Ramblings
The Power of Blogging
There is a lot of cool factor about running a popular blog. PCMech gets quite a bit of traffic and, yes, this gives me a soapbox. Every now and then it is nice to vent on that soapbox.
This morning I posted a story over at PCMech about an asshole contractor from Bright House who managed to take out all of my cable at my house – when he was working on the neighbor. The guy was a dick. No other way to put it.
But, what’s cool is that I was able to use the event as a blog story and the guy doesn’t know that he triggered a blog story to thousands of readers – all while the guy is still busy outside my house screwing with the cables.
That is one of the cool things about blogging. You can share your experience with the world and do so instantly. And that also makes the Internet a great resource for others looking for feedback on a company. Not that the dickhead in question here is normal for Bright House contractors (I expect it isn’t), but nobody would have known about it had he not messed with a blogger.
Anyway, just my thought of the minute.
Hello world!
Oh hell, I guess I’ll just leave the title for the first blog post. Wordpress puts the “Hello World” post in there by default and who am I to argue?
I have had a blog on this domain before but never really did much with it. Now I am starting anew. The prior site was just a bunch of mug shots of me and my FriendFeed activity. Well, now its going to be a blog with my FriendFeed activity taking up a column. Best of both worlds.
This will be a personal blog. The subject is what the hell interests me at the time.
I am certainly NOT a new blogger. Check out PCMech to see what occupies most of my time.
With that, I’m going to try to finish the overall theme for this site. I’m trying to come up with something that is relatively light. So far this theme seems to fit the bill. And I didn’t feel like doing a totally custom theme for this site.
I’m Not Dead – I Promise
Its been about two months since I have posted here on WebbyOnline. Yeah, I know. I’m a loser.
But, here’s the deal. I’ve been SUPER busy over on PCMech. We’ve been posting quite a bit over there lately, and now we are working on a BIG project called PCMech EDU.
What is it? I’ll tell you.
PCMech EDU is going to be an online interactive education system. We will have a series of courses and provide one-on-one interaction with our students. The courses will cover everything from computer building to creating websites to making money online. I want PCMech EDU to have something for everybody in the various aspects of technology and the Internet.
So, I’m excited. And I’ve been busy.
But, that isn’t an excuse. And that’s why I’m posting here. I’ll be honest…as of now traffic here on this site has all but bottomed out. And that should be expected – I haven’t posted in two months! Not posting on a blog is the death knell of a blog. I have found it, though, fairly difficult to maintain two blogs to the extent they should be.
However…
I’m going to start bringing you new content here on PCMech. Why?
- Because I enjoy blogging
- Because I enjoy talking about web publishing, and that subject doesn’t fit well over on PCMech
- Because I think it would be good to have a blog component to the internet marketing courses that I will be setting up in PCMech EDU.
Oh yeah…I almost forgot. Here is another reason I’ve been pretty busy.
That’s my daughter, Elyana. She was born on December 27th. She’s a bundle of joy and a lot of fun.
So, time to get doing again here on WebbyOnline.
Video: Drugging of Our Children
I had a video pointed out to me this morning over at Google Video. It is very well done, and even though it is off topic for this website, it is a subject I feel deeply about and I thought I would post it here this morning. It is a video produced by Gary Null. Here is the description of the video:
In the absence of any objective medical tests to determine who has ADD or ADHD, doctors rely in part on standardized assessments and the impressions of teachers and guardians while the they administer leave little room for other causes or aggravating factors, such as diet, or environment. Hence, diagnosing a child or adolescent with ADD or ADHD is often the outcome, although no organic basis for either disease has yet to be clinically proven. Psychiatrists may then prescribe psychotropic drugs for the children without first without making it clear to parents that these medications can have severe side-effects including insomnia, loss of appetite, headaches, psychotic symptoms and even potentially fatal adverse reactions, such as cardiac arrhythmia. And yet, despite these dangers, many school systems actually work with government agencies to force parents to drug their children, threatening those who refuse with the prospect of having their children taken from the home unless they cooperate.
Check out the video: Drugging of Our Children.
Top 10 Must-Have Apps for a Web Publisher
I am a web publisher. That means that I publish things for others to read, just like any other person in the press, but that I use the internet as my medium. Less red tape. Less committee. Just me, typing my thoughts or findings, and posting them for others to read and respond to.
