One of the things I do on the back-end is choose “plug-ins” that add features to the blog that (hopefully) enhance your experience here or at a minimum help me accomplish something that the blog software (WordPress, in my case) doesn’t do natively. For example, and at issue . . . → Read More: So long, BlogGlue]]> I don’t talk much about the technical side of having a blog, but though it might look technical, this is really about the business side of blogging.

One of the things I do on the back-end is choose “plug-ins” that add features to the blog that (hopefully) enhance your experience here or at a minimum help me accomplish something that the blog software (WordPress, in my case) doesn’t do natively. For example, and at issue here, at the bottom of each post is a list of “Related Links”. A plug-in provides those.

The plug-in that runs now lists older posts on my blog so if you liked the post you can find similar things I’ve already written. For the last month, I’ve been running a different plug-in that has a great feature: in addition to listing old posts I’d written, it also links out to related posts written by people I hand-selected on their blogs. I thought it was a great way to introduce some of you to some of the people I read, and they in turn could (and did) use the same plug-in to introduce me to their readership.

That plug-in, BlogGlue, also has some integration with Facebook and Twitter to make it easier for me to let people know when new posts are available.

In general, it functioned as advertised, in that it successfully found related posts from both my own blog and those I identified and put them on my posts. Cool.

But then the trouble began.

As it was first processing my site, it started posting random years-old posts to my Facebook and Twitter accounts. Very messy and annoying. So I turned off the integration until it was finished processing.

I never turned the Facebook integration back on, though, because it kept randomly throwing links to old posts on Twitter, and even worse started sending direct comments to one of the guys whose blog I linked to saying “I suggested you in” whatever the post was. What? Why in the world would he care that this software added a link to an old post on his blog in a years-old post on my blog? It’s just spammy.

But then, that’s who this plug-in seems to cater to: spammers. Out of the hundreds of sites using this plug-in, I could only find an extremely small handful who were not quite obviously spammers. I couldn’t even fill the limit of 5 associated blogs that comes with the free account after an hour or more of searching for non-spam blogs.

And speaking of limits, that is finally what did them in for me. They have a 400 post limit on the free account. After that, you have to pay $10/month to raise the limit to 1000. I have over 400 posts already, and I pay less than $10/month for my entire hosting account. So nothing I posted after I installed the plug-in was getting related-posts additions, my friends weren’t seeing any traffic from any of my new posts, and to fix that, I’d have to more than double what I currently pay to run this blog.

Not happening.

Great idea for a plug-in. Nice related post functionality. But it needs some serious work on the other features.

• Don’t bug my friends with pointless Twitter pesterings.
• Don’t spam random old posts all over the place. At least give me the option of whether to tweet about old entries.
• Maybe allow me to control how far into the past to index my older posts – or just index a rolling 400 (or more reasonable limit) of my old posts so the newest ones actually show links.

In my opinion this plug-in is just a way to make some quick bucks off spammers. I’m all for taking money from spammers, but I don’t need to be on the giving side of that equation – especially when the ancillary functions are so annoying. So… later, BlogGlue.

When I say it was a great success, I mean that it was successfully uploaded and at least three people were able to download and listen to it. I make no statements about the actual quality of the content (though those 3 people who admit to hearing it seemed to enjoy it (which reminds me, your payments will be sent . . . → Read More: TIDBABSH the second, part the first]]> Last month’s podcast was such a great success that I decided to do another one.

When I say it was a great success, I mean that it was successfully uploaded and at least three people were able to download and listen to it. I make no statements about the actual quality of the content (though those 3 people who admit to hearing it seemed to enjoy it (which reminds me, your payments will be sent shortly)).

With such a wave of accomplishment and adoring fans to bolster me, how could I not do another? It just wouldn’t be fair to all of you to deprive you of that which you have come to hold so dear. Or possibly, that which you have tolerated heroically.

This time around I left my wife to deal with the kids while I waxed (and waned) philosophic with Australia’s favorite son: Lee Sargent.

Well, he’s from Australia, anyway.

Lee is slowly taking over the internet, appearing on podcasts all over the world while simultaneously co-hosting his own podcast at Lee and Dan’s Midnight Movie Club and keeping his take on the world of pop-culture front and center (of the far left, rear facing department of the underside of the internet – which is a more prominent position than it sounds) on his blog, Quit Your Day Job. Take some time to visit his sites. They’re better than this one.

So, Lee and I attacked this month’s topics with a vengeance. I had a lot of fun in this conversation. We got so involved in some of these topics that we actually ended up with enough material to cover two podcasts. And yet, this month’s podcast is shorter than last month’s! Well, that’s because you’re only going to get the first half of the discussion today. We’ll get to Part 2 later.

