December 31, 2005

tumbling grief

Trained. That's what it is. Early training in loss that rests just so on the bridge of my nose, my lens on the world. I learned long ago, it's that or nothing.

No different this New Year's Eve. Between Web2.0 and firefox, between Jarvis and Searls, between all the links we weave together, are raw wounds that have nothing to do with technology, nothing to do with business, that have everything to do with love and the slicing pain of loss.

And there's more where that came from, as they say when they want you to know how bad it can get.

Been catching in my throat all week, a prelude to the year ahead, some losses-to-be already in release mode, my alpha grief, three months, six months, waiting for me to come, to test me, and to measure, a plan of loss with milestones marked by a bowed head and soaked, crumpled tissues.

I noticed it two days ago when Jenna climbed in bed with me to talk about 2006; she understands the closing and opening of things in a way I never could. As she spelled out our new year's eve plans complete with yogurt and chocolate soy milk, I snapped back into my father's skin.

I'm him looking at me at six, a little younger than she is now, not much, and at the same time I'm me sitting with him, his paisley pajamas, the smell of so-sick mixed with fresh, pressed cotton sheets; my mother would settle for nothing less, even in his dying.

I am both of us at once; I can't breathe from the sensation of it.

Under the fine blade of a surgeon's knife, I open to what he felt then, tender, destroyed, hopeful, not letting go with his eyes, index finger against my cheek, an elbow propping his weak frame onto familiar feather pillows.

In an instant, I know his unknowing.

I am him knowing the largeness of everything about to be missed, every tick of every clock, every movement forward. Every loose hair wound around the bristles of my little-girl hairbrush, every ribbed collar of every faded t-shirt I would ever wear, every drop of every glass that would shatter and need sweeping, every eyelash brushed away with every tear.

Still.

The enormity of what is about to be lost -- that, perhaps, is the death in dying.


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Musick: Laughing Interview

George has been laughing over this video for nearly a month now, so it's about time he posted it. Go have yourself a merry little chuckle...I sent it to Michael OCC because it had his name written all over it.

And if you know WTF they're talking about, that would really wrap up 2005 nicely for my husband. Who's still laughing. A month later.

You Oughta Be In Pixels...

George on pixel smarts -> may our daughter follow in this young man's footsteps.

Holy New Years Eve Around the World, Batman!

Mega thanks to Sheila Lennon for the pointer to radio guy Lou Joseph's running web guide to the galaxy of new year's eve around the world--already underway! Somewhere in this list, Sheila found and put a link up to New Year's Eve 1964 (turning 65). Oh man Oh man Oh man Oh man!!!!! (i think i'm crying.)... Go Japan. Go Darwin. Sheila says:
Where in the world do you want to be tonight? is the beginning of their list of links likely to be worth checking out, beginning at 1000 UTC (5:00 a.m. EST) with Wallis and Futuna in the South Pacific. After a dazzling brain dump about reception options, Lou confesses, "I have never heard anything from Wallis Island."

Go to medianetwork and refresh often!


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Firefox and IE - room for both?

I'm back to using firefox as my default browser, and holy crap is THIS what happens when you have an open API? I mean, is this the open source thing at work--because you should SEE number of little add-on applets or extensions or whatever you want to call these plugin thngs that are available for Firefox. It's changing the way I work. No lie. It makes writing, referencing, reading, all of that 100 times faster and easier. And it's like--uh--free. And the best part for me, because here is where open source software has always sent me running, it takes like zero knowledge to install the things. You just double click them, at least the ones I'm using, and they go sit where they're supposed to sit, waiting for you to use them.
 
So, it's not like firefox is the web 2.0-ey thing, right, it's like all of these little plugins and addons that come from hell i don't even know where, I just run into someone taking about Gresemonkey on one blog, then about the web comment plugin (do you HAVE this thing? GET this thing--it's like having Technorati on a postage stamp) on another blog, and somewhere I heard about Fire FTP (which I have to say doesn't excite me as much as IE's innate FTP ability does, but it's easy and free), and all kinds of little treats.
 
I'm like a puppy with a box of multi-flavored milkbones. DAMN!
 
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AKMA, Margaret & Family, Have a Great Day Off

AKMA and Margaret are taking a day offline for family time. Sounds like a plan. He's left us some breadcrumbs to enjoy while he's off. ENJOY!!!
 
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December 30, 2005

12 Hours of 2005 Recap

A recap of the year is way, way to big for me. So I thought I might just recap the last 12 hours and call that my kiss off, i mean send off, to 2005.

It's almost new year's eve and I don't even know how that happened because I've been working so fast and furious that I feel like I have to visit the bathroom every 24 minutes.
Some business people would say that talking about such things online is in poor taste. I think they may be right. Maybe I should have said pee. Piss? Urinate? I could go on.

Number 2: I blame that albert fellow, the primary reason for which is that his head never stops, nor do his IMing fingers, nor do his rush of ideas and I'm all: albert, what are you on. And he's all: heh.

It's been fun thinking out of the box these last couple weeks, trying to demonstrate value, which I supposed would be obvious if I could get albert comped on some bio protein bars, since this is all he eats. ever. And so I wrote to genisoy, to let them in on the secret of our geeky super hero, and if they are a smart company, albert becomes their mr. wheaties, they put out a protein bar in the shape of a bubble, and then albert tells me he's sure i've been sent from heaven--to translate, it's like you or me getting an open ticket to Ruth Chris Steakhouse for a year--but even I admit this protein bar thing is a longshot.

You know, some people don't see the potential in things.

Other moments of my odd day have had me deep in thought: (read, playing polly pockets with jenna) and thinking, thinking, thinking while overdosing on this killer chicken soup i made last night which I can't get enough of--remind me to give you the short cut recipe at the end of this post, okay, and if you're going to CESCamp, could you bring a pot for the geekfest unconference taking shape--I've told Mary Lu I'd shove her a bowl through IM because it smelled so good, but we tried it and all it did was make my laptop smell like a bus.

Speaking of CESCamp, Doc thinks it would be fun, Robert's down with it, and others are signing in and on, so if you're going to CES, PLEASE visit the wiki - it's your wiki as they say - and toss your name down as a yes, and be sure to add any special talents, gadgets, or gizmos you might be bringing, your choice for a venu, and/or the suggested occupancy of your rental car.

Want to learn to swallow fire? Uncover the secrets of Doc's pool? Find out the difference between Web2.0 and Jello(R) brand geletin? These are some of the many questions that just might be answered at CESCamp 2006!

I've been writing a lot about business, I know, and some of you are verklempt about that, as you tell me in mail, but i really think I can make a go of this write about business FROM who you are, not just write about business-as-usual-as-usual, so if clients are nervous about that, well then, don't be, or do be, or do bee a do bee. I assure them that everyone who comes here is a trusted friend. (heee.)

