Vine vs. Instagram Video

Instagram just implemented video, I haven't tried it yet, but am reading up on the differences between it and Vine.

Check out this great article from CNet titled Instagram vs. Vine: Battle of the Short-Form Video-Sharing Apps (try saying that three times fast!). CNet feels that Vine is buggy, and Instagram walks away the champion, in this comparison.

Another great article is at Forbes, Illustrated Guide to Using Instagram Video.

Learn: Making an Animated Gif

There's a work project that I would like to develop where a banner featuring company logos transitions in order to show a number of company logos for a few seconds.

It's basically an animated gif banner using company logos for finalist companies in an award competition. The banner will feature all the participating company logos, and since there's a few of them, they can rotate through so all of them appear in a few seconds.

The bad news is, I haven't made an animated gif since approximately 1999-2000.
So I have completely forgotten how I used to make them.

To remedy this issue, I went and looked up animated gif tutorials on trusty YouTube and Google search. There's a lot of programs that can make these nowadays!

Here's some of the highlights from the tutorials that I found. Hopefully they can help out someone who is also wondering...

Wired: How-To Make an Animated GIF


To make an animated gif using Adobe ImageReady:



To make an animated gif using Microsoft Paint and UnFreeze:

Remembering: Student.net

Back in my early days of Internet browsing (1996), before the dawning of  ICQ, IM, and IRC in my life, I happened upon Student.net and received my first taste of online penpal making.

What an amazing website Student.net turned out to be. There were irreverent and partially useful features--like Yenta Matchmaker option, and a format letter to email a message to mom. What about a reject-o-matic to spoof a rejection letter and send it to a friend for grins and giggles?

It was a lot of fun and pretty much the only website I visited for about two to three months after the newness and excitement of X-Files fan websites faded.

Those were the years when insane website backgrounds, illegible scrolling text, and trailing cursors were all the rage. Yahoo! Personals was merely gaining a presence back then. Excite and AskJeeves where THE search engines. This is back when AOL used to mail floppy disks (not CDs) for people to sign up to their service. NetZero hadn't come out yet. Dial-up took FOREVER to connect, and phone charges went through the roof in homes everywhere.

I remember fondly that I met a penpal on Student.net who was originally from Russia but resided in Seattle. I used to drink cheap rose while typing my messages to him late on Saturday nights while watching Poltergeist the Legacy, while he complained about the Lenin statue in Seattle. He said something once to the effect of: I left my country where they tore down those statues and here, in a free country they erect a statue to his honor. I think I liked the fact that he also encountered cultural shock in the US, since we were both immigrants.

I haven't thought about this in years. And years. What brought it all back was something I read from The Oatmeal about his new assistant's christmas tree, which linked to something else where a mention was made about a Lenin statue holiday lighting ceremony.

I thought, wow, where have I heard about a Lenin statue before? I took a look at the map on the Facebook event page, and realized it was in Seattle. And it brought it all back to me. Just like that.

Funny, considering I've been to Seattle once (a city I fell in love with) and completely missed the Stalin statue altogether! I would definitely add it to my most-see list if I ever make it back.

Now we have Facebook and email, which make it so easy to keep in touch with people from school, and other people we meet, even if we move a lot.

It's fascinating seeing how our need to meet socially, evolved by allowing us ways and means to do so through computers.I look back fondly on what Student.net was able to do for a generation of folks which were just beginning to socialize online. Just like Student.net went by the wayside, so have other more recent portals, like Myspace.

I don't remember my penpal's name, but he obviously made an impression on me back then. There's been many hundreds of people that I've chatted with and befriended online through the years since that first discovery. I remember some fondly, and wonder what ever became of them. Many others I've forgotten through the passing of time. Wherever you all may be, God speed dear fellows, and thank you for spending some of your online time with me.

Say No to SOPA

• https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

The Evolution of the Web

I was reading a blog post on Google's Official Blog about Chrome's 3rd birthday (Happy third birthday, Chrome!), when I was struck by one of the most useful infographics of all time: The Evolution of the Web.

I had no idea that HTML 4.0 had been around for two years when I first heard about it in the fall of 1998!

US International Strategy for Cyberspace

Today the White House launched their strategy for cyberspace. Check out the script for President Obama's presentation. or the fact sheet.

Privacy and Bullying Online

Someone from CiviliNation (taking a stand for civil digital discourse) recently emailed me asking to blog, Tweet, and FB about their initiative.

I found this great video that does the talking for me.



If you remember that poor Rutgers student who was publicly humiliated for having gay sex in his dorm room by his roommate who secretly filmed the encounter on a laptop webcam, you understand why online, it's important to keep the personal personal.

Remember, few people online truly care about your well being. They're out for entertainment. Trust no one (or as few people as you can). Make sure you understand privacy settings for EVERYTHING you use online. And if there is a computer, laptop, smartphone, or camcorder near you at any point in time, make sure it's covered, put away, or the batteries are out while you are performing personal, private activities.

Take precautions. Don't share too much information. And above all, support legislation that protects your privacy, civil rights, and human rights.

