Watermark

Auto-Follow is Anti-Social: an introvert's thoughts on social media

I have recently entered an entirely new (for me) internet world: the marketing Web. My Etsy shop, an attempt to offset some of my online costs, opened recently, after several weeks of research, exploration, and reading about online selling.

I've read article after article on using social media -- Facebook, Flickr, Twitter -- to sell something. Promote yourself! Sell your product! Use these 'social' media to do it. And see, I've done it -- all those links are to my own accounts.

Many of these articles recommend tools to bump up your numbers, number of people you follow, and number of people who follow you. Follow everyone who follows you, they say; and unfollow those who don't reciprocate. This advice is totally contrary to how I am accustomed to using these services.

momentile

I've been playing with this service for past couple of weeks:

Our Manifesto

. . .

The sole purpose of this service is to provide a means for people to chronicle their days and share their experiences, with as little effort as possible.

A momentile consists of a single image, defined only by the date it was published. That's it. Void of explanation and free from context, a momentile is pure visual communication. There's something special about observing an interesting moment from a complete stranger, without any message other than the one you interpret yourself. This is, at its very core, the reason we created momentile. To interact with others by observing the interesting, obscure, and mundane moments of everyday life.

Upload a photo each day. It's not a competition; there is no expectation of excellence. It's just a way to show others, and remind oneself, I saw this today. Photos can be uploaded from your computer or mobile phone, or by email, and momentile will send alerts, with a link to your photo, to Twitter and Facebook if you like.

There is a 'social' aspect to this, if you choose to participate. All photos are published to the front page (all photos are public) and you can follow people who interest you, but that's the extent of it. There are plans for a few more functions (a blog widget, for example, which you will see here when it's available) but: Messaging, photo descriptions, befriending users and other 'social' webbery will never be implemented on momentile.com. They are clearly committed to keeping things focussed and simple.

This is in beta at present; I do have some invitations. If you'd like one, leave me a comment or email me and I'll send one off.

One Web Day | One Small World

Today is OneWebDay 

The Web is worth celebrating.

OneWebDay is one day a year when we all - everyone around the physical globe - can celebrate the Web and what it means to us as individuals, organizations, and communities.

There are days, in these difficult times, when I feel there is little hope for us, as a species on this world we sometimes seem bent on destroying. On those days, what hope I find is here, on the Web; in the connections we make as individuals, one to another.

The Web has a lot to offer that is informative, or beautiful, or trivial and disturbing. For me, the heart of the Web is the personal blogs, where we each offer something of ourselves to each other. Now, when war or disaster strikes in some other part of the world, I am likely to think -- to feel -- I know someone who lives there.

Because we do grow to know each other, in a new and uncertain sense.  This knowing is a reminder, an awareness, of how small our world is; how connected we really are. That the bell -- be it funeral bell, celebration bell, or alarm bell -- tolls for us all.

Ideas like this should be more often shared, especially nowadays when the world seems to be in need of dialogue and understanding among different cultures, in a way that it has never been before.

Click that Miniature Earth graphic to go see a short, powerful movie --  one of the jewels our Web has to offer. 

If our world still seems large to you, go look at The Size Of Our World.

We are so small, to hold so much.

Facebook: Maybe? No? Yes?

I'm in the process of reviewing my internet commitments, as I try to focus my energy on what is most helpful and rewarding, and reduce the clutter that appears every time I sign on to my 'start page' (Netvibes, at present.) I have, at one time or another, joined almost everything that's out there. Initially, this was due to my excitement about the whole new internet experience; a desire to try it all. 

Just thought you'd like to know...

This site is:

by Official Web 2.0 Certifyrbeta

 

Now maybe I can go to sleep. Now that that's taken care of.

Why social software is good for introverts

The Power of Many points to an intriguing post at 12 frogs, of particular interest to introverts:

... Thanks to LibraryThing (now with Groups!) and Flickr, my books and photographs have more of a social life than I do. I like things this way. It may seem counterintuitive to extroverts, but social software works for me because:

• Social software is mediated communication
  ... it means avenues of communication are only as open as I want them to be...

• Social software maintains the strength of weak ties
  ... The problem with this theory, if you are an introvert, is that you probably put zero energy into maintaining your social network ...

• Social software can create pockets of quiet and focus in the noise
  An odd thing sometimes happens when you aren’t standing in front of the crowd in person — it ends up being easier to get more personal, not less. Because you don’t have to think about the crowd (maybe there isn’t one after all) you can post the photographs you love, say what you really think, and tell the story your way.

  ... Connecting online counts. It matters to me, sometimes I’m surprised by how much.

I wonder if introverts use the web more than extroverts? I wonder if it seems more significant to introverts than to extroverts, who are more likely to have a broad and busy IRL social life?

It's certainly true for me that I feel more comfortable being personal, being who-I-am, online, than off. Generally, not universally, speaking. It's more like an exploration, than a revealing, somehow.

But then, we know that I'm an introvert. Are you more one than the other? Do you think it makes any difference at all in how people behave online, which end of this continuum they tend toward?

Vox: the personal journal solution?

I've been playing a bit with Vox, TypePad's new LiveJournal for grownups; or blog platform and social networking service; or half a blogging platform for newbies (albeit with rich and deep functionality) and half social network. 