Worst comes to worst I start a 40033th blog to further segment the dimensions of myself into categories that the mainstream blogworld appreciates. Or you all tell me fah! and go away. Or is it Bah? Feh? I'm not sure. All my bass are belong to you.

IN other business personal news, we're soft launching a blog for ElimiTaste Gum's Matt Willer, who is a funny smart CEO of an indiegum company in an industry famous for the Juicy Fruit Blog, so I'm pretty sure that we'll be raising the bar over at MyGumJob.com. Matt and ElimiTaste have been friends-of-bloggers for longer than it's been cool, sending free gum and gas money just because. Gonzo is as gonzo does.

Does it seem like I have my head all over the net?

Yes. And on the homefront too.

Jenna said to me today: "Mom, what's wrong with your skulp!?" Meaning my skull. Or scalp. I wasn't sure and I'm still not if she was referring to the far and distant look in my eye, or the head scratching (okay hair pulling) I've become prone to these last several weeks.

What is wrong with my skulp?

In other news, if you're an Atlanta-area blogger and you have a penchant to be on the blogads network, could you email me? I'm setting up an Atlanta mini-network, starting small, and I don't have much ooomph -- only a couple of invites -- but heck if my inbox is inundated with a rush of Atlanta bloggers who display that "Every Day Is An Opening Day" (alternatively, "the city too busy to hate") spirit, we'll do something interesting, start SXSE or something, get sued, throw down some R&B, fusion, and old school funk as a challenge to this alternative rock and whooptiedoo stuff we're sure to be hearing in Austin (appologies to all 8,003 musicians performing at sxsw).

You know. Most anything's possible.

[[Update--I forgot to include 'Jeneane's short-cut, not-thrifty, for people IMing with albert all the time' chicken soup recipe! Okay, ready? This is for a BIG batch in a stock pot. First, you get four cans of chicken broth, cut up carrots, parsnips that you dice kind of like the carrots, and chopped celery, or if you don't work with albert, cut it up yourself. You buy two of those roasted chickens that they have on sale at Target (one of the Targets with food) for like $4.00 each sometimes), and either 1 big package of egg noodles or 2 packages of cheese tortollini. You take it all home. Chop what needs chopping. Put the broth, plus the same amount again of hot water into a stock pot, add the veggies and start it to boiling. I add salt at this point. I like salt. I make no appology. Next, debone all that roasted chicken, and after about a half hour of a slow-rolling boil, throw it in the pot too, except save a couple wings here and a couple of legs there for another whole chicken dinner (that's what your used coolwhip containers are for). Let it simmer for an hour or so, til vegetables are tender. Toward the end, boil your noodles or tortollini in a separate pot, drain, and throw in for the last 10 - 15 minutes. Turn it off, put some in a bowl, and eat it until you are completely sick of it. Don't give any away. Just keep eating it. Freeze what you can't eat.]]

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Stealing My Google AdCents

I've been hearing periphery talk of the latest internet "thuggery" (hat tip jeff jarvis and mayor bloomberg) trend since I saw Om Malik's Wholesale Blog Plagerism...Alert post. (updated info now). I've said here before, that while I hate the crime, I do admire the nimble criminal tactics of spammers because they seem to always land out in front of us. That's why it's kind of amazing that no one though to do this kind of content looting sooner, especially since we all roll it out there for them 24/7 in our feeds.
Wonder what Google's going to do about it, if they really even NEED to do anything about it. I wouldn't expect them to rush out with a massive effort to protect us from having others make cents off our site content, because that's not enough of a business case.
I might expect them to do something because it makes the model around the adsense program worth about--oh--less than nothing.
Even fewer bloggers will bother particpating (I stopped a while back and I'm only $3 away from getting my lucartive $100 payment--THANKS GOOGLE.) But more importantly, the corpo types who thought they were hip putting adword ads on blogs will get wind that "something" is amiss, and that's all it ever takes to send them running. And the truth is, with google's ability to shape-shift into new revenue models, if they decide not to do something, then them's the breaks for all of us.
P.S., I found four sites running my posts with google ads in the last two days. That's why I'm a little miffed.
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December 29, 2005

Supply and Demand and $500/night.

The CES Blog 2006 verifies the rather, uh, hefty hotel room prices for CES-goers who who didn't "plan ahead." Can anyone really plan ahead these days? I can't plan twenty-two seconds ahead. There's the model though: build around the unplanned.
 
Still OUCH!
Delegates who haven't yet arranged for lodging should expect to spend more than $350 for a hotel room, as a simple search on one of the major travel websites show (Eg: Travelocity or Expedia – I boycott Orbitz because they are inaccurate, consistently showing low rates that upon booking turn out to be sold out).
 
The 3.5-star Hilton, conveniently located next to the Las Vegas Convention Centre where CES will be headquartered, charges a hefty $499 for a Thursday night stay. The 2-star Howard Johnson outbids them with $534. Most other hotels are simply sold out.
Get thee to the wiki if you have any deals, options, or bathtubs to offer.
 
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December 28, 2005

CES room shortage - viva las vegas.

Dave points to Doc, who points to Mary's new place, and here's Albert too: All have been having trouble finding rooms in Vegas for CES (warning: loud annoying Flash into) January 4-8.

Vitaliy is working on a WIKI for folks to coordinate around--and in the mean time Albert says GoldStrike is about 20 minutes outside of Vegas and has reasonably priced rooms.

Glad I'm watching from the cheap seats!

UPDATE: Vitaliy has the unofficial CES wiki for hotel info, roommate matches, meetups, side gatherings, etc... Have at it.


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I got to wondering...

Do you have more kids than you do blogs and struggle with finding that oh-so-special quiet time to write (I mean think staight)? Or are you overwhelmed with 20 blog mouths to feed while your realworld kid eats oreos in front of the TV?

I'll go first. In comments.

Hello World


Clustrmaps are cool. Who are you, all of my friends? Hello.

One Question for Microsoft

Now that you hijacked me away from firefox with a single click of the mouse that has me regretting my spasm, how do I unmake IE my default browser?

One Question for David Weinberger

David, we've written ourselves into existence. Now what?

Blogging at 100 Bloggers

Hey, I saw some friends there. So I said me too. And I'll make new ones. That's how it's supposed to work.

December 27, 2005

P-P-P-Polly!

How can it be that Jenna and I spent TWO DAYS before the holidays came organizing and cleaning out her room, donations for charity and all, only to have to do the exact same thing today? I don't understand. Every time I make a step ahead in teaching her to be diligent about her room, she backslides an acre.
 
I now blame Polly Pocket. These eensy beensy weensy dolls with their plastique clothing are everywhere I look. Polly's are So Small that you can stick them anywhere--just ask my kid. Today we scoured the house and think we've found all of them that she owns. 23. No child should own 23 polly pockets. And no, she didn't get them all from me. It's what she buys when she earns her own money, and it's what everyone knows she loves.
 
