Saturday Sweep

It is a goal for this evening to sweep the Read-it-Later folder of all its content and share those pages worth review with you.

We got a kindle for the winter holiday.  It took 70 days after receiving the gift coupon for the real thing to arrive.  If you blog down in Belltowernews.com you will see where exasperation was expressed.

On Lifehacker there is this article on "How the Kindle Saves You Time..."  it is a almost thorough explanation of Kindle uses for the man on the street.  One feature it doesn't mention is the ability to quickly download samples of the books.  Most of the samples consist of the prologue/introduction and the first chapter. 

Of the five or six samples I've downloaded so far, I have ordered two.  The great thing is you get to the last page of the sample and you are offered the book at the discounted Kindle price.  It is almost too easy.  Impulse can rule.  You tap on the button with the rolling wheel mouse-like control and before you can blink, the book is on your Kindle.  Uber-browsing.

Though the title of this page on RWW touts only Ten Sites for Finding Wonderful Things if you scroll down into the comments, you will find more that twenty other links of interest.    One entry has a list of openculture.com sites of interest including this one on open source audio-books.

The MIT presence on tube can be found at the amazingly uncomplicated http://youtube.com/mit 

The other YouTube link for the evening is run by Guardian TV.  This is a good place to visit the Cheese Diaries: http://uk.youtube.com/user/GuardianUnlimitedTV 

Back to Lifehacker for a link to the Eight Worst Foods in America.  Of course I ate the first thing on the list at a highway rest stop on the Massachusetts Turnpike.  It looked healthy???

I lust after this item.

This is what we're going to play with after posting this graze.  It's called Brief and touts itself as a streamlined feed reader extension for Firefox.  We didn't have much luck with the mail reader last night.  Wish us luck.

 

LiveJournal Tags: RSS Grazing

Memes?

I was just reading Leo Laporte's comments on Leoville regarding Twit 134.; I haven't had a chance to listen to it, and won't before I come back from work.

What I wanted to remark about was the word memes.

The Merriam-Webster OnLine site has it listed as a noun to mean "an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture." It is now being used all over the place in geekspeak.

It Didn't Work. I Was Surprised.

eM Client just didn't work. All of the settings were correct but I could not get it to interact with gmail IMAP. I stayed up way too late trying. There is just too much to test for something not to work with the correct settings.

But, only went through half of the playlist on Finetune Desktop. It was playing a long piece from the Broadway cast of West Side Story.


I did also stay up late to see the latest chapter in the commandN saga. New studio, what we see of it, and Jeff is feeling better.

Spring Evening Graze.

LiveJournal Tags: RSS Grazing

You wouldn't know it is Spring out there, mostly because it is so dark, but the wind was doing its March roaring a little late in the month.  It does feel odd to have your car blown sideways while you are going so fast forward.  Not thrilling so much as disconcerting.

The first link is first because I love the title.  It is from MakeUseOf and is called 8 Adobe AIR Apps that DON'T Suck.  I already use Thwirl. I activated a spare monitor to keep Thwirl up while working on the laptop screen.  The one application on this page that I just had to install right away is Finetune Desktop. 

Click on Finetune first to sign up for the free service and then click on Desktop.  It takes a little less than no time to set the app up.  It takes a little longer to create the playlist on line.  I got as far as six songs before hitting the button.  That added 38 songs to the playlist.  So far, so good.

The next link is to Book Lamp.  They say clearly once you register that this is a beta, will probably always be, but what the hey, by the time they bring it down you should have a book list long enough for several summers.  Being a Kindle owner, perhaps several lives. (Added memory chip!!!)

Though  devoted as much as possible to Thunderbird, I have downloaded eM Client to see if all of the hype is true.  Who knows..  Whoa!! 

Reading the blog it says to wait until the version being issued after Eastertime.  That's the day after tomorrow, or tomorrow in five minutes.  I can wait... maybe.

Here's a YouTube on how to quickly start up a Blogger Blog.

And here is Twitter in Plain English on the Common Craft Show

Bed time.  There would be more links, but I kept installing each of the links above.  That takes time.  Oh bother!!!

Just Some Thinking on Information Tidal Wave.

There was a time, not that long ago, when I received all of my information on the world by reading the Times in the morning and listening to the radio on the way home. Two or three times a week I would watch the evening news. Later on I became more sophisticated, (I thought), by subscribing to the IHT and the Manchester Guardian.

Then came CNN.

There was "all news all the time" radio, but that handled traffic, sports, weather and late-night commentary. These were the things about which we felt the value in the immediacy of the information. But CNN, even with its early Atlantan accent, was a new, visual window on the world. It's raw feeds of breaking news was a new feeling.

The information junkie got his first taste...

Now, I am writing on ScribeFire, listening to ZZTop on WinAmp, monitoring my BB while writing a blog entry on a Firefox extension. I am also monitoring Tweeter on Thwirl displayed on the second computer screen. This isn't mult-tasking. This is shooting up information.

Is the sun shining???

Qiking from car.. Wait for the law

When Kevin Rose said he was streaming live from his car it did cause a moment's pause, but it was from the roof of the parking garage at SFO. (Whew!)

MediaShift Explained

The picture shown below is from a old but still informative article on the PBS MedaShift page that explains blogging.

It is very clearly written and intended not for the complete novice to computing, but for one who wants to learn the basics and the reasoning behind this phenomena

Don't limit yourself to this one article, Mark Glaser's style on other topics of interest are worth reading as well.

