Quick Friday Night Link

I was moved by this photo of Beatrix Potter allegedly taken in Newport, Rhode Island in 1902. 

 

 

 

 

 

LiveJournal Tags: Shorpy

Aggressive Updaters

Technorati Tags: AIR update

Let it be known to start I am sure that I agreed in the set-up to allow for active updates. It is my default behavior. AIR asked, in a pop up box on the desktop, if it could update AIR. Being busy with a half dozen open windows, including this blog writer, I took a moment to tick the agree box and went back to my business. The update progress box buried itself behind the open windows on the second screen.

Then, with no apparent cause, everything ground to a halt. I couldn‘t even bring up Ctrl-Alt-Delete to tell me where the problem lay. I am patient with the PC. It does get moody occasionally. This usually happens for a few moment while the AVG virusware starts grinding its machinery into action.

But no, this was a total freeze of the system. I went to make a pot of tea to see if it would work itself out. After an hour, nope.

I cold booted and every thing worked fine.This is except the blog I had just written regarding the RSS feed reader in Opera was no more. I had no energy left to write it over so we‘ll leave that for another day.

Before people start wagging their fingers, I KNOW. Save and close all windows before installing or upgrading. IKNOW!!! It was just that this pop up box wasn't so much saying it was going to do anything drastic. It was more of a “pardon me, do you mind if I do this thing while you continue working?“

Mea Culpa. Mea Culpa Maximus. Caveat AIR Updater.

What Do You Have Hidden in Your RSS Reader?

I should say readers. At the moment I am not even sure how many readers I am using.

The two independent readers that I have running now are Thunderbird and NewsGator’s FeedDemon. Then the one I have used the most in the past few weeks has been the Google Reader. That was, until I discovered the RSS power in Opera 9.27.

Now I am slowly carting the feeds from the three mentioned above over into Opera. It makes sense to me to have my browser incorporated with the email and RSS feeds. It also has, in the same “pane” news.opera.com. I haven’t browsed into the news-dot area for a long time. I was surprised to find how active the java-based files are. Room for everyone out here.

One of the more interesting RSS feeds for me is my daily dose of currently obscure but once famous citizen of the UK to be found in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Today they are profiling Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell, the 5th Earl Russell (1937–2004)

But, I discovered over a few days that the photo to the right changes each day because it is linked photo to the biodujour. You will have to go to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography to discover exactly who it is in the photograph to the left.

LiveJournal Tags: RSS Readers

Back to Work at the Belltower

Can’t say that was the worst headache I’ve ever had, but it might have been the longest.  I am so glad I was able to get to sleep.  Over the week the five hour nights can add up to a subtle form of sleep deprivation.  Creeping exhaustion would be a good name for it.

We are moving most of the RSS feeds that we’ve been monitoring on Google Reader over to the RSS feeds available native to Opera 9.27 in its Sun-Java Environment.  Opera was out browser of choice for a long time.  Then came the Firefox wave.  Now that it’s email and RSS readers are so easy to use, and its so far universal compatibility with each page visited, it has returned as our default browser.

Without the dozens of add-ons and extensions we were constantly loading into Firefox, Opera 9.27 has done all we asked of it without any needed additions.  It has them available, but no special need has arisen where I would need go searching, yet.  I am sure my curious mind will take to the outer reaches of this browser, but for now, well take the floor model for a spin.

The point of interest this week for me is the Opera Community.  It is no longer the eclectic combination of geek this and geek that.  It has come over to the social aspect of using the net.  We’’re gong to start a grazing blog in the Opera Community this evening.  We’ll report back here about its ease of use along with the features that may be unique to this type of blog.

This is along the lines of what the Famous Grazing series was about in its beginning. We made a point of going around to all of the few online blogging communities available in 1984 and came back here to the Belltower to report on them.  We’ll do it tonight for the Opera Community.

I love Ctrl-Z

LiveJournal Tags: Opera

Booking Off

I don’t know if Blog Writers can call in sick, but I am going to tonight.  MSG Headache #1 won’t go away.  I am going to try early to bed to see if that helps. 