I have to make it stop.
 
Really though, the dolls aren't the problem. Have you ever seen a Polly Pocket shoe? Do you know what a polly pocket shoe is? It's smaller than the wing of a lady bug and made out of the same plastique as the clothing, so one can easily slip between your toes and you don't notice it for a month unless you have the highest standards of hygeine. Don't look at me.
 
Isn't there a toy legislature somewhere telling these manufacturers you can't make doll shoes smaller than the head of a pin? Her Singulair chewables are bigger than these things.
 
Anyway, we managed to find dozens of Polly clothes, and the 23 dolls, her career clothing (thanks AKMA and Margaret!), and any number of dogs with their own plastique coats, stuffed under her desk, bed, dresser. I am happy to report that the Polly village is now living happily inside of the wooden toybox where the whole lot of them should have been all along.
 
Next Up: UNDER the bed...
 
Send help if I don't make it back.
 
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Albert on Web 2.0

Using Firefox's new on-the-fly blog commenting feature -- where I saw Albert joined the Web 2.0 discussion with some good thoughts.

On a sort of the same topic, every time I make a mistake and open a program that has IE associated with it (i think it was one of my photo preview thingys), it asks me so FAST if I want IE to be my default browser (No I don't but I click too FAST and then it is again even though i thought I uninstalled it), that BOOM, there's IE always opening again. That shit should be illegal. Don't hijack me with a dialog box like that.Anyway, this is what I was meaning about being free from menus. This little Firefox "Add Comment" box stealthly opens when you visit a page and you can see who's commented on it.

How sweet is that?

Remembering

Lisa Williams remembers her Dad.
“And we’re off! Like a herd of dirty turtles!” is what he used to say when starting out on a car trip. Even if it was a short car trip.

He looks and sounds like a wonderful person, Lisa. I know you miss him.

Lisa Stone on Mommyblogging

Lisa points to a great interview she did with the mommybloggers, as well as a wonderful guest column. It's not always easy blogging-as-a-mom, but I'm sure cat owners feel the same way.

"...Mommybloggers are weaving some of the Web's best stories by and about women -- women who, let's not forget, control 80 percent of household spending. That's right, from the family car to the computer (you geeks, you) to the Legos (sigh) to the Pampers.

"Let's look at another medium as an example: Right now, the top revenue-generating news and entertainment shows on television are by moms for moms. Look at NBC's The Today Show starring Katie Couric: By a mom for moms, and the top-rated morning news show for ten straight years. How about Oprah, a daily conversation by the-mother-of-us-all for moms. There's ABC's The View, which is a coffee klatch of moms, mugs included. Don't forget ABC's Desperate Housewives, the made-up moms (take that any way you like). Hell, ABC's World News Tonight just put an anchormom, Elizabeth Vargas, in Peter Jennings' old chair, for heaven's sake!

"This is great news for mommybloggers because all these famous shows are in a money-making medium (television) where the numbers are dropping. Their problem is that us viewers now use the Internet more than we watch TV or read magazines. Instead of watching other people talk, we're getting our own word out. That used to mean message boards, the best place to hold online conversations. But now that we have our own personal printing presses -- blogs! -- better watch out. And the world is watching. This is why I've often thought that Dooce is more than a brilliant blogger. She's a metaphor for what's happening to the media and the value of what mommybloggers are writing--to advertisers as well as to readers. She's the
Saturday keynote speaker at the SXSW conference. That says a great deal." (Read
the rest
of the interview.


Lisa is right about about the growing clout of the mommyblogger brigade. So, if mommybloggers are cool with being called mommybloggers (i would say i am one sometimes, just like I'm a PR blogger sometimes, a tech blogger sometimes, a poetry blogger sometimes, and whatever else you want to call me save late for pizza), why does it piss so many women and men off?

First, the very subject matter of children can ignite a firestorm among the bloggers--the SAHMs vs. the Working Moms vs. the Childless By Choice, vs. the Queen Mother. Everyone gets into the action and I've seen it escalate until someone takes down their blog or makes another kind of dramatic statement that says, you all suck!

That's why blogher is important, and what Lisa's doing is important. It brings these issues into a forum where people get together in the same room(s) and come to know our many dimensions, to know one another as people first with rich life experiences, including motherhood.

In reality, most moms blogging blog about more than being a mom; but their perspective -- where they blog FROM -- is the heart of a mom.

Plus we almost always have extra Kleenex with us, so we're handy to have around.

...

No, I Invented Podcasting

Gary Turner's relating early podcasting underground activites, but in his reminiscing, he forgot that he really was one of the first podcasters. Gary, remember in 2002 when we bloggers would call into your work voicemail and you'd broadcast us back on your blog? Helloooo. Sans enclosure tags, but so? This was before Blogger's Audblog too.

And the wayback machine gives us your compilation page from late 2002/early o3 with messages from the following

Jeneane Sessum
Kalilily
Marek J
Marti Roell
Sharo O'Neill
Shelley (Burningbird) Powers
RageBoy
Frank Paynter
Halley
AMKA
Ryan Irelan
Anita Bora - Poor quality
Chris Locke - Losing it
Michael O'Connor Clarke

And since I was the first to leave you a blog message, that means "I invented podcasting."

Yah, we were casting alright.

Wikipedia That.

;-)

And a little something because Doc is usually right. Okay always.

Doc encouraged me to get my "To Blog or Not To Blog" white paper out of PDF and into HTML - well, so, i sort of blogged it here.

Now, what should I do with the rest of the site?

Hmmm, have some ideas for adding stuff. You?

Qumana's Sweet Design

Posting this from Qumana, a nicely designed blog writing tool that lets you write in one place and publish to the plethora of blogging tools. One great new-to-me feature is the Tag field under Title and Categories that REMINDS you, and makes it easy, to put your tags in--something I have been forgetting to do as long as David Weinberger's been tagging. Cool!

Am I supposed to put a comma between tagged terms/words? I never know.

Plethora? Qumana? Blogging? Tagging? Yes, golly, it is web 2.0!

Now, when's the "Export From Blog" widget coming? ;-)

Okay, pushing Post Blog now...

Oh, just noticed, they have a blog too.

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December 26, 2005

Free Me from the Desktop Too.

Thanks to Om Malik for giving us a stocking full of goodies tonight, including a link to Zoho Writer, YUMMY! I've used Writely, and I have to say, web-based word processors (antiquated term but smart positioning against MS from Zoho) are more in line with what I was asking for in my plea to be free from menus. Free me from menus, free me from the desktop. These fastcos will get to dynamic language-based features before MicroSoft will. It's a given.

With Zoho Writer joining Writely, easily accessible through Firefox, MicroSoft is losing another important foothold on the desktop--especially considering MS Word hasn't done anything new of note in--oh, a couple of years now?

