technology

At Texas School this year, I bought a small softbox and a tiny flash and some comm devices to sync them. I have a lot of plans to use this little (light and portable) setup and have my first opportunity coming up in a few days. Since May, I had played with them all, but still needed a light stand to take the rig out in public. I ordered a stand over the weekend and it came in today.

Parker Bear was my first model, but he was quickly joined by Sosta (who loves that blue “skipping stones” afghan I made a few years ago).

I’m still learning how to blend the lights exactly the way I want. I’ll have to wrangle Purrrrrl into a photo session tomorrow.

The funny guys at xkcd bring us this Tech Support Cheat Sheet.

In the last few days, Twitter messages have cracked me up. Our brother-in-law, Roy, has been Tweeting their family vacation. With his writer humor, that’s been entertaining on so many levels. Tonight, @LaniAR (a Longhorn) did shoutouts to those who started following her recently. I was lucky enough to land in the middle of that and a friendly battle with her hubby (a Sooner). Hijinks ensue!

Scroll down to read my favorites from the bottom up for chronological order. Some of them are only funny if you click on the tinyurl link in the Tweet.

	loriluza @agentgenius You’re between spouses? does @laniar know that????? 40 minutes ago from TwitterFox in reply to agentgenius
	loriluza @agentgenius “http://tinyurl.com/2nxuc4″ LOL I wish I could send that one anonymously! 41 minutes ago from TwitterFox in reply to agentgenius
	LaniAR Retweeting @agentgenius: its sad when in your home, between spouses @laniar has to say “off the record”… 43 minutes ago from twhirl
	loriluza @agentgenius DUDE, did you just use a porn analogy for Twitter??? about 1 hour ago from TwitterFox in reply to agentgenius
	agentgenius This is twitter after dark, right? lol about 1 hour ago from twhirl
	loriluza @LaniAR hahaha *I* am not the tainted one; I married the tainted one! I can’t believe you’d admit to the Sooner bond in a public forum! about 1 hour ago from TwitterFox in reply to LaniAR
	LaniAR Retweeting @agentgenius: lol nsw http://tinyurl.com/2nxuc4 about 1 hour ago from twhirl
	LaniAR @loriluza then you missed the Freshman Year brainwashing. oops, i mean orientation i’ll luv ya anyhow! :) about 1 hour ago from twhirl in reply to loriluza
	LaniAR so for anyone who doesn’t twit with their spouse on their laptop from the same sofa, i *highly* advise it. it’s a ridiculous amount of fun! about 1 hour ago from twhirl
	LaniAR @agentgenius down? like as in “down in the recordbooks as greatest sooner ass kicker EVAH”??? about 1 hour ago from twhirl in reply to agentgenius
	LaniAR @agentgenius i see what you did there. ps: here’s the 08-09 OU kicker: http://tinyurl.com/boosooners love you! about 1 hour ago from twhirl in reply to agentgenius
	LaniAR twitshoutout to @loriluza who’s in Bryan and hosts texasbluelime.com (and i’m hoping isn’t an aggie LOL) about 2 hours ago from twhirl
	LaniAR twitshoutout to @asyouwish photographers extraordinaire, recently mentioned in Insight magazine! about 3 hours ago from twhirl
	LaniAR Retweeting @jeremya: @LaniAR Like a shirt that says “My other ride is your mom”? about 4 hours ago from twhirl
	LaniAR http://twitpic.com/6kjr – guess which pets belong to @agentgenius and which belong to me… HINT: his pet is evil…. about 7 hours ago from TwitPic

This whole thread of Tweets cracked me up and was quite entertaining for me this evening. Plus, I made a couple of new friends.

I <3 Twitter.

This handy dandy little piece of software nags you to take micro- and mini-break throughout the day. At real break times, it gives you stretches to do. At the end of the day, it tells you to get away from behind the computer and go do something else for a while. It also tracks your mouse movement, mouse clicks, and character strokes.

Wow! Is it GREAT for those of us who tend to get lost in what we are doing and lose track of time.

http://www.workrave.org/leaflet/

(one tiny warning: the default settings are too frequent and too many. Once I adjusted the settings to my own time-frames and limited the reminders for each one, I found it quite useful.)

“Click Here to Enter Our Site”

No! Put your site on your domain, and let me go straight to it. Don’t make me sit through some “commercial” just so you can have another click-through in your stats.

Music That Automatically Plays

Whether it’s a MySpace page or a website, I am already using the sounds in my comptuer and listening to my iPod. Have a button and let me choose to pause my music to hear yours, if I want to!

Slideshows That Are Already Time-controlled

Again, I want to see your pictures at my pace (which will be faster than your’s, I’m sure). Furthermore, I want to pause and reflect on the images that move me. I get to decide what those are. You don’t.

Hyper-criticism

Hyper-critical people are just too negative. There is a huge difference between bashing something and offering ideas about it.

Constructive criticism is supposed to be just that, constructive. It includes real ideas and suggestions that are definitive enough to be implemented. Like goal setting, it must be realistic and attainable. Internet Trolls are just hyper-critical with no suggestions or ideas to go with their dislikes and complaints. The worst of these offenders claim that they are engaging in constructive criticism.

According to dictionary.com

Constructive criticism – criticism or advice that is useful and intended to help or improve something

Private Settings on Social Media

If you use MySpace or similar sites to promote your business, please keep your site public, not set to private! How can we network businesses and potential clients if no one can see who you are or what you do? With the proliferation of spam accounts on sites like MySpace, no one marked private gets to be my friend (unless they are a personal friend, of course).

