I swam in the Atlantic ocean during my honeymoon and intend to swim in the Pacific someday. While on the subject of travel goals, I want to see all 14 of our capital cities. Ideally, from both the ground… and the air.
19. I once weighed 265 pounds, and worked off 65 of those with Dance Dance Revolution, a steady (Same thing daily) diet, and the help of a dietitian. I’ve bounced back up a little, but am working on it again.
20. That said, if you want to win me over with food? Chicken fingers, plum sauce, poutine and beer. Unless I’m staying sober that night… Then it’s root beer.
21. I have a strange thing about my hair. I like to use it… almost as an identity. It’s been various colours, lengths and styles through the years, and I change it up periodically… But only after an insane amount of thought has gone into it.
22. I really enjoy pet fish. I was given my first ones from a co-worker years ago, and have almost always had fish around ever since. As a result, while I enjoy the sport and people aspect of fishing, I would much rather throw every fish caught back than eat them.
23. I -LOVE- getting personal mail. Not email, actual go-through-the-system-and-arrive-at-the-door mail. Especially postcards.
24. Speaking of cards – a card is often the part of the gift that matters most to me. And, as such, I would much rather get JUST a well thought out, well selected card… Than a post-it note on a really cool gift.
25. I don’t like being the centre of attention, really, and though I take my birthday in good humour now – I used to absolutely HATE my birthday. I was surprised with a birthday party when my hatred for my birthday was just about to hit it’s tipping point, and have been more OK with it ever since. My web connections are making it easier, too.

That’s it! Do any of these apply to you?

But just having me receive presents? No, that won’t do.

So I’m offering 25% off everything over at WordPress By The Minute just by entering the word ‘BIRTHDAY’ into the coupon box. Offer valid on all projects I’m brought on board for between now and August 20th (Even if the work doesn’t actually start or end until after that).

So spread it around – presents for everyone!

I recently discovered an online glasses (and contact lens) store that I’m keen on ordering from, but I can’t make up my mind.

A list of all of their men’s frames can be found here and I’m attaching a recent (rather grumpy, apparently) picture to this post.

Your mission is to pick a (few) pair(s) of glasses, then comment on this post to let me know which you like. While I (And, let’s be honest, my wife) retain veto rights, I’m pretty open to anything, so the pair that seems to gather the most attention has a darn good shot of being my new pair. Also, while I’m not going to say ‘money isn’t an object’, I do have benefits that’ll be covering the purchase.

So spread the word and help me go shopping!

1. Gmail – Bar none, the absolute most important app I use. Period. I have dozens of email addresses and a handful of domains pointing to it, all being handled by a horde of filters and labels. Really, if it’s not in here – I’m not likely to see it…
2. Google Calendar – Unless, of course, it’s on here. Seventeen calendars call this place home – all colour-coded and sorted by priority and what segment of my life they apply to. My calendar pretty much runs my life including everything from client work to garbage night.
3. Toodledo – My calendar’s evil partner in crime. I’ll admit, I’m only JUST discovering the power and potential of this task app, but it does tie into Google Calendar, lets me prioritize items by date or importance AND will let me recur items every 9 days (Something VITAL to my operation) – so it’s on the list.
4. Twitter – Yeah, this one should probably go without saying – especially since I listed Seesmic in the other list… But Twitter IS a webapp first and fore-most, and I do seem to have a tab open to it most of the day – particularly to search
5. Meebo – Oh Meebo, how I <3 thee. Meebo is, as of this weekend, the ONLY IM platform I use. If it isn’t supported by Meebo, I’m not using it. Period.
6. Google Reader – Yep, the big G gets another spot on the list for the RSS reader. What I use this one for should be pretty obvious. :)
7. CastRoller – CastRoller has ‘replaced’ the podcast section of iTunes for me. I listen to my episodes online most of the time – and use the single feed to sync my iPod and Blackberry when I’m on the go. Plus, I’ve found lots of cool new shows thanks to it’s sharing features
8. Facebook – Oh, Facebook, how I </3 thee. Facebook and I have an odd relationship. I’m there – mostly because it’s expected of me – but I haven’t figured out how best to actually USE it yet.
9. Delicious – I KNOW I should be sharing bookmarks. I know that. But I’m not. I AM using Delicious though, and the day my thousands of bookmarks saved over 10 years are cleaned through, they’ll all go public. I promise.
10. FreshBooks – I’m not always using freshbooks – but this one IS my invoicing app and I love it. :)
11. Flickr & Youtube – These guys half make the list. I use them to host my pictures and video… But I’m REALLY not using them to their fullest… or regularly. Half a point each.

