Category Archives: computing

Mar 11

Twitter makes sharing the subtle nuances of life with friends and family easy

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I used to put a small byline by each blog post here at the Journey Inside My Mind Blog:

Mood: Happy
Listening to: Coverville
Reading: Join the Conversation by Joseph Jaffe
Eating: baby carrots
Watching: Twitter in Plain English

These short, bite-sized nuggets (such as what you just saw above)would let you know how and what I was doing. Since August 2006, however, I’ve opted for a different way: Twitter

You may already know about Twitter, but the folks from Common Craft have put together a video that really helps it make sense:

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Check out my other blogs:
Daniel Johnson, Jr.
Get That Job!
Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
QuotesBlog
Twitter.com/danieljohnsonjr
The Pod 5
Wanna get LinkedIn?

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Aug 14

danieljohnsonjr’s Master Podcast Subscription Mashup

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Okay, so I subscribe to a lot of podcasts. I think I have over 75 feeds in my collection at PodShow. Thankfully, I don’t have to manage all of those individual subscriptions on my computer as the shows download. I used to at first, but when PodShow introduced Channels, I jumped on board. I started using GigaDial and Odeo to get individual items into a feed, shows that I not necessarily wanted to subscribe to, but just wanted to check out and/or make available to others.

PodShow+ does a pretty good job of helping manage the content delivery. I subscribe to my channel RSS feeds using Juice, and I’m glad that I only have a few subscriptions for each of my channels, versus the total number of subscriptions I have.

I also like being able to check out shownotes pages for the shows I subscribe to, and, until recently, I would subscribe to each individual feed in Google Reader. I found myself going through each individual show again, which became a bit cumbersome.

So after playing around with Yahoo! Pipes, which I first heard about some months ago from Christopher Penn, I am happy to say that I’ve created a configurable pipe, entitled “danieljohnsonjr’s Master Podcast Subscription Mashup“. It defaults to show 50 items, but you can increase or decrease that number as you wish. The pipe generates an RSS feed that I have subscribed to in Google Reader. I could similarly subscribe to this feed in Juice and further reduce the number of feeds I have there. I haven’t decided yet. I can also listen to podcasts via Google Reader.

What I like about pipes is the ability to mashup content like this from various sources into one source, which is easier to manage.

So, if you wanna see my entire collection in a single feed, create one of your own from my subscriptions, or create your own to share, here you go:

Pipes >> danieljohnsonjr’s Master Podcast Subscription Mashup: (link), (iTunes), (RSS)

As I play around with this tool, I can’t help but consider its possibilities to aggregate information related to something for my job. Still letting that potential marinate. What interesting ways have you found to use Yahoo! Pipes?

Related tags: journey+inside+my+mind, journeyinsidemymind, jimm, daniel+johnson+jr, , , , , ,

Apr 16

Breaking Technology Addictions

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Mike Schaffner points us to an eWeek report on a recent poll by Reuters that discussed how Blackberrys and laptops are blurring the distinction between home and work life.

He recommends the following useful techniques:

  1. Take action to reduce the number of unnecessary emails that you receive
  2. Prioritize your actions – take control of when you check and respond to email

He also recommends going into your Blackberry and turning the new email notification off so that you’re not tempted to check it every time a new one arrives. The key to remember is that laptops and Blackberrys are not your jobs; instead they are tools to help you do your jobs.

Here are the comments I left:

You hit a nerve in me with this one, Mike, on a couple of levels.
  1. I am totally for getting information when it’s convenient for me. I consume most of my media on-demand these days. The idea of watching a program at a specific time is something I’m growing out of. The same with online media (blogs, podcasting, and the like). I’m learning to consume it on my schedule.
  2. Having said that, I’m also a guy who checks every email that comes in and who also spends so much of my time lately watching what’s going on with Twitter (http://twitter.com).

I have recently found out how to change the notifications for Outlook and GMail, but I could do a lot better with Twitter.

What about you?

Apr 12

How Do You Use GMail Labels?

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You probably already know, if you’ve emailed me, that I love GMail. If I remember correctly, I got my first invitation within a month that GMail had been launched. It wasn’t long before I moved nearly all my email correspondence to GMail.

One of the features I like about it, which makes it different from other web-based email systems I’d used like Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail, is Labels. GMail extends the usual Folder concept by allowing you to assign multiple labels to messages.

The other really useful feature is that you can search your GMail. Let’s say, for example, that you need to find an email about “Journey Inside My Mind”. You type that in the search field, and GMail searches your entire mail account for it, listing your results.

As I’ve thought about this recently, I’m beginning to wonder why I use Labels in the first place if I’m going to use GMail Search to find them. Here’s where you can help.

How do you use GMail labels? Let me know in the comments. Thanks!

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journey+inside+my+mind journeyinsidemymind jimm daniel+johnson+jr

Jan 23

Feedburner and GigaDial Log In problems

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I recently clicked in Firefox the Tools | Clear Private Data, and ever since then I’ve been unable to log in to Feedburner and GigaDial.

I searched my GMail archives for related info, such as original password info, etc., but that has so far proven fruitless.

Kinda frustrating. Maybe I should have looked before I leaped into choosing that option. Can anyone out there help?

Update: I may have figured out what I need to do. I’ve been able to log back into Feedburner okay. I may need to re-create an account at GigaDial.

Dec 14

I am seriously HATING Microsoft Windows Media Player 11

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Mood: frustrated

You’d think that a software update would be a good thing. That’s what I thought when prompted by Windows Media Player to update to version 11. I did it, and boy, am I regretting that decision. It’s become so much more cumbersome to consume podcasts and sync media files with my iRiver. What used to take 5 minutes now takes 15, if I have the patience to wait that long.

So I Googled “how to revert back to Windows Media Player 10″ and found this website: http://www.normsoft.com/kb/idx/0/166/article/. I don’t have the time to check it out right now, but I’m posting this so that I can return to it later.

Man, Microsoft really bites farts on this one.

Update 5:19 PM EST: As I uninstalled WMP 11 from the Control Panel, it automatically rolled back to version 10. I have yet to see if everything else works better.

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journey+inside+my+mind journeyinsidemymind jimm

Oct 08

Talking with the Official Mom This Evening

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Keisha Talking with Nana
Tonight we talked with the Official Mom of Journey Inside My Mind via SkypeOut. We have the laptop speakers connected to the stereo system so that everyone could hear my Mom. Keisha, Jennie, and I talked for close to an hour, and I took some pictures, which will be on this post momentarily.

What’s great is that Keisha, who is hard of hearing, could hear her Nana very well and talk with her as though she was here. Technology is amazing that way.

Oct 01

Yet another way to know what I’m up to

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As if there weren’t already enough ways for you to stay abreast of what’s going on in my life:

Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you’re doing. For some friends you might want instant mobile updates while for others checking the web is preferable. Invite your friends to Twitter and decide how connected you want you to be.

Twitter is brought to us by the same folks that gave us Odeo. And, they’ve recently begun providing an RSS feed for my updates. I might have to look into merging the Twitter feed somehow with the feed for the JIMM blog.

So, let’s stay in touch, eh?