Archive - Jul 2011
July 17th
Random Summer Notes
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 07/17/2011 - 20:11Another summer weekend comes to an end. The weather was beautiful and the pace was slow. On Saturday morning, we went to the new Meriden Farmer’s Market. It had been moved to ‘The Hub’, a new location from previous years. It had a great turnout and the farmers sold out of various produce quite quickly. CHC is a sponsor of the Farmer’s Market, and I figured I should go, chat with some folks and take some pictures. In the afternoon, we went to the town pool.
Today, we spent some time cleaning the house. We’ll be heading off to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in a few days and wanted to make sure that the house would be in good shape for the house sitter. In the afternoon, my stomach started bothering me, so I rested while Kim and Fiona went to the town pool.
Twenty eight years ago, this weekend, I flew to France for my first trip to Europe. I kept a journal during my trip and at times, have typed entries from my travel journal into a special section of my blog. I should get back to that some time.
Also in preparation for Falcon Ridge, I’ve started listening to some of the performers that will be in the Emerging Artists Showcase. I’m planning on putting up some of my thoughts about at least some of them, tomorrow.
I heard an interesting excerpt on the radio about a chimp that was being taught language. The chimp would separate pictures of chimps and humans and place his picture with the humans. It gave me a great idea about the chimp going a little further and separating the pictures based on families and what family he considered himself part of. Someday, I’ll get some time to sit and write, and pull together that story.
I also have to work on pulling together my story about what is going on in the media.
July 16th
Playing Apples to Apples with a Spotify Soundtrack
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 07/16/2011 - 20:22This evening, I installed Spotify on my wife’s computer. For those who have missed it, Spotify is the latest music streaming fad. You can select songs from just about any genre and stream them on your computer. They have a Freemium model. With a free account, you can listen to songs on the computer, with the occasional interruption of advertisements. With the paid, premium account, you don’t have the ads, and you can also listen on your cellphone.
Currently, you need to get an invitation to it. I use Klout, a website that ranks influence on different social media websites. Klout has a new program called ‘perks’. For people who are influential enough, they give you freebies. The first freebie I got was a year’s supply of Secret Deodorant. That will go to Kim. The second one I got was an invitation to Spotify, so I started using it yesterday. If you want to get an invite to Spotify, sign up for Klout at this address, and if you’re in time you’ll get an invite. (I think I only have two remaining invites. Also, if two more people sign up, I get an upgrade to premium).
Anyway, while I wanted to listen to music, Fiona wanted to play Apples to Apples. This is a card game where you get seven red cards which typically contains nouns or phrases. Taking turns, each person turns over a green card, which typically has an adjective, and the other players chose from their red cards a card that they think the person whose turn it is will most closely associate with the green card. (There are several variations on this as well).
So, as we played, one of the red cards was ‘Crazy Horse’, so I selected Rust Never Sleeps on Spotify. We spent a bit of time listening to that album, until Rocky Mountain came up. Then, I cued up John Denver, doing Rocky Mountain High. Another red card had “YMCA”. I cued up the Village People, and the other Red Card that got played at the same time was Construction Worker. We explained to Fiona that one of the Village People was a construction worker.
It brought a new dimension to the game, and also made Spotify more fun to play with. So, do you have any interesting Spotify mashups?
July 15th
#FF @shesosocial @kanter @jcnork @khynes2000 @kevindarst @jrlogan @alizasherman @jeff1132 @lnreynolds @hynesyte
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 07/15/2011 - 17:25Okay, so, for Follow Friday this week, I used Google+. I started off by going to my Circles page, and clicking on people in my circles. I sorted it by relevance, and went to the profiles of the people that Google+ said were most relevant. From that, I grabbed their Twitter id, and here they are.
Following with the Google+ theme, instead of talking about each person and why they might be relevant, how well I know them, etc., I’m going to take a look at an over view of who they are, sort of like the analysis I might do in deciding which circles to put them in.
I do not have gender based circles, but there has been a bit of talk recently about how Google+ is dominated by males. First, I question the methodology used. How did they come up with their samples? I find it interesting that of the ten people chosen it is an equal split between mail and female.
So, let’s start with @shesosocial. I’ve got her in circles for people that live nearby. In fact, four of the people fit into circles like that. @kanter is one of the best known social media and non-profit people and at least half of the people in this list are involved in one way or another with nonprofits. There is also a strong health care component, and although I only have three family members in my circles, two of them show up as most relevant.
I hope to explore some of the social dynamics of my circles in a later post, but for now, that’s my Google+ inspired #ff.
Now, for a quick, different comment. Klout has a new thing called ‘Perks’. People who are viewed as influential on Klout can get various freebees. The idea is that they want people who are influential to post about the perks, generating viral advertising. Today, I receive my first Perk.
Certain Klout users could receive invitations to Spotify, the new (at least in the U.S.) video streaming service. I received my invitation and set up Spotify. Spotify is working on a Freemium model. There is a certain amount that you can do on Spotify for free, supported by advertising. If you upgrade to a premium account, you get additional features and no ads.
Klout will provide Premium upgrades to people who get at least five other people to sign up for Klout. Those people also get invitations to Spotify. So, if you’re not on Klout, please sign up on Klout/Spotify link. Thanks.
July 14th
Further Google+ Observations
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 07/14/2011 - 21:55So, I’ve been spending a fair amount of time in Google+ and I figured it was time to look again at how it is going. According to Rockmelt, I visit Google+ more than I visit Facebook at home. At work, it is the other way around.
Thanks to changes to Google Apps, my Google+ account is now associated with a new address. Originally, I was using the address that is associated with this blog. However, this blog is set up with Google Apps for domains, and Google is doing something weird with these domains, so if you are looking for me on Google+, please, search on my name, but not on the domain name of my blog. You can also find me at the link Aldon Hynes on Google+.
With the domain stuff kind of straightened out, my Android phone is now working properly with Google+, which is nice.
Things I haven’t used:
Sparks. I like hashtags better. I wish I could do sparks on hashtags. There is probably some way of doing that, or someone will come up with something good.
Huddles: At some point, I’ll find a good opportunity to use them, but not yet.
Hangouts: None of my machines handle video well and there hasn’t been anyone that I really wanted to hang out with.
I have added lots of friends and done a lot with circles, but the numbers don’t completely add up. On the Circles page, it said that I have 951 people in my circles, yet my profile says I have 967. I selected everyone and dragged them to my misc circle and it said that two people were added to the Misc circle, and now my Circles page says I have 969 in my circles and 969 in my Misc circle. However, my profile still says I have only 967. My guess is that there is some caching going on. When I refresh my profile again, it says I’ve dropped one to 966 people in my circles.
The same sort of thing happens with people that have me in their circles. My circles page currently says there are 463. However, my profile show 379. I had guessed that this might be caching, or it might be some sort of privacy thing of people not allowing others to see that they’ve added me to their circles, or perhaps, just another random bug.
As I’m writing this post, I prepare to start talking about how I’ve organized my different circles. However, as I start on this, my computer starts slowing down considerably, and I notice it is getting quite late, so I’ll post this as is, and come back later to explore my circles, as well as Google Takeout (which is pretty neat).
July 13th
Almost Wordless Wednesday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 11:52
Last night, someone dropped off this dog in a small carrier at the end of our driveway. Anyone have any clues about who the dog might be?