-30-

A book for Children of all Ages

This is a wonderful book for children.
Published for $5.00 on Lulu.com

LiveJournal Tags: Children’s Book

Twitter Anonymous

LiveJournal Tags: Twitter

This post was going to start with the general useless time spent on Twitter.  This was inspired by watching Twittervision-3D for fifteen minutes this morning.  Then it came to me that using that site, I can tell the where in the day the tweeters are in their remarks. 

Considering the number of people I follow in Australia and Europe, this will be helpful.  Then a Tweet popped up about a tanker truck explosion in the Midwest.  It was from @commuter. 

Went to @commuter which is based at Commuter Feed.  There I learned if I am stuck in traffic I can send a Tweet to @commuter BOS for traffic in and north of Boston and to @commuter PVD for traffic south of Boston and into and beyond Providence RI. 

It  won’t remove me from the predicament, but, if done as a community, it may save me from future frustration.

I still haven’t found Twitter Anonymous yet.  I can see that forming in the near future.

Sunday Morning, Six A.M..

The purpose of a Sunday Morning, is to allow you to wake up when your body, rather than some mechanical device inspires it.  This is only true if you don’t have children, dogs, cats, snoring spouses or various body parts that require your attention.

It was two out of the bunch this morning.  Which two shall remain unknown to the general public.

A lot of what would have been written here under MUSING has been relegated to Twitter.  Instead of a lengthy rambling, such as this, on Twitter, the entry is limited to 140 characters. 

There are hacks that will allow for longer, and you can load links, mostly miniaturized to expand the thought, but still, it is within the 140 characters I try to frame the complete thought.

All of the RSS readers this morning are filled to the brim.  We opened them.  We closed them. 

 

We brewed tea and read the news.  Then, after half of the tea was consumed, we wrote this rambling comment.

LiveJournal Tags: Sunday Morning

Authors Who Once Knew Better Words...

Now only use four letter words... is how the song Anything Goes speaks about modern authors, mid 20th Century. 

Not so about Sheridan Hay. 

I am currently reading Sheridan’s book, The Secret of Lost Things.  It is an introspective novel about a 15 year-old Tasmanian native transplanted from her antipode island to the smaller island of Manhattan.  There she begins work in a Dickensian bookstore located in the Madison Square-Union Square area of the island.

Each of the characters is fully developed enough to fit their place in the story.  But, though it may seem like one, this is not a book review.  Good Book-Read it!  There, that’s the review.

What it is about is my vocabularic shame.  In my youth I developed the habit of writing words I didn’t know in the  fly.  Then, unless the word was critical to the understanding of the story, I would, at the end of the day, go to the dictionary and learn the word.

Now we have The Kindle.  Each time a word appears that stops me short, and in this book it happens all too often, I use the Kindle’s instant dictionary referral tool. It can honestly be said, I will probably never use any of the words I have looked up in my Vulgate speech, but, I will in Scrabble.  I learned early in life to take Kipling’s words in his poem If, “...nor talk too wise.” to heart.  

What pleases me most is each of these words exactly fits their meaning as used in the sentence and the story.  Where it throws me, is are these the words a barely educated girl from a small village in Tasmania would use?  Have you every held a conversation with an Australian?  They do tend toward the saltier, more colorful side of the English Language.

Again, The Secret of Lost Things, by Sheridan Hay

LiveJournal Tags: Kindle,Sheridan Hay

Ping.fm - What does it do? Not Sure!

We were sent an invitation to Ping.fm.  We set this blog up to receive messages from it.  We’re not sure how this is helpful because there are so many other ways to distribute information to a blog.

We sent it the sgtret’s Twitter address. It posted this shortened URL: http://ping.fm/GBmux (20 characters) to a blank blog page with no active link and no other message indicating its source.

When we used Thwirl to shorten the same URL: http://is.gd/5EV  (16 characters) appeared.
If you would like an invitation code, let me know and I will twitter DM it to you.

If we discover the use, we’ll let you know.

