Monthly Archives: August 2008

Mostly Links today, but some really neat stuff in those links.

That’s Odd:

First, here is a list of odd numbers, made of odd numbers, where the sum of the digits is also odd – 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 111, 113, 115, 117, 119, 131, 133, 135, 137, 139, 131, 133, 135, 137, 139, 151, 153, 155, 157, 159, 171, 173, 175, 177, 179 – odd isn’t it?

Quote of the Week:

“If you run from danger, then you’ll run from anything you’re afraid of!” ~Dan Delyon

For more quotable quotes click here. It will be well worth your time.

Everybody wants to be famous:

In this post, a virtual unknown becomes very popular for one post by addressing that universal, but incredibly strange, principle that, like the rich who just keep getting richer, the famous just keep getting more famous and the un-famous just get ignored. It is a well written, post but is out of character with the rest of the site so I am not sure that he will get any long term readers. In my comment on the post I mention that consistently interesting posts are required to keep an audience.

Picture find of the week:

This site tells the story of several families that adopted kids from China. It has some really great pictures. Here a two of my favorites.

Twitter:

	lgedeon Ok, so you are looking at my profile and saying, “duh”, but I am just starting to realize how many posts I have written in the last year! 08:23 PM August 28, 2008 from web
	lgedeon Wow! I have written so much about China lately that I can’t find the post I am looking for by just typing “China” in my search box. 08:19 PM August 28, 2008 from web
	seo_in_seattle So the other one could have a chance to drive! 06:38 PM August 28, 2008 from web
	seo_in_seattle Why did the Siamese twins go to England? 06:36 PM August 28, 2008 from TwitBin
	lgedeon You know I really like the way Firefox 3 looks. I normal don’t care / don’t notice, but FF3 just looks nice. 06:20 PM August 28, 2008 from web
	lgedeon @Cullens_Girl I try not to speak geek too much. Plenty of that online already, but occasionally I have to. Just ignore the unintelligible. 05:09 PM August 28, 2008 from web in reply to Cullens_Girl
	giddytab My kids are all wearing camouflage to the park tomorrow, so I guess they’ll be easy to find….er….wait a minute….. 11:48 AM August 28, 2008 from web
	mikedoe Limericks can solve most problems. 11:52 AM August 27, 2008 from web
	giddytab It’s beginning to feel a lot like fall 10:59 AM August 27, 2008 from web

Image via Wikipedia

I must be crazy. I love working on the computer but some of the best days of my life have been ones where I did not touch a computer. I just went 36 hours without opening a computer. I did not even twitter, and only took a few pictures (of birds and a sunset, so nothing techy there either). I did give computer related advice to someone at the Tourist Information Center, and talked tech for a few minutes with my dad, but that was just talk, I did not touch their machines.

My computer was running on battery in the van the whole time, ready to go at a moment’s notice. I had pulled up maps and destination and activities info, and I had 20ish unread posts waiting to be read. I was prepared and planning to use the computer, but never got around to it. Tabetha did use the activities info at one point but I did not find-out about it until the trip was over.

Hey wait a second! What trip? Oh yeah, we went to Plymouth, MA yesterday. It is only about an hour away as long as you do not get caught in construction. We did, but it is still a short trip. We spent the night in Miles Standish State Forest. It was really nice. We are definitly going back Miles Standish next summer and we are going to spend several days next time.

Best $32 dollars I ever spent.

Our original plans were to go to Edaville for free, but they had a special event this weekend and this weekend was all we had available. I am glad that did not work out now, although at the time I was a bit disappointed. Instead, Tabetha got us discounted tickets to Plimoth Plantation and Mayflower II. Total was $32 dollars for 7 people for two full days of fun education. I was a bit skeptical at first but it turned out to be really awesome.

They had a historically accurate, working, native american village. I think one of the houses was new because it smelled like fresh wood (similar to cedar). They also had exhibits telling about the history and way of life of the Wampanog in the early 1600′s. I learned I lot more than I expected to.

Then we got to travel back in time to 1627 – seven years after the arrival of the Mayflower. The people living in the village, spoke, farmed, hunted, and went about everyday life as if the were still in the 17th century. One lady asked me what my occupation was and I replied that I work with computers. She heard this as working with computations and figured I was an accountant, and then proceeded to tell us about the importance of accountants in the operations of the trading ships but said that if I wanted to live there I would have to learn to do real work like, hunting, fishing, and planting.

