Stories

I was just helping my wife setup a new site for the new Local Search Marketing Service she is offering, called Oregon Local Search.I was enjoying at how simple the site is. It is simply:HomeAboutServicesFrequently Asked QuestionsContact UsI basically says:Here is who we are...

Just saw a commercial from Mountain Dew about their new soda creation web site, www.dewmocracy.com. It was another interesting usage of Social Media Marketing that utilizes its pro-users or audience to facilitate research and development (R&D). They are encouraging customers to go to the web site and help decide certain characteristics of a new Mountain Dew soda. It is a pretty simple web site surrounding a kind of game /...

I was reading Get Live Firefox Chat Support from Mozilla over at LifeHacker and it reminded me of one of my application ideas from my notebook.They are offering live Firefox chat support now using an all volunteer support staff. They are just passionate Firefox users willing to lend a hand.I had made this recommendation for a client back a few months ago to offer this in the venture ...

In a few of my last posts I talk about organizing myself and developing a routine. One thing I am working on is creating a platform and routine that I work on everyday to help organize my world both internally and externally.I have started by creating an outline in Google Docs that I keep updated. This has all the elements of my world. It is pretty large so I won't list here. But it outlines everything about myself and what I am working on.I run down this outline a...

I have been spending a great deal of time learning about "learning objects" from a site called Merlot. Wikepedia defines a learning object as:"Any entity, digital or non-digital, that may be used for learning, education or training""Any digital resource that can be reused to support learning""Web-based interactive chunks of e-learning designe...

Was just reading a post by Ian Forrester called, Is having a Routine good, bad or indifferent?. It is nice to see other technology professionals struggling with the same problem. I am always working to have a balance between routine and "following the wind".I would say I lean more toward "following the wind" and less on routine. I a...

I was syncing up some of my OWS Network systems with the complementing Google systems today. Such as when you post a blog entry to your blog it will post to Blogger, and when you post an calendar entry to your web site it automatically publishes to Google Calendar. So I started working with the Google Data API, and I noticed when you click on code samples and references it just sends to directly to Zend Framework. They have ...

I was just thinking how much information I am putting on the Internet. I pretty much migrated to a web-existence completely. Only think I store locally are temporary files and my music. I store all my thoughts in my Google Notebook, all my docs on Google Docs. This is a lot of trust. What happens if my Google Account just goes away?What would make me feel better about the storage of all my information not from a privacy point of view, but from a backup pe...

I was playing around with the Paypal Storefront Widgets today and getting my head wrapped around what they offer. They are a flashed based widget that are pretty slick.You can manage your storefront look and theme and all the details about your products. You can change your settings on whether your storefront is open or closed as well as manage yourproduct inventory and how many are available for sa Read more →

I just finished BETA testing the DocSyncer tool which will keep mycomputer synced with my Google Docs account.At first I had settings turned on to upload .html pages, which was a huge mistake....instantly it started publishing thousands of files of my local workstation, be careful.Once I did get my 800+ word and excel documents published synced up without any effort I started looking through them and searching on topics. It was very interesting to find some items I do...

Amazon just added another quality web service to their killer lineup. They released Amazon DevPay in Limited Beta, which is a simple-to-use billing and account service that assists developers in getting paid for applications they build using Amazon Web Services.Its a layer built on their Flexible Payment Services and allows me to integrate it into applicat...

So I jumped the gun and blogged about the new Amazon DevPay web service and realized I hadn't even mentioned the other latest release from Amazon, the SimpleDB.This is something I have been waiting for. I was already utilizing Amazon S3 for heavy storage of files, images, and large text blobs. I use MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server for most back-end databases, however 90% of the time I am using only about 10% of the capabilities available to me.I am looking to add, upda...

I am working on a web site / web application for Roseburg Forest Products right now. Most projects we do have some level of frustration in getting the information you need to get the project rolling and built to the clients expectations.I have been going back and forth on the information architecture behind the products. It is pretty complicated and getting past the visual display to the customer is tough.There are 3 ...

Been spending more time lately thinking about Facebook Application Development for small businesses.Was reading Andrew McAfee talking about The Impact of Information Technology (IT) on Businesses and their Leaders and talking about Facebook AS the Intranet.Was also talking with another acquaintance about the usage of Facebook as a learning platform for K-12.I reall...

Google is really rock'n lately!I have been really impressed with the line of products and features lately. I was impressed with Android and OpenSocial, but some of the latest incremental features are just working for me.I really see things slowly coming together.IGoogle just...

Really impressed with some of the collaboration features Google is rolling out.I noticed a little arrow on the tabs on my IGoogle Home Page. Noticed you can now edit and share each tab. Not sure if this was in there before, but it's cool.So I created a tab with elements that I wanted to share with my wife. I chose to share and emailed it to her, then logged into her account as I can see the tab and all the widgets on it.Pretty huge piece of collaboration...

Just having a few thoughts tonight after reading several posts on statements made from Yahoo about the future of social networks being email based. Also did some more reading on OpenSocial tonight.It got me thinking about how I work on the computer everyday. All the tools I use to communicate, network and get my work and play accomplished. With the opening of networks, shar...

That is awesome that there are social media sites and networks starting to share the revenue with their top content generators.Let's go a step further. How about you pay me for all valid, professional interaction I have.I should be able to generate video, audio, files, pictures, etc and post them places and share in the revenue from these either being sold or ad revenue from eyeballs.I want to be able to take part in networks and spread the word through li...

To achieve the perfect platform for how I operate and think I don't think one company can deliver by themselves.To create the perfect suite or set of tools that I need to operate on a daily basis I need different applications that interact and operate on a common standard and interface.I need to be able to try different perspectives and approaches.If an application doesn't work for me I need to be able to say NO! This doesn't work dammit, and show me others...

Ok. Now that I have been blogging somewhat successfully (what is successfully), I am starting to develop a rhythm. It is pretty erratic, but it is starting to flow and develop a voice. Well at least to me. So if you wish to read this blog it is more for my head to keep track and formulate some of the thoughts I am having about my evolution in the Social Media Space. This blog is based upon a mind map I am creating in MindMeist...

There is a lot of information that exists in a dual format in my public and private life. A lot of what I do I don't mind it being public. That is my personality.However there are items that I have to or want to keep private. These items I usually want to keep completely private or maybe make portions of it private.Therefore a separation between all items I work with to have the option to share or keep to myself. Of course everything defaults to being private unless I ...

Going through my Web History for my Google Profile. A little scary when you look at it. I click into my Web History right from the Google Home Page, well...my IGoogle.First page it shows my search history for the day...starting at 8am. Hmmm...what to think about this?I look further and I click on the calendar to view other days. Hmmm...that is what I was looking at last saturday.If you think about it this is pretty scary. Google knows where I have been a...

Going through my Web History for my Google Profile. A little scary when you look at it. I click into my Web History right from the Google Home Page, well...my IGoogle.First page it shows my search history for the day...starting at 8am. Hmmm...what to think about this?I look further and I click on the calendar to view other days. Hmmm...that is what I was looking at last saturday.If you think about it this is pretty scary. Google knows where I have been a...

Wherever my information is stored, whether public or private it should always be redundant.I don't want to hear anything I've done every disappear or gets lost. I want it always backed up and retreivable.