LiveJournal Tags: ping.fm

Just a Long Day

I will halfheartedly go through a few RSS feeds as my very tired body winds down from a long, very long work day in the nonvirtual world.
Be very surprised if I  come back this evening with any links.  I’ll probably save them to Read it Later for tomorrow morning.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

New England Spring Cleaning - The Car

We brought the utility car to the dealer for the spring coupon oil change. Saved $71.00. This is a good thing because we needed to replace the cabin air filter. It would seem mice have made a nest in there over the winter. There was an odor we attributed to something the kids had buried in the back seat. They denied all involvement, but we, of course knew better. We, of course, were wrong.

We learned the other day that the “healthy” sea air we’ve been enjoying off of Popham Fort in ME actually may be less healthy than the air we breathe in downtown Cambridge. Higher ozone and tanker fuel exhaust makes it close to unfit for human lungs. The good news, the melanoma will get you before your lungs dissolve.

Using Flock

Flock has a built in blog editor.  Not sure to which blog this will be posted, but we will give it a try.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Some Not-tech Grazing Tonight

LiveJournal Tags: TV Squad

When I saw the spoiler for the next season of NCIS on TV Squad, I thought this would be a good time to do a graze that didn’t involve my self centered tech interests. 

The added value had to be it was of some interest to me as well.  I won’t link to the NCIS spoiler because at the moment it’s more of a tease than a true spoiler.  It is more like what follows a newscaster when they start the sentence: “Coming right up after this break...” and then you don’t see the item for another two or three breaks.

This link to The Mysteries of Cheers on TV Squad is of some interest.  There is a link to the blog put out by the man who is credited with creating the show.  Here’s a spoiler.  If you visit Boston, take you picture outside the Cheer’s Bar across from the Public Gardens on Beacon.  If you go inside, you may be severely disappointed.

The second TV Squad link is to this news about the SciFi series Firefly.  I have the final DVD, but this is a report of a Blue Ray boxed set.  I will wait till its offered in  the big box store, but I will get it.

The big news here though is from SyFyPortal.com.  It is an article about the  upcoming Stargate Universe series.  This one has spoiler warnings all over it.  The “portal” website looked like its name was Battlestar Galactica Ringtones.

And finally, I was hoping to say nice things about the new online radio from the UK Radiopaq, but, trying it from a raw copy of Firefox 3.05b, I could get none of the links to open without a warning message popping up that I didn’t have this or that plug it. 

Oddly enough, I have had no problem with any other online radio/plog/YouTube embedded video.
Oh, well.

Spoiler on latest commandN

If you've never seen Amber throw a cell phone, this one is worth the visit. Also, after the credits run, there is a short piece with amber remarking to an audience of what appear to be geeks, about the importance of using the live comments on your site to retain a readership.

I was hoping for day-light, but it was promised for next week.


Technorati Tags: commandN

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CommandN # 129 is posted!

You can find commandN # 129 here!!

-30-

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Technorati Tags: commandN

The Internet, by Sandro Botticelli

A late friend of mine once compared the internet to the seven gates of hell in Dante's Divine Comedy. He was a professor of Medieval History at Fordham University in NYC.

We all have our own points of view.

Then I came across this illustration of the Botticelli's Chart of Dante's Hell and his comparison made a lot more scene to me:





Technorati Tags: Botticelli

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A Barren Landscape

This is not to say there isn't anything out there in cyberspace worth seeing. There is the Bossy Lady Road Trip, there is a meeting in a pub in Jamaica Plain, Charlton Heston along with several dozen more in Iraq are dead, and Leo woke before three in the morning Tasmanian Time to be interviewed for a radio show. His shots of the Female Factory and the Hobart Harbor are worth a visit. But, other than that, not much going on:

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Early Edition Graze

LiveJournal Tags: Net Neutrality

Brian Tong has compared the MacBook Air to the Thinkpad X300 in this Prizefight video.  To me, most of the product specific reviews at CNet compare to being shown shoes by a bored shoe salesman, but Brian puts his all into these episodes.

Amber MacArthur, on her AmberMac blog is putting out a community announcement on Net Neutrality.  If you are reading this from Canada, it would seem you would be foolish not to watch this.

The link to the Huffington Post article on the same subject can be found on the sgtret tweet.  But even funnier is the Tracey Ullman promo where she lampoons the  founder of the Huffington Post.

Twitter is a Drug.

Drug may be too strong a word. Distraction may be a better description.