Image Found at MEDIASHIFT

Mediashift on PBS - Twitter

Just a quick link to an article on PBS Mediashift on Twitter.

If you're just getting into it, or wonder why you should, this is a good place to start.

There are links in this article that will help even the experienced user find unknown uses and aspects of this simple 140 character graffiti.

Ton of Stuff in my Read-It-Later

Over the past few days I haven't been posting too many links.  This doesn't mean I haven't been saving them.  They are sitting in my Read-It-Later link on the Firefox tool bar.  Now is the time to scan through them and see if any are worthy of sharing.

It goes without saying that commandN is worth a look.  Brother Jeff has a wicked cold.  In the comments section @Amber also states one of the other members of the crew is stricken as well.

Google Calendar Sync at Google Agenda (beta) worked quite well for me.  Now when I put an entry into my Blackberry, it automatically appears in the Google Calendar.  I have the calendar set to send me my daily agenda at 0545.  Now that it is synced into my Blackberry, these agendas are more meaningful to me.

If you use Calgoo, it carries over into that, through Google Calendar.  Cool.

Make Use Of has a handy-dandy list of sites and programs to make use of the IM format.  According to Leo LaPorte, his children no longer use IM in favor of SKS.

The IHT has a review, and short biography.  It is about Lush Life and its author, Richard Price.  If you have never read any of his work, or seen it in movies, and you have an interest in things New York, (gritty) you may want to read this article and then go ahead and get the book.

The next RIL, (short for Read-It-Later) was an article on Laughing Squid about the visit to the Colbert Report by Mark Frauenfelder. (See SXSW twitters).  That link is of much less interest than this one of photos taken at the set of the CR, while waiting from Mark.

Hulu has come out of beta.  I have been using it for the past few weeks. The public interface is a lot more on the WOW side than the one with which the beta testers were presented.  I suppose they were of the opinion that beta testers require no sales pitch.  If you haven't visited yet, and love TV, it's is certainly worth the effort. 

The old Barney Millers ware a blast from the past.

I have no idea why I saved this Stumbleupon link.  Feel free to comment and tell me why.

Lindsay Lohan made a bit of a wave emulating Marilyn Monroe's final sitting.  This link takes you to a gallery online selling the actual of photos of MM for that sitting.  It is sad to see these photos for those of us who remember the day she died.

On My Newton's Blog is this recommendation of the Nikon Camera I have been using since our trip to the Inside Passage.

Lifehacker has this article on FriendFeed.  If you read the Twitter's displayed on the right column of Belltowernews.com you will see that we just revised our FaceBook and MyPlace pages and added a FriendFeed page this morning.

I am not sure why Lexisum is useful, but for those who like summaries, instead of the full boat, this interface to Wikipedia may be of some small use.  Personally I am an information  junkie who would not want to leave the summarizing to this page's discretion.

There was a link at Firefox Mastery regarding a list of configuration changes you can make to Firefox.  In one of the comments to the list a user asks why this list was copied over from gHacks.  You can find the tips in their pristine status at the gHacks Firefox Tips page.

Prophylactic is how the word is spelled.  This "social media aggregator/lifestreaming service" spells it Profilactic.  I wonder if that was on purpose or for URL availability.  As usual, when we find places like this, we try it.

Arthur C. Clark's NYT Obit.  RIP

LiveJournal Tags: social,feeds,RSS Grazing

Night Watch Graze

Listening to Twit 37.

The first link mentioned was to Mahalo.com. I took a quick look at the site, signed in and browsed about. Dvorak's zipper antics were slightly funny. Dvorak is claiming the C.I.A. is running Facebook. To be correct, he's saying that the inteviews at SXSW regarding Facebook should have asked if it was being run by that agency. It is amazing how rumors start.

Interesting image of a battleship with a blimp and biplane as part of the infrastructure.
Just installed Silverlight. As with most things I am not sure what to do with it. The same thing for the latest Adobe .NET background

This was one of the better TWiT's. Dvorak was relatively low key, answers about Twitter questions, Facebook, Friendfeed and Silverlight.

Time to go play with that with which we were exposed this night.

We're back

Back on Terra Firma. It's just that we overslept by forty minutes. The sleep was probably theraputic, but now the ensuing panic probably is not.
-30-

Boarding Jet Plane

We are all about to leave for the airport. I just wanted to note we linked Belltower News to Twitterfeed.
We got the idea from seeing the TWiT podcasts post announcement. When you look at a tweet, as they are called, to the lower right of the box containing the message you may see a link.
Many of our links have Twhirl next to them.

Off we go into the wild blue yonder.

Short Graze.

Early next morning I have to attend a sad event. We won't be back until Tuesday. I will Twitter while there, but don't expect any grazings.

The first page we plan to delete soon is the Ten Tips for Picasa There wasn't really any thing on there I didn't know already.

Nothing new on the Stephen Fry Podcast. I was hoping for something by him to hear during the long trip.

During all of this we're listen to Net at Night. Amber just told why she ran a marathon four years ago. It was the most intimate thing I have heard from her. Leo is trying to lure her to Petaluma. Sounds a little like a dirty old man. I wonder if he knows that. Probably not.

The free download today was hot notes. It looks like more of the same, but you may have some use for it.

If you use Pidgin, here are some extensions to broaden your use of it.

Leo is now talking to the abbreviated guest tell about his book How to How to Make Webcomics. You can get it at ImageComics

One more READ-IT-LATER link and then it's off to bed... Hmmmm...

I might have mentioned it before, but this is timely, while away, I will be using m.twitter.com to make the entries via Blackberry. Good site to use.