The highlight for me may have been the spot we spent the least amount of time. The Mayflower II, a historically accurate, life-size replica of the original, still sails occasionally. Most of the time it stays in port as a tourist attraction. I knew the boat was pretty small, so that part was not a surprise, but it really helped to actually see the size, for myself. We were also struck with how close the cannon windows were to the water-line. If the windows had not been barred (modern safety precaution), you could have reached out and touched the water. With a bit of waves you would have had water coming in for sure.

We also saw Plymouth Rock and Town Brook. The rock is incredibly small and apparently was not that important to the people of the time but it eventually became quite famous as the place where the settlers, touched ground. It seems to be a bit more famous than the city.

It was a lot of fun to get away from the computer for a while, but it is also nice to be back connected to the “real” world. Now I need to see if I can get some sleep.

Image by ocean.flynn via Flickr

Did you know that commenting on my blog will create a link back to your blog that will increase the search engine ranking of your blog? That is not true of every blog you comment on. Many bloggers use a nofollow tag on all links on their site. This keeps them from accidentally helping out spammers but also penalizes all real commenters. As a matter of fact, these days, bloggers have to go out of their way to make sure that the links really do help their commenters.

I have removed the nofollow “feature” from my site. So if you are looking for traffic, I am here for you. But, we can do even better than that.

Free links to your site.

If you will send me a link to your favorite of the posts you have written, I will read it, comment on it and link to it and maybe a few other posts that I like. You can leave the link in a comment on this post or contact me in one of these other ways.

In case you have not figured this out I am doing this for two different reasons:

1. It increases search engine rank for both of our sites which leads to more traffic which leads to more interesting conversations. Of course, I will still leave a comment for you even if you hit me with a nofollow, because I like receiving comments and am a strong believer that you should do for others what you would appreciate them doing for you.
2. It helps me get to know you, my readers, a little bit better. I am not that great with stats. I can tell that there are more of you than just the people I know who read my blog, but I cannot figure-out who you are. Chances are high that you have a blog or some other site where you are putting information about yourself and your interests. I would like to read it, because if you are reading my blog we obviously have some interests in common. I want to know more about what we have in common.

Again, No obligations. I just want to get to know you, and send you a little traffic as a gesture of good-will.

So who are you and where (on the web) do you come from?

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

I will have more on China soon, but today I must talk tech again. If you would rather read about China, click here for a short press release from Reporters Without Borders.

TJ Sondermann reminded me about CrowdVine in a comment on my quest for the best social network software. I had quite forgotten that I even knew that it existed. TJ mentioned that their blog claimed they were about to add OpenID which was a major feature that I was looking for. When I went to sign-up and check it out I was quite surprised to find that I already had an account and that I had, hold your breath, signed in with OpenID. See what happened is that the local Providence Geeks group uses CrowdVine. I just thought of it as the Providence Geeks group not as part of CrowdVine. The ability to make the site your own is a very important feature, and apparently CrowdVine got that part right.

So CrowdVine has OpenId and apparently has had it for quite a while. That make it the winner in my book, but let’s look at a few other things to make a fair comparison.

Short URL / Custom URL

The Ning domain is shorter than CrowdVine (obviously), but Ning requires 6 characters for the sub-domain.

Control over Appearance

Ning has a basic control panel and allows custom CSS. CrowdVine gives a choice of 5 color palates.

Forum

Ning has a full forum, but CrowdVine has a blog/article posting option with comments which in this context is essentially the same. CrowdVine could use a way to categorize the posts, though.

Member Profile

Both have member profiles. I did not see any important differences.

Direct Communication

Both have direct communication options.

Sub-groups

Ning has sub-groups which are handy for local chapters, and event based groups, but does add a level of complexity. I like the idea but you definitely have to moderate the setting up of sub-groups or they get out of hand. I am a member of on Ning where there are hundreds of cliques of one.

CrowdVine uses a set of customizable questions to group people by. It solve the same problem in a more manageable way.

