August 25th, 2010 / Computer Geek, Web Geek / 2 Comments »
I love Instapaper. It’s basically replaced Google Reader as my content-consumption medium of choice. I have the “Read Later” bookmarklet installed in my browser so whenever I find something interesting on the interwebs during the work day I just flag it for later and (hopefully) get to it that evening. I’m trying to make it a point to clear my queue at the end of every day either by ditching or reading the articles I’ve thrown in there, but personally, I like to have an idea of the number of articles I have ahead of me (mostly to decide if I should plop on the couch and dive in or if it’s something I can finish off on my phone on the bus). No where on Instapaper does it tell you how many articles you’ve saved! Definitely an interesting design choice! Anyway. After looking at my queue tonight I realized
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August 1st, 2010 / Media Geek / 3 Comments »
Back in June I made a bit of an impulse decision. A quick trip back to the East Coast pointed out a few bad habits I’d developed since moving to San Francisco and it was time to fix that. The first to go: my cable subscription. The morning after returning from my trip I made a call to Comcast and asked them to cancel my subscription. They tried to keep me as a customer, as they are wont to do, but I was convinced. The TV was ruining my ability to function. It had to go. Backing up a bit: I’m very much aware that I have a bit of an obsessive personality. It’s why I like projects so much. It’s why I was absolutely petrified to try alcohol for the first time (luckily I don’t particularly like it). It’s why I always make sure the candy bars are lined
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March 26th, 2010 / Web Geek / No Comments »
For those of you who couldn’t keep up with the webby happenings this week, here’s a quick digest! Since it’s the first week it’s a little light, but look for something more comprehensive next week! Hunch Twitter Predictor Mar 20 – Hunch launched a Twitter Predictor: Enter your Twitter name and based on who you follow and are followed by on Twitter, combined with aggregated and anonymized Hunch data, it tries to make predictions about how you’d answer questions about yourself. Mar 25 – 5 days later over 20,000 people had played the Twitter Predictor Game with an average accuracy of 85%. Hunch posted a neat analysis of how people used the game on their blog. With this data they developed some stats about popular twitterers’ followers. It’s only for “popular” twitterers right now, so if you have more than 1,000 followers, give it a shot and see who your
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December 31st, 2009 / Cooking Geek, Geek At Work, Media Geek, Photo Geek, The Geek / 2 Comments »
Last year my roommate April and I set out to write a list of 101 things that we each wanted to accomplish in 2009. It’s hard to believe that today is already Day 365. SO much has happened this past year that I don’t even know where to begin, but I think it’s safe to say this was one of the most eventful years of my life so far. Throughout the year I really enjoyed having my list to come back to when I was feeling bored, unproductive, or reflective. It was great to have a tangible set of things that I wanted to do that I could check off along the way. It’s why I created 101in365. I wanted to do it again, but even better this time around. I rarely made a conscious effort to accomplish one of the items on the list. I generally just let life
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December 15th, 2009 / Geek At Work, Web Geek / No Comments »
As 2008 was coming to a close I was searching around for some good new year’s resolutions. I’ve never really been good at resolutions. They’re too intangible. “Be a better person.” “Keep my apartment neater.” “Drink more water.” How could I measure whether I was able to accomplish these things at year’s end? It was out of this that I wrote my first 101in365. A simple list that I put on my old blog. It’s still there and I still update it, but now that 2009 is coming to a close and it’s time for me to start working on my 101in365. I wanted something better for 2010. I wanted a way to automate it so I didn’t have to go through and add strikethroughs to each item and so I didn’t have to go into a blog post and scroll down to find my item. I wanted a way
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December 3rd, 2009 / Media Geek, Web Geek / No Comments »
I’ve been having a tough time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. True, it’s only the first week of December, but I think a large part of it is the lack of seasons here in San Francisco. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas. I haven’t even seen snow yet this year! In an attempt to try to force myself to be cheery, here’s a little round-up of cool Christmas/Holiday things I find around the web. I’ll probably keep updating this post as I find more but I wanted to share these two right away since they’re more time sensitive. Enjoy! 1. Send a Snail-Mail Holiday Card from Google (for free!) Google has a cool little offer this year: They’ll send a post card to someone via snail mail on your behalf. No stamps required! The cards all have little GMail icons on them, some more obvious than others, but
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December 1st, 2009 / Geek At Work / 2 Comments »
I’m a projects person. I love projects. I love having something to play around with when my regular responsibilities get to be old hat. I love the challenge of having something else to think about besides school work or real work – something that stretches my mind a bit and keeps me from losing touch with reality. I’ve been struggling with not having a project for the last few months. When I got back from Europe and found myself with a few weeks with nothing to do but enjoy summer vacation I was itching to DO something, to create something, but I didn’t know what. Instead I played around with my blogs. I decided to leave forever-digital behind and move here. And that kept me occupied for a while, but it wasn’t the project I was looking for. It was incredibly frustrating. I hadn’t started work yet, I was in
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November 19th, 2009 / Geek At Work, Web Geek / 10 Comments »
I’ve been toying around with Google Wave for a month or so now and I have to say that while it’s not exactly the answer to all of my troubles, it’s definitely an interesting attempt at re-inventing the way we communicate within a group. With the Notifier for Firefox installed, I’ve found that it’s become a pretty good way to keep up with a group of friends all at once. While Facebook allows for one-off catch-up sessions, Wave allows for less linear chatter which I think is well-suited for informal communication. Have you gotten your Google Wave invite yet? What do you think of it? What are you using it for? And if you haven’t gotten your Wave invite yet, I have 17 invites left. Leave a comment here with your email address and I’ll add you to the invite list. They sometimes take a few days to go through.
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October 24th, 2009 / Geek At Work / 2 Comments »
I’m a huge, huge fan of Merlin Mann. The guy seems to be able to articulate everything that’s been brewing around in my mind at exactly the right time. If you haven’t read/seen/heard of his stuff, I strongly suggest you go check out merlinmann.com for a quick digest and links to follow him wherever you consume your internet-goodness. His latest video, Makebelieve Help, Old Butchers, and Figuring Out Who You Are (For Now), seems to go on forever but it’s worth it. Go on, hit play: Anyone who knows me in person knows that I’m a huggeee procrastinator and as such I really enjoyed Merlin’s explanation, or perhaps even his defense of procrastination: it helps me think! When I was in school my friends were constantly perplexed by the torture I put myself through by rearranging my room, watching TV, editing photos, playing with a rubik’s cube, etc. on nights
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October 14th, 2009 / Web Geek / 1 Comment »
Of my many peeves with Google Wave so far, the absence of a notifier is high on the list. If I need to keep a site running in a browser window just to keep on top of what’s going on, I’m probably going to close the window and forget about it for a few weeks. Google Wave has fallen victim to that habit and many a Wave has come and gone before I even remembered to check it. I’ve missed out on entire conversations between friends because I closed the browser window accidentally and didn’t realize it for 5 days. Browsing through Lifehacker today I found the Google Wave Notifier for Firefox. If you use Google Wave at all I think you’ll really appreciate this add-on. Believe me, once you get a critical mass of friends using Google Wave (which I do thanks to the all of the invites Google
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