Now, in this business, you not only need to be able to publish to the web, but you need to also design your site and administrate the business end of it. This takes software and the use of that software at my computer (as the size of my ass can attest to).
So, here is my top 10 list of applications which just make my job oh so much easier as a web publisher.
- Dreamweaver. Formerly a Macromedia product and now owned by Adobe, Dreamweaver is the best web design program out there as far as I’m concerned. Frontpage was a piece of crap. I heard Expressions was better, but I have not personally tried it yet.
- TopStyle. This is a great CSS editor for Windows.
- ColorCop. This small little utility is super useful when you need to find out the color code of any color visible on your screen. Want to precisely match a visual element you see on the web? Just grab ColorCop’s pointer to that point, release the mouse cursor, and you have the exact color code.
- Wordpress. This is, of course, the web-based blogger software of significant popularity. And for good reason. It simply blows the other options away in terms of ease of use and availability of add-ons and community support. A web publisher needs to be able to easily bring content to the web, and it doesn’t get much easier than Wordpress.
- Gmail. Even though it is a web-based app, I put this one into the must-have category. The joys of using a web-based email client where somebody else makes it work is immeasurable. If you want, you can also hook your domain up to Google Apps and get the full Google office suite for your whole domain.
- Trillian Basic. This is a chat client that can connect to multiple networks. Almost any web publisher is going to need to communicate to others on the web. I personally like Trillian because it can dock to the side of my screen and not move. It seems few others do that, and I have no idea why.
- Google Desktop. Depending on the size of your website and the number of files you work with, it might get to be an incredibly daunting task to try to find half the crap you SWEAR you saved on your computer. Google Desktops brings the power of Google search to your file system. And it does work. It uses a pretty small footprint in Windows, so it won’t slow you down. And, no, using Google Desktop does not mean that Google is indexing all your files on their servers.
- Camtasia Studio 4. If you want to make screencasting videos for the web, Camtasia is the defacto standard. And their video editor isn’t half bad either.
- Google Reader. Again, web-based, but any publisher online needs to stay up-to-date with what others are talking about. It is the only way you can remain current and relevant to your community. Google Reader is an excellent way to bring content to you from RSS feeds. Subscribe to relevant sites and easily keep track of them. It is a huge time saver. And I like how you can read your feeds from your cell phone if you have some time to kill somewhere without a full computer around.
- Yahoo Music Jukebox. Sitting on the computer all day means you might need some entertainment while you work. My personal fave is Yahoo Music Jukebox. While the streaming media service is not free, it does offer an endless supply of music of any genre I want. I can also play particular albums or artists to suit my mood. Great to work with.
So, what apps might you recommend?
Is The Media Bad For Mankind? Why Blogs Matter
There I was. Watching the news one morning while having some breakfast. Fox News, to be exact. Does it matter what network? No, because they’re all the same. Constant bad news. A barrage. I’m left thinking: Why the hell do I watch this crap? It’s all about terrorism, how Iran might cause the next war, how Columbia treated the Iranian president, how people died, children got kidnapped, people are pissed. Yada yada yada.
Why watch that crap. Especially when the Cosby Show is on. Might be an old show, but it is wholesome and actually cheers me up. I can’t say that for the news. It’s just bad news, all day. Followed by two pinheads yelling at each other about matters they can’t affect. And there is America – spectating and doing nothing about it.
Then I thought about the internet. The internet is a form of media. It interconnects the globe like nothing we’ve ever had. TV, radio – neither can hold a candle to the internet in terms of it’s sheer global reach.
Now, obviously, I am a major fan of the internet. That goes without saying. I’m here, blogging and making my living every day online. And socially, I see the benefits that can be brought to mankind via the internet. The internet can and does bring world communications into unfriendly and third world areas. The internet is playing a major role in opening up China (as evidenced by how much they try to limit it), and I am convinced it plays a role inside of Iran and other countries with really inhumane governments. When at BlogOrlando recently, I listened to Shel Israel talk about his research into social media throughout the world. In China specifically, he said there are around 20 million bloggers. Since the government there tries to censor them, they simply run their blogs out of proxy servers in other areas of the world, the U.S. being a biggie. The Chinese government is losing control and it is very much due to the powers of the internet to enable global conversation.
