Yeah, yeah, here’s my Google+ profile page. And what do you know? My shared items page is getting updated again now that I’ve started using Feeddler.
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/GinnyRED57
Link: 1 Ginny Gibbs – Google+
Yeah, yeah, here’s my Google+ profile page. And what do you know? My shared items page is getting updated again now that I’ve started using Feeddler.
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/GinnyRED57
Link: 1 Ginny Gibbs – Google+
They really should take him up on this.
Also, I have surrendered; I don’t welcome our Google Plus overlords, but I’ll let them in the house on a hot day and listen politely. And I like the clean “if you like this, please share” icons in Kevin’s post, so will implement that here and at Holy Moly.
And so I put my resources where my mouth is. As the former lead designer for Google Reader, I offer my services to Google, rejoining for a three month contract in order to restore and enhance the utility of Google Reader, while keeping it in line with Google’s new visual standards requirements. I will put my current projects on hold to ensure that Google Reader keeps its place as the premier news reader, and raises the bar of what a social newsreader can be.
Yes, I had to throw in the Despicable Me! and Firefly references. It’s late, and I’m in GReader withdrawal.
I used to scroll GReader constantly. I probably shared too much (there is no overshare in Google Reader, but if there is, I did it). I missed the chance to meet 2 (TWO) of my sharebros in Colorado and now I’ve lost connection with a very small number of interesting people, including several Muslim gentlemen who shared all kinds of interesting tech gadget stories, plus incredible food articles and recipe sites during Ramadan.
I’ll miss those guys, though I didn’t interact much with anyone other than with ***Dave, Les, and Stan. They’re all acquaintances of ***Dave’s via his blog, which I used to read in Bloglines – BLOGLINES, FOR CHRISSAKE – before plain, yet beguiling Google Reader (GReader) came along.
And sooo, I signed up for Bloglines. Can’t share, but it’s the principle. Grrr.
I hadn’t bothered to actively seek out people to follow and be followed by; GReader allowed me to be as social, or asocial, as I wished to be. When I tried to sign in to Google Plus after the “share” button was replaced by the G+, I got bored, frustrated, and irritated, so I stopped trying and watched TV.
A lot of TV.
I think I’ve watched every episode of “Storage Wars” that was queued up on TiVo.
Dammit!! I want my GReader!
However, if this story has it right, I might soon have something to read with.
AND SHARE, DAMMIT TO HELL AND A FLYING PASS AT SANTY CLAUS.
One code-savvy, soon-to-be-former Google Reader user would rather create a new site for the RSS-feeds than switch to Google+. Last Friday, Google announced that it was getting rid of Reader’s social features — the ability to follow other people, to share content within Reader and so forth — in order to encourage more people to use Google+ for those kinds of activities within a week. The backlash online was immediate and visceral, and a small group of protesters even picketed outside the company’s DC offices, calling for an Occupy Google Reader movement. We tried contacting Google a number of times over the past week about how they were responding to the complaints and when the changes would go into place but never received a reply.
Hearing radio silence from Google, self-identified Google Reader fanatic (also known as a Sharebro) Francis Cleary decided to take things into his own hands. Cleary tried using Google+ a bit but says it didn’t feel right. So over the past ten days, Cleary has been devoting every minute of his free time to building his own social RSS site that will keep Reader’s dying features alive. For now, he’s calling it HiveMined.
The service is built to work just like Google Reader but better. On the HiveMined blog, Cleary describes the idea quite simply: “A replacement for Google Reader. Basically an RSS reader with a bit of social thrown in.” Cleary explained the idea further to The Atlantic Wire. “The way to think about it is that the people on the hive are going to mine out the best content on the internet,” said the 26-year-old Pennsylvania native, who settled on the name with the help of 40 other Sharebros.
via The Sharebros Are Building a Google Reader Replacement – Technology – The Atlantic Wire
For some time now, I’ve been unable to blog easily from my iPhone because the “Press This” plug in stopped working well – I suspected it was because of all the extra crap Google Reader adds with the “$UTM” tracking codes to the URL. I’d also noticed that the “Press This Reloaded” plugin worked okay, except that the link it added was only “complete” (including the title of the page linked, the a href HTML tags) if I happened to select some text to quote.
It turns out that’s the way Scribu, the plugin developer wrote it. He was assuming everyone would let WordPress add the HTML automatically if the URL was on a line of its own, but only reluctantly added the “via (HTML tag link)” code that the original Press This added when people requested it at his support site.
Well, I went in and looked at the actual plugin, and realized that all I needed to do was tweak it so that even if there was no selected text to be quoted, I could have it add a “Link:” preface and the nicely formatted link and page title. It’s under the self::$content section; I just copied the line that adds the link with a “via ” preface and added it to the “else” statement. Decided to change the preface to “Link: ” because a link with no text selection or explanation made more sense than one prefaced by “Via .”
I’ll have to update this on my other blogs, eventually, and on the iPhone and iPad. But it’s working for me and that’s all I ask.
Love the “press this reloaded” plugin, it’s beautiful and was a long time needed! I’ve noticed though that the “via” link is missing from the bottom of the reposted materials. Having to put that in manually is icky.
via WordPress › Support » [Plugin: Press This Reloaded] Press this reloaded no “via” link.
Passed along by Mashable, a video that’s worth watching today.
“I made this song using only sounds from Apple products and Steve’s 2005 Stanford commencement speech. Every instrument, including drums, has been sampled from a Mac product, tuned by ear, and replayed in the context of the song.â€
First came the “Running Chicken” nebula, and now comes a cosmic “Fried Egg.” A European telescope has captured the best image yet of one of the rarest classes of stars in our universe, and astronomers playfully point out that the cosmic scene resembles an egg white around a yolky center.
via Fried egg nebula: European telescope captures image of monster star [VIDEO] – CSMonitor.com.