I've seen some huffiness somewhere (I forget where) about insulting folks with references to newbies and grandmas, but I suspect that beginners and grandparents would not find such references insulting. There is no shame in either -- and I think Vox just might be on the right track for them, but also for those of us who have struggled through the newbie phase to produce nice-looking, professional (if not money-making) blogs -- but would still like a place for easy, personal blogging with a range of privacy options.

I had thought that Yahoo360! might serve that purpose, but it just never felt comfortable for me. The only feature I really liked was the Blast, which might be fun to see as a feature here at Vox. Yahoo was very slow to get some of its more important features off the ground, and Vox, while still in development, at least has what most folks would see as the essentials.

The posting interface is supremely simple, and allows you to easily insert photos, audio, videos, book refereces, and "collections". The service is currently smoothly integrated with Flickr, PhotoBucket, iStockPhoto, Amazon, YouTube, and iFilm; and I've no doubt many others are waiting in line -- hopefully including Barnes & Noble, Powells, and Picasa Web Albums. 

Not only is it not necessary to know HTML to use Vox, as far as I can tell, you can't use it; everything is WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) with cute little iconized buttons. There are several designs available, but if you want total control over how your blog looks, Vox is not for you. This is clearly set up for folks who just want something presentable, quickly, to hold their content. You can switch the design of your site with two or three clicks. Also, there are ads (this is a free, ad-supported service) but they are, so far, inconspicuous.

Each post can be set to one of five levels of privacy: you only; public; friends only; family only; or family and friends, but not public. I haven't checked, but I assume that any media content in such posts would carry the same privacy level as the post. It is this feature that might be useful for folks like me. I have public blogs, but would occassionally like to write a personal, even boring to non-friends, post for those very few who might be interested -- and invisible to those whom I would not want to find it interesting.

Vox facilitates crossposting from Vox to TypePad blogs (which I am about to test with this post) but what I really want is vice-versa. I want to be able to easily include my public content on my personal blog; not so much the other way around. I could see integrating nearly all my material into the Vox site, with some posts more private than others, so that friends could choose to read what they liked, but know they aren't missing anything as it's all in one place.

[You can see how the cross-posting worked -- or didn't -- here.]

There is, of course, the usual obstacle: one must be a member of Vox to post comments -- or to be included on family and friends lists. This is a perhaps necessary strategy to limit spam comments and other obnoxious behaviors, but means one more username and password for folks you want to view and comment on your blog.

In my introvert style, I've left the social networking features to the end. Vox has Neighborhoods, and Explore and Connect functions. All you need to do is get someone you know on there -- or chat up a few strangers -- and there you are -- a Neighborhood.  Answering the Question of the Day (QOTD)  and checking out what others have to say is another way to make connections.

Today's QOTD is: How well do you know your next-door neighbors?

And when I just checked, there were about 140 posts with that tag. I think they mean real life neighbors, though; not virtual, social-network-services neighbors.

Vox is still Beta; a few bugs now and then. I have three invites -- who wants one?

[Crossposted from Vox and Blogging Blog]

Comment Spam

Well, this open-commenting site has been (re)discovered. So, another poll:

[I've no idea why all this whitespace is in here]

FeedFlare

This is a test, to see how things are different after activating FeedFlare for Watermark -- despite all the explanation, I've no idea what to expect. Just a hint to the techies -- pictures, pictures, pictures, please.

Awhile back, I added FeedBurner, then forgot about it. This service runs all your feeds through the FeedBurner feed, invisibly, so that you know how many folks read your various feeds.

When I went in to set up FeedFlare, I discovered that Watermark has 111 subscribers.

Wow.

LATER: OK, what is it supposed to do? Something I won't see?

Google's Writely, and more

There is lots of conversation lately about is Google evil? What if Google decided to be evil (via Google Blogoscoped)?

But no one argues much about whether Google is useful.

I am a great fan of GMail, and have, one by one, abandoned all my other accounts. So simple, so efficient -- and I love search, don't sort. Some of you may have noticed that I now have email at my domain, which is thanks to GMail Domains Beta. I'm amazed that they let me in, this little one-person operation -- but I'm delighted. It's even better than regular GMail.

Do I mind the ads?

Could anyone who has ever used Yahoo Mail or Hotmail object to the unobtrusive -- and even sometimes interesting -- Google ads?

I signed onto Writely before Google bought it (I think someone at The Well pointed me to it) and now use it almost exclusively. When I first heard the prediction that one day we would do most of our work online, and our computers would be used mostly as terminals, I thought that was nuts -- of course I would want my own software on my own machine with all my own files. And if I were still working with client files and confidential information, I would no doubt still feel that way.

But now I'm at home, and have nothing that must be so guarded. I've experienced several hard drive crashes in the intervening years, and lost files due to my not-atypical haphazard backup practices. I've had TypePad crash repeatedly in the middle of preparing complicated posts.

Writely has never crashed on me, and when my browser has, the Writely document comes up exactly how I left it. Exactly how I left it, and accessible from any computer.

It was initially a bit buggy; less so every day. It offers direct publishing to some blog hosts -- not TypePad at present, which is not a problem for me. I prefer cut & paste and publish to draft in any case. Nice clean interface, all the usual bells & whistles, spellcheck, collaboration, and tagging! What more could one want in a word processor?