OpenID

CrowdVine has it. Ning doesn’t. As a matter of fact, I checked with Ning and discovered that Ning does not have any developers who understand OpenID well enough to implement it and does not have the resources (or interest) to acquire developers with these abilities.

Userbase

I get the feeling that Ning has been around a little longer and has a larger user base. This is rather handy for new groups since many people already have a Ning account.

Advertising

Both have advertising, but CrowdVine’s is less in you face and obnoxious, and thus probably less effective. Both of them could take a lesson from FaceBook if they want better advertising.

Is there any other criteria I should be comparing? Anything else I missed?

If you think of anything else let me know.

Conclusion: Ning needs OpenID and four character sub-domains. CrowdVine needs CSS, and a shorter URL (or let us use our own). CrowdVine’s list is easier, so my prediction is that Ning is going to get its head handed to it on a platter.

Another day off for my non-tech readers. Your welcome.

Virtuemart, a plug-in for Joomla, is an easy way to set-up an online store. sh404SEF lets you make the URLs human readable. Put the two together and you have a really great store, catalog, or photo gallery. Well, it is easy if you know what you are doing anyway. Until today, I did not. The good news is that you are about to know too. It is easy. You are just a click away.

Note: This same process also works for Community Builder, Fireboard, Docman, Remository, Letterman, MyBlog, Mosets, SMF bridge, iJoomla Magazine, and News Portal, but I will talk about Virtuemart since that is the one I needed. It also gives you a lot of other options to make sh404SEF work better. If you are having any trouble with sh404SEF start here first.

sh404SEF has a lot of options to customize the format of your URL, but most of these options are hidden by default. Here is a very simple trick to open all the options. This is based on Joomla 1.0.x but I would be surprised if 1.5.x was exactly the same.

Click on Components and then sh404SEF. This will take you to the main administrator control panel for sh404SEF. From here you could click on “sh404SEF Configuration” but it will only give you limited options. Instead click on the “Click here to switch to extended display (with all available parameters)” link on the right.

Clicking on this will give you extra options on the control panel, but it also changes the configuration page. Of course, it gives no indication that it has changed the configuration page, so I had no clue. Fortunately, right after I clicked on the link, Robb at GeekEpic replied to a comment I had left on his blog and suggested I check out an option on the configuration page. I was pretty sure I had not seen the option he was suggesting, but trying to be as humble as possible, I decided to check before replying and telling him the option was not there.

And… Wow! Right there, plain as day, was the option I was looking for. I was, of course, a bit baffled at first. Then I remembered I had clicked that mystery link on the other page (I guess I picked the red pill). I went back and clicked the link to switch to standard view and all the cool options on the config page were gone.

Moral of the story stay humble and curious. Keep clicking until you find the answer.

UPDATE 2:

READ THIS CAREFULLY

Many people have looked at the title and then skipped to the comments to ask for a copy. THIS WILL NOT WORK! However, if you want a copy of Open Office for Mac, carefully follow these instructions.

1. Read at least ten posts on this site.
   • You can use the links on the right to access some recent posts, or
   • You can click on the Categories link, pick an interesting category and read the most recent ten posts in your favorite category.
2. Pick your favorite of these posts.
3. Put a comment in your favorite post telling why you picked it.
4. Then (and only then) put your request for a copy of Open Office for Mac at the end of that comment.

If you follow the instructions above I will send you a copy.

If you do not follow these instructions, your request will be ignored. I am not trying to be mean. I have just received a lot of requests from people who failed to read the whole post.

UPDATE 1:

This post has been pulling in a lot of traffic!! A lot more than I expected.

Guys listen, there is no way M$ is going to let you have a free copy of their most valuable monopoly. But there is a way to get out of their slimy little talons (okay not little, but you know what I mean).

First get a free copy of OpenOffice from this website. Yes it really is free. This will let you create, read, and edit, just about any file used by MS Office. Then if you want presentations or printed documents that look really nice get Apple iWork. It will produce results that will make Office users drool, at a fraction of the price. How can they do this? They do not have a legacy ball and chain to support. You may want to wait a couple of months for iWork ’09 to come out, though.

Now back to the original post……………

I am almost immune to advertising. We are surrounded by so many of them we have learned to recognize them at a glance and to move on in search of what we are looking for. But I saw an ad today that got me curious. They were offering Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac for free. Now there are only two ways that I know of to make an offer like this work.

