Archive for March, 2008

Thanks to our friend, Matt, a local web geek and freelancer,
Emil and I have been using Twitter. I have one account for me and another for As You Wish (because I immediately saw business purposes for the service). Our brother-in-law, Roy, has an account as do several of our “geekier” friends.

Twitter is designed to answer the question “What are you doing?” and can give you great insight to your friends. It’s amazing all the little details you learn about someone from following their “tweets”. Common Craft has a great video that really explains Twitter

I’ve found that I want others—who aren’t regular Twitter users—to become join in the fun. I want the same information from them that I get from those I do follow. So, I wanted to come up with some Real. Live. Examples. of good uses of Twitter.

Scenario #1

You have made plans to go to lunch with colleagues. You’ve chatted by email all week and finally settled on a place. You are the first one there and find out that the restaurant closed early. Now, if they are close enough friends that you have all of them in your phone, you can begin the process of a call tree and call all the ones you can remember asking each of them to call one or two others you remember on the “attending” list. You might catch everyone. Or, if you are like most professionals, the phone numbers of these people are in your computer at work and you are stranded.
Now, if you are all following one another on Twitter, you can send one message “out there” and tell everyone in 140 characters or less. It takes just a few seconds and everyone knows right away.

Margarita Rocks is closed. We’re meeting at Fuddrucker’s instead.

Scenario #2

You have good news to share with the world. Let’s say your wife just gave birth to your first child. You want everyone to know as quickly as possible. If you were to Tweet this good news, it will alert all the members who follow you. It can also update your facebook status and can even post the information on several websites, including Plaxo. This would be the fastest way to get your 140character message out to your social network.

Baby boy Joe Jr. born 3/12/08 8:54am 9#4oz 22″ Mom and baby both fine.

Bonus: You don’t get blame for telling “her” before you told “me”. 

Scenario #3

Code Maroon is

…an emergency notification service that gives Texas A&M the ability to communicate health and safety emergency information quickly—by email and text message. By enrolling in Code Maroon, university officials can quickly pass on safety-related information, regardless of your location.

In the wake of the recent shootings on college campuses, many universities are implementing emergency notification systems. This is a good idea, but what if you don’t belong to a particular organization with this service? Or, what if the emergency is for your community?

Tweets can be tagged. If you track the tag (keyword), you’ll get the information, even if you don’t normally follow the person who sends it.

(I track “bcs” and get a lot of information about both Bryan College Station and the Bowl Championship Series. During the San Diego Fires, a couple of social media geeks used these tags to keep others informed.)

If I see a big accident on the highway, I Tweet the location so that others in this area can avoid that road/intersection.

Big accidentin #bcs at Texas and Villa Maria. Traffic detoured east.

There are many “real life” applications for Twitter that aren’t just for the geeks in our community.

Of course some of the best stories come from conferences where audience members (all geeks of course) have been known to expound upon how bad the speaker is session, raise your hand.” Most of the audience did. What would the session have been like if the presenters had engaged this audience of experts instead of treating them like the “dumb” audience they were used to at non-geek professional conferences?

So, if you want to really get to know your family, friends, colleagues, peers, and competition, you should be on Twitter.

As with most Internet “toys”, geeks are the early adopters.

Like virtually all things Internet, you need to use care and caution with what you say when. While “tweets” can be kept private, the intent and purpose is to publicly broadcast whatever is on your mind at the moment.

One group even protested the presentation.

Continue Reading »

We have had to say goodbye today to our middle kitty, Mitad. (This comes just two days after a friend of our’s had to do the same thing.) This is very sudden as Emil only took her to the vet this morning. It’s also a surprise for both us and the vet as Mitad is was only 7 years old.

She’s been losing weight and has become more lazy than usual. This morning, blood work revealed liver and kidney failure. They are currently running ran tests to make sure that whatever she has had isn’t contagious so we’ll we know whether we need not to worry about Sosta and Purrrrrl, too.The vet told Emil that cats hide it very well when they are sick and that we never could have seen it. He did offer some elaborate options of 24-ICU observation and testing and then a trip to A&M’s vet school where they can study her….but all that would have to happen before we can even know what is wrong, nevermind if it’s treatable.

She has never seemed to be in pain or uncomfortable, so the most humane thing to do is to let her cross the kitty version of the Rainbow Bridge. Perhaps she and Abby-Tabby can finally meet and become friends over there.

Sosta will miss her first little sister more than any of the rest of us, as they have become best buddies. I hope that she and Purrrrrl can find comfort in one another.

