Category: tech

Click, Click

I got a mild complaint the other day. Someone asked why I no longer have a blogroll listed on my blog. I guess they felt slighted because they link to my blog and I don’t reciprocate. [1]A link they have since deleted. Uh…bitter much?  Well, the answer is simple. It got to be too much to handle/manage. I still follow almost 200 blogs. Tie that in with Facebook and twitter its a lot to manage on a daily basis.

And for the record, I still have a blogroll. I just follow it via RSS feeds. Its easier and faster than trying to click thru from my blog. I know that defeats the purpose of all the bells and whistles you see on most blogs (including mine), but I just don’t have the time these days. I surf purely out of personal enjoyment on my free time. I also don’t comment on many blogs as much anymore as I do most of my surfing on my phone. Since only a handful have updated their blog for mobile devices, its either impossible or complicated to try and leave a comment.

I may or may not bring my own blogroll back in the future. As universal log-ins take hold and the integration of social media continues, I’m sure new easier methods of link management will arise. Hell, it may become moot as everything becomes much more interconnected. twitter, Google, and Facebook are fighting tooth and nail to capture users via universal log-ins. I’m sure eventually you’ll have just one large integrated feed that gets auto-updated continuously so all you have to do is log-in and view it.

References

References
↑1 A link they have since deleted. Uh…bitter much?

Mobile

One of my biggest frustrations with the blogging world as of late is the lack of compatibility for mobile devices. More and more, people are accessing the web and online content via mobile devices like the nexus one, droid, iphone, ipod, blackberry, palm, etc.

Many mobile gadgets due a decent job of parsing/displaying data for reading. Newer gadgets will even render complete HTML content as well. Hell, the new breed of pda/phones have chip speeds equal to computers of only 5 years ago. Clearly, processing power isn’t the problem.

The big problem is trying to squeeze webpages meant to run on a computer screen onto a device a fraction of the size. To their credit, most mobile device makers have ingenious rendering or zooming techniques. That said, its still extremely annoying, especially if you are surfing a lot.  Even worse, most professional sites often incorporate scripts/plugins/flash that won’t run on most mobile devices. And again, the problem is not from processing speed. No, as usual it boils down to petty proprietary rules, squabbles over licensing, poorly written software, and last but not least, greed. All of which are sad, pathetic, and stupid. For the corporate aspect, companies need to get their act in gear or perish. The need for mobile access is far from stale and is only going to increase. Not to mention, in today’s economy, companies need to encourage access any way they can.

For a medium wholly dependant on exposure, I’m really surprised more folks haven’t updated their sites/blogs to accommodate mobile exposure. Hell, my blog isn’t even that popular and I’ve had a mobile version for several years. [1]To be fair, I upgraded my mobile app months ago and just realized tonight I hadn’t activated the change. While the old app did the job, the new one is sooooo much nicer. Feel free to give me … Continue reading  There is already a niche industry to handle the demand. More people/companies just need to realize and take advantage of it. 

For myself, I consume most of my online content via my phone now. Its just easier with my schedule and time constraints. Sadly, for the blog world, commenting or interacting is still painfully awkward or even impossible at times. Not to mention, extremely frustrating.

The point of my little ramble? All you companies and dedicated bloggers out there, upgrade your sites for mobile consumption already! Sheez, bulky computers are so 90’s. :p

/rant

References

References
↑1 To be fair, I upgraded my mobile app months ago and just realized tonight I hadn’t activated the change. While the old app did the job, the new one is sooooo much nicer. Feel free to give me feedback on it.

Down Time

So after 62 hours of down time, my blog is finally back up and running. My ISP’s database server suddenly went offline and has only just gone back up. While I have had decent service from 1and1.com over the years, I can say I am extremely frustrated by their absolute lack of support and follow up. [1]A quick search on twitter showed I was one of many people affected.  I am currently taking suggestions and recommendations for other ISPs.

My frustration stems from six phone calls and several (completely ignored) emails over the span of 3-days being met with bland indifference and ignorance. Not one single tech I spoke with had any clue of the problem(s) or any idea of when the problem(s) might be corrected. It was abundantly clear they were all just reading off preformatted scripts meant to mollify disgruntled customers. I got sad half-hearted customer service ‘speak’ apologies. Here is a clue you nitwits, spare me the apologies and give me answers!