Only recently did I discover that I can offer it to you, even though it's currently not open for new registrations. The Writely Blog tells me:

No need to wait until Writely registration opens up again. When you have a Writely account, you have the power . . . Just add them as collaborators on a Writely document and click "OK" to email them. You can invite up to 50 new people by adding them as collaborators to Writely documents.

So, all 50 of you who would like a Writely account, drop me a comment or an email and tell me where to send the invitation. If GMail still requires invitations (surely not?) I can send you one of those, too.

[crossposted to Blogging Blog]

Habits of Effective Bloggers - Roundup

problogger's challenge to write about the Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers has resulted in a great many thoughtful posts; mostly, of course, about professional blogging, rather than the personal and idiosyncratic blogging in which I indulge.

I was hoping for some truly eccentric suggestions. You know, like turn three times clockwise, then bow to the west twice; or put on your FEAR THE POET T-shirt, burn sage incense, chant "I am creative" thirteen times. Something.

But no, pretty much the expected good advice, with a few not-so-typical good ideas; and some of the usual, unusually well-expressed. To the extent there is a common theme, it is: Passion. Persistence. Patience. To which I would add: Play! . . .

I did a very quick look-through, and offer below some brief excerpts . . .

To read the rest of this post, go to Blogging Blog.

Bloggishness

There have been some major (and some minor) changes here at sbpoet.com. Some changes have been made in response to specific complaints -- some my own, others from readers:

• Can't find email addy:  put text (in CAPS) above the GMail Me button

• Can't find About page: made the ABOUT button more 'graphic'

• Found the About page, but can't find your name: I think that's clearer now (it's Sharon Brogan, btw)

• What? You have more sites?!?: split out my own sites from those where I occasionally post, and put mine at the top of the sidebar

• Too much stuff; site loads slowly on dialup: Sorry, I like visuals. I hope you come to think it's worth it. Also, I do offer full feeds, so you can read me in a newsreader, one post at a time, without ever coming here. I hope you do come here, though.

• Small Poems & Commonplace Book not displaying correctly: fixed

• Blogrolls have dead links: pruned & updated

• No updates on Blogging Blog: we have new writers/contributers; the blogrolls have been pruned & updated; and I'm working on the sidebars

• Too many cats and squirrels: um, don't know what to tell you... I'm curious, though -- no one ever complains that there are too many dogs, or too many flowers -- why is that?

Watermark has a new banner, and I want to thank all my patient readers who responded to one poll after another. There is about a 70% approval rate on this one, which is pretty good. It'll do, for now. I want to thank Dave, especially, for saying my blog is fun -- just what I needed to hear on that day to keep me plugging away at this; and Cathy and dolphin for graphics advice.

All my other sites (except Blogging Blog, which is no longer simply mine) also have new banners. I love the Abide banner, with an evocative image from Harmony, who granted me permission to use it. A friend looked at it and said That's so you!

Most of the new banners take advantage of Phillip's Letters toy, with which I am clearly enamored. Now, I do realize I'm breaking all the rules here. I know that a suite of sites is supposed to share the same design, and they used to, pretty much. White backgrounds, the same black font. What can I say. I got bored with it.

Blogging Blog isn't really in this suite anyway, nor is Abide, really -- so I feel I have more leeway there. All the others have the shell at the right of the banner (and sometimes the left, too), and the top right sidebars are nearly identical. Abide, though the banner is entirely different, does have the shell. I think my readers will recognize that these sites belong to me.

Watermark received the most thorough clearing out -- deletions, additions, and rearranging. If you haven't stopped by in awhile, you might want to check it out.

Links got a bit of a shake-up, too. I decided to drop the Kinja digests; I think they may work fine for folks who read a few blogs, but for someone like me who follows a fair number, and many in different categories, Bloglines and Blogrolling just work better. I'm using the blogroll from The Big Sky Blog (thanks, David!) for my Montana blogroll; that one's more likely to be up-to-date, and I added a few Montana links of my own.

The biggest changes are to the About page, which I've never liked. More accurately, with which I've never been comfortable -- some of you will remember that it was months before I brought myself to even put my name anywhere. Recent advice, however, gave me permission to move the focus from me to the sites themselves -- the what, why, commenting and linking policies, and so on. I've also added an About This Site category to Watermark.

Some toys have moved from Watermark to About -- or just been added there, after wondering where to put them. Both Pandora and LastFM are there, and I'm playing with All Consuming. Is anyone really interested in the books I read, and the music I listen to?

In trying to figure out (with patient TypePad Support) why Small Poems and Commonplace Book had gone wonky, I learned that I have many and tedious HTML validation issues. I do not intend to weed through this until the weather is dreary again. Unless I must?

I know I still have work to do, especially on some of the peripheral pages, like the Cats and Webrings pages -- which I won't even link to here, since they are so pitiful. I'll get to it. Eventually.

Finally, I applied to 9Rules; I'm not sure why. I believe I applied before, never heard back, and forgot about them. Yesterday I perused some of their sites, and I see that Watermark hasn't a chance. These seem to be mostly professionally designed, quick and minimalist. Very not me. Some good sites, though, that demonstrate much more design control than I would be likely to have, even if I had the skills. I plan to spend some time over there in the coming weeks.