Not having a Stephen Fry to lull me to LaLa, here is a link to a windy article in the NYT by Laura M. Holson regarding text messaging and how it is "shaping" teenagers.

What a dork!!

Night Time Graze, finally

While putting together this nightly, somewhat, grade, I am listening on lone to Stephen Fry's Podcast.  The point he is trying to make is a verification of the River Phoenix line regarding classical music. "You can't dance to Beethoven."

Mentioned in one of the Twitter messages from SxSW is this link to 20 Websites That Made Me a Better Web Developer at Six Revisions.  There are many comments that go along with this list.

Another, entirely scientific, by British standards is this list of the 50 most influential blogs.  Be aware this list was compiled by the British website  for the Guardian Newspaper.  I used to get the Manchester Guardian delivered to my door when Malcolm Muggeridge wrote for them.

Wanting a desktop feature to cover Twitter, now that I am addicted to it, I found Thwirl.  It says it simultaneously put your Tweets into Pownce and Jaiku.  I set up the information into it, but haven't seen the reproduction into each of these other miniblog online.

Not being fond of Outlook or its mother ship, I was pleased to find this link that syncs the Google Calendar to the Blackberry.  It took no brain energy to set it up.  It now works very well.  Less work for mother.

Now for one more cute link before toddling off to bed. 

This is a Boing-Boing link displaying a Corning Glass Museum piece about the Prince Rupert Drop.  I don't know why I found this so fascinating, but I did. 

LiveJournal Tags: RSS Grazing

This was taken at Baker Beach in the Early 80's
Joe is sitting to the right of Jen with Guinn sitting
to her left.

This just needed to get published on the web.

-30-

Wrapped in Configuration Land

We have a graze list from last night but, due to Leo's recommendation re: Audible.com, we spent the time we would have used to load the graze loading books onto the Kindle. Now the sun is rising and it's off to see the Man.
-30-

Can't wait for tonight's Graze - Try Twhirl!!

I have very recently installed the AIR Twitter/Pownce/Jaiku application THWIRL. If you Twitter, or Pownce or Jaiku, or all three, this is your application. Requires Adobe AIR.

23 Hour Graze.

Why do they have to steal the hour from the Weekend!!??  The law should be changed to take the hour off of Wednesday and, with the next change, add one hour to the weekend. Think of how happy that would make everyone, except those who work the graveyard shift...then...there is always the overtime.

The first Graze of the evening is for my novel-writing friend.  This is a list of the 50 Tools to help you write. The obvious question to me: while you are reading all of these lists, you're not writing, are you?  Therapy?  Works for me!

We have another time warning.  The Urban Dictionary, where we went to look up Intertubes.  

It is one of those sites where, if you start clicking on links, you will fall down into the rabbit hole and not be seen again for days.  Consider yourself warned.  Being wide open to words on the Internet, there are also some silly naughty bits here.  Second warning.

We tried to sign up for Plaxo using our OpenID. 

All looked well, filled in the forms, got the confirming ID, but, after hitting the link, it said we didn't provide the proper information...no, wait!  On refresh it loaded!!!  Be back in a few moments...

Whoo!  In the last hour I installed Plaxo and Pownce AIR. It was the hour of the I'M tools beginning with P. 

Twitter still seems simpler.

Back to Grazing... Torchwood Spoiler: Dead Man Walking

There is a lot of chatter, twitter entries and blog photos of interactive beer parties all over the Internet today.  This graphic by Sunni Brown seems to sum it all up.

LiveJournal Tags: RSS Grazing

In Bellingham, WA, try Instant Replays!!

Instant Replays under new ownership

A local consignment shop now has new owners.

Heather Saulsbury bought Instant Replays of Bellingham, located at 2701 Northwest Ave., in January.

“I thought it would be fun,” she said. “I’ve been a consignment shopper my entire life.”

The consignment shop has been in Bellingham for nine years and has more than 800 regular consigners.

The store accepts every type of clothing, from infant to adult sizes. When she’s not running the shop, Saulsbury also runs a Web site, www.gwynnsgifts.com, where she sells handmade earrings and greeting cards. For more information, call 360 647-8327.

First a Comment, then the Graze of the Night Missing One Hour...

LiveJournal Tags: Blackberry

Two comments to be truthful. The first is never to give up on TechSupport. After speaking to five other buck passers, I finally got Kevin at Sprint Tech support. He said, after I described the problem once again, "I see what is wrong." You cannot imagine how relieved I was hear this. Bless Kevin's little heart!!!

The second comment, which really is a Graze, surrounds the comment made by Chris, The Book Swede, about reading so many books he forgets most of the characters.

Here is where we differ radically. I read three to four books a week, (KINDLE!!!).

I would say I remember the characters, their names and life stories, better than that of the people I meet on a daily basis. The people who we meet don't grace us with their thoughts or have backgrounds built by The Author to support their actions. So, it is the live people I am more likely to forget.

The tribute to Gary Gygax doesn't mention his name, but if you don't get it, you either are not the parent of a pre-teen, or haven't been one in the second half of the twentieth century.

Unexpected Blackberry email glitch took up the rest of the evening.

commandN # 125 is up.

This is just a quick note to say that commandN # 125 is posted.