As a writer, I'm like a kid on summer vacation using these tools with my colleagues on the outside. Inside the enterpise, barriers to change are always higher. For how long though?

Don't miss Om's "Best of GigaOm" [PDF], a free e-book (awesome design) of the most widely read, most commented 0n posts of GigaOm. Read the whole entry and hit the Donation button.

...

And I can use every minute of it.

Thanks Doc for telling us about the extra second we get this year!

ROI Beauty



thx for the pointer, bro.

Web 2.0 Roundabout

Dion Hinchcliffe has a pretty thorough wrapup of who's saying what about Web 2.0 - and lookie me among the boyz, in good company with Marc and Stowe:
If you take the temperature of the status quo, the inestimable Dave Winer currently has the mike with his Busted, Explained article, but numerous others have chimed in recently including quite famously Richard MacManus, who was then called out by Mike Arrington of TechCrunch, then Joshua Porter went on to explained why he still uses the term, ad infinitum. It was Russell Shaw however that was the one who really stirred the pot to considerable effect, but even he was then answered in kind by his very own Joe McKendrick. Folks like Stowe Boyd have come out about this latest Web 2.0 brouhaha very level headed, as have a number of others who seem to have some perspective including Marc Cantor, Jeneane Sessum, and Frederico Oliveira. Now Shaw has come back swinging and shows no sign of flagging in his attempt to assert that Web 2.0 has no clothes. An attempt almost certain to fail, I might add, though we'll probably make yet another trip around the blogosphere mulberry bush.

If Web 2.0's your bag, check out the post and related posts.

See also the 05 "Best of List" - and of course I'd add BubbleShare. ;-)

Blog Memories 2002

Remember when? We had already lived a lifetime together. Here's to many more.

December 24, 2005

Driving Mr. Daisy

Jeff Jarvis has a post crying "foul" against those "playing the race card" in the now-appended NYC Transit Strike. (Disclosure: my deck didn't come with the race card--I was obviously ripped off!)

I admire the way Jeff Jarvis can reduce hundreds of years of American history into a curt post admonishing those with the audacity to bring up issues around the role of race and class in the political wrangling during the strike. Jeff says not fair. I say dogmatism is so much easier. Santa: In my stocking, please?

Jarvis writes:
Now I almost understand, or at least not be surprised at, Sharpton and Roger Toussaint grasping at cheap shots try to spin this illegal strike, this act of unlawful thuggery against the people of New York. Toussaint is also playing the race card as he tries to summon the ghost of Rosa Parks onto MTA buses.

Well that's all wrapped up in a neat little journaljistic package, isn't it? It's that simple. Not fair for for Sharpton or Toussaint to raise the issue. They should put their cards back in those decks from whence they came and instead oogle the talking heads I have the misfortune to be watching just now on Fox News, chuckling their obnoxious mouths off over the imminent death of unions because of this latest NYC distraction from America as usual.

But here's the thing about Internet Journaljism: There's always someone who says it better and smarter than you. Take Tom Matrullo, in his post, Mass Transit Looses Its Johnson, referring to this fella. Read Tom's entire post.

Rather than reducing the matter, Tom does what he usually does: leaves us to continue the story within ourselves, our contexts, to make meaning.

This is the difference between the journaljist, whose intent is to report stories tied up with neat Christmas bows for you to pack away with the ornaments and remember who sent them, and the journalist who is masterful at inspiring further thought.

It is the difference between talk radio and Coltrane.

That Johnson, a highly regarded writer about things current and intelligent (like the brain), could offer such a reductive view of the reality of New York labor is instructive. (In an earlier post he complains that there's no easy way to click on the web and find all the traffic cams along a certain route. The realm of slovenly atoms clearly has failed to live up to certain suddenly normalized expectations of ease aroused by our instaworld of clicks and codes.)

It's probably not by accident that Brooklyn is the first place the aliens erupt in Spielberg's War of the Worlds. When one thinks of transit workers in New York, one thinks of people of "other" ethnic persuasions working underground. As far as anyone knows, they live there, breed there, die there. Except when they're on strike.


I wondered if Tom or Jeff had run into this article in Mass Transit News by Sara Kugler, which seems to play, uh, the reverse race card, with trademarked Fox News terms like Looting(TM), Rioting(TM), Fire(TM) - as in setting stuff on - and Bloomberg's newest: Thugish(TM).

If anyone came out looking good in New York's three-day transit strike, it was the city itself.

No one looted, rioted or set anything on fire. Transit workers who crossed picket lines before the strike ended Thursday were not attacked, although they were subjected to scorn by millions of stranded commuters who normally rely on the buses and subways of nation's largest public transportation system.


None of the workers or union members "looted," "rioted," "attacked," or "set anything on fire." But commuters "scorned."

Yes, Jeff. It's all that simple.

gonna let it go unless you have a good idea...

My "journaljism.com" domain expires in February.

There's potential.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

December 23, 2005

Well, well, well....

Just when you thought it was safe to turn grandma loose on the Internet...







He's Baaaaaaack!!!

oh boy and how.

...

half-n-half

I was thinking today that I've spent half of my 20 years in the workplace within traditional companies, and half with startups.

I've spent 6 living the agency life, 12 on the corporate side, and 2 solo.

The truth is, I don't know any agency types who have never worked on the corporate side. That's a good thing. I'm not sure you can operate within a professional services environment without having fought the good fight on the corporate side. Hint: If you're working with a PR firm, make sure the people on your team have walked in your shoes, at least for a little while.

I also had a one-year partnership (I put that in with the 6 agency years above) and startup adventure last year, which is a long story, and one I prefer to tell over drinks and not in the Blogger window. Some things are like that.

During my years on the corporate side at Kodak and then Systems Techniques (bought on up the food chain all the way to IBM), I was always frustrated that things weren't moving fast enough, that not enough people were putting in 100 percent, that deadlines were far too long, and in fact, I'm sort of ashamed to admit, I used to say: "We could finish ANY project in one day if we just stayed here overnight and did it."

Yes, I expected the people in my group to stay over. I was there too, but still. Was that really me? Did I really live that life? That was all before the Internet became my workplace. It seems like it could have been 30 years ago.

How many overnights have I spent at the office in my jobs at Kodak, at STI, at Ketchum. I had a blanket and bedroom slippers under my desk for six months once. And I used them. Our developers had pillows under theirs at STI. And they used them.

That was when work was as much a family as a workplace.

It was also before I was a mom, and that's not coincidental.

I am so thankful the connections and collaboration made possible by the Internet, because that is what's allowed me to stay home with my daughter for the last 8 years, to be a mom who doesn't have to sleep over at the office or take weeks-long business trips. I still pull an all nighter at least once a week, but I'm here to make breakfast when it's done, to put half-and-half in my coffee and to take her to school when she gets up, and I'm here when the bus comes home.

