Gee, it sure is nice to blog from the comfort of my own Android phone. It is just so easy to do with WordPress.
Not much more to say than that…
g’night intarwebz…
May 152011
Well… I got sick of not being able to get my CommunityServer blog to do what I wanted, so I bit the bullet and went WordPress.
For now, all of my previous robnrob.com posts are tucked away in a MSSQL database hidden away from the world. Once I can get the data ported over to this WordPress instance, I will most definitely do it.
Short post, but I have a lot of work to do.
peace,
– robbie
Feb 222010
QUESTION 4 my peeps: Do you still use myspace? If yes, why? if no, why not? Please respond at least w/a yes or no. THANKS!
Was posted to these 17 Services at the same time via Ping.fm:
That is the question I asked all of my friends and followers from all of those social networkie sites I’m active on. I asked this about 5 hours before posting the results here:
- MySpace (view post): 6 comments:
4 yes / 2 other (but of course all were a yes by the fact that they used it to respond) - Facebook (view post): 24 comments:
10 yes / 9 no / 5 other - Twitter (view post): 4 @replies [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ] + 1 direct message:
3 yes / 1 no / 1 other - Brightkite (view post): 1 comment (actually 2 but from the same person):
1 no - Work Email (lol, yeah, since a lot of my coworkers follow me): 1 response:
1 yes
This makes the total “yes” answers 18 and the total “no” answers 10 out of a total of 37 responses.
Two interesting points are that out of the four networks I’ve inked to above, the most commented network gives me a link that can only be viewed by a logged-in facebook user and the 2nd network (twitter) has no “view entire thread” link as the other three do. Either way, I am not some social media guru, so I only have a “normal” following (under 600 on each network) and this may not be much of a representation of the web masses at all. I did however find it very interesting and really appreciate all of the responses. It is also worth noting that I posted this same question on 13 other networks without any response at all.
I also need to mention that out of those responding “yes”, about half of them mentioned either a minimal usage or tried to explain why they still do. As many of you know, I work at MySpace and a quite a few of the respondents do as well. 10 of the total yes answers came from my fellow employees at MySpace and 2 of those stated only using it for work. To keep this in perspective though, there are at least that many people that are my friends/followers that used to but no longer work at MySpace and that can affect their perspective differently.
Here are some of the key points made by the respondents (I don’t mention too much detail here but covered all of those not publicly visible in the links above):
- If they do use MySpace, most noted that either not for social networking, or very little.
- Some mentioned using it for either just music, or finding connecting with bands.
- Out of those that used to use MySpace but no longer do, some mentioned they stopped when their moved on to twitter or Facebook.
- Out of the other reasons why some don’t use MySpace, the two top were bad design and bad impression of what users are there.
As pointed out by Christina Gagnier in her article on the Huffington Post:
“The users of MySpace are diverse. It is superficial to cast off MySpace as merely a “digital ghetto” because its demographics may be different from that of the other social networks.”
My friends / followers do not represent the entire internet at all and in fact most like represent a very small demographic, but this is the same demographic that is most active in the “popular” social networking space.
I have more detailed feedback that I felt would be better suited for a separate post entirely.
UPDATE: Here is the link for the Event on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=95970609326
My Wife Robin will have two pieces showing at the art gallery: Upstairs at the Market, 1057 South San Pedro Street Los Angeles, CA 90015 (see map) on:
Friday, July 3rd @ 7pm.
This is a group show where she will be showing work for the 1st time with several other artists and we are very excited.
Please come and view their creations.
Some brief info about Robin's work in this show:
U R HERE, a large wall hanging, featuring images of female family members and friends, collage with renderings of lace on paper, sewn onto fabric.
Paper Snowballs, are Robin’s personal journals, torn and then made into a paper pulp and formed into balls, which are then wrapped in thread, a playful reminder that life is consisted of moments.
In my last post I found that the URL used as my blog’s permalink was posted without the hostname (http://blogs/robbie/archive/2009/06/09/trying-out-wlw-xpollinate.aspx). Hmmm… Well, I never base things on a single attempt, so… here goes my send try.
Jun 092009
It’s funny how an Idea I roughly duct taped together about a year ago is now done much better by someone else.
Here is my first post to my blog via Windows Live Writer (WLW) and Cross Posted to Ping.fm via xPollinate.
Apr 102009
For years I've actually dreaded the arrival of spring simply because of the effect this season has on my allergies. This year however the season comes at a time of welcome changes in my life. Is it that these changes are fresh in my mind that the season seems to be in tune with my life or could it be that my life is truly linked to nature's cycle of life? Whatever the relationship may be, I feel it and it is refreshing.