This whole process has been rather like my old grant-writing days -- completely obsessive. I hope you like the results, but whether you do or don't, please let me know.

Calling all geeks...

It would be really cool to have a widget to put on blog sidebars (especially, of course, TypePad blogs) that would let a reader click through to posts on that date from previous years.

Of course, I don't know if you folks would click that link -- but I would.

UPDATE Saturday 20 May: A response from TypePad Support --

. . . There is a Movable Type plugin that can do this but we're unable to use these with TypePad. Thanks for the suggestion though. We will keep this in mind as a possible future feature for the system.

Another (final?) Banner Poll

Well. This banner -- right up there -- was intended to be a one-day deal, but you folks seem to like it better than the ones I've been working on. So:

Guidance, comments, suggestions welcome. And, by-the-way, I'm being quite impressed with the services at Blog Flux. They do these polls, and have a directory, pinger, button maker, and more. And, so far, no ads.

UPDATED Monday May 15: Hmmm. 50-50, and only four votes. Shall I keep this post at the top for awhile, or just plaster a white stripe up there and leave it at that? 

Hmmm???

UPDATED again:  Cathy wants blue:

Banner Poll

[UPDATE Friday May 12: OK, folks -- you've been great! I have a new direction, and will be posting a new (last) selection and poll shortly.]

I've been very busy, and I hope you'll help me decide. Here are the banner options. Click them for larger [full size] images:

1   

2   

3 

4   

5  The one that's up there now.

I may not choose the most popular one -- it's my blog, after all -- but I am very interested in what you think. If you liked the old one better, tell me so in comments. I do realize I've gotten a bit carried away here.

I also have new banners on my other sites,  here, and here, and here, and here.

And I still managed to write a snapshot poem today! So creative I can hardly stand it . . .

Haircuts, and a Poll

Pitiful, isn't it? They are at the groomer right now; I'll post after photos later.

    

You may have noticed that Watermark has a new hairstyle, too. This may be a temporary condition -- I want your opinion -- and to get it, I have now tried three different blog poll sites. This one is the only one I can make work, and I'm not familiar with the site. So far, I've seen no pop-ups, but no guarantee:

What do you think of the new Watermark banner? Hate it, hate it, hate it. What were you thinking? I liked the old one better. Not bad! Fabulous! Great improvement!

Housekeeping

It is probably not obvious, but I've spent the past week -- rather compulsively -- working on this blog, and the Links Blog. I can't swear to it, but I think that every link on this sidebar, and all my blogroll links, now work. I've cleared out dead links, and deleted inactive sites. It's like sweeping dead bugs from the basement, only more tedious.

Surprisingly, one of the oldest blogrolls was the most intact; people who blog about or for their cats seem to stick with it longer than other bloggers. I think I had to remove only two or three sites from that one. There's probably a PhD thesis in that somewhere.

There was an Aortal link on the sidebar, and one for an Insignificant Microbe: help it evolve, but when I went to update those I was reminded why I so rarely do so. At least one third of the Aortal links are dead, or should be; and most of the Insignificant Microbes are the same. I may just move up the evolutionary ladder, to Lowly Insects, perhaps, or Flippery Fish -- if a blog gets that far, at least it's likely to be somewhat active.

I don't know what to do about the Aortal problem. I know that maintaining that kind of directory is a lot of work. I wrote to them some time ago about this, but never heard back.

Speaking of problems, a reader has kindly let me know that Watermark is not showing updates on his Blogroll. I've suspected this was happening, just from noticing a few times when I was visiting other sites that my updates weren't registering. Anyone have an idea why this might be? I also see I've dropped from a Large Mammal to a Marauding Marsupial at TTLB, but I'm assuming this is a temporary glitch. I doubt that I've really dropped from nearly 500 to 70 links overnight.

Let's see, what else . . . Oh, yes. I've added a couple of new toys (found at scribblingwoman)-- a Page Rank Check from BlogFlux, and buttons that are supposed to show the current  egopoint status of searches on my name and domain, but don't. They're off by about five thousand points.   

If I didn't have a healthy ego, this might make me paranoid.

Speaking of which, please let me know if you see any problems. Really.

Just so you know ...

05.02.2006

TypePad Update

Since approximately 4:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time, Six Apart has been the victim of a sophisticated distributed denial of service attack. This has affected all of Six Apart's sites, causing intermittent and limited availability for TypePad, LiveJournal, TypeKey, sixapart.com, movabletype.org and movabletype.com. Our network operations staff is working around the clock with our Internet access providers to resolve the issue. We appreciate your patience and support, and will provide updates as we have them.

Update, 11:40 pm PDT: Access and availability to our sites has improved. We continue to work closely with our Internet access providers and will monitor the situation through the night.

Posted by Michael Sippey at May  2, 2006 09:03 PM |

Why do people do this? Is it just vandalism? I don't get it.

More Silliness

I got a bang out of this, from woot!, by shan24, tied for third prize in the contest to  Modify a classic propaganda poster (or create a new one) for one side or the other in the pro- and anti-Microsoft conflict:

Of course, I still do both, since I have some old equipment -- but I appreciate the sentiment.

What little deep thinking I'm doing these days seems to be going to poems, so this is what you can expect for the rest of this month: poem, silliness, poem, silliness -- with maybe a photo tossed in here & there.