So that’s the list! But unlike the desktop side, I’m ALWAYS playing with other applications on the web. Here are 4 others that I use less frequently but so still use occasionally or am currently experimenting:

1. Netvibes – Netvibes was once the glue that held everything together for me, and my browser could never be found without a tab open to it. I still do use it… but not nearly as often.
2. WordPress – WP makes the list in this section… Because while I DO use it daily I’m not 100% sure it fits the ‘webapp’ model. It’s web-based though, so I’ve put it on here.
3. Web-based Docs – This is a two-for-one. On one side you’ve got Google Docs, on the other you’ve got Zoho. Both are awesome. Both are things I should be using more. Google Docs slightly out-ranks Zoho because of the gmail integration.
4. Last.fm – This is the app I’m working on ‘replacing’ the rest of my iTunes with. I’ve been playing with it off and on over the last while and DO like it… But it hasn’t made it’s way into my regular rotation yet.

And that’s this list! I’m always on the hunt for new apps, too – so if you know of something that out-ranks one of the ones I’m using, I’m all ears!

1. Notepad – Despite dozens of web alternatives, I can’t seem to shake this one. I blame the muscle-memory [Win + r] [n][o][Enter] keyboard shortcut for this. I mostly use it as a quick place to jott down a note while on the phone – or as a quick pastebin of sorts when programming. As a side note, I SAVE very few (if anything) in it – instead, it’s copied to a web document, email or other tool.
2. Seesmic Desktop – There are piles of web-based Twitter clients, but nothing (yet) that seems to do what Seesmic can for me. This is one that I’m always actively seeking a replacement for and am ready and willing to give up as soon as the perfect web version comes along.
3. RealVNC – There are several computers in the house, some of which don’t even have keyboards, mice or monitors hooked up.  This lets me control them from my laptop. Kinda like having three computers in one.
4. VLC Media Player – My default media player for any movie or music file. It’s kinda broken and won’t let me seek to a new position in AVI files… but oh well. I play files using web-based players where possible, but it it has to be a download (or is coming from local storage of some sort), it gets played here.
5. iTunes – Pretty obvious one. My music library + iPod Touch and Shuffle syncing. I also manage playlists here to sync to the Blackberry Pearl.
6. Windows Media Player – This one only makes the list because my VLC player is broken and sometimes I want/need to skip ahead in a file. I’ll someday fix VLC and this can vanish again.
7. CDBurnerXP – I’ve been burning a lot of backups of files and data from some of the hard drives to CD or DVD recently and this freeware burning app makes that nice and easy.
8. VirtualBox – As I play with more and more web apps, I’m also playing with a lot of netbook OSes. This free virtual machine lets me do so without having to install anything permanent to the drive and dual-, triple- or quad-boot.
9. Adobe Fireworks – Another one that SHOULD be off the list and isn’t – only because I haven’t had enough time to learn my way through Aviary.
10. Filezilla - To get things ONTO the cloud. With WordPress having core and plugin upgrades along with  plugin and theme installs all built into wp-admin, I’m guessing this will soon likely only be used for audio/video/image media and file permissions.

That’s it! For the most part, the stuff I’m using locally is stuff that can’t go on the web – But I want to know what you think? Did any of these surprise you?

Just a quick one letting you know about a planned change around here. While the blog has – since it started – simply been a place for personal thoughts and musings with a slight twist involving new media, I’m getting ready to start posting a lot more often – and the posts will begin having all sorts of flavours to them. I’ll still be posting (probably more often) my thoughts on things going on in the new media (and probably the larger technology) space, but I’ll be adding a lot of posts on WordPress news/themes/plugins/etc, webapps, social networking and so on.