That’s awesome.
What’s the flip side? Let’s look at 9/11. Horrible day. Have you ever thought about what the impact of that day would have been had it not been for the media and the internet? Put it quite simply, most of us would have never known about it. Our days would have been completely normal. Now, I certainly don’t want to minimize the global impact of what happened on that day, but I will say that that impact was intensified drastically by the media that covered it. Sensational press. The search for headlines. For popularity, viewers, traffic.
Now, while 9/11 might be a questionable example, let’s look at news since then. The Iranian president likes to blab on and threaten. He comes here to the U.S. and puts on a good show. Why? Because of the press. If it were not for the media, his trip would have been meaningless. In fact, were it not for the fear which is instilled into people via the press, the whole impact of a terrorist act would be in question. Were it not for the press, Al Queda would be out of business. Period.
Today, the media, whether it be TV, radio or the internet, all combines to magnify human problems. It takes upsets around the world, puts the magnifying glass on them, constantly points at them – all to the effect of making the world seem dangerous. It brings scattered upset and turns it into one big mass which has the potential to surround the globe as a whole.
So, is the media bad for mankind?
Obviously, such a question is a gross overstatement. I am a firm believer in the fact that communication is the universal solvent. Anything designed to lessen global communication is a bad thing.
But, boy do you have to police the hell out of it. On an individual level. Never in a million years would I condone any government entity limiting any of of this. But, it comes down to individual decision. These days you have to have a BS detector like never before to be a consumer of the modern press. If you do not CONSTANTLY question what you hear, read or see in the media, you are an unfortunate soul. And you are just opening your life up to all kinds of upset.
And the problem is that we have a lot of people in this world that do exactly that. They have no BS detector. Everything is equal to everything else. They can watch the news all day, watch as they talk about 50 people being killed somewhere and then jump right to a drug commercial like the two things are equal. Without some common sense, what are these people left to think? That the world is shit and we’re all about to die. Everything is equal to everything else is equal to BAD.
Less sensationalism. More BS detection. More critical thinking of the press. Then we would have a media that is all about global connection on a level that helps.
Bloggers – herein lies why I think the blogs and social media is so important these days. Most people in this world are good, decent people. The kinds of people, too, who might not have a voice on a global scale otherwise. Blogs and social media give people a global voice. Yes, it can create a lot of noise and increase the need for a good BS detector. Blogs don’t always get it right. But, one thing you CAN count on is the fact that you will get all viewpoints. You will get the context, the questions and the facts. Not necessarily from an individual blogger, but from the collective blogosphere.
With that in mind, I think it is safe to say that the mass media (television, specifically) has a lot of negative impacts. The internet, on the other hand, has much better potential for positive impact. And it comes down to intention. There is a lot more self policing online. If a blogger is screwing up, he will be called on it. I guarantee it. In the TV press, they get facts wrong all the time and they are not held accountable for it (except perhaps by bloggers, that is). The traditional press is a good-ol’ boy club of self-anointed elitists with self-proclaimed missions to change the world. I would rather have a loose conglomeration of real people posting to their blogs any day.
Bloggers, Don’t Do What I Just Did
It’s time for me to practice what I preach. Namely, if you’re going to blog, you need to post at least once per day. Otherwise, people start to take off and don’t really care.
So, bloggers, don’t do what I just did. I haven’t posted here since last week. My posting frequency has decreased the last 2-3 weeks as well. So, my bad! It’s not going to continue that trend. And I’ll start posting more frequently. There is SO much to talk about in the world of the internet. There is certainly no shortage of material. Time? Yes. But, that’s not an excuse.
Stay tuned…I’ll post something more useful today.
Heading to BlogOrlando Today
This afternoon I am leaving for Orlando where I will be attending BlogOrlando tomorrow. This event is certainly a LOT easier to get to than Gnomedex. Instead of getting on a plane and flying 3,000 miles, I can get in my car and drive 80 miles. So, tonight I will be staying in a room in Orlando so as to avoid the early morning rush hour drive from Tampa to Orlando on Friday morning. Then, I’ll just drive back to Tampa tomorrow after the event.