I am blessed to be living in this time. Call it Web 1.0, call it Web 2.oh!, call it whatever. My life would look so different without the net that I'm not sure I'd recognize myself. The last 8 years would have been impossible. My kid's life, already, even at 8, would have been completely different if I couldn't do what I do here.

And when you stop and think about that fact being replicated across mom after mom after mom after mom, it's a pretty amazing thing. Maybe even worthy of a ".0"

...

Shhhh don't tell anyone... OKAY TELL EVERYONE

Chris just unzipped his lip about .zip files and BubbleShare .

Officially this feature doesn’t exist and the secret loophole may close at some point soon! So shhhh…don’t tell anyone.
You can always count on me to keep my mouth shut. ;-)

In other news, good news about carrying over comments too:
If you upload photos that have comments embedded within them (ie. using Picasa or Photoshop) then the description tag will become your caption.
...

I MADE SHELLEY SAY A FOUR-LETTER WORD!

HA! I got her to say it! I got her to say that nasty slangy word she hates: "BLOG."

That's going into my bio in a long list of Web 2.OH! accomplishments.

OH! YES!

Okay, but HOW do you tag?

I have to start tagging. Technorati tags at a minimum. So, do other blogging tools make it easier to tag, or do you have to copy and paste and size your tags into every post? Does Blogger not make tagging simple because Google stands to lose through tagging? If everyone tags, what does that do to traditional web search? Does it go back to being a world-static-web instead of world-live-web thang?

These are questions.

The only thing I understand for sure is that I have to start tagging, because when other people are tagging you, you should probably be tagging yourself.

Kind of like editing your own Wikipedia bios--OH WAIT. That's a no-no!

;-)

Gum Gum Gimme Some

*******AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR*******

In the event you've formed an ElimiTaste habit like our favorite crime fighter, please note that CEO Matt Willer's offering a HO HO HO of a deal--a 2-fer-one on Zapp and SmokeScreen from now through Christmas Day.

****BACK TO REGULAR DRAMA, POETRY,
AND INFIGHTING ABOUT WEB 2.Oh.*****

Building Bridges

One thing about Web 1.0: I didn't mind that my personal stash of content -- data, images, video, sounds, writing, what have you -- was spread all about the net. You know me: The poster child for early adoption. When Flickr was a random experience of chat+images on steroids, I was in love. Orkut? there. Linked in? there. Friendster? there. Blogger? there. Wordpress? there.

In essence, I'm a little bit everywhere, and a lot some places.

As a result, whether we call this Web 2.0 or not, pieces of me, of things I've previously created, are scattered in places I can't even remember. In some places, like on blogspot, I have what Doc calls a legacy. Similar to Doc's 5,300 photos on Flickr (Doc, we're all coming swimming this summer), I have 3,000 posts on blogspot. I've wanted an easy way to get them out and turn them into other things since 2002.

In the words of the illustrious RageBoy: Been There; Still There.

That's the thing about being able to get out what you put in.

And in land of 'vice-versa,' Doc has a great idea for a universal uploader that would make it easy to upload batch content -- in this case photos -- to wherever and whatever service you want.

So then, it's the issue of portability, my desire to take my little suitcase (okay big one) full of content -- and if you hate that word, you're not the only one, so we can call it stuff if you like -- and unpack it in various spots online.

Maybe we stay for a while and leave. Maybe we build a legacy there. Whether to build a home for us, or a vacation spot, or an flea-bitten hotel--that's up to those who develop the software, services and platforms we come to love, or come to leave -- or come to and go from as we please.

And what about building bridges between these places? Like Doc's universal uploader -- we need content movers, like those airport people movers, the ones that carry your load without you having to drag it along a step at a time.

The longer we're here, the larger our legacies. It would be nice to be able to shuffle them around while we're still around to shuffle.

...

December 22, 2005

T-Mini

The technorati-mini is kewl.

Web 2.0-athon

Stowe Boyd is conducting a poll on his blog that asks readers whether or not we should drop the term Web 2.0 from our conversational lexicon. Stowe used Quimble to create and share the poll -- that's fodder for another post entirely.

It's Thursday at 9:27 a.m., and the nos are leading the yeses 26 to 17.

We live exciting lives in these days of Web 2.0.

But you already know that. What I think I know is that there are several reasons why the Nos are ahead on Stowe's poll, not the least of which is that his readers are Web 2.0-friendly--maybe passionate is a better word. Another likely reason: Anyone doing anything on the net right now for profit does benefit (in the short-term at least) from the Web 2.0 moniker. It is a category to position brands around; it is a hook for competitive differentiation; it is an entire industry to invest in, and best of all it ushers in an entire new opportunity for cool schwag .

This is a new thing, this naming of an era as we rush headlong into it. "Dot-com" picked up its moniker somewhere in the middle of its lifecycle, when we used it to distinguish young quirky startups with company names that were URLs first, often beginning with "e," blessed by venture capitalists or at least angel investors, from the rest of us.

Do you remember the first meeting you were in when the youngest kid in the room said, "Everyone's dropping the 'e' now. We don't need the 'e' anymore."

I do.

Next, we broke the term down further, using "dot-com" to distinguish between businesses with no realworld infrastructures and those with physical infrastructures and real-world trappings (bricks and mortar), like HR departments. Soon after, HR became the most stressful job in the company, which fed the staffing industry boom as these new dot-commodities gave away new cars to get talented techies onboard. And soon after that, bricks-and-mortar companies began to differentiate themselves from one another by adding ecommerce capabilities (or at least building good websites) and doting over customers. They became "bricks-n-clicks."

My point is that every step of the way along that yellow brick road, we met -- as Dave Winer says -- carpetbagger marketing types looking to make money. Hell, most of us WERE them.

At the same time, the road was there and it was yellow. Which means it's not an either/or, black-or-white thing. You can drop the name, or we can watch it evolve as smart marketeers find points of differentiation within and outside of the Web 2.0 category to position and grow brands around and woo investment in.

It's a scenario replicating itself in thousands of different spaces at once - as with Blogging now, where Blogs as communication tool are being incorporated into social software solutions, along with other new media phenoms, like podcasting, videocasting, WIKIs, and so on.

Remember the debates about what blogging was or wasn't? Should we call it blogging or is it simply publishing? Is it the medium or is it the message? Is it journal or is it journalism?

To this day you won't see Shelley using the word "blog." It's "weblog." She took a semantic stand, God bless her.

Sooner, not later, though, individuals and businesses (which are becoming increasingly the same thing -- another characteristic of whatever we call this time period) will begin positioning and differentiating around Web 2.0 and its sub-categories, and what are little tiny insignificant spaces today will burgeon into billion-dollar industries. Forget sooner or later. Look at recent history. Look at photo sharing and Flickr. Flickr was an application that did all kinds of weird things growing out of the MMPOG space, then it became a service, then it became a category (photo sharing), and when you combine it with all of the pieces that go along with digital photography, badaboom you have an industry.