I encourage you to stick around for a while to get a taste of what’s to come. :)

After signing up for and installing IntenseDebate, I had to import my comments from my database to theirs. No problem. I was told that my blog was queued and could be for several hours. Fine. I made myself lunch and returned to find that my import had started (yay!) but that I was at 0%. So I went grocery shopping. Then did some housework. Then made dinner. No change. So I finally turned to Google. Turns out I’m not alone. A search at their GetSatisfaction page reveals piles of threads – very few listed as resolved – and while users are trying to help each other – it didn’t look like the company was around much (I’ll get back to this). I submitted a help request through the website, and went back to trying to figure it out on my own.

Let The Troubles Begin

After several hours of effort I, in frustration, uninstalled the plugin. At the recomendation of the web in general, I also removed the database entries (By hand) and went back to local comments. This seemed like a step backwards to me so after verifying that local comments did indeed work, I re-installed it. Then I removed and re-installed it again. And again. And again using the IntenseDebate Clear Database plugin. Then again. Then – in the interest of experimentation, I removed it and installed Disqus. It was up and running (and working!) in 15 minutes. I sighed. My allegiance to WP shined through, though, and I removed Disqus, and gave ID a few more tries. Nothing seemed to work.

Around 7:20pm, I sent a tweet that read “Having some major problems getting ID set up. Sent a support request no reply. Maybe Twitter help?”. I directed it both at @IntenseDebate and @mkoenig – the only employee who seemed to be active on GS. After not hearing anything for an hour or so, I gave up – left the plugin installed, just in case, and moved on to other things. Eventually, I fell asleep on the couch next to my laptop. Several hours later I was awoken by Seesmic telling me I had a reply. It was from @mkoenig, and came in around 12:45 am. It was now 12:51 am and he was asking me to email him. My email (just a super-quick, lets-get-a-conversation-started-while-you’re-at-your-desk email) was sent at 12:54 am. I waited. Then kept waiting. And waited some more. This post is going live around 4:10 am. I have yet to hear back from them.

Greener Grass – 3 Tips For IntenseDebate

I know it sound like I’m ranting – I am. And I know it probably looks like I’m jumping the gun on wanting this to work – I’m probably doing that too. But I’m frustrated. My beef here, too, doesn’t fall with the fact that it’s still not working on my site – though that would be awesome – but rather with the support I’ve received. I’ve done years of customer service, several of which were online for a startup, so I’d like to reach out and offer some advice to ID here.

1. I love that you’ve got people on GetSatisfaction. I think it’s an awesome way to connect with your users. But if you’re going to be on there – use it to it’s full potential. There should be lots of threads being marked as resolved, comments from USERS being promoted as solutions, and employees clearly listed and interacting. And this Auston guy – who seems like he was the GS guy – appears to no longer be with you. Or, at least he doesn’t have the employee tag. His ID profile still says he’s a developer for you, so I’m not too sure.
2. You should be ALL OVER Twitter. Yes, I used caps and bolded that. Sure, you’ve got @IntenseDebate locked down and it looks like @mkoenig is using his personal account for support. But the ‘official’ account is announcements-only and Michael’s has DAYS between tweets. A handful of searches reveals lots of people looking for ID help – not all of which are being addressed – and even more are simply venting. Some generic searches and the competitor reveals lots of outreach possibility too. You’re a community-focused product, Twitter should be KEY for you.
3. You seem to be lacking follow-through. When I finally did hear from someone (Who told me to email – something I’d already tried), I heard nothing back… Despite replying in mere minutes. I don’t mind waiting until the morning for a reply – but that expectation should have been set. Twitter is INSTANT and moves fast – and I replied both with a tweet and an email pretty quick. If you didn’t intend to reply until the morning, your tweet should have read “@tommyvallier sorry for the delay. please email me at info@intensedebate.com – I’ll check it in the morning.”. If you did intend to reply tonight and got distracted, busy or fell asleep, that sucks. In either case, it’s a screw-up.

Customer service – ESPECIALLY online, can really turn around and bit you in the behind. While I’m probably the last guy in the world to be complaining and passing along a ‘how-to’ (considering my current employment status), I’m hoping this strikes a chord with someone. I probably, too, should throw in the towel here too and just switch to Discus (Who I’m half expecting to find this post before anyone at ID the this point)… But I’m going to give it another shot. What can I say – I’m a sucker for punishment.