If you are part of a Twebinar, make your Tweets public or create a new Twitter account for the purpose of the Twebinar. If I can’t see the kinds of things you talk about, how can I follow you and enjoy the Twebinar experience? And, if I have to wait for you to approve me to follow you, I might miss the entire event.

What is the point of using Social Media if you aren’t going to be social with the other users of Social Media???

Voicemail Etiquette

When you call someone, show them the courtesy of stating what it is you want from them. Those who call, say no more than a name/company/number feel like Telemarketing. Even if I know you, phone tag is not—and never was—a fun game. Let me know what you need. I can probably do that for you and then let you know that it’s done….instead of having to chase you down for what it is you needed in the first place. Oh, and just so you know: people who do this go straight to my voicemail every time. I’m not going to enable this kind of behavior. So, you’ll have to wait for me to call you back and you’ll have to answer your phone. Want me to answer when you call, then start leaving good messages when you do get voicemail.

Email Etiquette

Do not reply to a message about one topic to introduce another. If you really need to change subjects, finish the one conversation, hit send, and compose a new email message.

Use a good/definitive subject line. Please don’t make me dig through scores of emails from you with the subject of “question for you” to find the exact one I need.

Write like a grown-up and use the Shift key. I know the trend right now is all lowercase—thank you, lazy teenagers who grew up on IM and texting—but it’s hard to read. While we are at it, fix those run on sentences and put a few commas in your writing. If you use Firefox as your browser, it will tell you when a word is misspelled and give you options to fix it. If you don’t do that, onelook.com is your online dictionary friend.

Give me a chance to find the answer before harassing me. You know who you are. Those who send 5 emails to the same person in one hour. Learn to develop some patience and go work on another project while I work on this task for you. Please do not reply with even more questions about the same topic before I’ve had a chance to address the original question. If you didn’t hear from me right away, it’s because I’m either busy or looking for the answer for you. If you didn’t hear from me and it’s been a while, a gentle reminder is fine—preferred, even! (I don’t want you left in the dark; I don’t want you to stop emailing me.) Since any email from you might be “nevermind, I found/fixed it”, I have to check them. Every time I stop to check your next message is another interruption in the path to a solution for you.

If I email you with a tasks outlineing some lists I need from you, do not email me back to ask when we can talk by phone. 1) I need the paper trail and the ability to look this up later. I can get that by phone. 2) it’s a list! Make it for me and hit the send button. Don’t bog down my time, too, while you “think out loud” or whatever it is. Make the list and send it to me. Then, once I’ve had a chance to review it, we can talk by phone to clarify details. In general email should be replied to and phone calls should be returned. There are exceptions to this, but there are some very good reasons for using email. For one, it forces you to say what you need/want instead of doing a lot of “like”s and “you know?”s

Really LOOOONG Signature Lines

OK, people, keep your signature down to a few lines. If you own a business and your signature advertises your current offerings, that’s great. I actually read those and honestly care what you have going on. At the same time, it should not be so long as to be a burden when I reply to your email. If I have to edit your email in my reply, your signature is to freakin’ long.

So, keep it short ‘n sweet….and link to your blog where we can find all the details. Don’t have a blog? I can hook you up. I can create simple blog sites. And I know several web developers if you want something more complicated.

Fireworks Day

As always, we are in Paris for Lori’s grandparents’ birthdays. (His is on the 3rd and her’s is on the 4th). Because Paris has the band concert and fireworks show are on the 3rd, we have one big party with them every year. After a nice dinner, cake & ice cream, and presents, we headed to the concert and show.

This year’s concert was modest and short. But, it was initially highlighted by a precision parachute team’s arrival on the field just behind the band carrying the colors.
Parachutist #1 brought the USA flag

another parachutist brought the Texas flag

Two more parachutists landed precisesly behind the band; one brought the POW flag

The next moment was the traditional medley of service songs. Each member and veteran of the military is asked to stand during their branch’s song. Lori’s grandfather flew a glider in World War II and stood for the Army Air Corps song.

Frank M. O’Brien, Army Air Corps, Purple Heart recipient

The show ended with a nice little display of fireworks.

Boom

Happy Fireworks Day!

When Lori was little, she could say Independence Day, but couldn’t recall it as well. And, fireworks was much more fun to say. Thus, we have deemed the 3rd of July to be “Fireworks Day”. The Paris celebration is traditionally held on the 3rd. A nearby town, Roxton, has held a 4th-of-July show for a few years longer. The Rotary Club that hosts the Paris show didn’t want to step on any toes. Besides, who doesn’t like to start fireworks early?

From Legal Andrew

No more yellow pages

I keep trying to convince my wife that we can throw out the paper phone books. With Google Maps and its awesome local results, yellow pages are simply obsolete.

Why should I dig out a huge book and thumb through the pages looking for the crazy category that somebody decided to stick the business in? I can just type a keyword and zip code in Google (like “cafe 22407″) and find exactly what I want.

As one search industry expert wrote,

My gut feeling is that the Google Trends graph for searches for “yellow pages” is likely representative of a broad behavioral pattern of Internet users who are going to traditional Yellow Pages sites less and less. If we project the pattern out in time, we can see that searches for “yellow pages” might reduce down to nil by as soon as 2011

What are local businesses to do?

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.

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