Even more disturbing, not a single person could even explain how an ISP as large as 1and1.com could function w/o a backup database server. Seriously, IT 101. Hello?

*

Thank you to everyone who checked in on me. Several folks were worried something had happened. I am perfectly fine. [2]And yes Apple guy is too.  Your notification and queries were extremely sweet and I continue to be flattered so many of you continue to read my madness.

As I said, I am seriously considering switching ISP’s as well as recommending the 18 other companies I helped setup on 1and1 to switch as well. In an age of volume, companies only respond to one thing, their bottom line. Only when it plunges do the seem to take any real concern and make changes.

\rant

References

References
↑1 A quick search on twitter showed I was one of many people affected.
↑2 And yes Apple guy is too.

Social Fail

I was blogrolling (finally) and catching up on the list when I was reminded by Jimbo of something I’d been meaning to rant about.

Jimbo was ranting on the do’s/don’ts of when to use grindr in social situations. This sort of got me on the general mistakes most folks make when joining/using social sites in general. Whether it be the hatchet-job of HTML and over-embedding on mySpace, [1]which has become the trailer park of the web the constant barrage of friend/game requests on Facebook, and/or the minutia of irrelevant updates on twitter, it can quickly become unmanageable if you don’t start out with some ground rules.

Being someone who has been online since before the existence of AOL, let me take a moment to edify you on my hard-earned skills. lol With a few simple guidelines you can keep your online social interactions under control, enjoyable, and even useful.

When joining social sites like FB, MS, twitter, etc, you should first decide on your purpose. [2]Yes, this even applies to the more adult-oriented sites as well.  Are you joining to reconnect with friends/family, make new friends, be a social butterfly, and/or just ‘connect’ in general.

DO:

  • Take the time to fill out your profile. You don’t have to necessarily reveal personal/private information but if your goal is to meet people then it makes sense to provide goals, interests, hobbies, etc. If you are gonna create multiple profiles, instead of constantly retyping everything, just create a master word or text file that you can copy and paste from. You also don’t have to list every minutia of your interests. Stick to things you are really passionate or interested in. You can always add more later.
  • Be sincere and honest. People often sniff out a fake PDQ. Sure your responses might be less but they will be legit. And lets face it, if your goal is to actually meet people, they’ll eventually find out you lied.
  • Use an up-to-date picture of yourself. It’s the freakin’ millennium already. There is absolutely no excuse for anyone not to have an up-to-date pic in this day when practically everything has a camera attached to it. I don’t care what you looked like 10 years ago or when you were 12.  Its ok to have those type of pics but not as your main profile pic. Its misleading and you’ll end up alienating people. And if you are so discreet, you can’t have a face shot, then maybe you shouldn’t be online? [3]Anytime I see this, I just assume you are a liar or cheating on someone
  • Actually take the time to reply or interact. Again, if the goal is to be social, it won’t happen all by itself. Depending on the site, you don’t necessarily have to reply to everyone but the point here is to make an effort to interact.

Don’t

  • Add any/every one who sends you a friend/follow request. If you do, you’ll soon find your profile becomes bloated and pointless. And there is nothing that says once you add someone you can’t remove them later.
  • For adding media/links, don’t over do it. Less is definitely more in this instance. If you constantly fill your stream with drivel, people will get bored or overwhelmed and move on. Its ok to post things you really like but I don’t wanna know about every single song/movie/clip/article that you purchase/download/find from the web. And for the love of toast, for profiles like myspace, make sure the “auto-play” feature for your embedded content is turned off!
  • Hide all of your data/info and then wonder why no one friends/follows you. This is a biggie folks. Especially on sites like twitter and FB, if I can’t see anything about you not only will I not add you, I’ll probably go one step further and block you. Demanding a lot and offering nothing in return rarely works. FB allows you a fine control of what is viewable or not. twitter is a bit trickier as it only allows full view or nothing. The trick is to accept the request but then review the person’s feed/stream. If you don’t like it or it doesn’t interest you, simply unfollow and/or block. You’re done.
  • Add mean, disparaging, hateful, or otherwise negative statements. No one likes a whining negative-Nancy. Nothing turns me off to a person’s profile faster than negative comments.
  • Log on and never log-off. That might work for chat services where you can set yourself to away or available but for most profiles, its just annoying trying to interact with someone who turns out not to be there but logged on.