The interesting thing to veteran marketing folk is that it used to take hundreds of thousands, often millions, of marketing dollars and a year of work to create a category within an existing industry and position a given company as a leader, preferably 'the' leader. We advised clients against the approach. In fact, it was more cost-effective and and faster to pick an existing category and differentiate against either a week competitor, or a competitive weakness in the category leader.

Now entire industries take shape seemingly overnight.

It is, in a word, incredible.

What's more incredible is that the meeting I sat in with the first kid who said, "we can drop the 'e' now," was only six years ago.

All of this is a long way of saying Web 2.0 will take care of itself. There is no 'grand meeting' of minds or strategies on the net where we gather around a conference table and agree on messaging and positioning, on dropping the 'e' or not.

Leave it be. Position within it, or position outside of it (this is what Dave is doing). And either way, you might be right in the end.

There is no consensus, because you can't have the net and consensus.

...

The 12 Days of Blogmas--Err... Christmas

On the first day of christmas
my true love gave to me
a new tag on technorati

On the second day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Two saugeen strippers
And a new tag on technorati

On the third day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Three google ads,
Two saugeen strippers
And a new tag on technorati

On the fourth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Four photo uploads
Three google ads
Two saugeen strippers
And a new tag on technorati

On the fifth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Five Scoble Links!
Four photo uploads
Three google ads
Two saugeen strippers
And a new tag on technorati

On the sixth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Six bloggers blogging,
Five Scoble Links!
Four photo uploads
Three google ads
Two saugeen strippers
And a new tag on technorati

On the seventh day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Seven passwords passing,
Six bloggers blogging,
Five Scoble Links!
Four photo uploads
Three google ads
Two saugeen strippers
And a new tag on technorati

On the eighth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Eight pods-a-casting
Seven passwords passing,
Six bloggers blogging,
Five Scoble Links!
Four photo uploads
Three google ads
Two saugeen strippers
And a new tag on technorati

On the ninth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Nine feeds-a-feeding,
Eight pods-a-casting
Seven passwords passing,
Six bloggers blogging,
Five Scoble Links!
Four photo uploads
Three google ads
Two saugeen strippers
And a new tag on technorati

On the tenth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Ten Lockes-a-leaping,
Nine feeds-a-feeding,
Eight pods-a-casting
Seven passwords passing,
Six bloggers blogging,
Five Scoble Links!
Four photo uploads
Three google ads
Two saugeen strippers
And a new tag on technorati

On the eleventh day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Eleven Winers wining,
Ten Lockes-a-leaping,
Nine feeds-a-feeding,
Eight pods-a-casting
Seven passwords passing,
Six bloggers blogging,
Five Scoble Links!
Four photo uploads
Three google ads
Two saugeen strippers
And a new tag on technorati

On the twelvth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Twelve Sifrys sifting,
Eleven Winers wining,
Ten Lockes-a-leaping,
Nine feeds-a-feeding,
Eight pods-a-casting
Seven passwords passing,
Six bloggers blogging,
Five Scoble Links!
Four photo uploads
Three google ads
Two saugeen strippers
And a new tag on technorati

...

December 21, 2005

If you haven't seen Shelley's Year in Pictures...

Then you really haven't seen anything yet.

Shelley on Sock Puppets and Wikipedia

in a wikipedia deletion debate cum how-it-all-works or w-t-f article that should not be missed.
It is intent to deceive or to dabble in malicious mischief that sets a sock puppeteer apart from a legitimate user with multiple accounts. Sockpuppet accounts are either created deliberately in order to vote multiple times, or to setup “straw man sock puppets” in order to provide weak counter-arguments.

Wait til you get to the meatpuppets!

I'm off to the attic to get my pet.com sock puppet and play along.

My New Years' Resolution to Become an Open Soar

I'm going to start a practitioner blog, practition seven days a week, go to the proctologist once a month, and practice what I preach thrice daily, so I can make the list next year as a practitioner.

Was glad to see the Cluetrain guys getting the nod or lifetime achievement award or whatever appropriate golden trophy they deserve. How about a virtual mount rushmore? mount cluetrain?

Today I'd also like to announce the Jeneane Sessum Top 3 Open Media Relations Client List:

At ElimiTaste Gum, Matt Willer has a new blog up, aptly named mygumjob.com (yah, think about that name). Please welcome Matt to the blogosphere and add him to your blogrolls, unless you are of a web 2.0-ey mind that blogrolls are web 1.0, which they aren't.

But I digress. Matt's the CEO of a GREAT company that makes a sinus-clearing gum called Zapp (buy it online!) and a smokers-breath soution (ask RB) called SmokeScreen. I've labeled their category Indie Gum because they are to the BigGum industry what independent artists are to the Musick industry.

In 06 we will embark on a campaign in which we call ElimiTaste the Open Gum pioneer so they can make a top-x list and as a bonus hit the radar of any online dentist who might recommend the sugar-free gum to their patients who chew gum for healthy gums.

Of course, the FINE FINE folks at BubbleShare have been blogging for a while now on the BS site, and their CEO, brainiac Albert Lai is blogging over at Simply Albert. Let's give Albert a round of applause and another bio protein bar!

Doc gave BS a try today, but I have an email into him explaining that BS does not require Flash 8 except for batch uploading -- mostly BS relies on Ajax, including the cool new zoom slider. I guess I'd also add that I work with BubbleShare as a consultant. Slim difference, but not so slim for my other clients...

...One of whom is an older-school industry giant who's out there blogging, slowly, but we're not quite ready to talk about that yet...

So I've been busy around here too, with lists of my own as you can see.

And now, for a spur of the moment poem...

seven at seventeen
wonder when they'll come
the one who touches me
there
and there,
and the one
whose touch died
when butterfly wings were still magic,
the crunch of sneaker soles on straw
and sweet scent of manure
escaping time
raced ahead of me
greets me now
at 43 on the road
resting an elbow on the driver-side door
speedometer reads 73
the highway open,
near any farm
any pasture
and any warm wind.

There is no other me.

...

BubbleShare - "Best Photo Sharing Service Yet?" Yep.

Michael Arrington calls BubbleShare "rediculously easy to use."
Things are album based. The free service allows users to create albums of up to 100 photos each, with a permanent URL for sharing. Photos can be dragged and dropped to change the order, resized and a voice comment can be added. Comments are available for visitors as well as an RSS feed.

AND try BS's newest feature, an industry-first Ajax-based slider that lets you dynamically zoom and reorganize photos on the fly. Weee!

The first blogger who posts a bubbleshare album on their blog and leaves me a comment here gets a $10 amazon gift certificate from me. (just because I want to see who's been naughty and who's been nice.)

