This morning I read about another visitor tracking tool created by http://whos.amung.us/ on tech crunch. As I mentioned before, I have been using Google Analytics and AWStats to track visitors. The new tool is a widget that displays icons on map for each visitor currently on your site. Naturally I wanted to embed the widget on my site to see how it works. Right now there is one little cross showing up in Maryland.
I added two plugins to the site today. On the right-most sidebar I removed the add to technorati button and replaced it with the AddMySite plugin, which gives visitors the option to add the site to their favorite RSS reader/aggregator.
I also added the Social Bookmarks plugin which adds the option for visitors to bookmark particular posts to their favorite social bookmarking site. Now it is easier for visitors to bookmark and share the quality posts the the recent influx of quality guest bloggers have submitted.
Robert Scoble is one of the most famous bloggers in the world. There is a cool video of him on google’s official blog that details how he reviews 622 feeds regularly. Like me, his preferred RSS reader is Google Reader. Check it out.
I was really shocked when Scoble said he only checks the feeds once or twice a day. I only subscribe to about 20 feeds and I check the Reader compulsively to keep up, probably once every half hour. In addition to the personal blogs of friends that I subscribe to, I pull in feeds from:
I also use the aggregated feeds of Google News and Techmeme. So there is a lot to keep up with and I am adding more every day. For instance, I just added the NYT Goal blog today after my wife sent me a link to Jozy Altidore’s latest blog.
Statistics courses are probably my least favorite courses. I prefer simple statistics like batting average in baseball, winning percentage in any sport, unique ahelms.com visitors, etc. In high school I was really irritated that I was batting 7th or 8th and asked to bunt a lot on an American Legion team for which I was one of the better hitters. I had mentioned to the coach once or twice that I should move up in the order but he brushed me off. So I asked him if I could borrow the scorebook after a game one night. The next day I handed him my hand-calculated batting averages, slugging percentages, on-base percentages and other various and sundry statistics that supported my case. I was second on the team in average and one of the top three in most offensive categories. What do you know, that night I moved into the 3rd spot and batted either 2nd, 3rd or 5th the rest of the season.
ahelms.com Statistics
I created a Google calendar for my brother’s high school’s soccer schedule. If you use Google Calendar, you can simply click the below button to add the boys’ varsity soccer schedule of McDonogh School to it. You can also download it in XML, ICAL or HTML format so you can import it into your preferred app.
The calendar ID is: mon88sl1au5t9d69r4n9kf2ut4@group.calendar.google.com
Faithful visitors to the site may have noticed the appearance and then disappearance of posts that displayed tasty recipes. Donna and I were trying to figure out the best way to organize a catalog of recipes on the site. We decided to go with a new blog, http://recipes.ahelms.com. You can also get to it via the blogroll on the first sidebar.
I also opened the site for others to create new http://<your_blog>.ahelms.com blogs. Use the ‘New Blog’ link on the bottom of the far-right sidebar in the Meta section if you’re so inclined.
Finally, the kitties have been amusing us with their crazy personalities so we caught some of their silliness and posted it on the slickr page.
I replaced the flickr page with an AJAX powered wordpress plugin called slickr. It describes itself like this:
Slickr Gallery is a very fast, light, bandwidth-friendly AJAX photo gallery plugin for Wordpress. It allows you to pull your Flickr-hosted photos into a gallery section of your blog, as well as easily add Flickr-hosted images to your posts and pages. It is especially useful for people with many Flickr albums/photos. All code is valid xhtml.
The plugin that links to my flickr account displays the three sets that I can maintain as a non-paying member of flickr in three different ways:
The limited sets is a real bummer, but you can’t blame flickr for trying to drive people to pay for its service. I plan on keeping the sets fluid, mixing it up a bit so it stays fresh and relevant.
Lawrence Wallack is dean of the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University and so called “father of media advocacy”. He wrote an interesting article called Retelling the American Story.
The theme of the article reminds me of an article incorrectly attributed to George Carlin that was forwarded to me awhile back called The Paradox of Our Time. The article was actually written by Dr Moorhead, former pastor of Overlake Christian Church in Redmond, Washington. You have probably seen it. Here is one part:
“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.”
From Wallack’s article:
“Yet despite such incredible advances, we still face collective challenges that won’t yield just to technology. The economy has rarely been better, but we have 45 million people without health insurance, the gap between rich and poor as a measure of inequality is growing and is alarmingly wide, global warming has gone from theory to reality, and we’re in a perpetual struggle to find adequate funding for education. No amount of computing power will figure these things out for us.
These are the social and human inequalities that flow from how we organize our society, and that, in turn, is based on the values that guide our collective decisions.”
The article goes on to talk about telling stories to communicate deeper meaning, specifically two kinds of competing stories: Yoyo (you’re on your own) stories and Witt (we’re in this together) stories. Read the rest of this entry »
Motorola’s Moto Q smart phone supports the axiom that good things come in small packages. The ultra-slim phone has a full QWERTY keyboard and a crisp LCD. Mine is currently running Windows Mobile 5 which is good enough for me. I don’t expect much from the mobile OS as I only use a web calendar and email and thus have no desire to integrate or sync it. By simply paying $15/month I can browse the Internet unlimitedly.
I’ve had Sprint PCS for 10 years and the call quality on the Moto Q is the best I’ve experienced on any phone, even when on speaker. I’ve taken a few photographs and the flash capability is popular, but I still don’t have the need to snap pictures at a moment’s notice. Although I was beginning to change my mind when I was riding MARTA last week and I saw a double come-over. What I bought the phone for and what has pleased me is its: sleekness, clear call quality, fast Internet navigation and decent battery life.
About a year ago my brother and I were discussing the merits of text messaging. He said it is good to use to send a message to someone you need to send a message to but don’t necessarily want to talk to. I agreed a little too enthusiastically in the presence of my wife who said “Hey, you text me all the time!”. At the time, she was a doubter but has since been converted. Text messaging or texting is way more than avoiding conversations: texting is far superior to placing conventional phone calls. That statement is so self-evident that I would not think it needs further explanation. After visiting with some friends this weekend, I discovered that the merits of texting are not as universally accepted or realized as I believed.
About 85% of phone calls I receive could be replaced with texts. I am not an important person, but I do a lot and I do not like to be interrupted. I do, however, like to keep in touch with friends and family and I like to take part in spur-of-the-moment activities. Call my mobile phone and many times I don’t answer because I’m doing something that can’t be interrupted by a phone call. Email me and I may not get your message for a few minutes. Send me a text and I can see what you’ve got to say and quickly respond with a much smaller interruption to what I’m doing without the idle chat and platitudes required by phone conversations. I can respond while sitting in a meeting or class, during a changeover in tennis or nearly any time when I have my phone and a signal. Simply put, texting is more efficient.
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