Continuing my march through WWdN, I've just read his October 6th entry and this will be brief.
I don't watch Lost, so I don't have any comments.
This entry is just here for the sake of completeness.
And more: I just found out about Google Reader at Peter Glyman's blog. (This is a new blog for me that I'll be paying more attention to in the future.)
Anyway, this Reader looks fantastic. It's just the thing I need. Don't believe me? Believe Peter then: "It’s a killer app and they have a module for your customized google home page."
See! Told'ya!!!
While I'm typically a slow adapter, I'm very proud to say that I've used Google as my search engine of choice for longer than anyone I know. It was still in beta when I stumbled upon it and I just jumped on it right away.
The thing I loved about it back then was that it had this little thing called a "cache", and I was sick of Alta Vista returning search results that—when clicked on—tried in vain to take me to pages that no longer existed.
(I am, of course, being cute; as a programmer, I knew what a cache was.)
It got to the point that no matter how perfect a returned result seemed, I usually didn't bother clicking on it if the URL contained ".edu" and a tilde ("Y'know tilde, don't you? Reader, meet ~, ~ meet reader.")
It screamed STUDENT, and the thing about students is: they move on. They drop out, they graduate, whatever; they go . . . their pages go. It's that simple.
Google's cache changed that.
That was then (what, ten years ago, perhaps? Certainly eight, at least) and this is now.
Now, I use Google Desktop on my PC with its widgets (or gadgets or whatever). (And on my new Dell laptop, which has a wider screen, I use the sidebar as well.)
Very cool.
(Especially the onscreen battery indicator in the sidebar on the definitely NOT a Compaq laptop.)
Now, my personalized Google page is my home page on IE and FireFox on both machines.
My personalized Google page has 6 tabs (evidently the max, dang it!): Home, Sports/Entertainment, Ajax, Tech, Science, and Bookmarks.
(Since I have my bookmarks on the home tab, I think I'm going to re-purpose that one the next time I decide I need a new tab. And I suppose I could throw the Ajax into Tech and perhaps merge Science in with it if it becomes necessary, but more than "more tabs" what I'd really like is the ability to better organize the page . . . like the ability to create subsections that could be collapsed/expanded, or some such).
Now, I blog (on Blogger). Oh, yeah, and Google owns Blogger (You didn't know that? It's true.) And now, yes, those ads on my blogs are (ahem) "Ads by Google". (Which isn't to say—Terms of Service permitting—I won't put other ads on as well later, but right now, that's what I've got.)
So, yes, I'd say the love affair is complete. I didn't see this coming when I became, possibly for the only time in my life, an early adaptor eight to ten years ago.
Long live Google!
I just took a gander at Wil's post from October 5th (it's a good thing i enjoyed the tour), which was a bit of a downer, right up until the end that is.
The guy gave me a good laugh. I'll keep reading.
Perhaps I'll even call his attention to what I'm doing (that's only fair, right?)
Here are some "blog-related" things to do soon:
<BrainDump>
As I mentioned yesterday, I surfed over to WWdN: In Exile (WWdN is "Wil Wheaton dot Net") and took a look at the first entry on the October, 2006 archive. He titled this entry "another brick in the wall" which, as a Pink Floyd fan, I gotta love.
Then he starts his post with "Begin brain dump:" & "End brain dump"; possibly not original, but I liked the sound of it enough to wrap this entry in "<BrainDump>" tags in an effort to "out-geek" him.
Someday, I'll grow up, I promise.
Just not today.
Now on to the content: let me start by saying that I've run across another blogger today (Missus Singapore) whose feelings I share: "keep my blog RPR-free - religion, politics and race free". I'm not saying that Wil should do likewise (someone has to be willing comment on current events, whatever they may be), but that isn't what my blogs are about (not yet, anyway, and certainly not this one).
Then there's the "Games of Our Lives" stuff. I'm very "non-geek" when it comes to computer games . . . my thinking being that it is a waste of computer resources, very practical and all that, not to mention that I don't have time for most of the things I'd really like to get done without having computer games drain my time (I spend too much time playing things like FreeCell as it is!) Short answer, that stuff didn't interest me much.
I like learning what people are listening to, perhaps because it can invoke a sense of Damn, when was the last time I heard that? so much of the time, so that part I found moderately interesting.
Congrats to his stepson for being accepted by Mensa. Sounds like a very uber-cool thing.
Damn him (Wil, not the stepson) for introducing me to Threadless. I think I see a significant drain on my limited financial resources there. Though I think that ThinkGeek is better suited to my brand of dressing to impress (the word "impress" here meaning "excessively drawing attention to my nerdiness"; FWIW, when I'm not "dressing to impress", then Eddie Bauer is my brand of choice).
As for Sufjan Stevens, I think I'm going to have to check this out further. I love most music, and folk music is a particular type I like more than some, so I followed Wil's link (the same linke I'm using above) to Sufjan's WikiPedia entry; I was able to find some mp3's that I listened to and the verdict is: I will have to track his stuff down.
</BrainDump>
I'm calling this "sub-part II" so as to be not confused with a discussion about part 2 of Nelson King's article in ComputerUser (which hasn't been published yet, to the best of my knowledge).
No, this is just in case you were interested in the topic, I just ran across this link. I haven't checked it out yet closely myself, and I'm willing to bet it is very partisan, but feel free to take a look.
Boy am I ticked off.
Spent a bit of time last evening surfing over to Wil Wheaton's blog, reading the first entry at the beginning of October's archive, and spent a good deal writing about what I thought, and for what? IE6 got hosed up on me and I lost it all.
Lessons learned(?), in order of importance(?):
Yes. Why indeed?
