Thursday, October 30, 2008

Ubuntu 8.10 Caters To The Mobile User

UbuntuLooking at the new Linux flavored operating system; Ubuntu 8.10, the latest direction is towards the mobile user. It's obvious more and more users are going the laptop route, and that has been an issue with operating systems like Ubuntu, possibly because of integrated or proprietary hardware.

I've been running Ubuntu on my HP laptop for about 7 months now. It has had issues, specifically with audio drivers and power management. The two issues I'm hoping the 8.10 release will fix are (1 and 2 are basically the same);

1. The auto detecting of my USB headset (affiliate link) when it's plugged into the port
2. The volume control works with my USB headset
3. Manage my battery better. Ubuntu burns through a fully charged battery in under an hour. I should get 2+. It's a new battery.

I'm installing the OS right now. I'll run through my own set of tests and write up a secondary post letting you know how it goes.

By the way, my Ubuntu midnight release party was a bust. When the clock turned over, all I saw was Ubuntu 8.10 coming soon... disappointed. I couldn't download for another 9 hours. Oh well, I have it now.
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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Morgan Burns The Zune

If you watch the TV show Chuck, undoubtedly you heard the Zune burn on last nights episode. To set the scene, Chuck is trying to figure out how to reach the Kill Screen on the video game Missile Command. Chuck realizes the sequence to win the game matches the Rush song Tom Sawyer. Chuck looks at Morgan, his trusty sidekick..

Chuck: “Morgan, hey, uh, buddy do we carry any rush cds in the store?”
Morgan: “No need I got’em all on my Zune”
Chuck: “You have a Zune?”
Morgan: “Are you kidding me, no, no, I’ll grab my iPod”

I was on the floor laughing for about 30 minutes. I had to rewind the TiVo so I could finish watching the rest of the show. It was great. Wonder how much Apple paid for that jab.
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Monday, October 27, 2008

Mash Your RSS With Yahoo! Pipes

Over the past several months I've started writing blog posts for sites other than my own. This is pretty cool, and I want a way to capture all of my posts in an RSS feed that I can display on my main site. This required some mashing of RSS feeds. Enter Yahoo! Pipes.

I've used pipes before but it had been a while. I fire the interface back up and it looks slicker with a more intuitive interface.

I started by adding several feeds this little widget. Plug in the feed URL and you now have a link.



Next I created a filter limiting the posts in the feed to a specific word. No even if I post on someones blog, I can filter out all but my posts. The cool thing here is the filter reads all the possible properties of the RSS feed and makes them available in a drop down. So you could filter on the Author, the date, category or any number of other properties.



And finally I wanted the latest posts at the top so I created a sort pattern using this little widget.



Once I have all of this ready to go I get a sample of what the output will look like so I can see if my filter is working correctly. If not I can go back and make changes. There is a refresh button that lets you see a new output each time yo make changes.



The end result is a nifty looking widget layout of the whole process.



A couple of cool features are the ability to share your public pipes, clone someones public pipes and then modify for your use. At the moment its all free, which is cool. Draw back, there is no SEO for using the type of feed. So I wouldn't recommend it for your blogs main RSS feed.

If you are looking for a way to mashup several RSS feeds, Yahoo! Pipes is a great tool.

What services do you use to mash your RSS?
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Saturday, October 25, 2008

View From Our Room At Snowbird


Fantastic view from our balcony at Snowbird. Wish there was actually snow on the ground. Oh well.
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Friday, October 17, 2008

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Eating Pumpkin Icecream



Eating Pumpkin Icecrem, originally uploaded by digitalthom.

Gina eating pumpkin icecream. Ok, this is a first. She only ever eats mint chocolate chip. Had to document.

- Taken at 8:06 PM on October 10, 2008 - cameraphone upload by ShoZu
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Thursday, October 9, 2008

Google Sends Me 98% Of My Traffic

I was looking through Google Analytics™ web analytics service this morning, and of all traffic sent to my blog from search engines, 98% came from Google. Of course the stats came from Google, so I'm not real sure how skewed the numbers are, but that tells me one thing. If I were to focused on making money with this blog, I would do all I could to make sure I capitalize on the Google way of doing things.