First, you can give it away with the purchase of something else. In this case, it is not really free since the price has to be built into the other product or spread across all sales from that company.

Second, you can promise to give it to them if they complete a bunch of surveys, sign-up for a bunch of stuff, and in some cases buy other products.

You could also give something to get them in the store hoping they will buy something, but this does not work on the web.

There may be other ways, but I am not aware of them. Which is why I clicked on this ad – to see if they had invented something new. I am a sucker for “new.”

Anyway, this is where it took me.

Free Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac

Congratulations!

100% Free Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Just check your email address for availibility!

Features: Free Trials are far from a zero-cost decision from the customer’s standpoint. How-to articles are -toarticlesare. I think word processing needs some real software like Microsoft going to be Office’s Vista I have written about this before, but I believe that Office 2008 is going to fail. Downloads are designed specifically for Office v. Office software is still a requirement to fully take advantage of Live Office. Clip art is . This is office 2008. This is much better than Office 2004. This is here. Microsoft Office 2008 is scheduled to be released (second half of 2007). Not sure about troubleshooting this on windows rock solid reliable. Microsoft Office 2008 is there any detailed information for the product launch in Europe. Is hard to use to expose all the things that are already there and make the product easier to use” says Jones. “We wanted to make it more discoverable, to bubble up the features that people didn’t always find. Sometimes Office 2008 performs like expected at Macworld Expo 2008 in San Francisco. This is running on the iPhone. Is hard to use going to be Office’s Vista I have written about this before, but I believe that Office 2008 is going to fail. I think it’s like on sale. Sometimes Office 2008 performs like fully Vista compatible and starts up fast, works fast calculates fast. I think it’s like there any detailed information for the product launch in Europe. I think it’s like fully Vista compatible and starts up fast, works fast calculates fast. I think it’s like indeed, on schedule and will be ready to …

This one fit into the second category. I did not copy the whole page, but the rest of the page talks about completing a certain number of “offers.” Thanks, but no thanks.

Anyway, what made this interesting to me, was how they pulled together random, related content from a bunch of different sites to try make the site look legitimate to trick the machines. The results are rather interesting. The “features” do not even resemble features and after read a few of them I am not sure I am interested anymore. If the advertiser thinks the product is going to fail, is hard to use, and only performs as expected some of the time, why would I want it even if it is free. The sad thing is that there are probably people who fall for this in spite of the obvious nonsense “features.”

I guess the moral of the story is that shortcuts can be quite tempting, but do you really want to look as ridiculous as this website?

Update: Tabetha just linked to post by Seth Godin suggesting that you click on ads to help pay for content you enjoy. I guess if they are fun ones, like the one is this post, I am okay with that.

How high can you count without using numbers?

Can you count to ten without saying the numbers (outloud or in your head)? If I handed you a bucket of marbles and asked you to give me the same number marbles as the number of fingers I am holding up, could you do that if you had never learned the names of the numbers?

Apparently, the experts have thought for years that this was not possible, but according this article they have recently discovered that we understand the concept of numbers intuitively even without the use of words.

Oh Wow!