We recently moved into an apartment not too far from Robin's Mom's house. We were living with her Mom temporarily while we were trying to both rent out our Yorba Linda townhome and find our own apartment here in our hometown of Culver City. All of the stress such a situation can bring was pretty high and constant. It was a relief to have another caring member of the family to help out with our kids and we were blessed with such an opportunity. The stress was primarily caused by the need to simultaneously get someone renting our place and solidify our own housing locally.
The new apartment is located on a street rich in families with children and so many of these children are close in age to our own children. We now find ourselves surrounded by an urban village of friends, playmates, and support. This has enriched our family’s life and allowed more moments that Robin and I can do activities together without the kids. I’ve longed for such a village for so long that I cannot even remember when such a wish was born. Our two girls are adjusting well to this new environment as well. I was beginning to think that some of the things that made my childhood great just aren’t possible anymore in today’s world, but now at least they can bounce from house to house after school and on weekends. Each household provides for which ever children enter into. If three neighborhood children are over playing and I’m making dinner for my own, I’ll ask each of them to check with their parent if they can stay over to eat. The same goes elsewhere, and even though we’re months from July, we’ve had at least 3 BBQ’s with our neighbors.
So this year I welcome spring and the new things in my life. I’m looking forward to how things will blossom and grow from these beginnings.
Wow! I ask for help from you and you came to read about it? Awesome!
This is something that won’t be for everyone, and I do understand this; however, it is something that all of us need to live: Platelets. This little blood helpers replenish quickly in healthy people and do not make you feel weak in the process of self-replenishment.
I have a friend from work who’s son, Dylan, needs platelets to be donated in order for him to regain his health during his treatment. I will not go into all of the details of what his treatment is and all here, because his father, Eric, that also works for FIM already did a much better job with the whole story.
So… back to what I’m asking of you. I’m donating platelets tomorrow for Dylan and I’m hoping that you can do the same sometime soon. Even if Dylan’s platelet needs get met, there are many other children with the same need. Platelets have a very short shelf-life and must be transfused within five days of collection. I won’t lie to you, donating platelets takes a bit longer than just donating blood. But you don’t get to sit in the e-Chair (ultra-cool, comfy chair with easy access to: movies, games, internet browsing, and more) if you just donate blood. It takes about two hours to complete the platelet collection process, and part of this process is giving you, the donor, the rest of your blood back. This process allows you to feel much more normal shortly after your donation is complete.
If you are up to the challenge:
- Be at least 17 years old (there is no upper age limit)
- Weigh at least 110 lbs.
- Be in general good health
- Have not taken any aspirin or anti-inflammatory medications within 2 full days of donation
- If diabetic: No insulin (oral medications are acceptable)
- If asthmatic: No oral medications (Singulair is acceptable)
- Must be willing to allow approximately 2 hours for the entire donation process.
Then please schedule an appointment today for a time that is convenient for you. To do so, please call UCLA’s Blood and Platelet Center at 310-794-7217 and ask to make a platelet donation appointment. Please mention Dylan David as the patient you are donating for. The facility is located in Westwood Village (map here) and you can read more about them here.
Even if you do not do this for me, thank you for reading my plea for help.
I have been trying to find and/or create a solution for automatically posting links to new blog posts I write as well as cross-posting an excerpt to my other blogs that link back to my primary source blog.
Meet my two new friends: Ping.fm and twitterfeed. Well, Ping.fm has been a close friend for some time now, but he is quite the social butterfly and tends to find some pretty cool friends of his own. The interface for twitterfeed is a we bit clunky, but it is also exactly what I need. I am not one to complain when interfaces are not polished as my own tend to be more than rough around the edges.
The two most powerful features offered by twitterfeed are its tight integratration with Ping.fm and it’s support for bit.ly link shortening/tracking. Another nicety is the fact that you can create many feeds (the term used by twitterfeed to describe the linked configuration of an RSS feed to one of their supported endpoints). With all of these combined, I was able to create two feeds that do everything that I wanted for each new post I make to my personal blog here. The first of these pulls new posts detected in the RSS from my FeedBurner feed of this blog, and posts a “status” update to Ping.fm with the text “New Post: “ along with the title of the RSS feed item (blog post title), and a bit.ly shortened link to my post. The second consumes the same new post from the same RSS, and posts a “blog” post to Ping.fm. To do this, I simply repeated what I did for my first one but changed the Ping.fm method from “status” to “blog” and changed what to include from “title only” to “title & description.”
Since my FeedBurner RSS also splices in my Flickr photo posts (which happen to mostly be from Ping.fm MMS uploads) they also flow through twitterfeed.
Well… this should be the first actual blog post that goes through twitterfeed in the two ways I just described above.
Not much to say more than what I've already included in the subject.
I just wanted to test this out and see if it works with my Community Server 2008 and how it renders.
g'night.
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