Oh Hai. Wez iznt doin nuthing wrong, we swaaar.
Mitad loved her older sister, Sosta.

mmmmmm…suuuunnnnnn
Mitad loved her sunbeams.

Canes Fans:

Vote at the below link to have Sebastian on the cover of EA Sports NCAA 2009 Football game.
http://www.easports.com/ncaa09/

You can vote once per day between now and March 14th. Bookmark the page so that you can go back each day. Sebastian is under the Atlantic Coast tab.

The Ibis is the last member of wildlife to take shelter before a hurricane and the first creature to emerge after. The University of Miami mascot was the first college mascot to become nationally famous and paved the way for recognition of many college mascots and the subsequent national recognition of many universities.

In this household, we are guessing that the Aggies’ Reveille is not listed for at least three reasons.

1. The current Collie is retiring at the end of this year. She bit her handler in the groin during football season. He had to have stitches “down there”. It was not a pretty story. She’s never been the friendliest of dogs, but given the way she is pampered, this was crossing any line.
2. The University is reviewing exactly what kind of mascot will replace her (yes, Texas A&M has an entire committee on this very subject)
3. Texas A&M does not have any form of a traditional costumed mascot.

So, since there is not an Aggie option, you should all vote for Sebastian.

As we are post-GAYla without a Fundraising Coordinator, I have had a busy week+. I’ve been running around town with a cab full of baskets and other silent auction goodies delivering them and taking money. Two such deliveries were to occur at ~5pm this evening.

In addition, we have a big/looming deadline at work. I was supposed to have it all done by 5pm today, but I didn’t receive the first part until 4:51pm.

So, I left word with them all that I had a few errands to run, but that they were to call if they could gather the rest of the parts and wanted me to come back (after dinner, of course) to write/edit/format the document and turn it in this evening.

So, Emil and I went on our way: Wal-Mart, Academy, Home Depot….and then to dinner (before the pet store and pharmacy). Because we were in the vicinity of Cheddar’s, he joked that we should go there. Since he knows how much I hate the place, he got a resounding “haell no” from me (even though it is our town’s Spring Break and the prime time to go to any over-rated-and-therefore-over-crowded restaurant.)
E: “But it’s Cheddar’s. Their food is all cheesy. You love cheese.”

L: “Ahhhh but that’s the rub. Their food is not cheesy, it’s awful. Maybe if they covered it all in cheese it would be ok. The name is a misnomer.”

E: “You mean a misNAMEr.”

ba-dum-chsssssshhhhh

Yeah, this is a big reason why I married him. Funny, Funny Emil.

Today, I saw blossoms on some dogwood trees in Research Park.

“Twitter in Plain English,” by Lee LeFever from Common Craft.

http://www.youtube.com/v/ddO9idmax0o

Bryan Person points out:

The only critique I have — and it’s one that’s mentioned in some of the comments to Lee’s post — is that there’s no real mention of using Twitter beyond answering the site’s basic “What are you doing?� question. As anyone who has spent any amount of time on Twitter will tell you, there are many other interesting ways to fill 140 characters. Among them:

• Asking and answering questions
• Sharing links
• Offering social, political, and sports commentary
• Promoting events and causes

But generally, high marks to Lee for another masterpiece. I hope it helps convince some Twitter skeptics — and yes, there are some of you out there — to come aboard!

I have been sitting incorrectly at work. I lean on my right/mousing hand and then get something akin to a Tennis Elbow. It’s not huge, but I knew I needed to fix it.

As Internet luck would have it, I stumbled across the Finger Mouse.

It arrived the day of GAYla as I was cranking out printed documents (door prize tickets, programs, etc.). I plugged it into my Mac Book Pro, showed it off to Emil and Beth and Marc (who came in from Austin for the “big gay fundraiser”) and went to using it immediately. Monday, I plugged it into my Dell XPS M1210 laptop at work and found that, even on a PC, it still required no set up.

It takes a little getting used to in two ways:

• The scroll wheel is a little hard for my (probably short) thumb to reach
• Typing is a little awkward with it resting on my index finger.

Still, these are minor adjustments. It’s waaaaaay easier than learning to use a track pad or a track ball, nevermind one of those laptop “joystick” mouses from years ago.

Another feature, the cord is not a plastic/rubber computer cord. It’s a flexible fabric cord like a very heavy shoe lace. This makes keeping it out of the way very easy.

I no longer buy much software. Between old versions of things, free-trial downloads for extremely rare use, and stuff I have access to at work, I’m much more like to buy a game than I am anything for productivity.

And now, a bona fide list to show you don’t have to buy software to do much of anything these days.

and, a blog dedicated to the same purpose.