Blogger Code

Via Radio Free Blogistan:

B7 D++ T- K+ S+ F+ I++ O++ X E L+ C-- Y4 R+ W- P++ M4 N H

This questionnaire is a kick! They offer three versions of the code; this is The Bling Badge, which, as the winner of The Writer's Edge Blog Bling Award (see sidebar) is the obvious choice for me. Sadly, this one is too wide for the sidebar.

Yes, I know, if I were a real geek, I'd know how to fix that. But I'm not. I only play one on the internets.

Pop-Up

YIKES!  I got a pop-up, here, on Watermark! This has never happened before. I expect this means I must get rid of one of my sidebar toys, but which one? How do you know what is doing it?

Has it happened to any of you, dear readers? Could I ask those of you who read me by feeds to come by and check, and let me know?

Not a good valentine.

UPDATE: I wonder if this might help to identify the culprit -- the popup I got is from ilead.itrack.it-iLead and advertises at&t.

UPDATE II: Thanks to Kim's research, I removed a stat counter, but it appears that CoComment has been experiencing some problems today; their box disappeared from my site at the same time the pop-ups began. They are working on it, and it's possible that is the source of the problem -- the problem, mind you, not the pop-up.

I've not seen a pop-up lately -- please let me know if you do.

blog!

I am reading -- and enjoying -- this book. I'm also participating in a conversation with David Kline at The Well, on an open forum called Inkwell.vue; you needn't belong to The Well to participate, and may find the discussion interesting even if you haven't read the book. This conversation will continue for the next two weeks; come join in!

David also has a blog that I follow: BlogRevolt.com, where he talks about blogging, politics, technology, and whatever else catches his eye (note to David: you need to activate your Categories.)

TypePad Problems

Well, folks, you may notice a variety of issues here -- images come, and go; commenting comes, and goes; the weblog itself may come, and go.

I am also having posting problems, and am awaiting response from TypePad support. Since I am aware that they are having a series of difficulties, I don't expect to hear from them soon.

This week's Carnival of the Cats is due to appear here in about four hours -- keep your fingers crossed. I was nearly done with it when today's problems began.

TypePad Problems

From the SixApart Status Weblog:

10.25.2005

TypePad Service

The TypePad application is currently experiencing performance degradation. We are aware of the issue and are working hard to correct it as soon as possible.

& yes, this has been happening rather a lot lately.

Odds & Ends

It's been nearly a month now since my iBook arrived, and I finally begin to feel that it's comfortable. When my English friend Abigail first moved here, she complained that nothing worked quite right; even the light switches were "backwards." On the Mac, the close window button is at the upper left; on the PC, it's at the upper right. Now I understand what she meant.

I have a long list of things I keep intending to do, or talk about, or both. Things changed when I was mostly off-line. One of my favorite blogs, Affliction, was suddenly in a different language, even a different alphabet. Now it seems to have been hijacked by advertisers. Anne has suspended fishbucket and has started something new. Artichoke Heart is still absent and should probably be removed from my sidebar.

When my time online was restricted, I began to pay closer attention to what I actually wanted to read every day, and several of them are not on my sidebar. Soon I will be adding How To Save The World; Echidne of the Snakes; Body and Soul; NewWest; feministe; Burning Bird; In a Dark Time; neon epiphany; and Whimsy Speaks.

I also see that My Comments Elsewhere keeps slipping down the sidebar. I've no idea why that happens, but will put my mind to it -- soon. That is here mostly for me, anyway, to jog my uneven memory so that I go back to conversations I have joined. Of course, I have to remember to bookmark them to begin with, another unreliability. And an odd consequence of the recent TypePad changes seems to be that the shell on my title bar is suddenly sliced off.

There is a conversation happening about altars that I want to participate in. I am participating in a study on sacred moments that I want to talk about.

I think I am, slowly, getting my rhythm back. Thank you all for the welcome!

Oh, yes -- I took the above photograph this morning, under the Madison Street Bridge.

Serendipitous Arrangement

I went to a friend's house for dinner. She gave me some Martinelli's (sparkling apple juice) and we went out to look at the garden. I loved this rose, though she thought it was past its beauty; I asked for a bowl and put it on the table next to a pile of place mats.

Then I noticed the wonderful colors -- and luckily took more than one photo. The inclusion of the fruit was accidental -- and added so much to my planned composition.

Also, another message from TypePad:

MAINTENANCE UPDATE: TypePad is currently experiencing degraded application performance. We are aware of the issue and are working hard to resolve it.

Due to the new design enhancements introduced to TypePad, some published weblogs may currently be experiencing issues with layout and design.

I know, it looks weird . . .

Message from Typepad:

MAINTENANCE UPDATE: Some published weblogs may currently be experiencing issues with layout and design. We know about the problem and are working hard to resolve it. Over the weekend we will be automatically republishing weblogs on TypePad in order to address this problem.

iBook!

 

Beautiful, isn't it? The keyboard is an absolute delight. Friend Kris called at about 6 PM yesterday to see if I'd remembered to eat; and sure enough, I'd had breakfast and then half a bag of goldfish crackers. She brought dinner and admired my new toy.

It is so lovely, I just can't tell you . . .   