See, that wasn’t so hard was it? lol Here are just a few more tips that might save you some grief.

Don’t join every site just because you can. Pick and choose the sites you really like and dump the rest.

If you are worried about privacy or work-related issues, don’t use your real name online. I’ve always used my nickname and to this day, I can’t find a single reference to my real name online. This is especially important if you are using profiles for work and ‘play’.

With the latter in mind, keep your work/play profiles separate. You can create multiple accounts for each and/or filter your contacts based on interest.

Ok, that’s it. Now go forth and be social!

References

References
↑1 which has become the trailer park of the web
↑2 Yes, this even applies to the more adult-oriented sites as well.
↑3 Anytime I see this, I just assume you are a liar or cheating on someone

Third-Party Logins

Trying to get on the easy log-in bandwagon, I finally found a plug-in that allows (and actually works) users to log in using 3rd party accounts like Google, Yahoo, Openid, Blogger, etc. You’ll notice on the right side of the page a new section called 3rd party log-ins. I tested it and found it to be functional with a few caveats. If you are already a registered user, your log-in will still function from the sidebar or the log-in page.

Caveat #1

If for some reason leaving a comment invokes the captcha test, you will see the captcha but you’ll see some funny code regarding my header failing to load.  Don’t fret, after you pass the captcha just reload my blog page and you’ll see your comment. This was already happening as I use a hack to rotate my header images.

Caveat #2

Sadly,I could not get the Facebook login to work. I tried very hard but it was beyond my understanding and I didn’t have the time or patience to sort thru it. I may revisit it later, but I have removed that option for now. Anyone familiar w/Facebook’s API’s and/or the RPX plugin I’m using, feel free to help a brother out. :p ***Update – I got it working, you can log-in using Facebook. It will not currently post activity to your wall but its a start. ***

Caveat #3

And lastly, none of the social log-ins will allow you access to hidden content on my blog. Gasp! I know. lol  I can’t change that at current. There is no hand-off built in to allow private content on WordPress. Not that it really matters as I haven’t really been adding much of anything in that arena lately.

If you have any trouble, please email me directly at my email link, bottom right of page.

Uptick

In news of the probably not-so-exciting category, I’ve noticed a huge jump in scam related spammy email lately. My email filter does a pretty darn good job of filtering out the crap but I do often quickly scan thru it to catch any false-positives. So anyway, you probably remember the old Nigerian money scam and its many 100’s of variants. Usually written in poor English about someone somewhere in the world trying to access or “free up” millions of dollars from a deceased/deposed person of some sort and “if only you would help” you could have a small percentage (in the millions) for your time and effort.

What this tells me is that people are once again falling for crap like this. It could also just be unscrupulous souls trying to take advantage of the poor economy and people who are desperate for cash. While I’m sure the latter is part of it, these folks focus on scams that work. I get about 10-20 a day now which is a huge spike. Used to, I’d see one every week or so. To see this many all at once is scary to think about.

If you’ve been living under a rock somewhere just try to remember “if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is”. In other words, don’t be an idiot.  Of course, I prefer my granny’s version, “believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.”

Pervasive

Another Dore Alley [1]Its officially called Up Your Alley now but locals still refer to it by its original name. fair has come to a close. Everyone I talked to thought this year’s fair was a bit subdued. A quick scan of Facebook and twitter afterwards revealed an over all consensus. For my part, I agree but it made it more enjoyable for me.

As ho hum as I was feeling earlier, I did have a good time. I even stayed beyond my normal 2 hour limit. I ended up hanging out with Chris aka @Wildcuddler from twitter and his friends @bucknsj and @puppychow79. Even better, they are both on twitter so now I get to stalk them. heehee. Seriously though, they were both very nice and made such an adorable couple. We were also joined by a tag-tail. [2]someone who attaches themselves to you or your group in the hopes of hooking up. *g* but even he was sweet and I rather liked having him along.