Where I should be reading each of the "1000+" feeds to glean those of interest to me for inclusion in the nightly graze, I find myself fascinated by the career change of @Veronica or the *EXPLOSION* reported at 251 Berendo Street by @LAFD.

Most of the people I follow on Twitter speak of things Geek. It is comforting to know there are people out there who speak the language native to one's brain.

There are others who speak geek, but are pursuing an adventure such as @taxiNYC. This is a young man who is taking us through the maze of becoming a cab driver in the City of New York. It's better than most reality TV because it is totally from the POV of the person living the experience.

The trick with Twitter for me is to not restrict myself to the comments on Thwirl, but to go to the links mentioned or to the fellow Twitterites mentioned in public replies.



Technorati Tags: Twitter

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Funniest Billy Connolly Video

We were sharing the video of Robin Williams explaining to origins of golf when a friend said it had to be the funniest Scottish humor he’d ever seen.  I thought for a moment and NO!

Billy Connolly and the Old Woman on the Bus was the funniest bit of Scottish humor short of the sleeping Scotsman joke that is not for mixed company.  This is our fist attempt to imbed a You Tube video using Windows Liver Writer.

Twitter Traffic - Two Updates and and Acquisiton in two hours

About two hours ago my second screen where Thwirl sits, the users and their avatars disappeared. I asked quickly with a Tweet, and then went into the preferences. While I was setting that up, the automatic updates to 7.4 began.

I went back into Thwirl and it looked okay, but there was a problem when you clicked on the link. Instead of going to the user's Twitter page in FF, it went to a C:\drive address. I emailed info@thwirl.org regarding it.

A few minutes later, user @waysutten sent a tweet that he was upgrading to Thwirl 7.5! Point Five?? I has just gone up to point 4. Not wanting to be left behind, I installed it. Linking problem disappeared. That was the fastest fix online that I have ever seen.

Then, an hour or so later, user @duncanriley reported that Thwirl had been acquired by Seemic

It was like an act of nature appearing right in front of my right eye. The left eye watches the other screen.

I can sleep soundly now.

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Technorati Tags: thwirl

Scribefire Keeps on Ticking

When we upgraded to Firefox 3.05b this morning many more add-ons went pink than did when we went from FF 2.## To 3.04b. Noticeable ones such as the sidebar commander. But, surprise of all surprises, Scribefire, the extension with which I am writing this quick entry.

The only feature of Scribefire that I find somewhat cumbersome, is the constant request for site passwords. If you put the wrong password in, it takes out all of the settings for that blog. This requires a full reinstall of the blog. It is no great effort, blogs install easily with the correct information, more of an annoyance that inspires me to know the credentials for each of our five blogs.

On the first they posted a link to a video explaining the extension. The brogue is understandable but the flitting around the screen following the tinkerbell arrow did get me slightly sea sick.

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Robin WIlliams Impromptu Debate Delay

Thanks to Chris Garret's Twitter, we found this link to Robin Williams taking over the stage due to a delay of a debate about the future of news.

I keep a copy of Robin Williams piece on the origins of golf on my desktop for whenever I need a gut wrenching laugh.




Technorati Tags: Robin Williams

A Fool & His Graze are Soon Parted

The Problogger did a video mashup based on the question Why do you blog?  It is an interesting blog entry, but if you have low system memory and are using Firefox, turn off everything else before watching it.

This is April Fools day.  It would appear this is a day when bloggers go slightly nuts.  There will be no links to any of this nonsense here, but if you Google Mahalo + Steve Jobs + Daily + Veronica Belmont you’ll find one of them.

This doesn’t  leave much to add to the graze this evening.  But we always find something.

Noneck Noel is putting together a series of short videos about becoming a taxi driver in NYC.  It’s worth a look.  The beard cutting scene in episode#4 borders on Andy Warhol strange, but fascinating none the less.

That’s it for 4/1/08  I am afraid to give any more links on a day like today.

Online Radio

I am listening to Buzz Out Loud Episode 686 with Veronica Belmont. Her voice is almost as soothing as Leo's. It is so pleasant to listen to people who are aware of what is going on in the blogosphere.