Twitter

	michaelhyatt Is it just me or are the Chinese dragging out the closing ceremony too long? I mean really, too much WOW is not WOW. Like too much cologne. about 2 hours ago from twitterrific
	KyleFlaherty My wife just asked pertinent ? while watching closing ceremonies and the ads: How many of the Olympic athletes eat at McDonalds ya think? about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck
	michaelhyatt In case you have your TV off, the closing ceremony of the Olympics is as spectacular—perhaps more so—than the opening. Wow! about 2 hours ago from twitterrific
	simplebits has a personal goal of (someday) winning the Olympic Games. Not just a single event, but rather, the _entire_ thing. Just FYI. about 2 hours ago from web
	lgedeon Opposites are often quite similar. about 6 hours ago from web
	giddytab Still up at this insane hour! But that’s okay. I get to start it all over again in four and a half hours about 21 hours ago from web
	giddytab We now officially have a baby free room! C moved into the “girls” room! Now the question is, will I be able to sleep with this arrangement? 08:25 PM August 23, 2008 from web
	lgedeon My six year old just thanked me for reminding him to be polite. When he asked someone nicely, he got what wanted. 05:59 PM August 23, 2008 from web
	giddytab Just finished reading “Getting Things Done” by David Allen for the 2nd time. It made a lot more sense this time! 05:57 PM August 22, 2008 from web
	filmboy @lgedeon No, but it makes a little red light blink on a phone somewhere… 01:45 PM August 22, 2008 from web in reply to lgedeon
	lgedeon @missrogue I don’t think privacy would be such a big deal if there wern’t so many people under the delusion that anything is private anymore 03:40 PM August 22, 2008 from web in reply to missrogue
	Pistachio I think I just got VP Pick-rolled. FUNNY! http://tinyurl.com/59u9wy 03:38 PM August 22, 2008 from web
	stevegarfield BREAKING TWITTER NEWSFLASH: Retweeting @newmediajim a butterfly keeps landing on my hand 03:34 PM August 22, 2008 from twhirl
	lgedeon @adamjt I guess that is why I do not listen to podcasts. My days go by to fast anyway. 03:34 PM August 22, 2008 from web in reply to adamjt
	missrogue Even if YOU aren’t posting information, others are. It’s super easy to pay $10 and get someone’s entire credit history. #gnomedex08 11:57 AM August 22, 2008 from web
	HelloKit wow, i must be in a good mood. i didn’t immediately hang up on that last telemarketer… 02:53 PM August 22, 2008 from TwitterFox
	lgedeon Stop starting and start stopping. 02:48 PM August 22, 2008 from web
	adamjt A good podcast makes the day go by just a little faster, in a good way. 02:35 PM August 22, 2008 from Socialthing!
	giddytab Trying to figure out my 7 month old. Go figure. 10:55 PM August 21, 2008 from web
	giddytab OK….It feels like the house is shaking……what ARE those kids doing upstairs? 02:38 PM August 21, 2008 from web

	lgedeon If a phone rings in a call center and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? 03:28 PM August 22, 2008 from web
	giddytab We are learning to cook Chinese!! How exciting! 12:40 PM August 21, 2008 from web
	giddytab While asking Anna if she wanted tofu for lunch, Bethany said, “Mom, I want toad food.” 11:52 AM August 21, 2008 from web
	giddytab The kids finally lost interest in the two ladybugs that they originally thought was just one. 05:02 PM August 19, 2008 from web
	giddytab Guess it’s mating season for ladybugs……… 04:45 PM August 19, 2008 from web
	giddytab When I went to get Candice from her bed at naptime, she was sitting up & smiling at me. That was the 1st time she actually sat herself up! 02:59 PM August 19, 2008 from web

Image by jonsson via Flickr

One nation

One idea that has struck me over and over again is that America is really not one nation (as opposed to a state or country) anymore. America has split into at least two separate and opposing nations that coexist in the same space and time, but generally do not mix.

This split is not a simple as red state versus blue states or conservative versus liberal. It is not old versus young or rich versus poor. If anything, it might be the middle of each demographic versus its bookends. I am not going to try to figure out the line in this post. I have just found myself mentioning several times lately that there are two different Americas.

One Party

China does not have any blue states. There is no opposition party (at least not one that is officially recognized). Disagreement with the government is not tolerated. Everyone is happily united as one nation serving one party. So you would expect that such a homogeneous group would be easy to lead but such is apparently not the case.

The people you would expect to be most on board with the central government’s plans would be the party members that work directly for the government inside the capital city. If they are, then the Chinese central government has a lot to be concerned about because they cannot even control their most loyal and local members.

Reporter Without Borders sent out a summary of three internal police documents. At least two of these, I am sure, the government did not want to go public and the third is being ignored. I have also covered earlier stories of things getting out that the government attempted to keep silent. I am surprised that a government with unlimited resources and unrivaled control could make this many mistakes but I am glad that they do.

One Individual

The ability for each person in the government to act as an individual is actually encouraging since there are also two China’s. Those who love and are loyal to their country at the expense of the individual, and those who love their country so much that they hope to influence it for the better. Some people think that China only has one party because everyone agrees that harmony and oneness are the most important values. The “mistakes” surrounding the recent directives from the central government along with the personal experience of the Chinese people that I work with everyday indicates that there are also two different Chinas.