Web Programming

I've felt so bad today, I had to leave work and take an 8 hour nap, with a brief intermission betw 5:10ish and 5:20ish so that I could go potty and get some powerade from the fridge. The headache's still there.

In other news, I got my first book of a total two, for my two web programming classes that start in January: New Perspectives on Adobe Dreamweaver CS3.

As I was leafing through the book I remembered my first HTML class and book. I then realized that Dreamweaver used to be Macromedia, which was acquired by Adobe not too many years ago. I also remembered when PageMaker was under Aldus not Adobe. Lots of gobbling up in the last decade or 15 years in the software industry, that's for sure.

I'll go back to Modern Marvels on the History Channel now, 'cause they're covering the Disney animatronics technology.

Tech Classes Alert: O'Reilly

I used to read O'Reilly manuals for Windows back in '99-'00 - just found out through someone's post on Twitter that they offer classes (!). There's a neat, free course titled: Learn to Build iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

It's FREE, you didn't misread. Check it out.

Bing's Bugs

So...I indirectly helped find a bug in Bing. Friend conversationalist @RuudHein was trying to convert C to F and found out Bing doesn't know its math formulas.

Cloud Computing

I love love love CommonCraft, they ingeniously explain things clearly without making you feel stupid. Or stoopid ;)

So their latest covers what cloud computing is. Cloud computing is more and more lightening the load of individuals and businesses looking to take advantage of services, software, applications, etc., without having to bear the brunt of local storage, installation, management, etc. I've been delving into the cloud with my Google account, via Google Documents. I'm storing my documents on there instead of my computer, so that I can access assignments, files, and legal documents from anywhere that has an Internet connection.

Easy, breezy, the way of the future.

AddThis Widget

I updated my Blogger blogs due to a need to clean up the right-hand column.

1. I added a gadget with HTML/JavaScript as the first thing on the right-hand column, to show the AddThis chicklet, the BlogCatalog chicklet, the Technorati favorites add link, and rss/email subscription links.
   
2. I standardized across my blogs the order of when the AdSense gadget and the Amazon/plus personal links gadget shows up.
   
3. In the process of doing all of the above I noticed my rss/email subscription code was screwed up and linked to an incorrect blog (for most of my blogs orz) so that's been taken care of now.
   
4. This AddThis help page helped me figure out how to add the AddThis button at the end of each blog post.
5. Throughout this housecleaning I noticed Blogger changes
   tags to
   for some reason ?_?
6. I'm tired now, this took 1 hour and my carpal tunnel is the worse it's been in a long time this week :(

Next I'm planning on adding my Zazzle store and Flickr widgets to all my blogs not just a select few. That should help with cross-feeding some visits.

I hope this helps someone looking to clean up and/or add useful links to their blogger blogs.

Are You Being Scraped?

We were talking about the Huffington Post's blogger job and internship openings last night in class, and this morning, I happen to read an article from one of the HuffPost's bloggers who called it quits due to content copyright infringements--which he had to fight on his own with no support/policy from HuffPost--that essentially reduced his blogging stint into an almost full-time copyright infringement sting. So he just gave up and is taking his posts elsewhere.

This journalist's hard work, hours of research, and creative writing were being usurped by spammers who posted the material elsewhere without attribution or backlinks.

This article brought up two very interesting topics for me: online content scraping and the digital millenium copyright act (DMCA). However, some say that scraping can work to your advantage, unbeknownst to the scrapers, if you do a couple of things in each of your posts.

A very real and interesting situation in online journalism/social media efforts.

UPDATE Oct 19: Found this great article on ProBlogger by Seth Waite from Blogussion with very actionable tips for handling scraping.

Instant Messenger Aggregators

I got tired of Digsby. I need to reread their FAQ and other info to get re-energized about using it. I may have gotten lax and am missing out on all the great features it boasts and that originally made me want to use it. I sometimes find it annoying. I can't see people's avatars in the conversation window. Why is that?

And I'm getting a ton of IM spam, but this I believe to be fault of my Facebook profile's info tab--which may be crawlable apparently.

So I grabbed myself a sliver of apple pie and a mate chocolate, and went on trusty Lifehacker.com and looked up instant messenger. The majority of the results are Mac friendly IM programs, but I found a couple possible solutions. One is Miranda. I've used Trillian (and hated it) and Pidgen (didn't warm up to it). So here I am again trying. I appreciate Meebo's online availability no matter where you are, but it's still missing something as well.

I used Google to search and found a neat, considerably recent post on Mashable about the top IM aggregators. Wouldn't you know? Digsby is #1 for Windows.

Technically, I shouldn't even bother to have any IM software, since I have absolutely no one to talk to over IM. Everyone talks to me over FB's IM utility or my wall these days anymore. *sigh* It doesn't hurt to learn new stuff tho (silver lining) ;)

Fox Valley Twibe

Tweeples interested in mingling with fellow Fox Valley residents don't be scared and dive on in!
Sign up at http://www.twibes.com/group/FoxValley and remember to use #FoxValley when posting.