-30-

Twitter Firefox plugin "Post to Twitter"

You have to read the comments on the Post to Twitter page down to comment number 22 to get a clear idea as to how to install it. They confuse things by using the word "download." I searched that page for a link. No link.
Then I settled down and read the comments.
While you have that page open in your firefox, and scripts allowed, go up to the search bar, click the down arrow. All the way at the bottom, above "Manage Search Engines" you will see Add "Post to Twitter"
Click on that and the choice will be added to your list of search engines.
Here is a copy of the illustration in comment number 22:

Also, make sure you are signed in to your twitter page in one of your tabs.

Sundown Graze

If you are a fan of Cali Lewis, her Flickr page may be of some interest.  If you aren't a fan, on what planet do you reside??

I just went through 55 Boing-Boing  RSS feeds and found nothing worth linking to this evening.
This applies, oddly enough to Lifehacker as well. 

There was a piece saying the product Airborne Cold prevent-er was really crap. I knew that already, but wasn't sure on the veracity of the reports source, so, no link.

Twitter in Plain English somewhat explains the way Twitter works.  I just haven't figured out how to add URL's to it yet.  Give me time, I will.  I know I can post a URL naked, but I want to make it as a link, the way we do on this blog.  I looked into the hash mark (#) linking, but that's not what I want right now.

Windows Fanatics has a message about the Top 5 Music Web Sites. I have been to each of the sites listed.  My favorite is AccuRadio . LastFM starts when I start MediaMonkey.  Pandora puts you on a Junk Mail List and is very annoying for that reason alone.

There is a lot of traffic about the Google Calendar synch with Outlook.  But the Robert Scoble is asking why aren't you using Plaxo?

Switched from AccuRadio to Net@Night. 

Here's a surprise: Ziff Davis applies for bankruptcy. (New York Times)

If you use Picasa here are 10 tips to improve your photos.

The conversation on Net@Nite is covering a site called DropIO.  I just set up an account there.  I think this will be of great us to us.

Goodbye Chef Irvine.

LiveJournal Tags: RSS Grazing,Laporte

Not tonight, Josephine!

Too tired to browse and therefor too tired to do just about anything...=30=

March Night Graze

I thought I would listen to the latest net and night with Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte.  I expected geek talk. 

Amber mentioned a YouTube video with Jimmy Kimmel and Ben Afflect declaring their love for each other. It is genuinely funny.  The Sara Silverman video that lead to the creation of this video is not as funny, more vulgar.

Though we're not sure we'll use it much, we installed Pidgin after reading this Lifehacker page.

It is very hard to go read my RSS pages while listening to Leo and Amber because they are going over and over about this and that link.  I need to pause the show to get his page finished.  DISTRACTION!!!

This Lifehacker page listing 157 of PC Magazines favorite something or other is not worth going to for the link to PC Magazine, but to read the ranting of the commentary trashing PC Magazine.  Whoa!  I thought most of this sort of ranting was preserved for Microsoft and the Royal Family.

If you haven't read Neil Gaiman's American Gods, this is the last time I am putting up this link because the free on-line version will not be up that much longer.  I love this book and have three copies of it.  One to keep and two to lend out to friends.

I thought I would post the page on Speedwords, but found it boring.  Google it if your are interested.

If this article was available to me months ago it would have been easier for me to settle down to the two blog writers I use most, Scribefire and Windows Live Writer.

Again, as with most pages like this, read the comments. w::bloggar is mentioned.  I think that was my first blog writer.

Quick Links before bed.

Ashampoo Clipfinder

Those Inexplicable Traffic Jams

Free Starter Kit Give Away from Seventh Generation

Say Goodnight Gracie!

LiveJournal Tags: March Night Grazing

bighugelabs.com writer

This is bighugelabs.com writer. They say this can go straight to the blog. Let's see if it does.

Short Evening Graze

As I sit here listening to the Tech Guy from 2-24-08 cover on-line addiction, I have added Twitter Remarks to the sidebar of Belltowernews.com. I still don't quite get Twitter, but I feel I will use it more now that it is on Belltowernews. The same additions are made with the Google Reader link right above the Twitter Remarks.

Matt Richtel spoke to Leo About his book Hooked. I went to Kindle on Amazon.com and downloaded the sample. I have feeling I might buy the entire book. This is the good feature of the Kindle. You can download the introduction and first chapter and then decide if you want to buy the entire book. I consider it virtual browsing.

The first item on the graze list is the Lifehacker article on synching the workflow twixt Picasa and Flickr.

Lifehack.org, not to be confused with Lifehacker.com had an article on how to find anyone on-line. It isn't about searching for a particular person but about finding someone of the type with whom you may want to communicate.

A second link to Lifehack.org has to tips about the most effective way to use email. You may think you are savvy about email, but reading this short article may surprise you.

Here is a good one. A person who had may job two holders ago saved a lot of files in the wps format. To open them I went to an older compute with MS Works installed. Here is a link to the eHow site on the easy way to convert the .wps file to .doc files.

Another recommendation from the Tech Guy podcast is the program Audacity for recording single microphone podcasts.

An add aside: I am not sure what combination of keys I just hit, but for some reason Dreamweaver just started up and loaded downloading.php. How Odd!

The last link for the evening is to this photo of Babe Ruth in a Boston Red Sox Uniform taken in 1919, before the curse of the Bambino.

Good Night!

LiveJournal Tags: RSS Grazing

Evening Graze

The first link listed by a newly added feed, Laughing Squid in San Francisco is about San Francisco Liberation Radio.  I thought it might be insightful, interesting or at the very least funny. It was self important, attention getting and raided by a government agency.  What fun. -S-

Laughing Squid has been sited by several of the more sophisticated on-line commentators. We won't give it the hook just yet.  Tick-tick

The DownloadSquad displayed a systems utility to transform the PrntScrn button to actually print the screen rather than copying the screen to the clipboard.