This month, strap yourself in for some rambling on the following topics (following a rambling introduction that covers a surprising amount of surprising information about Australia):

1. Worlds Oldest Man dies at 114.
2. Author crashes and burns in responding to a book review (and related link)
3. http://www.khanacademy.org/
4. Crime-fighting sunglasses!
5. Free software to create flash flippable book
6. Free Geneology software

Doesn’t look like much, does it?

You’ll be amazed at some of the places those links take us.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of my discussion with Lee, where we take on some more of popular culture, including our thoughts on a mess of upcoming movies and TV shows that have released trailers lately, some movie news and rumors, the portrayal of women (wonderful and otherwise) in superhero roles, gender neutrality in the X-Men, and more.

Go forth and listen!

I love Portal. I first played it at my brother’s house a few years ago, and was completely into it, until my wife wanted me to do something silly like help with our daughter or go somewhere we’d planned on and were late getting to. It’s not like I’d been ignoring her and everyone else all day or something. It . . . → Read More: Portal – The Game. Free Download until May 24th (ps: the cake is a lie)]]> Portal – The Game. Free Download until May 24th. | The #1 bookmarked Freeware site.

I love Portal. I first played it at my brother’s house a few years ago, and was completely into it, until my wife wanted me to do something silly like help with our daughter or go somewhere we’d planned on and were late getting to. It’s not like I’d been ignoring her and everyone else all day or something. It couldn’t have been more than 2 hours. 3 hours max.

Anyway… version 2 is coming out soon, and as a promotion, they’re giving away version 1 for free until May 24th. Here’s the skinny, from TechSupportAlert:

If you’re a fan of single-player games you’ve probably heard of Portal.  Version 1 was a major hit for Valve Software, and version 2 is due to be launched in the coming months.

As part of a promotional offer, Portal v1 is currently available as a free download from Valve’s online store until May 24th.  So if you feel like playing, grab it now from http://store.steampowered.com/freeportal/.  It’s available for both PC and Mac.

The downside is that it’s a rather large download, especially if you don’t already have the “Steam” engine. But seriously, if you like puzzle games, you’ll love this – it’s worth the download. This isn’t an action-shoot-em-up, you really have to think. Quick reflexes are (usually) not necessary. And yet, it still gets my adrenaline going. Plus, it’s funny.

Here’s the song you get when you win the game. It’s written by Jonathon Coulton, whom I’ve written about previously. It’s pretty funny, especially if you’ve played the game and moreso if you know the other Valve titles, like Half-Life.

If you’ve already played the game, add a comment with your thoughts. I’d love to hear what you thought of it.

It’s not at all new either. In fact, there’s a multi-award winning film that uses something very similar in its most famous scene. (Comment below if you know what it is.)

What is it, and why does it excite me?

Don’t laugh.

It’s a bar graph.

Yes, seriously.

Wait, wait! Don’t go… it’s not just any old bar graph. This one moves. . . . → Read More: A colorful cavalcade of classical coolness]]> This excites me on many levels. It’s so simple, and yet so cool.

It’s not at all new either. In fact, there’s a multi-award winning film that uses something very similar in its most famous scene. (Comment below if you know what it is.)

What is it, and why does it excite me?

Don’t laugh.

It’s a bar graph.

Yes, seriously.

Wait, wait! Don’t go… it’s not just any old bar graph. This one moves. And it lights up. And there’s music.

Starting to see the cool yet?

Yeah, I probably wouldn’t either, if I was just reading this. Stick with me.

Let’s package it this way: This is a different way to experience music – visually and accurately. We’ve all seen light shows of one kind or another accompanying music, but most of the time it’s just pulsating to the beat or rhythms or some approximation thereof. What we’ve got below is accurate parts, durations, and relative pitch of the notes in a song depicted in a way that you could actually learn something about the music itself.

Check this out as a “simple” example from J.S. Bach:

I call that simple only because it’s one instrument and pretty easy to see how the thing works. But check out the first movement from Mozart’s Symphony #40 in G-minor (one of his best, for my money). For some people this may be a better example because you can actually follow a single instrument through the symphony (for instance, green is the violin (with other strings in shades of green)):

Beyond that fact that I just think it looks neat, I really think this could be used to get people to think of music in a different way. It could be used to help people see the connection between music and math (you can’t get a bar graph without math!). In our increasingly visually driven society, it could be used to help show the ebb and flow of the musical lines, and the intertwining of parts to create the whole. Heck, maybe it could even be used to help the deaf experience music in a new way (maybe it already is, for all I know).

Because this is based on MIDI, it would be pretty easy to single out a given part or parts for display to focus on just the brass, for example. All sorts of ways to slice and dice this.