For someone like me, to whom aesthetics are important, it's a joy. I can't believe I haven't switched before. And now, thanks to all of you, I have.

The learning curve is somewhat steeper -- or the learner somewhat slower -- than I had anticipated. Everything is just a bit different.

My first post from the iBook! Please bear with me as I learn, and as I obsess -- you may expect a number of posts on Mac vs. Windows.

*Thank You*  *Thank You*  *Thank You*  *Thank You*  *Thank You*

Yet Another Update

Sometime last night, Watermark's site counter passed 50,000 !

Unbelievable.

AND -- the iBook shipped on Friday, and Estimated Delivery is Wednesday.

The day after tomorrow.

It may take me a bit to get everything up and working, and to get comfortable with the switch, but expect me back full speed by Friday.

I've missed you folks .  . .

Apple

My Apple experience so far has been less than wonderful.

Friend Cindy called Apple on June 8, and spoke with Raul about specifically how and what to buy. The next day, she called and left (at least two) messages telling  him that we were ready to order. He never returned her calls (obviously not working on commission.)

On the 9th, she started over with a new representative, and ordered the iBook. Although the website then said ships in 1-3 days, and now says Estimated Ship: Same business day, according to Kyle it would be eight business days to shipping. Well, it is a specifically configured machine, and I was very excited, so no problem.

Each morning I turn on this old desktop and check Order Status. For days it has said: Estimated Shipping on or before June 14, so I eagerly anticipated receiving it at the end of this week, or, worst case, on Monday.

Yesterday we got this:

We appreciate your recent Apple Store Order W . . . .

Due to an unexpected delay, we are unable to ship the following item(s) by the date that you were originally quoted:

. . . IBOOK 12.1 . . .
will now ship on or before 06/20/2005

Today I received the Macintosh Photoshop Elements 3 disc from Adobe.

So here I am, all dressed up and nowhere to go.

Update

I am exhausted, and giddy. Thanks to my generous readers, a bit of birthday money from family, and matching funds from poet friend Cindy, I will soon have a new laptop. I've spent the past few days up and down stairs to the desktop, printing out reviews, asking questions in forums, exploiting the expertise on The Well.

This research would be so much easier on a nice speedy laptop . . .

So, after wrangling with various factors (weight, size, memory, speed, battery life, support, ease) I have decided to switch. You folks are buying me a 12" iBook -- with a three-year support contract.

Adobe will send me a Mac version of Photoshop Elements 3 for shipping and a promise to not use or sell the Windows version (unfortunate, as I'd like the option to use it a bit on this desktop) -- and I've already done the paperwork for that. According to the lists on the Apple site, my printer will work. And, of course, my camera.

It's odd, to abandon twenty years of PC experience -- but a great deal of that experience was trouble- shooting, for myself, my office, my friends. I'm hoping that the rumors are true, that with a Macintosh there is less problem- solving and more computing.

So, this little bitty magic machine is beautiful, and movable -- at five pounds, I should be easily able to use it in the living room, sunroom, and even in the garden. Who knows, I may even carry it up and downstairs -- we'll see.

Finally, I just have to say that something is happening in my life, something unsettling. This, and then --  you've heard about my little mossy car. For a couple of years now, the battery has been, umm, temperamental. Probably due to neglect.

So once a month or so a friend brings by a battery charger she got at a yard sale and I charge up my car to go grocery shopping. But yesterday, it didn't work. The battery would no longer take a charge.

Briefly, I considered canceling the iBook, since all my own spare cash is going to that, too. A darkness in the belly at that idea. Told myself to let go, just deal with one thing at a time.

I called to ask a friend if she would pick up milk and cat food for me -- the two immediate necessities -- while I pondered what to do.

My friend brought me milk, cat food, and a new car battery.

UPDATED Update

I am laughing and crying at the same time. Quiplash, a long-time reader, commenter, and webfriend, has started a SBpoet Blog- Web- Flickr- AThon on my behalf. And people have actually contributed money.

Just look at that picture! This is what you get for using a Creative Commons license. Quiplash, you are too sweet, too funny, for my words.

You people do realize, don't you, that I am a poet? Poets are supposed to be ignored; expected to live in poverty.

And before you contribute to this big-hearted, generous fund, be aware that I do not live in poverty. I have a small house, a small (mossy) car, a small garden. While I am, like many others, one crisis from having to sell it all, I do have it to sell. And this is not that crisis.

Though I admit that it is, for me, a maddening and saddening situation.

I am struggling with mixed feelings about this. It's both flattering and discomfiting to be the object of such attention, and of that painful word, "charity".

For some time, I've battled feelings of insignificance, unimportance, unworthiness. To go from a social-worker workaholic to a disabled layabout is a shock, and one I've not managed well -- at least in some ways. A friend, just a few days ago, told me that my poems and photographs are "soul work" -- important work -- and that I need and "deserve" (another difficult concept for me) to have the tools to do that work.

So I am trying to view this as another challenge to my old, rigid ways; a new path, to be welcomed and greeted with the kindness which inspired it.

More specific updates:

• a port replicator/docking station will not solve the problem, as it connects through the same damaged equipment
• I have a call in to my brother-in-law
• I have a list of places to call and ask if they do 'component level repairs'.
• Just in case, I have a call in to Costco to see if they can find when, exactly, I purchased this computer -- I can't find my receipt, though I know I kept it.