In the comments section of the program's page, there is a comment touting another program called Gadwin System.  I have never heard of it but its home page is open and will look deeper into it later.

I saved a few news pieces to read about the coming war in South America. It would appear we have a few macho men just itching for a fight.  Sound familiar? I won't bother posting links because this is an ongoing situation and the content will be ever changing.

Freeware Files displayed a 1.3 version of Able RAWer.  This is a graphic handler for RAW files to be downloaded directly from the camera.  I currently use Picasa for this.  The interesting thing is there was an ad for Picasa running on this page.

I am not sure why I saved the link to WordPress, but it was on my list, so, go start yourself a blog.  Enjoy!

If you're interested in the show on BBC called Torchwood, this article from TV Squad will tell you more than you want to know prior to seeing the show.  If you have seen it, reading this article may give you insight into the motivation for this episode's creation.  This does rate a SPOILER ALERT!!

IMAP pros and cons from downloadsquad.

Daily Blog Tips is an interesting page if you blog.

The last link was to a song called Cake.  Unfortunately my script blocker on Firefox displayed a half dozen blocked scripts that would have to be activated to hear the song.  One, maybe as many as three scripts I can understand.  When the number gets higher than that, the page writer is up to something.

That's the evening graze.  If we stay up late, which we rarely do on a Sunday night, we may post one more today. 

del.icio.us Tags: RSS Grazing

Morning Graze From Google Reader

From MakeUseOf.com is this link to an entry on Windows screen Docks.   It is a very thorough listing.  I am not a fan of screen docks because I make most use of the Quick Launch tool bar in Windows XP.  But for those who like bells and whistles, docks are good.

If you're looking for some interesting feeds to add to the feed-reader you use, the downloadsquad site as a huge number of RSS tags on a broad set of platforms and on-line applications.

I picked three of the hundreds of available feeds.  I know this will bite me if  we abandon the reader for a day or two. 

We've been mystified by Twitter for quite a while.  Perhaps this link to Webware's article Newbie's Guide to Twitter will help.

This Shorpy.com  photograph of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh taken in 1929, four months after they were married, is a marvel in the detail of their features as well as the airplane in front of which they are standing.  The blurb below is worth reading as well.

The Ultimate Guide to GMail Collection of over 80 Tips.

The next link was to intense debate.com.  This site has been mentioned in other blogs and podcasts.  We tool the comments add-on and installed it on Belltowernews.com. 

Just another added feature.

And finally, just for fun, if you live and work in Cambridge, The Periodic Table on steroids...

LiveJournal Tags: Feedreader Graze

Slim Picking Continues

There have been times where there were close to a thousand entries in our Google Reader.  Today, not so much.

There was a link on Hulu for a preview for the TV show Niew Amsterdam; another immortal show coming up on March 10th on a network near you.  Like most cop/fantasy shows, the male is brooding and the woman partner a knock out who talks tough.

Not sure if we'll give this one a chance.

Next was the  AskTheGeek.com link to Adobe AIR. 

On this page AIR struts its stuff and allows you to download it for free.  How long the freeness of this lasts is yet to be seen.  Adobe is not know for its charitable nature. 

We will run it and get back to you later on its end-usability.

The most charming of the bits in the feed this afternoon was this page on Neil Gaiman's blog.  The first part is about the hives in his woods and the garage-bucket-cheesecloth method of harvesting honey.

The second part is about the evolution of his newest book.  I have found it fascinating to read the ruminations of a published best selling author as he creates and gestates what I hope will soon be his next best selling tome.

That's the afternoon report from the Google reader.

del.icio.us Tags: Gaiman

Except for Harry and a cheap iPod Shuffle, bleak Reader Morning

Perhaps it's too early in the morning. My end of winter cold wouldn't let me sleep in on this snowy March morning. I went into Google Reader expecting to read important "stuff." The highlight was a humorous VideoJug piece on Speed Reading.

Then, in the Gnome feed was a link to a deal on a 1Gig iPod shuffle. When I went to the page there was a pop up saying that sales will begin on Saturday night. Did the link overpower their software?

Most of the news links lead with stories about the leak on Prince Harry's deployment to Afghanistan. Poor bloke.

Everything else was more of the same. Could it be I have reached a saturation point? Is that possible?

We'll come back after breakfast.

Scribefire Upgraded

If you go directly to the ScribeFire website, you will see the features added and fixes to this version 1.4.6.

I have been using Live Writer for most of my blog entries but now that the one item that annoyed me (issue #40) has been fixed, you will see more Powered by Scribefire additions to the blog entries.

American Gods - Free to read on-line

Go this link:

Here for the next month you can read American Gods by Neil Gaiman courtesy of the author himself. He ran a survey on his blog as to which books his fans would like to see posted free on-line.

I voted for Neverwhere, but his more popular novel won. I liked it too, so everyone's a winner.

-30-

del.icio.us Tags: American Gods

Nobody Slipped.

The highlight of tonight's Academy Awards was the slippery floor on stage left.  This was THE most boring of the many shows I have seen.

It could be we had nothing invested having not been inspired enough to go to the theater to see any of these films.

Congratulations to each of you.  Whoever you were.