I’ve always found the standard, single-page, single-sided resumé to be rather… dull. All you ever get is a single cover letter, and then one page to explain your skills, knowledge, history and… well… everything.

This two-page setup hardly gives an applicant the chance to show the employer anything about them. Because of the lack of space, their personality, their creativity… and even relevant skills end up forgotten. Most people compensate by having several versions of their cover letter and resumé so that they can select the right pair for any given job application. But even in these scenarios things are ignored – it’s just a different set of ignored items depending on which resumé/cover letter pair is used.

When I decided it was time to return to the working world after a year of freelancing, this standard setup just didn’t seem to fit me anymore.

So I decided to look up “resumé” and what it meant. It turns out that the official definition says nothing about length, letters or even medium! All it is, it seems, is a written account of personal, educational, and professional qualifications and experiences. Well – that’s pretty easy.

So I decided to do something a little… different with mine. I launched it with a domain name and a WordPress install. At the time of writing, I’m seeking work in customer service or evangelism marketing. Stop on by You Should Hire Tommy, and take a look at the interactive resumé. I’d love your feedback.

Oh! And spread the word! :)

So, there it is. See the problem?  Just for fun, I’ve overlayed it with coloured blocks: blue is navigation, green is advertixing, and red is content. My screen resolution is 1280×800, and I’ve trimmed off the browser stuff, leaving a 1263 x 676 pixel canvas, or 853,788 pixels.

Before

Navigation: We have the main navigation area (Area #1, 1200 x 110, total of 132,000; 15.46% of viewable space) and a smaller navigation area above the stories (Area #2, 885 x 30, total of 26,550; 3.11% of viewable space. So our navigation takes up about 18.57% of my screen. Not bad.

Advertisements: Here we go – there are three ad blocks visible. The massive ad (Area #3, 900 x 360, total of 324,000; 37.95%), the self-promotional Digg Dialogg ad (Area #4, 885 x 50 , 44,250; 5.18%) and the sidebar ad block on the right (Area #5, 300 x 177, 53,100, 6.22%). The ads are therefore taking up 49.35% of the viewable space. Let me repeat that: fourty-nine point three five percent. For advertisements. That’s MASSIVE.

Content: Just the one block here. It’s area #6, measures just 885 x 50 so it totals 44,250 pixels. That’s just 5.18%.

Whitespace: So one thing I haven’t touched on yet is the unmarked space. I’ve been including it in my math, though. I calculated it be subtracting the other three from the original total, and we end up with 229,638 pixels – that’s 26.90% of the screen real estate. More tha a QUARTER of the space is empty. If we don’t include this “empty” space in the above numbers and only looks at space that contains content, our math changes a lot. Navigation takes up 25.40% of used space, content now fills 7.09% and the advertisements are – ready for this? 67.51% More than TWO THIRDS of the used space is advertisements. How insane is THAT?

After

Now, after the ad collapses, we’re in much better shape I’ll summarize this part in numbers only:

• Area #1 – Top Navigaton: 1200×110; 132,000 total; 15.46%
• Area #2 – Story Navigation: 885×30; 26,550 total; 3.11%
• Area #3 – Top Ad: 900×60; 54,000 total; 6.32%
• Area #4 – Dialogg Ad: 885×50, 44,250 total; 5.18%
• Area #5 – Sidebar Ad: 300×250, 75,000 total; 8.78%
• Area #6 – Main Story Area: 885×350, 309,750 total; 36.28%
• Area #7 – Sidebar Top Stories: 300×215, 64,500 total; 7.55%
• Whitespace – 147,738 total; 17.30%

So, post-shrink, navigation still consumes 18.57%, content has been upped to 43.83% and advertising sits at 20.28%. If we look at JUST used space, we have 22.46% going towards navigation, 24.54% is ads, and – thankfully – 53.01% is content.

