Tech
Tech Wednesday - Evernote…My new second brain.
This weeks new technology that I cam across is called Evernote. I heard about this through twitter and had to check it out. First off I have to say this thing is pretty cool in the sense that it works on PC and Mac and has a web side to it too (and they all sync with each other). Unfortunately, the Mac software only works on Leopard (I still have Tiger).
The idea behind Evernote is to be a place where you can store all the information that you come across in day and easily pull it back up through search features and tags later down the road. There are other things out there that can do this, but the main thing that wowed me was the fact it can search text in pictures (even handwriting).
I’ve just started using it (and only the web side since I don’t have Leopard), but I’m liking it so far. For a person like me that ingests copious amounts of information every day, this is great. I’m pretty good at remembering things, but this will make things easier.
I’ve included the video from their site below. I have 9 invites left. If anyone is interested, send me an email through my contact page.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Good Time - Time Wasters
It’s Wednesday and that means it’s time for my top picks of new tech that I’ve come across this week. Today is mainly going to be a few fun sites that I like to frequent. But before I get into that, I want to talk about a.viary.com
This online sweet is feakin awesome. The picture above was made in their online image editor - Pheonix. I haven’t had a lot of time to play with it, but it looks pretty sweet. Read this blog post that compares it to other online image editors. It blows Photoshop Express out of the water. If you’re interested in trying it out, I still have five invitations that I can share. Just shoot me an email through my contact page.
Now on to my top pics for websites to waste time at.
Songtowearpantsto.com can easily take three hours out of your day without blinking an eye. This guy takes requests from his readers and creates songs based on those requests. It’s to Loud is one of my favorite songs right now. This guy is just a simple everyday genius.
The next two are recommendations from my friend Dave Ortega.
icanhascheezburger.com How can you not laugh at pictures of animals with funny captions? You can’t.
photoshopd.blogspot.com This guy finds obvious (to those that are looking) over-photoshoped pictures. When he points them out…it’s pretty darn funny.
Ok that’s it for this week. I have some other’s up my sleeve, but I’m going to save them for a future post. If you have some websites that you think I should check out or a cool new product, shoot me a comment.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Join the Fun
I came across this video and had to share. I’ve been blogging for a few years now, and I must say that I really enjoy it. It allows me a place to share whats happening in my life and the things that I think or come across (hence this post). If you haven’t thought I about doing a blog, I would recommend it. If you have a blog and want to share, leave a link in the comments. I’ll probably post in a few days some tips for those that want to start their own blog. Until then watch the video.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Where have all the comments gone?
So as I’ve been blogging over the past few years, I’ve noticed a trend that I don’t know what to think about. There has been a significant drop in the number of comments (at least that I recieve).
I don’t know why this is. Does my writting style lead to people being passive readers? Are my posts not commentable? Are people to lazy to write something back? Is the comment form to hard to fill out?
I really don’t have a clue. My stats tell me that I have a steady flow of people reading my blog. But the number of people who comment are nearly non-existant. Like my dog asking for a treat, I have to beg to get comments (hence this post). The top commenter on my blog has commented on three posts (you go Dave).
I really don’t know why no one wants to comment on my site. The same is true for Shannon and her blog. She’s only had three people leave her a comment since she sarted (and technically mine doesn’t count).
So whats the deal people. Are you afraid? Is my writting so intimidating and perfect that you can’t leave a comment. I’m just going to assume this until you prove me otherwise.
So until next time, have a good day you pansy non-commentators.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Change - It happens (maybe)
photo by: tinou bao
I don’t know if you’re like me, but I’m the type of person who likes to rearrange their house every few months. That’s why when Shannon said, “we should redo the office and put the desk here and the bed here…” I was all for it. Well I’m starting to see that I’m the same way with my web site. A few months ago I switched from Joomla to WordPress (before that it was from MySpace to my own domain).
Now I want to change the look of my web site. I’m just feeling like it is too cluttered and that it doesn’t fit my personality (the logo looks like it could be for a Fortune 500 company). So I’ve been kicking around the idea of redesigning the look of my site. I’m going to try to keep the same clean look, but go with a little more grunge of a feel to it (it makes sense in my head). I don’t know though.
Here is my question to all 10 of my loyal readers…do you think I should go with a different look for the site? Do you feel like the current one fits my personality? If you where to change my site, how would you change it? Let me know what you think in the comments below (don’t send me an email through my contact page Jason).My mind is pretty set on changing…but maybe you can change my mind…man that’s a lot of change.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
FriendFeed
Ok so I generally like to take Wednesday’s to introduce a new web site or piece of technology that I like, use, or want. So today’s submission is FriendFeed.com. If you’re like me, you use several different social networking sites (facebook, twitter, flickr, ect.). And keeping up with your friends in each one is kind of hard. You have to go to each one every day to see if your friends are doing anything new. This is where FriendFeed comes to the rescue.
FriendFeed allows you to set up a feed to share with all of your friends that includes your activity at all of your social networking sites. This way they can go to one place and see what you are doing at all of the sites. It’s kind of like a feed reader for your social networking sites. The one nice feature that I like about it also is that you can set up imaginary friends.
Yes you heard me right imaginary friends. This way if one of your friends (or most of your friends if you’re like me) don’t want to use FriendFeed you can set up and imaginary friend in their place and add their social networking activity to see what they are doing. You’re able to bypass having them sign up. Imaginary friends rock cause you get to make them just the way you want them (unless you’re like me and your imaginary friends no longer want to be your friend and decide to be a male model instead).
So check out FriendFeed.com if you do a lot of social networking or if you want to have an army of imaginary friends.
P.S. Don’t forget to add me as a friend!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Tech in Plain Language
So I’ve been getting some questions here lately about RSS and Twitter. So I thought about trying to explain them…but I found these videos which do a much better job. Check them out and then start following me on twitter (twitter.com/gregqualls).
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
I’m in the “In Crowd”
So for one of the first times in my life I’m in the “In Crowd.” Yesterday Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle posted a video on his Facebook letting everyone know that he had capped out on the number of friends that he could have. Apparently Facebook only allows you to have 5,000 friends (I don’t think I would ever find this out), and he hit the limit. Now I’m normally not one to be prideful (yeah right), but I must say it feels kinda cool to know that I’m a friend with Mark Driscoll on Facebook and nobody else can do that now.
I know it’s lame…but you’re only saying that because you aren’t one of the 5,000.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Genius!!!
In my attempts to avoid doing work, I came across this plugin for WordPress that automatically posts your new articles to MySpace when you publish them. Since half of my reading audience comes from MySpace (seriously get a feed reader), I spend a lot of time reposting on MySpace every time I write something. So this has been a blessing from God. If you use MySpace and WordPress, get this plugin.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
I’m a Twitter
I normally save technology posts for Wednesday’s, but I wanted to tell you about this while I was in Seattle. I got set up on twitter.com yeterday. Twitter is a mini-blogging system. It’s like your status in Myspace and Facebook, but it is on its own. It alows you to give friends short updates to what you are doing/thinking. They can subscribe to your feed and recieve a text message or IM message every time you update it (here is a full tutorial on twitter).
It’s been pretty fun using it yesterday and today. I like it because I’ve been able to send my wife Shannon the emails too. So she is able to share in my experience while I’m here. You can go to my profile at twitter.com/gregqualls and be able to keep up with me as I’m updating it frequently with what I’m doing and thinking.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