Like I said, this excites me in many ways: as a music lover, as a technology geek, as an (extremely) amateur composer, and as a trainer/educator. It’s just plain cool.

In case you’re interested in how this works (from the technology side), it’s actually pretty simple. It’s a visual representation of MIDI, which has been around for quite a while (I actually programmed my computer to play the “Ghostbusters” song in MIDI back in the 80′s). MIDI is a mathematical representation of pitch and duration for each note in a score/song. Run that MIDI file through this free software, and it reads all that math and gives you that scrolling bar graph (or even a few other visual options). It’s fun!

Do did you figure out which movie used a colored bar representation for music yet? Here’s a hint… ba-ba-da-BUM-BUM!

I had the occasion to use two services last night: Vyew, and DimDim. I’ll summarize my experiences below.

This was the first time I’d tried Vyew. It’s a Flash-based service so there is no software to install (unless you want to share your desktop, which requires a Java . . . → Read More: Free web conferencing – ups and downs]]> I wanted to follow up on a couple of posts I made (long ago) about web conferencing. Figured it was about time I got back to it.

I had the occasion to use two services last night: Vyew, and DimDim. I’ll summarize my experiences below.

This was the first time I’d tried Vyew. It’s a Flash-based service so there is no software to install (unless you want to share your desktop, which requires a Java applet to run). Vyew actually has a lot of great features for collaboration, centered primarily around a “book” concept, where you add (import) documents or presentations and/or insert text on a white-board, and annotate the heck out of it. There really are some nice annotation tools to work with. Everything is saved so when you leave and come back in a new session everything is where you left it. You can also work synchronously or asynchronously, which can be a bonus – especially when you’re working with people in a different time zone.

Desktop sharing is a very important piece of conferencing for me. Most collaboration I do is centered around helping someone with a computer- or web-related problem and being able to see what they are doing on their screen is invaluable. For this purpose, Vyew works in a pinch, but I don’t think I’d use it again unless I was in a situation where you absolutely couldn’t install anything on the other person’s machine. The picture is a little bit fuzzy (not bad, but noticeable), and from the start, the delay between screen refreshes left me at least 2 seconds behind what the other person was doing. After a while (maybe 45 minutes) that gap increased, until it wasn’t refreshing at all, even after stopping and restarting the applet, and logging out and back into Vyew entirely.  That problem caused a long pause in our actual work while we tried to diagnose and fix the issue, until I eventually gave up and moved to DimDim. Lots of wasted time.

DimDim, on the other hand, doesn’t have quite as many nice annotation/collaboration features as Vyew, but it does have the basics – and does them well – and the desktop sharing is exceptional. You do have to install a small app for desktop sharing, which can be problematic if there are restrictions on the ‘client’ machine, or the person on that end has difficulty with computers. Once it’s running, though, there is minimal definable delay and the screen is completely clear. After we got moving on DimDim last night, the conferencing tool was an after-thought – exactly as it should be.

One negative thing about DimDim is that it fully enforces the “meeting length” you set before you launch the meeting. The default is 2 hours. Once you hit that time, everything disconnects with no warning time or ability to lengthen the session. Very annoying if you’re running over the planned time and have to relaunch and reinvite all the participants.

Both of these options support desktop and application sharing, but neither supports remote control (where I can request control of the participant’s desktop and work directly on their machine). They’re free, so I’m not too bent out of shape about that, but it would be nice to have that integrated. If I do want that option, I generally go with LogMeIn Free, which requires a client installation. There are other options, like the open-source Real VNC (also see below), but I think LogMeIn is a little easier in terms of user-friendliness.

I did consider one other service last night: Yugma. It requires an installation as well, and looks good, but I saw a lot of negative comments on its Skype-enabled version and ended up skipping it. I was trying to go with no installations last night or I would have tested that one instead of Vyew. I still may give that one a run in the future.

Apart from the usual VNC versions (each with varying mix of features)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/echovnc/
http://realvnc.com/
http://www.tightvnc.com/
http://uvnc.com/

Free for web conferencing between 2 people.
http://www.webtrain.com/

Free for non-commercial, personal use
http://teamviewer.com/

Free – IPN (Instant Private Network)
http://www.remobo.com/

I took a look at a few of the sites that GLBLGuy posted. Some I found useful, but most . . . → Read More: 4 sites to get free/cheap stuff – finding deals online]]> Recently Gather Little by Little posted an article on “Deal of the day” sites, such as Woot.com and Yugster.com. These are sites that offer one product per day for a substantially reduced price. The merchandise, frequently reconditioned but at times new, is sold until their quantity runs out or 24 hours is up, whichever comes first.