The event itself was a bit smaller this year. And while it did get crowded, it was so nice not being jam-packed in wall-to-wall bodies with barely enough room to breath. It might sound hot but after about 15 minutes of it, you get rather annoyed. Normally, I can go the whole circuit twice and be lucky if I run into 5 people I know. Not so this time. I ran into a whole slew of friends (and bloggers) in the span of about an hour. I ran into roblog and his hot husband entering the gates. Shortly beyond that I ran into Victor from v-hold and his scruffy hubby and then Wade from beyondbuffalo. There was @repete from twitter and his hubby, several random tricks from years past and even a co-worker. lol It was a whole stream of walk, stop, flirt, chat, flirt some more, then continue on your way. I even saw my ex. I ran into my flickr buddy Andy, who I totally have the hots for. His smile is even more endearing in person. Such a sweetie he was. I could go on and on but you know I am not a name-dropper …  heh heh

There was plenty of the obvious. A grope here, a smile there, a quick chest or butt rub followed by grunts and groans.  Oh yes, it wouldn’t be Dore w/o the blatant sexual innuendo and aggression. There was one beefy guy wearing ass-less chaps that I would have followed around like a puppy had he already not had a hubby in tow. Bastard. lol

**Interjection – I’m sitting at Firewood in the hood as I write this and I’m sitting next to a group of guys who are whining about not being part of the ‘pretty crowd’ yet they can’t stop talking about all the ‘hot’ guys they saw. I’m half tempted to lean over and point out the stupidity of their conversation. Its one thing to not go and ridicule but its another thing entirely to go and then whine about it because you weren’t the center of attention. And that’s forgetting for a moment that ‘pretty’ is a subjective term at best and two, if you’ve ever been to Dore or Folsom, you know the mix of guys is amazing. You see everything; freaks, cock, boobs, piss, average, bears, muscle, hair, smooth, porn, drag, leather, sex, etc. Oh did I mention porn? [3]That said, there seemed to be fewer porn boys out and about this year as well. It runs the entire gambit so going and then whining about not being ‘included’ just annoys me to no end. /rant **

Ok back on topic, sort of. I was particular struck this year by how pervasive our technology has become in our everyday lives. For my own part, I was twittering and texting at down times throughout the day. Of course, I had to stay in contact with the boy. Then there was the moto group, coworkers inquiring if my ass was hanging out, and random tweets and FB updates. I had 3 different random strangers stop me to tell me they read my blog, which tickled me to no end. (Eddy, Derrick, Paul, I told you I’d mention you!) I also met several folks who met thru the various online social sites. One might say, it was a cornucopia of interconnected web-addicts all decked out in leather, lace, and gear!

All said, it was a good event. Fun, frolic, and friends all at one time. What’s not to like? [4]Oh, there will be a forthcoming ‘post’ in a few days about other activities, so you know what to do. It was a nice end to my rather uneventful but extremely well-timed vacation as I go back to work tomorrow. I’m back on my new (old) shift which I’m very excited about.

And how was your weekend?

References

References
↑1 Its officially called Up Your Alley now but locals still refer to it by its original name.
↑2 someone who attaches themselves to you or your group in the hopes of hooking up. *g*
↑3 That said, there seemed to be fewer porn boys out and about this year as well.
↑4 Oh, there will be a forthcoming ‘post’ in a few days about other activities, so you know what to do.

Sub-scribe!

When attempting to leave a comment, you will now notice a tiny checkbox below the “add comment” button.

I added a nifty little plug-in that allows users to subscribe to a particular post’s comments. [1]Keep in mind this has nothing to do with subscribing/registering as a user. So now anytime you comment on a post, follow up comments will be emailed to you, if you so choose. This is a post by post option and you have to post your comment for it to function.

I find this a very useful feature on other blogs as it saves me the effort of having to track other user comments to my replies. I figured why not add it here as well.

I had a little confusion this morning as it only shows the checkbox if you are NOT the administrator. I kept thinking it wasn’t working. Live and learn.

References

References
↑1 Keep in mind this has nothing to do with subscribing/registering as a user.

Blog Update

work file

check blog version – check

try internal update function – check

check plugins – check

check login script – check

check filter – check

delete htaccess file from image directory after plugin update – check

delete temp files

*update* – Ok, color me stupid. This was a private ‘to do’ file. Not sure exactly how I managed to publish it. lol Needless to say, I successfully upgraded my blog to 2.8.