Well, the short answer (Yeah, right! If you know me you know there really isn't such a thing where I'm concerned; if you don't know me, you're about to find out that I'm anything but brief) is that I like for my blogs to have a particular focus, and I thought I might need a place for more unfocussed blather, and perhaps to just tell you a bit about my history.
For right now I'll say that I'm sort of ticked at the person with the blog at backstory.blogspot.com, but only a little bit: so instead of this blog being at that address, I had to use my little grey cells and get creative with the address I wanted, which is how I wound up with baxtory.blogspot.com (say it out loud if you don't get it). What I'm most annoyed about is she's got the address I wanted and isn't doing anything with it (at least not since Guy Fawkes Day 2001).
So now I'm up to, what, four blogs? Bet you don't read'em all. (Kinda reminds me of the bunch of "personalized" pencils my friend Dave ordered many years ago: "Save the whales! Collect the whole set") Hell, I'd be happy if anyone was reading any of them.
My first, Techsploration (techsploration.blogspot.com) deals with my delvings into things techie.
My second, Famous Blogs (famousblogs.blogspot.com) intends to pick apart (and not always in a negative way) what works and what doesn't with some blogs by some famous folks.
The third, Web MaJoR (webmajor.blogspot.com), I wanted as a place to focus on my web programming activities/studies.
And now this one. We'll have to see where it leads.
Perhaps it will fall flat on its face.
Or maybe it will actually get linked to, and perhaps I'll get comments (I'm very open to comments; I'd like my blogs to be a dialog).
So, let me know what you think!
Please.
Just when you think you've seen every variation of "webmaster" on the planet, including such lovelies as "webmaestro" and "webguru", along comes moi with this puzzler of seemingly random capitalization: "Web MaJoR". What's up with that?
It does make one pause, doesn't it?
"What is wrong with the term 'webmaster'?", you may ask. To which I reply, "Nothing, in the proper context. The term truly does apply—by my very uneducated guesstimation—to probably a good 0.00003728 per cent of the web creators out there.
(Oooh, raise your hand if you correctly deduced that the number I cited above is meaningless, that I totally came up with it off the top of my head. I do stuff like that; most of the time you won't even be told about it—I'll give you credit for the smarts to figure it out on your own. That's part of my charm. If that bothers you, get over it.)
My problem—if you wish to view it that way—with the word stems from the fact that I cannot apply the term master to myself as it is being used (follow the link above to the definition at the Free Online Dictionary). In this context it is supposed to mean "an expert", which I, most certainly, am not, even though I do most of the web site management and modification for a certain company in the Twin Cities area.
"So why 'MaJoR', then?" you ask.
Well, the number one definition for major at the Free Online Dictionary is "Greater than others in importantance or rank"; while I'd say I'm certainly not greater than everyone when it comes to web development—there are, as I said, actual masters out there—I'm better than many and have performed the task professionally. More appropriate is definition number six ("Of or relating to the field of academic study in which a student specializes"): I am, and of necessity must continue to be, an ongoing student of internet technologies. (This is one of the reasons I'm currently working on the take-home portion of my Introduction to Photoshop mid-term!)
"Okaaaaayyy . . ." I hear you wonder, "so what's up with the funky capitalization?"
Well, my first name is Michael, my wife's is Julie (there are some projects—web and otherwise—for which her help is indispensable), and my kindergartener is Riley (anyone with a kindergartener will understand that he'd want to be involved and express his opinion on our projects).
And so—to make a long story short ("Too late!")—MaJoR stands for "Michael and Julie or Riley.
This blog is currently under construction. I'll get back to by the end of the week with actual content and finalize the look & feel.
In the meantime, here's a quick rundown of what it is all about: this is a blog about my web mastering activities in all their forms.
I have another post coming today sometime wherein I will discuss my usage of the phrases I'm using here: "Web Master" and "Web Major".
Since I'm going to have a bit more free time on my hands real soon, I've decided to start yet another blog, with one with a much different emphasis from my Techsploration.
With this one I plan to spend a week or so visiting the blog of some famous person (even if it is someone made famous by being a blogger) and comment on what I agree with or not and see where it goes; after a fortnight or so I'll continue visiting the chosen blog and add another to the mix.
This may be a lame expirement, but you never know with this sort of thing unless you're willing to give it a try. Perhaps I'll dump it soon, or maybe it will be a thing of the ages.
Time will tell.
Now, who to pick on . . . er, who to visit first? I'm thinking, since I'm nerdy and loved Star Trek, I'll give Wil Wheaton's blog a go.
Nelson King had a nice article in ComputerUser last month (part 1 of 2) about Net Neutrality that I recommend. My only complaint: I just wish he'd have put in his take on "an acceptable description of the Net neutrality issue", but from the point of view of the varying camps.
As usual, I look forward to seeing what he'll say each month (this month a little moreso than usual).
[Mood: Surprised, yet revitalized]
Wow!
I haven't posted since March? That can't be right, can it?
How time flies when you're having fun.
Ah, well, what the hell. As Carl Bard has been quoted as saying: "Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." (Translation: "Things are gonna be different around here!")
Part of the reason for the new 'tude is that I spent last weekend in Bloomington, Minnesota (a Minneapolis 'burb) at Jeff Mills' Midwest Internet Marketing Super Conference. (Wow, has it been a week already? That can't be right, can it? Hrm, I'm noticing a trend here . . . .)
So here I go: I hereby dedicate myself, publicly, to blogging here at least weekly and having something meaningful to say.
But hey, I haven't finished my pot of coffee yet today, it's the weekend (translation: wife & son time), and so I guess that's "meaningful" enough for one day.
Stumble it!