Keely Smith Singing A Hard Day's Night

Keely Smith Singing A Hard Day's Night

On Songza: Moon River - Pavarotti & Gustafson

There had been a rumor that Luciano Pavarotti, (bless his soul,) and Nancy Gustafson had made a recording of Henry Mancini's Moon River. I didn't believe it.

I went to the site recommended by Will Pate on the latest commandN, put in Moon River as the search item, and there it was, item # 5! What a kick!!!

Geekbrief's Link to Woopra

Geek Briefs link to Woopra.

We're not a "top level blog" but we like the pure cheerfulness of Cali.

No gerbils were hurt in the production of this plog.

commandN # 128 Up and Running

My comments to commandN#128:

It is so good to see the windows in the background. The story about the video camera from Comcast checking to see who is the room to modify the programming offered. That sounds a bit like urban legend. Amber says she doesn't have a "huge presence on line." Little does she know. Washing machines eat socks. (See the plog to understand that one.)

The cacti behind Jeff are incredibly provocative I am sure, being you are Canadian, this wasn't done on purpose.

Three Blogging Utilities Settled In

LiveJournal Tags: RSS Grazing

In the past three weeks or so I have tested and then incorporated into my blogging/twitter routine three programs that reside either on the side, in the tool bar or in the background.  Each, in  a very short time, have become tools of the trade.

The most senior of the three is Jens Muller’s JC&MB Quicknote Ver. 5.4. 

There is a few pixels high and wide line sitting on the left side of the screen.  When I tap it, a customized note-pad materializes.  I write my note and tap outside the box and it disappears.   It has a password protected capability as well as almost unlimited room for expansion.  It has replaced my bringing up Notepad to take quick notes.

The second in seniority on my system is Read it Later from the Idea Shower.  I am a very fast reader.  Having to constantly stop and take notes as I scanned the hundreds of feeds in my RSS Reader slowed me considerably.  Once I installed Read it Later into Firefox, all I had to do was either tap the toolbar icon or right click and choose Read it later.  Then, once the feed has been milked, I can go back and peruse that which I was able to effortlessly glean.

The third and junior of the bunch is Texter.  There was another program I had loaded.  It was recommended as a must-have program for efficient writing.  I was convinced and installed the trial version.  It was okay.  Not spectacular.  In support I went to the home site to register a copy for home use. 

The price was OVER $50.00. It is being offered by a man with whom we found much in common.  We were ready to fork over payment when an added fee of $3.00 for use of PayPal popped up.  In pure emotional reaction, I canceled the order and scraped all vestiges of the program from the system.

Then Texter came to our attention while Twittering.  It does all that the other program did for me but is simpler to use.  It doesn’t wave itself around constantly reminding us of its existence.  It just helps create the script that cuts typing speed in half.

An Intelligent Conversation

I was listening to an intelligent conversation regarding the evolution of the internet and the methods of communication now used to convey news to people. One of the younger members of the conversation remarked that he had never read a book or goes to the movies or watches TV. There is too much on the net to worry about the "canned fish" that gets served up on TV.

He didn't say network TV, he said TV. He would rather have the personal interaction with the world that he has on places like Twitter, Facebook or places like qik.com and Friendfeed.
Is this where the geek inherit the earth? Or, was it the survival of the geekest?

Testing photoplow!

I am posting this badge here and other style blogs to test the link.

Snow in Northern WA

Two photos taken by our correspondent in Northern Washington state can be viewed at the Famous Grazing Movable Type test blog.

Check the junk folder in Gmail

Even though I have IMAPed the GMail account to be read in Thunderbird, I have found it good policy to go into GMail itself and scan the junk folder. This morning there were 486 messages relegated and deposited by google into the junk folder.

I don't read the message topics first. I read the From column. Occasionally I will see names that look familiar, me is a favorite of these basta cads, then I look at the message topic. Usually I want to sell myself V pills or lengthen various parts of my anatomy. No surprise there.

But, as happened this morning, I see the name of a friend. This morning it was the Chelsea Finch.

She had changed her email address and google decided it was a deception. I don't blame Google at all. What I like is, all I need to do is check the box next to the message and then tick off Not Span in the top GMail toolbar. Zing! It goes to the Inbox, where, just to make sure this doesn't happen again, I will add the return address to the Contacts folder.