And now -- nap time.  Thank you all. I have still been taking pictures, and they are on this molasses computer for me to play with when energy allows.

Update

Here's the verdict: my HP Pavilion laptop needs a new motherboard, at a cost of $700. I'm not sure this even includes labor -- doesn't matter, as the price is unreachable in any case.

Here's the plan:

• consult with brother-in-law, who knows about computers and may be able to get me a cheaper, used, motherboard (if that's sensible)
• consult with WeLL experts for further advice (one of the several things that makes the monthly WeLL membership worthwhile) 
• hoard energy for less-frequent posting on this tired old desktop
• decide what can be cut from monthly budget to save for repairs or new laptop
• start buying lottery tickets?

Surprisingly, the most frustrating thing to me is not being able to play with photographs as quickly and easily as I could on the laptop. This machine is just too creaky, and sitting up wears me out. I do have everything set up well -- good ergonomics and all that. What I miss next, is reading the blogs I usually spend time with each day.

So, I will be here, and on Flickr -- but with less frequency. Priority here will probably be Friday Cat Blogging, since that's the most popular feature I have.

In the meantime, it's spring, the garden is booming (so full already I can't imagine where everything still to come will grow) and I can sit outside with actual paper books. [Yes, I did mean "booming" -- "blooming" isn't big enough to really express it.]

Last night I dreamt that I was visiting a friend in some fantastic landscape, and telling myself to just enjoy what I was seeing, and quit fretting about what happens next.

How to keep your customers happy even when you aren't working . . .

Yahoo! 360

I've done a quick review of Yahoo! 360 on Blogging Blog, and that wore me out.

Happy Daylight Savings Day!

Why I Blog

Joe asks:

. . . do me a favor and tell me a little about (or point me to) the very last thing to inspire you (anything – not necessarily a website)

Well, Joe -- you have. Your request inspired me to do this post, which I've been thinking about for some time -- inspired by a variety of things, including the IT Kitchen, and this:

How often have you had a conversation with a non-blogger that goes something like this?

Web/Tech Stuff

Has anyone else been getting innocuous but irrelevant comments on their posts, from folks with dead URL's?  I hesitate to delete something as simple as just wanted to say hi but there are enough of them that I suspect I'm being set up for something.

I want to thank those of you who are clicking on the Vote for Watermark links on the sidebar -- these sites do brings me hits, and maybe -- hopefully -- readers. Might some of you be willing to scroll down further, and do one of the Rate Watermark links? 

I've updated the Aortal and Insignificant Microbe links -- two new blogs for you to explore.

Sometime this week my stat counter will count its 20,000th visit.  Wow.

I have taken down the Political Humor Poll; final tally:  67% thought both sites were funny; 8% thought only one site was funny; and 25% wondered what is wrong with me.  Total votes = 12.  I'm contemplating a poll on whether I should have polls.

The IT Kitchen is still up and active, with lots of good thinking for those interested in weblogging.

I've given up and put a NO slash through my NaNoWriMo icon. Maybe next year . . .

Anyone familiar with clevercactus ? It's a slick-looking p2p service (maybe they are all slick-looking; I've never looked at one before.) Since I have never managed to get my home network up, and neither was the computer geek I hired to do it, I'm wondering if I could use this to use/ move files between my own computers?  Are there downsides to this?

And finally, I got one of those phishing emails yesterday that pretended to be from PayPal. Sam tells me it's a worm that effects only IE users, which is not me. And the rest of you no longer have any excuse: Firefox 1.0 is now available!  It is so much better than IE. Go get it!

Offline

I'm basically offline for a bit -- equipment problems. Maybe see you Thursday.

Carry on!

Good Management

Click for larger image

This eases irritation with a smile.  Flickr really is a fun service.  I've added a couple of slideshows to my sidebar, for when the service is up again:  Garden and Critters.

Blogoshphere Quirks

Cheering

What She Said is a fairly new blog that answers the question:  Where are all the female bloggers? WSS features extensive interviews with women bloggers, and a very long blogroll of Progressive Women who Blog Politics "at least part time."  The blog is beautifully designed, the interviews are thoughtful, and the blogroll is a delight. 

So why am I talking about this in a post on Blogoshphere Quirks? 

Because Watermark is on that blogroll. 

Perhaps it's a mistake.  I am a progressive woman who blogs, but very rarely about politics (I may not be able to continue resisting the urge to do so, though.)  I wanted to be on that blogroll; I wished I could be on that blogroll; and there I am!

Screwy

The Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem has been very confused lately about my evolutionary status.  For some time, I've been a Marauding Marsupial (and actually, I still am), but for awhile there it was telling me I had suddenly dropped from 85 inbound unique links to seven, and had devolved to Flappy Bird status. 

Now, for several days, TLB has been convinced that I am a Large Mammal, despite thinking I have only seven inbound links (Technorati thinks I have 214 Links from 104 Sources.)  Watermark's current ranking at TLB is #259, and for the first time, I am actually receiving hits from there. 


Surprisingly Painful

Now, this one is silly, and I know it -- but I was so taken by surprise, and wonder if others have had similar experiences and how you have dealt with them. 