Useful Tips and Tricks

One of the people I follow on Twitter, Greg Cryns (@calgreg) always shares great advice and comments. This is just the case with his Some Quick Tips for Windows XP Users blog post. Check it out for great basic tips on cleaning up your:

• Start Menu
• Desktop
• FireFox cookies

He also provides very useful links for help pages and such, towards the end of his post.

iGoogle Gmail Widget Fail

As I logged into my iGoogle page today, I realized I could no longer access my Gmail from the Gmail widget because, according to the message I saw:
"The Gmail gadget does not support the "Always use https:" setting that you chose in full Gmail."

Well, I did that about a month ago, nice to see how quickly this widget caught up. Not.

It's a big fail. I want my e-mail to be secure, and the widget won't allow me to check email quickly from my iGoogle page anymore. GRR.

Google Webmaster Tools

I've been uploading my different blog URLs and other site URLs to Webmaster Tools to see how their tools can help me optimize the sites.

Apparently, I figure out, you must use no-space tags for blog entries or else risk an alert. I also noticed that videos posts I've uploaded cause issues either because of the title or the tags. I'm not sure why, so I'll need to spend some time researching that.

UPDATE: the "URL restricted by robots.txt" message for the URL of various posts (approx 23 on my personal blog and 5 on my beauty blog), seem to be one of those rare occurrences that don't mean anything apparently, according to this forum post.

Have you tried Google Webmaster Tools? How does it help you?

General Update

• I finally had enough of the unpleasant-looking Google adsense box on the right-hand column of my three blogs and decided to remove it in its entirety. I then proceeded to look at other people's blogs and how well they've incorporated adsense, and...ate my words. I now have adsense and amazon ads on the three blogs. Will mull this over for a while and see how I like it.
• Also, I had been experimenting with networked blogging, based on a utility I learned about on Facebook. It links your blogs and creates a sense of followers and community, in a social-media kind of way. It wasn't adding much usefulness, nor practicality to an already busy-looking right-hand column. That's out as well.
• On another very general update, I decided to upload the entirety of my digital photographs to picasaweb today, in case stomething should happen to my laptop. I've been reading a lot lately about backing up one's hard drive, which is excellent advice with conficker worms galore.
  
• I've also been thinking of getting my laptop's keyboard changed because it's been sticking since the day I first got it two years ago (fail). I've also been mulling the idea of adding RAM so it's not as slow as it's been known to be, particularly when opening the chat program Digsby and Internet Explorer's multiple tabs at the same time. Which seems to put everything into a standstill for several seconds (fail).
• Ah yes, this brings me to another update. I've opted to stop using Firefox and Safari, opting instead to stick with IE8. As more and more add-ons and tweaks are becoming available for browsers, I find that there's very little difference among them. Unless I can find a browser that really does what I need it to while occupying the very least memory, then I'll stick with IE8 and save myself a lot of startup and incompatibility fun (fail). HOWEVER, as soon as IE8 caused a major foul up in using Twitter, as a good Internet addict that I am, I've proceeded to give the boot to IE (alas can't be uninstalled) and went back to FF. Ate my words here as well then. ^_^;
  

That's about it for my updates ^_^; I have to go get something for this headache that's been pestering me ever since I woke up. Lunch might do me some good as well.

Technology and Our Time

There's this thought- and conversation-provoking article on one of my psychology/social sciences RSS feeds about Technology and Mental States. The major argument about having left behind social media and cell phones for a particula amount of time, results in a clearer understanding of the time and attention black hole that embarking in those activities can be. Here is a quote:

These electronic toys are skilled at making you believe you are achieving things - working or interacting with those strange things I think are called other people. They give you the illusion of occupation and purpose. But it is false. You do nothing. You fritter and buzz and beep and shout “I’m in Swindon!”, all the way to the grave.

I wanted to share the link to the blog post, which I did above, as well as the text of a long-ish comment I posted in response:

I wonder whether twittering, blogging, and facebooking, instead of being a creative outlet, are truly naught but a way to keep oneself overly busy...but busy doing nothing constructive/productive, like the article states. Just as many other timepass activities, if one sees a loss of value from occupying one's time in a particular activity, they usually drop it and acquire a new hobby. The current preoccupation and constant questioning of people's choice to timepass via technology and social media are a little troubling. Seems to come from an assumption they are unable to evaluate on their own, how valuable or productive their activities are or can be. We can't always force people to do or not do according to our own perspective, it would be risking an authoritarian state, no?

Although it's quite evident that the value, if any, from social aspects of technology and social media use are coming under fire daily lately, if one manages to leverage technology for learning or financial returns on investment the criticism subsides somewhat. It may be a capitalist perspective shared by many in regards to what is and is not appropriate use of one's time.

To be perfectly fair, I must disclose that I am a strong opponent to authoritarian states, and I am uneasy at the amount of articles and other subject matter expert quotes nay-saying social media and technology use. The most perplexing matter of all, I find, is that most of these comments, articles, and postings by supposed psychologists, social scientists, and other subject matter experts, have been disseminated online (!) through channels such as Twitter and blog postings or e-newsletters--the purported time-sappers they themselves accuse. I find the channel of dissemination counterintuitive seeing where their arguments always lead.

What do you think? Are social media channels addictive and culprits of time and attention black holes?


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