Then, I go back, scan the rest again and delete all. I know there are some who let GMail keep the spam. It will delete the files in a proscribed time. The problem for those of us who scan it for real messages is that we get two to three hundred of the buggers a day. If we let 30 days pile up it makes scanning visually nigh on impossible.


Technorati Tags: GMail Spam

Pogue on The Flip

In today's review Pogue listed a link to this comparison of the $149.00 Flip camera and one costing over $3,000.00. If you are considering a Flip, this is a must look.
He also reviewed it in a previous article written on 3/20/2008. It was a mention The Tech Guy by Leo Laporte of this camera and on TWiT that brought it to our attention.
We've put it on our wish list on Amazon.com.


Technorati Tags: Flip Camera

ScribeFire Stable on FF 3.04b

Before testing the email program mentioned in the last blog entry, I need to verify that ScribeFire was still working on FF 3.04b now that the extension was upgraded.


Technorati Tags: Scribefire

Looking at Other Readers...

LiveJournal Tags: RSS Grazing

I was zipping though the 739 items on my Google Reader this evening, looking for bit’s and pieces to load into the graze this evening when the phrase, “The art of fake fiction,” flew by my eyes. Unfortunately I hit the space bar before getting into the message.  I just found the phrase fascinating.

In an earlier episode I was clucking proudly of all of the add-on that I’d divested of Firefox when using 3.04b.  Then they went and redesigned the Add-on page to make it easier to find extensions that WILL run with FF 3.##.  I’ve only added six so far.  I am waiting for RoboForm to catch up.  If I know them, it  won’t  be offered until a stable version is loaded.

Good news is that ScribeFire updated itself with my last universal update attempt.  This is being written in Windows Live Writer, but ScribeFire is the tool on the belt.

I am trying out Shyftr, an aggregator that may be better than Google Reader.  Let me give it a few minutes...

It took me about six minutes to get it all set up.  What I found was the Louis Gray blog.  It is for early adopters.  Okay, that’s us.  Have we found the mother ship?  This piece on Internet addiction is a worthy read.  The ironic part of it to me is that I found it browsing through an RSS Feed reading, I TWITTERED the author and saved the feed to Read-it-Leader.   I should read the article again.  There are six other links to similar articles.

Texter may have been mentioned in passing in previous entries  The Lifehacker article has a download button directly on it.  Watch the videos in this article as well to get an idea of the advanced features this seemingly small program has to offer.  It’s also free, meaning it doesn’t cost $53.00 US with a $3.00 PayPal  fee attached.

I love Thunderbird.  It is my workhorse of an email program. 

 

But I am also a test driver.  I recently installed an IMAP connection to a GMail account on Opera 9.#.  It worked fine, except to gain access to it, I needed to open Opera and all attached to it.  I am now trying a small email client I found on Feedburner called  eMailya - we’ll tell you how it works on first blush.

I just got carsick watching, from his coffee cup holder, Jason Calacanis drive home to Brentwood. 

Good Night Gracie.

Unfare Zemata Test

Source: WikipediaIt made no sense to me that Zemanta wasn't working on my blogger editor. I went back in for a second look and saw my No Script icon along the status bar had its red circle with slash markings. Once I opened it and set it to allow, wham the Zemanta bar appeared to the right of the editor. SO far, it has photgraphs such as this: L7 encircled. I think it's an album cover.

The articles listed below the editor are all about Zemanta, not surprising. They are from funkykaraoke.blogspot.com, fourstars.com, blogherald.com, readwriteweb.com, techcrunch.com, tadejhq.com. The first listed link is one day old and the last is two days old. Recent stuff.

If I change the subject to something like Leo Laporte, Petaluma, Sonoma, Marin counties California or the Democratic primary coming up in one of the midwestern states and Pennsylvania. If I mention the New York Times or the Guardian.uk.co then all of the choices on the bar suddenly changed.

Ah, I just discovered that when you click on the gallery selection, it changes, not adds a photo. I first had the L7 thumbnail, then a photo of Leo and then a photo of this clocktower in Petaluma.

Zemanta is cute, but, I don't see much use for it the type of blogs we publish.