I left a comment on someone's blog, thinking to be amusing.  The blogger responded with something like I'm tired of people making pointless comments; if you don't have something helpful to offer, don't say anything.  Now, the blogger certainly has the right to respond however s/he likes; the surprise to me was that it hurts! 

When I started blogging, I had a heart-to-heart talk with myself about not taking things personally; remembering that online is different from real life; etc. etc.  And thus far, I've had little reason to remind myself of these platitudes.

I do not intend to respond to this person -- I don't think this is their problem; it's mine -- but I am curious if others are as thin-skinned as I am (at least, I am today.)  Any words of wisdom?

Well, Hell!

GoDaddy tells me I must start over to get the sbpoet.com domain to work.

This means that Watermark, Links, and Abide may or may not be available for the next 24-48 hours.

Oratory, Small Poems, and Commonplace Book, however, should be fine.

Go read some poems.

Whew!

Almost back! You Bloglines users out there, it's time to pay a visit to Watermark -- lots of new stuff.

I've moved Oratory, my poetry site (and Small Poems and Commonplace Book) to TypePad. These are relatively static sites, not blogs, so it was a bit of a technical challenge. At some point, when my energy level creeps back up, I may do a post at Blogging Blog about the details.

What I would like to know from you, though, is: does it work? Do the sites make sense to you; do you know where you are and how to get where you want to go? Does everything seem to flow naturally, or are there bumps?

I also brought over the About page from Oratory; and, after much agonizing, made a Wish List page. Of course, instead of just putting a donate button on Watermark, I had to make a big production out of it.

Finally, I made a new weblog: Abide. This is about fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and maybe chronic illness in general; resources, news, coping strategies, and whines that I don't want here.

Oh, yes, and the Links blog has a new address: links.sbpoet.com (the old one will still work.) The only thing that's not working yet is the sbpoet.com URL (minus the www) but GoDaddy promises it will be up soon.

I've also added lots of new fun to the Watermark sidebar, and redesigned the navigation list at the top to be consistent across the sites.

So tell me what you think.

[By the way, for those of you who have flash enabled, there is a neat little penguin at the bottom of the left sidebar on Abide. If you click her in the right place, three times, she falls off the iceberg. And then, of course, she climbs back on again.]

Web Hell

I have been in site-building/ domain-mapping hell for days now. I see that some of you (Smedley) have been able to get to sbpoet.net -- I have not, and so am unable to finish setting it up. Now, per instructions from GoDaddy, all of the new sites, and possibly even Watermark, will be down again for a day or so.

Hopefully, when they come back up again, all will be well.

Oratory

Some of you may have noticed that Oratory, my poetry site, is down.  It is likely to be down for a few days, as the domain gets transferred and I finish rebuilding it (I am moving it to TypePad) -- but it will be back soon, and better, I hope.   

UPDATE Friday September 10:  The Links blog is also down.  This is unrelated to the above issue; it's something to do with subdomain mapping.  Since I am using subdomains with Oratory, too, this needs to be resolved before I can finish setting up Oratory.  TypePad Support tells me:  We're working on it.

I can see, though, that TypePad is getting slammed with comment and trackback spam, so those folks are busy right now. 

GMail Invitations

I have lots of GMail invitations, and you can have one! All I ask is an amusing, enlightening, or entertaining comment somewhere on Watermark. Then email me at blogdiva [at] gmail.com, with your name, and I will send one off to you.

As before, regular readers get preference.

ADDITION: A pin in my new GuestMap {on the sidebar} would do it, too.

UPDATE 27 September 02004: The invitations are all gone. I am shutting down comments on this post, and will post again when/if I get more invitations. Thanks to all who pinned my guestmap or otherwise contributed to Watermark.

Site Loading in One Long Column?

Would anyone who is having this problem please leave a note in Comments, telling me what operating system and browser (including version number) you are using? 

TypePad support needs this information to track down the problem.

Thanks!

Bubbles in Cyberspace

From Life Is But A Dream

Chatango

Found at Chandrasutra: Chatango!

Chatango is a new way to make contact with people online. It's the first tool for real-time, private, disposable, one-to-one communication. It works just like one of those IM products, but doesn't require a download, and is accessible from any computer!

I've put a Chatango button on the sidebar, just beneath the Email Me link. It will be green if I'm online, red black if I'm not. If I understand the FAQ correctly (I've downloaded the MessageCatcher) you can leave me a message even if I'm not online, and I will get a message telling me you've left one.

This is an experiment -- I'm not a great chatter, and unsure how it might feel to chat with people I've never actually met -- but I'm feeling brave today.

We'll see . . .

UPDATE

Message to self: Do not wander off without signing out of Chatango, or folks will understandably assume you are still there and just ignoring them.

Joe Jenett

Bless the goddess for Joe Jenett, the man of many projects:  coolstop (home of the amazing coolstop sidelinks); the ageless project; jenett.radio (one of my daily reads); YooNoHoo!; and too many more to list (but you can find them at jenett webthings.)

Thanks to him, my Friday Cat Blogging post will be up soon.  Joe has been a constant source of support and encouragement for me since I began this blogging experiment. 

{And I think he likes cats!}

GMail Invitations

I have six GMail invitations available; email me (link on sidebar) if you want one. Generally it will be first come, first served, except that my usual readers get preference.

UPDATE: All gone!