I took a look at a few of the sites that GLBLGuy posted. Some I found useful, but most featured a string of products I couldn’t care less about if I tried (seriously, do we really need a site like this solely focused on ties?). Many of the sites focus on technology products, but do they all? No whey. (I can’t believe I just stooped that low.)

There are some good sites, though. Here are a few that I found useful:

TodaysDoD.com – One stop shopping for many deal sites. I agree with GLBLGuy… of the DOD site aggregators I’ve seen, I like this layout the best. Not very eye-pleasing, in my opinion, but I found it the easiest to browse by far. It actually incorporates daily deals from standard store sites as well, such as Amazon.com and NewEgg. Very handy.

Pacific Geek – I actually just bought one of their computers for $150-ish. This also points out one of the downfalls of using a deal of the day site: as I write this, the deal is a similar computer for $50 less. If I’d only known…

Woot! – The humor on this site is just as good as their deals (sometimes, better). They also periodically break with the pattern and run a new product as soon as the previous item’s quantity is sold out for a 48-72 hour period. They call that a Woot-off. And then there’s the Bag of Crap phenomenon…

Giveaway of the Day – This is an interesting variation on the DOD theme. GOTD offers a single commercial software product for free (they pay the licensing) every day. This is not a freeware or shareware distribution site, these are actually fully-functional commercial products. That doesn’t mean they’re always good products, mind you, but I’ve already downloaded a pretty good disc-burning program and a Windows Utility program. What I’ve really liked about this site, in addition to the obvious, is the comments section. You frequently find customer reviews of the product and references to Freeware alternatives. So even if the offered program is garbage you can learn where to go to get alternatives.

Many other sites are certainly worth a look, and GLBL has a good list to start you off, even if you’re not looking for technology-related deals, but those are the ones I’ve gravitated towards recently.

What are your favorite DOD sites? Do you avoid them because you can’t take the time pressure? Do you find yourself unable to avoid them? Let me know in the comments.

I have been looking for a utility that will let me rearrange those stupid Windows Taskbar buttons. I like to keep my email client as the first program on my taskbar. Sometimes it crashes (these things happen) and I have to reopen it, but to get it back to the beginning of the line again, I had to . . . → Read More: Rearrange your Taskbar buttons, and more!]]> Gizmo’s – Drag, Click & Snap Windows and Taskbar Buttons into Position | Gizmo’s Tech Support Alert

I have been looking for a utility that will let me rearrange those stupid Windows Taskbar buttons. I like to keep my email client as the first program on my taskbar. Sometimes it crashes (these things happen) and I have to reopen it, but to get it back to the beginning of the line again, I had to close all my other programs and then reopen them in the order I wanted. If I’m running a couple of browsers with 18+ tabs each (not that unusual), that’s a huge pain in the neck.

Finally, Taskbar Shuffle comes to the rescue! My thanks to the contributor over at Gizmo’s site, who listed that software and three other Taskbar and Windows management tools.

Yesterday I was editing a recording I made in Adobe Captivate 2. It was only 18 frames, about 7 minutes long, and is a demo of a system we use at . . . → Read More: Fixing published audio problems in Captivate 2]]> I Googled my head off for help with this last night and couldn’t come up with anything, so I thought I’d put this out there for those of you who want to put your head through your monitor because Captivate is driving you insane.

Yesterday I was editing a recording I made in Adobe Captivate 2. It was only 18 frames, about 7 minutes long, and is a demo of a system we use at work. Should have been a slam dunk.

The Problem

For the most part, everything went fine until I published the file to SWF with HTML. But when I played back the published file, at about the 5th frame, the audio gained a very pronounced echo which lasted a couple frames, and then left the rest of the audio sounding like it was in a tin can.

I figured, “hmm… must be a glitch,” so I published it again. Same thing, but this time the problems happened on different frames.

I tried publishing again after changing a couple publishing settings: same effect – screwed up audio on different frames. Each time I published (about 8 times total) the audio was screwed up in a different way, and I never edited the file between publishes.

Needless to say I was a bit frustrated.

The Solution

I tossed out a rather annoyed email to a co-worker, who responded this morning with the answer (and it’s at this point that I have to say to her again: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!).

Apparently she had run across the problem before. I don’t know how she figured it out, but the answer is to adjust the slide timing slightly using the Audio > Edit Timing… feature.

The Edit Audio Timing window lets you grab a slider indicating the start time for an effect or frame change. Grab any one of those sliders and move it slightly (my suggestion is to be more zoomed in than shown here so you really are only moving it slightly). Click OK, then republish and everything comes out fine.

One thing you might want to do is verify that none of the timing of objects on your slides changed. It could happen, so make sure you check.

Why this works is a mystery to me, but there you have it. Hope it helps someone.

[UPDATE: Thanks to commenter Ericka, below, here are a few more tips for things that might help in similar situations.]