I've really got to start writing some of this down
From the category archives:
Three years ago I helped my friend LeAnn McCarthy set up a blog to help with her communications efforts as Public Information Officer for the Missouri Gaming Commission.
Last week I sat down with LeAnn to see how the blog was working out. She talked about her target audience(s); content; response (internal and external) and other social media tools.
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I love WordPress. I won’t bore you with all the reasons. But one very big one is: plug-ins. These are little add-on’s that add extra functionality to your blog/website. Today one of our sites needed a way to display multiple videos on a single page. I found several plug-in’s that looked like good candidates and settled on one called YouTube SimpleGallery. It’s free but I made a small donation to the developer.
I usually test plug-in’s here, to get the hang of them. If you click on the VIDEO tab at the top of the page,you’ll see a bunch of thumbnail images that –when clicked– play the video on YouTube.
You can also configure the plug-in so the video pops up in its own window.
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Every year on this date, I go back and read my first blog post. Not an original word in it. Just a couple of paragraphs from a Carl Hiaasen novel (Basket Case), describing two type of journalists.
In the eight years since, I’ve posted on journalism and newspapers more than 300 times. If I had to guess, I’d say newspapers –if not journalism– will be very different eight years from now.
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On Tuesday I will have been keeping this little journal for eight years. During that time I found –or convinced myself I had– 4,802 things worth commenting on or linking to. I love browsing back through the years, discovering a forgotten photo or video. (Flickr didn’t come along until 2004 and YouTube in 2005. Both in February).
A lot (most?) of those posts were nothing more than links to something I found interesting. Today, they’d show up in my Google Reader Shared Items (see box in the sidebar). I find it very convenient –and liberating– to just hit that “Share” link when I come across something interesting. Sometimes I’ll add a note, but usually not.
Jotting down my thoughts here is one of the most relaxing and satisfying things I do. Looking forward to another 8 years (biological age = 70).
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One of the reasons that most folks don’t blog from their iPhone or mobile device, has to be the difficulty of typing a paragraph or two. With Dragon dictation, it would seem that I could simply dictate a post and paste that into the rather handy WordPress iPhone app.
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Just north of 4,700 posts which means I won’t make 5K by the 8th anniversary of this little journal. February 2 rolls around pretty damned fast these days. Maybe I’ll rummage around for a favorite post from each year. Maybe not. This is a bit like having 8 years worth of socks and underwear. So what.
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I rarely check the traffic on this blog because it isn’t much on the best days. 150-200 page views? Sometimes as high as 300. I happened to take a look a few minutes ago (in connection with one of our work sites) and noticed a spike on Dec 6th (last Sunday)
The only item I posted that day was some photos and links to Kay Henderson’s story about people waiting in the cold in Sioux City, IA, in hopes of getting a book autographed by Sarah Palin. The logs don’t show it, but the only thing I can think of is I must have gotten a link from some high-traffic sight or some unexplained Google juice.
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A few days ago I took part in a discussion with one of our senior managers about the best way to communicate with the employees of our company (scattered in offices throughout the country). The option of blogging came up so today I searched (this blog) for possible resources and found 300 posts. I didn’t read them all but did pick out a handful worth a re-post:
After all these years, it feels strange to still be having this conversation (“Should your company use email?”). Finding the links above so quickly reminded me of why I started doing this almost eight years ago.
I’ve really got to start writing some of this down.
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From article at NewScientist.com:
“Worn on a cord around the neck, the camera takes pictures automatically as often as once every 30 seconds. It also uses an accelerometer and light sensors to snap an image when a person enters a new environment, and an infrared sensor to take one when it detects the body heat of a person in front of the wearer. It can fit 30,000 images onto its 1-gigabyte memory.
The ViconRevue was originally developed for researchers studying Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Studies showed that reviewing the events of the day using SenseCam photos could help some people improve long-term recall.
Vicon’s version will retail for about $820 and will also be marketed to researchers at first; it will go on sale in the next few months. A consumer version should be released in 2010. So far, only 500 have been made, most for use by researchers.
For consumers, the gadget will provide an easy way to become a “lifelogger” – someone who attempts to electronically record as much of their life as possible. Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell has made his life an experiment in lifelogging, recording everything from phone calls to TV viewing, and uses a SenseCam wherever he goes.”
Okay, it might be fun to play back a day’s worth of images at high speed. Or to set that little rascal next to your bed if you have to spend a few days in the hospital. And if you’re going to a protest this would be and if you could hang on to it.
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