Never Made a Penny

You will see occasional links to books on these pages that will take to Amazon.com.  These links, if followed from here and purchase made allegedly will add change to my pocket. 
Never a penny.
I did set this program up for a not for profit web site where they have made a few hundred dollars having their members, all of whom are avid readers, make their orders through them.
Now Amazon.com is selling baby strollers and car seats. This is a 20% off sale on the Britax brand until March 2nd. 
I must admit I have never heard of this brand and my youngest is now taller than I.  
We do, however, buy loose tea from them on subscription. 
This allows for a major discount and free delivery of something I would've bought anyway.
Will baby strollers and car seats make me rich?
I think not.

LiveJournal Tags: Amazon.com

Inside or Indoors, Does It Matter?

The problem with shooting a plog North of Detroit in February that is normally shot out of doors, creeping down the alleyways, with exotic Canadian urban backgrounds is the poor hosts freeze their collective tookii.  It makes for good video, but may shorten their lifespan.

This is the condition commandN finds itself.  I personally like the man on the street feel of the blog.  Sometimes the sound is somewhat overwhelmed by the back ground noise, but this is part of the character. 

It is our fervent hope the weather in Toronto improves enough to allow our brave podcasters to return to their natural environment.  Or, as they did last year, to the MicroMini dealer.  I liked that episode so much I bought one.

LiveJournal Tags: commandN

Feel Like Visiting Someplace Urban?

The IHT blog list of its local color journalists is proving to be a relaxing read.  No heavy world crisis or political news.  It just tells you what is interesting about a place.  It is written by people who live there.

It did come to light for me a dozen or so years ago that the only way a native gets to know what is fun to visit in their native town is by showing people around who are not from there.  There have been many fascinating places in the cities wherein I have settled over the years.  It took a visitor for me to have reason or even the energy go there.

The rest of the time we just stand around waiting for things to happen. 

LiveJournal Tags: IHT,travel

Snow Changes Day Quickly

There were 5 things on my agenda for today.  The snow was scheduled for noon.  Someone forgot to verify this with the weather system.  I am looking out my office window at what would appear to be about an inch of snow.  Weather Dot Com showed that this is the northern edge of the storm.

As soon as the snow hit, my Blackberry started buzzing.  Not only is this snow, but it is Friday.  Combine the two, and the memory of the lousy commute home a month or so ago, and wham, the meetings get canceled, moved up or shortened.  I am waiting on news form my nine a.m.   

tick tick tick...

-30-

Bedtime musings

LiveJournal Tags: RSS,browsing,Shakespeare

After two hours of browsing using the RSS feed reader I opened the History column in Firefox and counted the number of sites I visited.   There were 25 pages on Shakespeare alone.  For some reason I was looking for the speech in Henry V where he speaks of Saint George, Harry and England.  Found it in the Shakespeare Concordance. 

The browsing went from the International Herald Tribune to a page on the Gutenberg free books site displaying a memoir of a Colonel in the American Army during the Revolutionary war.  I noted in the index it read that this was something from the Civil War.  I wonder if that index was created by an Englishman?

I downloaded a few programs.  I installed all of them and deleted all of them except the Foxit Reader.  I haven't had time to run it yet.  I am looking for something like the Kindle to display the free stuff  found on-line on the laptop . To view it easier it should be something other than HTML, text or PDF. 

What amazes me still is the amount of information that just pops out at you.  For some reason, when I started my newly installed VLC media player, a window popped up showing Jurassic Park. 

That spooked me even more when I stopped it and it started showing episodes of Stargate Atlantis from a few years ago.  I pretty much want a media player to open what I ask it to and not default to some European movie site.

Where I have it now is listening to on-line radio. The station is called Cryosleep, Zero Beat Guaranteed.  I am listening to this to drive the images of the alien beast that was being hacked live for meat on the last episode of Torchwood.

These are my ramblings before going to bed.  I am teaching a class tomorrow and need my beauty sleep.  Or, at the very least, I need a beauty of a sleep.
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The Snow Leopard in Arlington

This link to the Sunday New York Times Book Review reveals a fact about the author of The Snow Leopard that was a bit of surprise to me.

I can't say it was unbelievable, considering the time and it was Paris, but still, is nothing corrupted?

-30-

LiveJournal Tags: corruption

Taking Sunday Off

That may sound strange, to take Sunday off, but after a very long week we have canceled all social obligations for the day.  I am sitting here in the home office, listening to Ingrid Michealson's The Way I Am to be followed by Stacy Kent singing Stardust. 

These songs came about with my discovery of Amazon.com's music download.  iTunes was just too complicated for me.  I am listening to the music on my laptop with the GPL Licensed  VLC cross platform media player.  It is the simplicity the interface to this programs full set of features that appeals to me.

Mark Knophler's Coyote (Album Version) just started playing.

This could go on all afternoon, but I would rather just chill, thank you...

-30-

...Stacy Kent is now singing I Got it Bad...

Technorati Tags: VLC Media Player,GPL

Simply Amazing!

If you have nine minutes you can spare in your day, you couldn't fill them any better than to go here and listen to Charlie Hunter and his guitar.

-30-

Thunderbird Gmail IMAP Drafts and Sent Errors

Technorati Tags: IMAP,GMAIL,THUNDERBIRD

If like most geeks in the world you have set your Thunderbird Gmail settings for IMAP, you may be getting unknown Drafts and Sent folder messages. 

It is an easy fix.  Go to this Lifehacker page for the instructions.  When you start to look for the Sent and Drafts folder in the boxes side menu, don't settle for the first Drafts or Sent folder.  Make sure you look for the [Gmail] first and THEN the Sent Mail and Drafts folder inside this folder.

That was the only part that confused me for ever so short a moment.