Lots to blog in small, short bursts… we’re back from vacation and it’s been several days already, and the blog-kage is starting to give.
David is out of town on business, and was a little bummed that he had to leave on Monday after we only arrived home on Sunday evening. He hasn’t even seen Rileycat yet; we boarded the cat at the vet for the trip and I couldn’t pick him up until after work on Monday, several hours after David left again from O’Hare.
If you don’t have a headset, microphone or speakers, you can still use Skype to send and receive instant messages. However, to make and receive calls with Skype, you need either a headset, or a microphone and speakers.
Skype requires a computer headset, not a telephone headset. A computer headset has two separate connectors – one for the microphone and one for the speaker. Some newer headsets connect via USB.
Ensure that the headset has a microphone. Alternatively, you can also buy a handset, as long as it has two connectors so that it can be plugged into your computer.
via Help for Skype: How do I use a headset, microphone or speakers with Skype?
We’ve spent the last couple of days trying to get Skype working on either my cell phone or my desktop computer; tonight we finally SUCCEEDED after I went through some troubleshooting yesterday. I think the problem was that I had my headset mic enabled, but had the built-in speakers on the monitor enabled instead of the headset speakers. Thus, I could only hear myself (test echo) and not David the other day.
My fancy headset just paid for itself in LOLs; just now while talking to David I flipped the little voice-mod switch to morph into Space Squirrel. This cracked David up, so in revenge (REVENGE!) he activated the speaker on his cell phone, so everyone he works with that’s on this trip could hear me squeakily laughing and joking.
General hilarity ensued for a short time. A VERY short time. And then it was time to put Space Squirrel back into stasis.
This is the mixer panel for my headset – I have the ability to morph my voice using various preset mods, but Space Squirrel is the likely choice if I ever decide to do voice on Second Life while logged in as my male alt (who is a Victorian Steampunk version of my dad, really). To voice-morph, all I have to do is hit the third “gaming” switch on the left hand side of my headset, it’s set up to invoke WinAmp (for internet radio and music) and switch streams on the other two buttons.
That’s about enough blogging for the moment, I was on a roll cleaning up the kitchen and doing laundry when David called and we messed around getting Skype to finally work.
Riley’s been doing really well since we got his prednisolone reformulated as a tuna-flavored liquid treat – he loves lapping it up from a plastic syringe that’s designed for “oral” applications. Thank goodness for Keefer’s Pharmacy:
Keefer’s Pharmacy, along with being a regular pharmacy, is also proud to be a Compounding Pharmacy. This means that Keefer’s has the ability to make up medications that aren’t commercially available. The spectrum of compounding is broad, but Keefer’s covers almost everything. And, in addition to compounding for people, Keefer’s Pharmacy makes up almost a significant portion of their medications for pets.
via Compounding Info.
Sometime next year I’ll get around to blogging about our wonderful recent vacation to the Olympic Peninsula and Seattle – one of the most fun things was dropping in on my friend Seattle Tammy at her store, Books on 7th, in Hoquiam Washington.
You can even BUY BOOKS FROM THEIR ONLINE STORE, and I happen to know they just got in a big consignment of old cookery books…
Turns out Hoquiam is now famous after a recent incident with a deceased member of the Family Mustelidae put them on the international news wires, and LOLmarten images went viral.
“We’re not all running around here with weasels,†the mayor of Hoquiam, Jack Durney, insists.
His tone is genial, but he admits to a level of frustration as today the Google alerts for “Hoquiam†pile up from national sources, most containing an explanation of the distinction between a marten and a weasel.
“A marten is a member of the weasel family,†helpfully concludes the ur-AP story on the assault by a man also carrying a dead marten.
What Durney wishes national media would ask him about is Governor Gregoire awarding Hoquiam a Smart Communities Award for the third year in a row. Hoquiam’s downtown revitalization campaign won under the “Development Project to Implement a Plan†category. Radio station KBKW reports:
The ongoing project has focused on public improvements to downtown including new ADA accessible sidewalks, street trees, decorative lamp posts and a new riverfront walkway. Hoquiam has seen a burst in new business activity and business improvements through the opening of Tully’s, Levee Feed and Pet Supply, Books on 7th, Pure Clothing, and the 8th Street Ale House to name a few.
via Beyond Dead Weasels, a New Hoquiam Emerges From the Trees | The SunBreak.
HEY YA!!! I was wondering why all the FUCK YOU!!! I’M A MARTEN! shirts suddenly appeared in Second Life (Tammy made some to give away to mutual friends), and I’d seen a few LOLmarten macros in my feed, too.
Only the other day I was commiserating with Tammy about business being slow and recommended she find herself some free publicity, and here she is in the news, sorta kinda, with dead martens asserting their martenhood all over town. Or possibly minkness, as Tammy notes:
The Dave Barry rule applies here: You just can’t make this stuff up. Hoquiam Police Chief Jeff Myers was contacted by the Game Department, as martens hadn’t been seen on the Harbor for 50 years. After seeing a photo, they replied “Never mind, it’s a mink.”
If you love books, Tammy’s shop in Hoquiam is a fun place to stop by – small enough to be cozy, big enough to have an interesting and eclectic selection. We also patronized the 8th Street Ale house for lunch, where she and I enjoyed our Hoppy Bitch Ales very much, thank you.
With all this world-wide attention focused on Hoquiam, it seems poised to make great strides as the center of all your marten-based small predator needs. It’s a cute town, aiming to get cuter with the planned walkway along the waterfront. Drop by sometime soon! If it turns out it really was a mink, that’s okay, too.