Last week I saw a quote that said if eighty percent of your business comes from twenty percent of your products or services, why are you not focusing more on the twenty percent? Are you willing to get rid of the eighty percent that isn't producing? If not, why? If eighty percent of my visitors are looking for help with problems, or for the latest Tumblr theme, maybe I should be looking closer at that.

Another interesting fact I noticed, is the search words are for things that I don't normally talk about, but for some reason my posts make it high enough on the search results that someone clicks through. For example, I have a post about removing sharpie ink from a dry erase board. I wrote that post a long time ago. Its not something I have ever talked about since, but I get a lot of traffic from that post.

The one post I get sear traffic from, by a margin of a 100 to 1, is a post I wrote on a Tumblr theme I created. Its not a spectacular theme, but, interestingly enough, for every 100 hits I get on my site, I get 1000 to this post. I've never written about Tumblr themes nor have I created another Tumblr theme since. I should, for all the traffic driven to my site.

So how do I capitalize on this? I've heard in the past write more about the things people are visiting your website for. My first thought was I don't care anymore about the sharpie ink problem. But maybe it's not so much about the ink problem as it is people are looking for solutions to problems. Now that I can get on bored with.

I'm not an SEO expert, but I would say you can target a lot more of your posts than you are. Think broader. Use a mind map on a topic. I know you can come up with 50 different ways to write how-to's, or creating solutions to problems, or even related problems. For example, I think I'm going to write a blog post on the abnormal passion people have with Sharpie pens. I'm one of them. I treat them like people. I give them names, have different types, thin, think, gigantic. It's almost as bad as a passion for Moleskines.

Give me some examples on how you can expand or broaden you existing blog posts.
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Faceoff On Ice



Faceoff On Ice, originally uploaded by digitalthom.

Took this picture at the LA Kings vs. San Jose Sharks at the E-Center in West Valley City, UT.

- Taken at 9:26 PM on October 05, 2008 - cameraphone upload by ShoZu
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Monday, October 6, 2008

Speaking At Wasatch Business Conference 2008


Quick note that I will be presenting at the Wasatch Business Conference on October 23rd. If you haven't heard of WABCON, please visit the website here. So what is WABCON:
WABCON stands for the Wasatch Business Conference, a day-long event designed to educate business owners and leaders. Experts in the fields of technology, marketing, management, and finance join together in offering 50-minute seminars developed specifically to make your business more successful. Held in October each year, WABCON allows you to select pre-designed tracks by topic or create an educational track that meets your own specific needs.

At this conference I'll be presenting on the topic of Understanding Web2.0. That is a pretty broad topic, and I'll be covering just a few of the common Web2.0 features.

If you want to attend I have some discount codes (I was only given 10, so first come first served) that will give you a substantial reduction in the conference price. Please send me a request through the contact form here.

See you at WABCON.
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Thursday, October 2, 2008

It's My Wifes Birthday Today

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I've never wished my wife a happy birthday on my blog before. So today I thought I would.

Happy birthday honey.
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Show Me What You're All About

During this time of year political candidates feel like they are actually making an impact by putting a few signs around town, displaying their name and nothing else. When I see these types of signs I think what a waste of money. I don't know this person, its presumptive I would know you only by name.

Here is an example of someone who paid a large sum of money for a political sign and failed. This sign had to be 5 feet wide by 3 or 4 feet high.

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What's he running for? What does he stand for? Where can I find more information?

Opposite this sign, on the same fence, was another sign, only it speaks a different tune.

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This person has given me a couple of things, a slogan with some standard political rhetoric like leadership and change, a picture, but most important, he has his web address on the sign. Now I can look this person up on the Internet and see what he stands for and what his platform is.

If you are a political candidate and you have spent money on signs that tell me nothing you deserve to lose. People expect to be able to find you on line. They want to know what you stand for and why they should vote for you. It's not good enough anymore to just pitch your name and hope I remember you on election day, because I won't, and I hope no one else does either.

Does your personal brand make it easy for me to find you, or get to know you?
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Shiny New WordPress Embossed Moleskine



- cameraphone upload by ShoZu

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