Bottom Line

So, what’s my point? Quite simple, actually: If I hadn’t been outraged enough to want a screengrab, I would have left Digg instantly. I’m not going to stick around on a site that is giving me 5% content. no way. The smaller version’s not too bad – at least content there is over 40%… But the next time I spot something large on the top of Digg, I’m gone – and I’ll likely be tempted to not return.

So, the past week has brought a lot of interesting events and happenings in Kingston. From PAB, to Doors Open, from Teddy Bears to Music Festivals and from fires…. to, well, bigger fires. I’ve been watching it all very closely on Twitter and trying to keep up.  It’s been hard, though, because while big events (like PAB) have dedicated hashtags, smaller going-ons never do. We chatted about this a bit at the last meetup, too, and are beginning to think of a solution, but I’ve been doing some more thinking on my own, too.

First, I pondered the idea of a single, generic tag that could cover all local events. Something like #kingstonon, or #kngon (to keep it short – on Twitter, every character counts) or something like our airport code #ygk… But none of that seemed right – a sweepstakes at the mall and a parade downtown then share the same tag… And until local events begin to have their own tags, that’s going to get very confusing, very quickly. So I thought we could break up the city in a way that would make sense… And the more I thought about this, the more I realized it was already done – by Canada Post!

The Down-Low on Postal Codes

Ahh, the postal codes – something I’ve been developing more of a personal interest in. The postal code system in Canada is set up with 6 characters, three letters and three numbers, formatted as D1E 2F3. The first three characters are the FSA (Forward Station Area) which break down a specific area of a province or city and the last three are the LDU (Local Delivery Unit) pinpoint a specific area within the FSA such as a street, block or sometimes a single building. Because of the way the FSAs work in Kingston – I decided that breaking the city up along those lines made the most sense. If you want to learn more about postal codes, check Wikipedia.

The Hashtags

So I’m proposing we begin tagging news, events, important updates and similar using the FSA as a hashtag. I’ve set up a rough map showing the rough areas according to the Canada Post map. I’m also providing a list of major landmarks within each hashtag zone, along with a specified suggested colour. Click on the read more link below to read all about the new tag zones for Kingston. Part of the beauty of this system is that it can be easily adapted for use anywhere across the country.

I’d appreciate feedback on the hashtags – the idea is to help bring the community together on this, so redefining them together is alright by me. Also, if I missed any notable landmarks, I’d appreciate knowing those, too.

This is a list of the hashtag zones (As defined by the Canadian FSA map), listed with the city-based ones first in clockwise order starting with the one that touches the northern-most point:

#K7P (Colour: Magenta, RGB Hex #CC33CC) - This zone is located in the north-west corner of the city. Bordered by the 401 along the north, down Sydenham Rd and Gardiners Rd along the west, by Princess St (Between Sydenham and Gardiners Rds) and Taylor-Kidd Bvld along the south, and Wilton Rd (County Rd 6) along the east.

Some notable landmarks:

• Woodbine Community Park (And the BMX track)
• Major Retail (Canadian Tire, Wal-mart, Loblaws)
• Invista Centre
• Cataraqui Town Centre

#K7M (Colour: Red, RGB Hex #FF0000) - This zone is mostly the center of Kingston, along with the south-west corner. It’s northern and eastern borders are a little hard to nail down, but along the north we’ve mostly got the 401, Princess St and Taylor-Kidd Bvld, and along the east we’ve essentially got Sydenham Rd, Gardiners Rd, Safari Dr, Aylmer Cr and the railway tracks. It’s bordered (quite cleanly) by Sir John A MacDonald Bvld along the west, and Lake Ontario to the south.

Some notable landmarks:

• Lemoine Point and Little Cataraqui Creek (South) conservation areas
• Major Retail (Rio-Can Centre)
• Invista
• Norman Rogers Airport
• St Lawrence College
• Via Rail
• Richardson Stadium
• Lake Ontario Park
• Queen’s West Campus

#K7K (Colour: Orange, RGB Hex #FFCC00) - This is the largest geographic zone mostly within city limits and comprises the rest of core Kingston (North of Princess St) as well as all of Kingston East. It’s bordered along the north by the 401, by Abbey Dawn Rd to the east, Lake Ontario to the south and Sir John A MacDonald Bvld along the west.