And I mean it.

ho ho ho...

December 20, 2005

The one thing about Kodak is...

...that the culture there is so prehistoric that this tradeshow gimmick would seem like a really "hip," "risky-cool," "grassroots," "guerilla" approach to them. For all the wrong reasons. The other thing about Kodak is that it is still so big and clumsy that often the left hand doesn't know when the right foot is stepping in doo doo.

It's nothing new, as shocking as it may seem that such an old, conservative brand decided to go all sexy sexy. Or sexist. Trade shows are ripe with women-on-display, to smile and bend and bring in the booth traffic. That's the name of the game. Kodak's never been an exception there.

Now, ladies, here's a tip for you--assuming they let you keep the underwear: go home and put it on ebay as an advertising collectible. Give me the link and I'll pimp it for you. Consider it extra compensation for those heels they made you wear!

no one knows how to mock themselves the way ad agencies do...

GREAT holiday video, or lack thereof, but more, behind the scenes even, from Closerlook.

"It's brainstorming! Come on, work with me people!"

A+.

Don't miss the song at the end. It's downloadable here -- you don't often hear holiday songs with "optimize your ROI" in them. ;-)

How I Use The Net Part 1 - sometimes i get stuck on a little thing...

and i have way too much fun with it. All by myself.

oh and tender crisp bacon chedar ranch.

oh and Tom Kills Oprah is good.

web 2.0, no

the best post on the web 2.0 'is it or isn't it' topic i saw lately, which I can't find, says: This isn't Web 2.o, it's Cluetrain 1999.

Amen.

December 19, 2005

On the other hand...

These guys are growing on me.

I am so glad the Men are taking care of the innovating...


Ladies and Gentlemen: Here are the faces of the Business Week World Innovation Forum.

Nothing personal, Tom, Clayton, Seth, Tom, Neil, Bran, and Robert, but do you all feel a wee bit conspicuous? Too busy innovating to notice? Heather, does anything look strange to you here? Tom! Anything bothersome about this?

No? Well, you're right. And that's the point, isn't it.

bored housewife

i know. i know.
I have a confession to make.
The reason I haven't scrambled to post a picture is this:
it didn't turn out quite how I had hoped.
The guy did a great job, it's just that I have difficult hair.
And I'm talking difficult like the LSAT, or GREs.
Difficult like Med school.
Difficult like a 2 year old, without a nap, on an empty stomach, in a candy/toy store.

I woke up and hated the net.

NOW I LOVE THE NET.

My humps my humps my humps, my lovely lady lumps.

How did i miss this?

More morning fun than you need --> HERE.

I'd pay them if i could.

drive by?

they ain't right.

an exercise infomercial?

he has a future.

"My Humps"

What you gon’ do with all that junk?
All that junk inside your trunk?
I’ma get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump.
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,
My hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely little lumps. (Check it out)

I drive these brothers crazy,
I do it on the daily,
They treat me really nicely,
They buy me all these icies.
Dolce & Gabbana,
Fendi and NaDonna
Karan, they be sharin’
All their money got me wearin' fly
But I ain’t askin,
They say they love my ass ‘n,
Seven Jeans, True Religion's,
I say no, but they keep givin’
So I keep on takin’
And no I ain’t taken
We can keep on datin’
I keep on demonstrating.

My love, my love, my love, my love
You love my lady lumps,
My hump, my hump, my hump,
My humps they got u,
She’s got me spending.
(Oh) Spendin’ all your money on me and spending time on me.
She’s got me spendin’.
(Oh) Spendin' all your money on me, up on me, on me

What you gon’ do with all that junk?
All that junk inside that trunk?
I’ma get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump.
What u gon’ do with all that ass?
All that ass inside them jeans?
I’m a make, make, make, make you scream
Make u scream, make you scream.
Cos of my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump.
My hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely lady lumps. (Check it out)

I met a girl down at the disco.
She said hey, hey, hey yea let’s go.
I could be your baby, you can be my honey
Lets spend time not money.
I mix your milk wit my cocoa puff,
Milky, milky cocoa,
Mix your milk with my cocoa puff, milky, milky riiiiiiight.

They say I’m really sexy,
The boys they wanna sex me.
They always standing next to me,
Always dancing next to me,
Tryin’ a feel my hump, hump.
Lookin’ at my lump, lump.
U can look but you can’t touch it,
If you touch it I'ma start some drama,
You don’t want no drama,
No, no drama, no, no, no, no drama
So don’t pull on my hand boy,
You ain’t my man, boy,
I’m just tryn’a dance boy,
And move my hump.

My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump.
My lovely lady lumps [x3]
In the back and in the front.
My lovin’ got u,
She’s got me spendin’.
(Oh) Spendin’ all your money on me and spending time on me.
She’s got me spendin’.
(Oh) Spendin' all your money on me, up on me, on me.

What you gon’ do with all that junk?
All that junk inside that trunk?
I’ma get, get, get, get you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump.
What you gon’ do with all that ass?
All that ass inside them jeans?
I’ma make, make, make, make you scream
Make you scream, make you scream.
What you gon do with all that junk?
All that junk inside that trunk?
I’ma get, get, get, get you drunk,
Get you love drunk off this hump.
What you gon’ do wit all that breast?
All that breast inside that shirt?
I’ma make, make, make, make you work
Make you work, work, make you work.

She’s got me spendin’.
Spendin all your money on me and spendin’ time on me
She’s got me spendin’.
Spendin' all your money on me, up on me, on me.

COMMENTS GODDAMYA!

i posted all weekend for you. you know what to do.

In Praise of Blogspot

From C-Lo's interview with Frank about blogging:
The second thing Part the Second is that I'm very proud to be blogging on Blogspot. That would be Mystic Bourgeoisie, of course. Some folks seem to have nothing but disdain for Blogspot, but here's why they're fucked, if I may say so. They're fucked because Blogspot is free, just as Blogger was free in the Olden Times (or just about; we had to help out Ev if we could, so we ante'd the 25). And that means more people can blog. Lowers the barriers to entry is how we business types would put it. I'm reminded here of how I once wrote: "People often stop me on the street and say, 'Chris, you're a successful business-type person. Tell me, how do you...'" But I better not go any further down that road if I expect anyone to ever read this. However, if they don't like it, well fuck em. That's what I say. I suppose I should interject here that one thing I do in my blogging -- though I don't know if this would count as nuts and bolts, exactly -- is swear a lot. So this is what I like to call Demonstration By Example™ -- and that little ™ sign there means I'll sue your ass if you try any copycat cussing.