Good Luck!
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Tiny Spell - Harmony or Disruption - Stay Tuned

Technorati Tags: Spellchecker

The tiny spell utility has been added to my laptop.  I already have two spell checkers, but I figure, could it hurt to have another?  Will they counter act each other, or show each other support. I am writing in Q10 now.

New boxes are popping up when I type words that are not in the tinySpell dictionary.

Will this be a war of spell-checkers or will it be peace and harmony on the writing screen.  Stay tune.
-30-

Live Writer Test

We changed the layout of the blog and the DNS to which the URL points.

Now we need to see if the original Live Writer setting still apply or do we have to reset the editor?

-30-

We Are Back.

The changes were subtle but significant. We weren't sure if we blew the blog off the Internet, but it would seem the DNS corrections took. It was scary for a few moments, but we had confidence it would work. Now we have to convince Live Writer.
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Maintenance For Belltowernews.com

We are making some design changes early on Tuesday morning.  You may not be able to gain access to the site from 24 to 72 hours after midnight.

Meanwhile, go to Grazing Portal to keep up to date with the latest entries.

-30-

Bell Tower Disappeared

We've changed some of the setting and Bell Tower News seems to have disappeared. This is NOT a good thing!!

Chewing Gum and Soccer

del.icio.us Tags: Man City

It was in something I read on the Internet that said chewing gum made you smarter.  I am not so sure about that.  I rarely chew gum but a piece was offered to me during Coffee Hour this morning and impulsively I took it.  Normally, when people offer gum or a mint at a social gathering it means your breath might be on the brink of acting as a capable paint stripper.

But, as I am still chewing the gum hours later, I believe it has removed my ability to write at all.  Or it could be because of how little I know about Association Football? 

I do know that Manchester City has defeated Manchester United in a soccer game in the not too distant past.  I do know that is like the New Jersey Giants defeating the New England Patriots.  I do know that my friend, a new citizen of these United States, is a die hard Man City fan.  That's all I need to know to be able to say: Congratulations Man City!!!
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Kindle Has No Effect???

Technorati Tags: Kindle,Sony,Kodak,Polaroid

One of last things I read on the web today was a comment by someone at Sony saying the Kindle has had no effect on the sale of books. 

On what planet is this guy?  The Kindle has only been out a few weeks, to the general public at least, they are on back order well into May and they are only available in the US.  Of course they haven't had an effect on the market yet.  They are, in all reality, not ON the market yet.

An independent thought occurred to me this afternoon while waiting on-line for a burrito with my son.  We had just left the local Borders where he depleted his birthday gift cards by half.  While he was browsing the stacks, I sat in the café reading a sample of a novel called The Sufi and Jinn.  The sample ended right after a fable told to a gathering of believers.  It took me less than a second to decide to read rest of the book.  I clicked on buy and before I could get back to the home menu to select it, the entire book was now on my Kindle.

There was a touch of guilt on my part buying a book from Amazon.com while sitting in the café in the back of Borders.  It didn't last long as I watched my son walk by with a stack of books.  Borders was getting its own.

The independent thought I dropped a paragraph ago had to do with Kodak.  When a boy, I had a box Brownie. 

It wasn't an antique.  Don't go there. 

The trick with the Brownie was they cost next to nothing.  When you were finished taking the pictures, you sent the camera, film and all to Rochester N.Y.  The photos were returned with a refilled Brownie.  The money Kodak was making was in the sale of film and development.

Polaroid made its money from the film as well.  They recently stopped making the film.  Could digital photography have something to do with that?

How much money would Amazon.com make if they gave away the Kindles?  Would the increase in sales make up for the cost of manufacture and distribution?  Then there's the cost of the Whispernet.  That book didn't appear on my kindles in the Borders Café by magic.  It was downloaded thorough what is really a sophisticated broadband cellular network. 

So, maybe not for free, but at a subscription, to pay for the phone perhaps.  The more I think about this; the more sense is made of their original business plan.

Can you tell it's late?

Good Night All.
-30-

Two Hours At Google Reader

Using the Firefox Extension, Read-it-later, I was able this morning to hold for later viewing all of the links below while browsing through the Google Reader .

What assisted me in copying these links I as perused them in Firefox clicking on the Read-it-later and the Read-it icons was the newest note taking utility added to the laptop, Quicknote. Quicknote was praised in an earlier blog entry.

The Read-it-later extension is not only for Google Reader. It copies to its bookmark any link you may encounter while browsing. Therefore, one or two of the links below may have come from browsing places like Technorati or commandN, but most come from Google Reader, whither there are feeds from both of these sites

I have loaded the complete link below the names of the sites instead of embedding them. This way you can see, before you click on them, exactly where the link is taking you. However, some links were so long, in the original entry, they went off the page. Those I have embedded in the name of the link.