Some notable landmarks:

• Novellis
• Major Retail (Kings Crossing)
• Memorial Centre
• Grass Creek Park
• Royal Military College
• C.F.B. Kingston
• K-ROCK Centre
• Ravensview Plant

#K7L (Colour: Blue, RGB Hex #0000FF) - The last (and smallest geographically) zone within the actualy city. This is mostly the downtown core and Queen’s Campus. Bordered along the north by Princess St, along the east and south by Lake Ontario and by Sir John A MacDonald Bvld along the west.

Some notable landmarks:

• Downtown Kingston (Including EVERYTHING on Princess St and South)
• City Hall, Market Square and Confedration Basin
• City Park
• ALL THREE hospitals
• Queen’s University
• Major Retail (Downtown shops, Kingston Centre)

#K7N (Colour: Green, RGB Hex #009900) - While much of this zone isn’t residential, and some does fall outside of city limits, it will be included on here for expansion possibility as well as events in Amherstview. Bordered on the north by Woodbine Rd (until it’s end, where a straight line runs to the west border), on the east by the Safari Dr/Aylmer Cr/Railway tracks border of #K7M, along the south by the lake and along the west by Wilton Rd (County Rd 6).

Some notable landmarks:

• Amherstview

While these 5 hashtags will cover much of what goes on in this area, some events will reach outside this section. I’ve got those covered too.

The rural areas surrounding Kingston (Including Wolfe, Howe and Amherst islands), Bath, Picton, Sandbanks Park, Odessa, Sydenham, Tichborne, Sharbot Lake, Westport, Seeley’s Bay, Verona, Joyceville and others will be handled by their FAS of #K0H (Colour: Teal, RGB Hex #66CCCC). Note that this is a LARGE zone, and is not mapped off directly on the map by borders.

In the interest of getting more people in the area involved, I’ve also set up zones for the two nearby twons with dedicated FSAs:

• Napanee to the west can be identified as #K7R (Colour: Grey, RGB Hex #999999). This would include things like the Strathcona Paper Centre.
• Gananoque on the east can be identified as #K7G (Colour: Brown, RGB Hex #663300). This encompasses the Playhouse as well as the casino.

Note that the zones for Napanee and Gananoque are JUST for things within the town and not the outlying rural areas – the oultying areas fall under #K0H.

I really hope these help us all to be able to find out more about what’s going on in the area. Please try to keep them in mind when live-tweeting major happenings, events and news. Remember too, that tags can be on anything, from a tweet, to a blog post to an image upload to a video. I’ll be building a tools soon that will aggregate tweets using these new tags. All feedback to tweak and change these is MORE than welcome. Please comment below.

• Day 1: June 17th – Went for a 25 minute walk alongside my wife and dog. Media captured was a series of images on Flickr.
• Day 2: June 18th – Did walks and runs up the stairs of doom for 15 minutes. Captured (then edited) some video, and tossed it onto YouTube.
• Day 3: June 19th – Went for another walk with my wife today. Media captured? None. Forgot every piece of tech I had at home (Cell phone included). Was kinda nice to unplug.
• Day 4: June 20th – Took today ‘off’ because my legs were still burning – I blamed the stair exercises from Day 2. Spent 5 hours cleaning the house (Including vacuuming and hauling stuff up and down the stairs). I consider this a missed day, though I probably did more of a workout than most of the others.
• Day 5: June 21st – Had originally planned on spending ab hour or more wandering aimlessly around the local conservation area. That didn’t happen. So I spent 40 minutes “Fake DDRing” instead. I used the same song and steps that I used to do daily. Captured the video (Full 40+ minutes) and have it on my computer. Not sure yet what to do with it – speeding it up messes up the music.
• Day 6: June 22nd – I promised myself that I wouldn’t use biking during the #fitin15 challenge – outside of the house, I bike more than I walk. So if I was going to bike, I had to do something extrodinary – a lap around the city, perhaps… Or 15 rides up Fort Henry Hill… Or attaching an extra 15 pounds to the back and going for 15km. I did the later. Why? That’s a long story. Photos of the battery on the bike are on Flickr.

And that brings us today – which will be another post in a little while.