The point I was trying to make... I am proud of being on Blogspot mostly because I am showing the world (that exceedingly small slice of it that actually reads my shit anymore) that it is not necessary to use one of those ready-made templates they give you. Well no, actually you do use one -- pick something dead simple -- and then you hack the crap outta that sucker. That's what I did, yes. On the aforementioned Mystic Bourgeoisie. You bet. I made it so complicated that it took me a month to figure out how to post into it. But you pick these things up. Trust me.

"Do not affect a breezy style," Strunk & White tell us. Well fuck Strunk & White, OK? They never had to blog. And if they had, they'd probably have said all the same things they said back when they wrote that fucking book, and they'd have traffic up the yin-yang. Which is precisely why I hate those sons-a bitches and spit on their graves.

Hey Frank, I should have asked, but... is it alright if I put in some of my various views?


When are these folks at Blogger/Google gonna wake up send some shirts?

Photo on Photo Action!

Here are some pics of BubbleShare on Flickr.

kind of watching a movie about a movie...

hee.

December 18, 2005

Commitment

What's rich about the net is that it's a collage of the sacred and profane, every inch of the spectrum, coexisting, intersecting, making life wonderfully mysterious and a little more confusing at the same time.

With that I wish Jordon Cooper well with whatever he does next. I enjoy the reading I do among bloggers who are also servants within their faiths--like Jordon. These people astound me with their courage, the very public walk of faith they take within a medium that exposes us and makes us vulnerable, a medium where it's more often than not "not cool" to talk about God, to call him a He, to proclaim that he exists and has always existed, to struggle with the devine as they wrestle with being human, to connect with fellow bloggers and to say: it's about love -- at least that much we can agree on.

Keep us posted, Jordon and Wendy.

Old Blue Eyes Is Back

I definitely know some mutants.

Did I completely forget to tell you...

...how much I love Lisa Stone?

A Little BS

Oooo. Albert will be so excited that I've generated some new testimonials!

--thanks for the pointer, varna, also known as Dorfus Farkle Chunks!

My My Year in Blogged Pictures - Photo Essay with Voice

Building on the theme...

Don't forget to click the little speaker icon for voice commentary. ;-)




This album is powered by
BubbleShare

HOLY SHIT!

From the Holy See of Blogging comes everything you need to know about the nuts-and-bolts of how to blog, and then some.

FIND OUT:

1) Why he's proud to be on blogspot: "The point I was trying to make... I am proud of being on Blogspot mostly because I am showing the world (that exceedingly small slice of it that actually reads my shit anymore) that it is not necessary to use one of those ready-made templates they give you. Well no, actually you do use one -- pick something dead simple -- and then you hack the crap outta that sucker. That's what I did, yes. On the aforementioned Mystic Bourgeoisie. You bet. I made it so complicated that it took me a month to figure out how to post into it. But you pick these things up. Trust me."

2) Where you can find his Windows-Friendly Blog-Tool Recap at Mandarin: "One thing I should mention is that I switched to the Mac a couple years ago, I guess it was (christ, time flies, does it not?), and as a result, had to rebuild my entire blogging (a.k.a. writing) kit -- my heap big mojo-gris-gris shaman spirit bag o' software tricks, that is to say. (What do they call those damn things? And why does Stephen King have it in for adverbs? He does, if you didn't know that, particularly.) Anyway, yes, I wrote something for Meg (a.k.a. Michelle, a.k.a. Mandarin Design) about the tools I used to use when I was working on a Windows box. So if you still are, I already wrote that one -- employing far fewer digressions, I hasten to add -- and it is here."

3) More Tools (some Mac) & How To Use Them for Blogging, including Amazon, Google, BBEdit, SnapZ ProX, Transmit, and MORE...

GO READ THIS POST for an insider's gaggle of blogging tips and tools.

People should be paying the guy for this stuff as a downloadable amazon short or something, but look, see, he keeps giving and giving. Something about Karma I bet... ;-)

Wouldn't hurt to drop some change in his paypal either.

.....

Phil's 12 Comments & My 12 Sentences

Digital magpie Phil Ringnalda sums up the year with 12 precious comments from readers here.

He riffed off of this meme, which requests that you sum up your year in 12 cut-and-paste sentences from your posts.

And I break with the tradition of ignoring memes here:

January (chow chow chow chow chow)
-->1/8: I have such a bad sinus headache that I'm considering macing myself.

February
-->2/16: In attempting to decode the secret language of the Red-State-Right (Political Twister, anyone?) I've noticed that the died-in-the-wool redneck now uses the words "liberal" and "nigger" interchangeably--they are at opposite ends of the snuff-chewing political correctness meter.

March
-->3/8: Anil, that was a dumbass statement.

April
-->4/15: We turn data into infomercials.

May
-->5/18: We were a funny lot. Now we're just a lot.

June
-->6/18: When you Africanize anything that's what you get--swarming, crazy, dangerous killers who like to fuck with the Europeans.

July
-->7/5: As any seasoned wanabee-smoker/ex-smoker knows, you never fail to justify the potential benefits of a future puff.

August
-->8/9: If you're going to live in the south, and if you think you and your fiance might one day start a family, then do not get married August 7-14 because if you DO one day have a kid, you will learn that back-to-school eve (preceeded by back-to-school supplies rush) will coincide with your anniversary every year, which means you really can't tear yourself away from your child to have a couples' reunion on your anniversary night.

September
-->9/30: We're representin' for who can and who can't send, and we want you to know that we think you are pretty cool and your mom is pretty neat and your dad is too, in fact your whole family is a lot more interesting than you'd imagine at your age--except what about those hamsters kid, you really have to keep a lid on that Coco because she's turning your mom grayer than she was with all this escaping and pooping under the Kitchen stove.

October
-->10/24: Google can wire a nation, and they can't give us new blogger templates for 300-something DAYS?

November
-->11/11: Talk to the hand--got no time to hate you.

December
-->12/6: Dear Microsoft: We could use some innovation on the destkop apps front.

We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy mofo!

Get OFF that schedule!

What's up with this taking time off, bloggers--your hours are already becoming more like corporate america's hours and less like bloggers' hours.

Yes I know this is the holiday, some linkedin folks are even trying to start a movement about somesuch baloney like doing something to your settings as not to interrupt people during their holiday family time.

Clue you in (that's my phrase of the evening) and hello, turn off the computer how about. Why are you going to go messing with your settings. Just disappear for a few days. You aren't that important. No one will be calling the FBI away from Aruba to look for you, okay? Get over yourself.

We used to could rely on bloggers to be posting their asses off over the weekend because they were finally free from their 9-9 realworld ho-hum jobs and finally on the weekend they could rip their pants off and blog free from prying eyes for 48 glorious weekend hours!

Now as more bloggers work in blogspace or get caught up in the RSS feeding schedule of those who do, it's getting to be slim pickins on the weekends, and not so great late at night either. And where are all our overseas friends--don't fall for this bankers' hours blogging bullshit that the Big Blog Men of America think they've earned.

RSS never sleeps.

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