Read-It-Later Links

What is Relativity?
http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/080208-relativity.html

Tinker
http://www.tiinker.com/

GMail Skins

WOT For Firefox
http://www.freewarefiles.com/wot-for-firefox_program_39708.html

The Draco Tavern
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786159472/omnivoracious-20

Archbishop Defends Remarks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7236174.stm

Google Map Mashups

Stephen King On Writing
http://www.amazon.com/

First Look at Firefox 3.0
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061212-8409.html

WiFi Sites
http://hotspotr.com/wifi

Photo Enforced
http://www.photoenforced.com/

The Elegant Variation
http://marksarvas.blogs.com/

eHub-Flexadex
http://www.emilychang.com/go/ehub/app/flexadex/

Duke of York Trashes US
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7227627.stm

Creative Swearing (This is very fast but funny)

Configuring GMail Imap in Thunderbird

Daylife
http://www.daylife.com/

Romney Exits (Herald Tribune)

Dignity Village

Smoke at Ansonia

commandN #121

Add Content to Google Maps

Create PDF Magazines
http://www.pdf-mags.com/index.php

Cram Magazine (PDF)
http://www.cram-mag.com/

Daily Dose of Imagery
http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/

The Tenant Who Wrote Macbeth

Word and OpenOffice Compatibility

How to Fold a Towel Monkey

Digital Camera Reviews
http://www.dpreview.com/

Blogger Buzz
http://buzz.blogger.com/

LiveJournal Tags: Read-it Extension,Google Reader,Quicknotes. Live Writer

Firefox Back Up

It should be mentioned that Firefox, though no manipulation of my own, is now back up and running. 

When it activated all of my add-ons, along with their associated websites.  I had to go in and turn off the add-ons not currently in use.  It did surprise me there were so many.  I am a taster.  When I find mention of something that may make the browsing experience more interesting, will try it.  Mostly the reason I turn it off as to do with loading time or its conflict with a already running feature.  I only delete the ones that have an obvious detrimental effect on my set-up.

I wonder if this huge patch, whose pending arrival was all over ZDNet news. (Google Read Feed), was a precursor to Firefox's version 3.0.

-30-

Technorati Tags: Firefox Patch

Contemplating Ashes in the Cave

Technorati Tags: commandN,Google Reader,Kindle,Q10 Editor

It was good to start the morning with my newly arrived loose tea now on standard order with Amazon.com and a podcast from snowy Toronto.

Work in the trenches has kept me from keeping the blogs in good working order. I would love to promise improvement, but there is this quirky eating thing to which I have grown so accustomed. The other two distractions are, as before, the Google Reader and Kindle.

Our Google Reader subscription list is now a ridiculous number. However, the shortcuts, such as the letters m and j as well as the space bar do let me browse at a quicker pace. There is literature out there that says the human attention span is diminishing due to browsing in this manner. I don't know about that.

When mankind had little more to do then contemplate the ashes from last night's fire, the attention span may have been longer, but now with the entire world coming to our face on the computer screen, we need to be able to triage the information.

The program Q10, a full screen editor that brings me back to my DOS 8086, with the blue back ground and yellow print it helps to remove the distraction of bars and pop ups. I am using it now for the first copy of this entry.

The sound effect of the typewriter also soothes my ancient soul.

On the Kindle front, I have discovered Samples. I have mentioned a comparison between the Kindle and heroin. The offering of samples is along the same line.

This morning, before anything else, I went to the Amazon.com kindle books Web site and chose a dozen or so books to sample. Of the dozen, I chose to buy Gore Vidal's memoir. I am toying with The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes but will decide that after finishing Gore Vidal's book.
If you go down the right column on Belltowernews.com you will see the Google Reader box. I am constantly adding links in that box even when not making entries to the blog.

So, if you come to Belltowernews.com or any of the other Grazing Blogs, and there are no new entries, it would behoove you to at least glance at the Reader links.
Some of this stuff is fantastic.

Back to Google Reader!!!
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Firefox Upgrade Killed Firefox!!!

Firefox just updated itself.  It also updated all of the extensions-add-ons.  It activated all of the disabled extensions, of which there are many. 

For those of the extensions that have third party web pages begging for donations, it opened all of them  as well.  When I started to disable the extensions, FIREFOX HAS A PROBLEM box popped up. 

Now I can't get it to restart.  This is not good.  Not good at all.   
-30-

Belltower News and Grazing. What's the Connection?

A legitimate question was asked by one of our viewers.  "You constantly refer to Belltowernews.com as the original Grazing blog.  What connection is there between Belltower News and grazing?"

As I consider it, it's a wonder this question hasn't be asked earlier.  The answer is economics. 

A while back, when working as a solo development act, an establishment in Vermont asked me to help with the set-up of an on-line newsletter.  As was usual for back then, I created a domain name and a hosting site for the newsletter that was the same as its name, Belltower News.

The creation of this domain name was a bit premature.  They wanted the newsletter to reside on their own server as a link.  Haste makes waste.

Not wanting to be wasteful, I was looking for a place to link the newly created blog Random Thoughts Grazing.  I had found that the words Random and Thoughts in many variations were already used in many blogs.  So, I linked the blog to Belltowernews.com and changed its name  to fit the URL

Backwards engineering of a sort, but I like it.

There about a dozen or so grazing blogs still in operation. All of them do have the word Grazing in their title, just not this one.  It is in the subtitle.

--30--

BuzzNet Tags: Belltowernews.com

Twitter: What's Up?

The only one from whom I seem to be getting any information on Twitter is Leo Laporte.  He used the twitter email address to get his information from his visit to the Nile back to US.  Now, did the Internet connection for North Africa and India  collapse while he was there or after he left.  Hmm.

Then, in today's CommandN, Twitter add-ons were part of the weekly Tech-Tips.  Realizing I hadn't been on Twitter since last December I went in to see what I had left behind.  Pretty much nothing.

I let Twitter look at my GMail contacts only to find none of the several hundred people on my list seem to have Twitter accounts.  More likely, if they do, they're not using the official email address that would be found in my Thunderbird address book.

Jaiku makes much more sense.  That, and we have it as box on in the right column of Belltowernews.com

I need to read more about Twitter and see about the fuss.
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Technorati Tags: Twitter