I hope BlogOrlando is worth the time and effort. In looking at the schedule, it looks like they have a decent line-up. In fact, the line-up looks a lot more relevant to bloggers than the schedule at Gnomedex. Given the cost and travel time for Gnomedex, it is debatable whether it was worth it for me. So, it’s really convenient having a relevant conference over here in Florida. Florida, too often, seems like the backwoods of the dot-com field. Why? What is go great about California?
I expect to be posting from Orlando. This, of course, depends on wifi access (which is supposed to be supplied by Rollins College) and time. You can also follow the Twitter updates of BlogOrlando.
Snotting Up My Keyboard
Today is one of those days when sitting in front of the computer working just isn’t that enticing. But, I’m doing it. In recognition of the fact that I hadn’t posted anything here in a few days, I just thought I’d post something – even if it was not exactly internet related.
I have a bit of a cold. And it is annoying. And the reason for it is called detoxification. My wife and I are fairly health conscious. We do buy organic food when it is convenient and generally try to eat well. However, I had let my discipline go. I was working all the time. Since my wife is not working now, I am generating all the income for the household and that drove me to work like crazy. So, I got lazy on the food front. Started eating some crap. You know, pizzas, Chinese take out, lots of carbs. I wasn’t exercising as much. I was drinking 4+ cups of regular coffee per day. In short, being a typical American.
Over the last few months (definitely since we got married) I had gained about 20 pounds. For that and a few other reasons, I decided to do what is called a detox program. There are a lot of these things out there, but I heard good things about this one. It’s not one of these weird things, either, where you’re downing pints of oil or some shit. No, on this detox program you simply change your diet and give your body a LOT of vitamins and nutrients with various supplements. The diet I’m on is healthy as hell. Basically meats and vegetables. Temporarily, I’m not having any fruits but that will change in a couple weeks or so.
So far so good, although these cold symptoms are a bit of an annoyance. They are typical reactions to your body getting rid of toxins. I have also lost about 8 pounds so far. My energy is good. It’s early in the game. I’ll probably be eating like this for another couple weeks or so, so we’ll see where it stands a little later.
And now for my infinite wisdom…
Eat Well
It is not a coincidence that the rates of diabetes, cancers and other bad ailments have risen in direct proportion to the rise of processed foods. It’s convenient to eat pizzas and Chinese, but it’d really bad for you. Too much coffee is likewise very bad for you. Energy drinks, processed snacks – all no good. I think it really is a shame in this country that people are so ignorant about it. You should take a trip overseas some time and go to a street market. The food quality is so much better. It TASTES better, too.
Organic food is not some new age, hocus pocus crap that the rich enjoy. It’s simply real food that doesn’t have all the chemical crap in it. Take a look at the ingredients of some of the stuff you probably eat. Can you even pronounce half of it?
Don’t Forget About Your Body
I’m working on back-tracking some time of being on a see-food diet…you know, I eat whatever I saw. It’s fun to eat like that, but not fun to deal with a body that is not working right. I don’t intend to eat like a saint ALL the time. Just most of the time.
And those of us who work on the computer and get all into our businesses, don’t forget that you have a body and that that body needs to be healthy for you to be able to continue what you do. So, make a point to eat well and to exercise. If you haven’t done it in awhile, your body might bitch a little bit at the beginning (like mine is), but after that the benefits are clear.
Iran Bans Google
In yet another affront by the Iranian government on it’s people, they have banned access to Google and Gmail inside the nation of Iran. These kinds of stories always catch my eye. Freedom of information is always key to the freedom of people, and you can always tell the governments which are suppressive by how they treat internet access. The Internet is the most free medium of information that has ever existed, and governments like Iran are interested in filtering out that freedom of information. They want to keep their population dumb and unable to participate online with the rest of the world freely. Either that or they just want to keep their population from dieing of playing video games.
I’m not one to take on political causes online. I might occasionally state an opinion, but I am no political blogger. But, we all need to, collectively, stay aware of these kinds of things. Internet censorship is a big deal, especially if done at the governmental level. We should always remain aware of any government controls on the internet and never let it start with our own governments.
And those of us in the U.S., don’t think for a second that many in Washington wouldn’t just LOVE to do this. Just look at the battle on talk radio and you’ll see what our current crop of politicians really think of freedom of speech.
I'm David Risley. I've been making my living as a blogger for over a decade. Blogging is my business and how I support my family. With this blog, I'm just gettin' REAL and telling you how this business works. 
