Personal
Personal reflections, comments about things I've been doing, etc.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 10:17
Today, as I was surfing EntreCard, I came across Regina’s blog post about Michelle Obama’s speech the other night. She was effusive about the wonderful speech and others were adding their comments.
Here is what I wrote:
Yesterday, as I drove to the train station to pick up my daughters, I saw young black women on their way to work or school. My thoughts went back to Michelle Obama's speech, and I wondered, how many of these young women could be the next Michelle Obama? How can we work together to help some of these young women attain such a lofty goal?
I hope that Michelle Obama's speech will help her become our next First Lady. Yet I have higher hopes. I hope that her speech will cause more people to stop and think about how they can help all of the youth of our nation, black or white, male of female, to become closer to the sort of person that Michelle Obama is.
I went on to think about Michelle Obama as a role model for my daughters. Yet in the media cycle, Michelle Obama’s speech is already old news. The talk of the day is Hillary Clinton’s excellent speech. She, too, provides an excellent role model for young people today.
So, I hope we look beyond the immediate political aspects of the convention and beyond November. My mind goes back to when Gov. Dean was running for President. He often said, “The biggest lie people like me tell people like you, is that if you vote for me, I will solve all your problems. The truth is, you have the power.”
The problem is that we don’t know what to do with our power. How do we use that power to help make a better world? Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton help us understand that power and provide role models in how to use it.
We need Barack Obama as our next President, as a leader that can help us return to the values that have made our country strong. We also need great people around him, like his wife, and like Hillary Clinton to be role models for us as each one of us owns our own power and takes a more active role in living out our great values.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 08/25/2008 - 20:38
I’m spending time catching up on emails, following the Democratic National Convention coverage on sites like the Friend Feed DemConvention room, and generally tweaking and mucking with computers, websites, and so on.
PVR
Yesterday, I wrote a little bit about the Personal Video Recorder (PVR) that I purchased yesterday for a project that involves recording parts of the Democratic National Convention coverage. Today, I tried moving the connection back into the office. In the process, I was asked if I wanted to update the software on the video stick.
The software uploaded relatively smoothly, but it took a few tries to finally get the new version loaded and configured. However, when I did, it managed to find lots of digital stations. So, I believe I can now get the HD broadcasts I couldn’t get before. In addition, I managed to reconfigure the wiring and I can load watch and record the television from my office.
I’m sharing some of the videos I’m recording and I spent a bit of time nailing down the best format to use. The Pinnacle PCTV stick supports ten different formats:
DVD 640x480 It takes 47M per minute. Great quality, but too big.
DVD LP 640x480 28M per minute. Again, very good quality, but too big.
SVCD 640x480 19M per minute. Okay quality, also too big.
VCD 321x240 10M per minute. Okay quality. This is my second choice for formats
DivX Home 720x480 31M per minute. Very good quality, but too big.
DivX Portable 352x240 7M per minute. Okay quality. This is the format I like best.
DivX Handheld 144x176 1.5M per minute. Okay quality. Small screen. Not bad for the space.
Mpeg4 PSP 320x240 6M per minute. Poor quality.
Mpeg4 Ipod low 480x352 12M per minute. Poor quality.
Mpeg4 Ipod High 320x240 12M per minute. Poor quality.
Comments about this site
Recently, one person noted that my welcome message said that previous blog entries were listed on the left. Well, they were, until I upgraded to Drupal 6. Then, I moved things around a little, so the list of articles are now on the right.
Another person commented asking if I knew that I had two different comment systems running. Yes, I know that. I actually wrote a bit about it in this blog entry. I may end up pulling SezWho soon. It slows down the site and doesn’t seem to work very well. I’ve contacted SezWho Tech Support and they were going to look at the issues, but that was a while ago, and I haven’t heard anything since.
I should also note that I dropped a lot of underperforming widgets. My site has always been a bit slow because I like to test out any widget that comes along and I’m always slow to remove them. These widgets slow down the site. Now that I’ve removed them, the site may be a little faster.
The Tiara
I was asked if people who pledged to give me EntreCard credits had followed through and some have, some haven’t. Yes, the tiara was small, but it was all that I had. Yes, the girl standing next to me is my daughter Fiona.
Using Social Media
Also, today, I received my first real Shelfari spam. A lot of people feel that Shelfari is spam in and of itself. Miss Anita Weluha wanted to know if I liked the same books as she does. She also wanted to know if I could help her transfer $5 million.
I also received an email from Twitter, letting me know that Sen. Barbara Boxer was now following me. I wondered if this was really part of her organization, or if it was some random spammer. Later, I received an email from “Friends of Barbara Boxer” highlighting her new Twitter account.
Now, its time to get back to paying closer attention to the convention and all the coverage.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 08/23/2008 - 22:47
At the risk of ruining a good story by explaining it, I want to talk a little bit about the Tiara.
The Backstory
First, let me give you the history. You will notice on the right side of my page an EntreCard. EntreCard is a community website where members drop cards on each other. Each time you drop a card on someone, or someone drops a card on you, you get an EntreCard Credits. These credits can be used to buy advertisements on other people’s websites, objects from the EntreCard shop, or can be bought and sold.
There is also a community forum, where people talk whatever they want. The blogger who writes Designs by Reese commented about being on vacation for a week and seeing the price of advertisements on her blog plummet as well as her ranking as a card dropper. In less than half an hour, her advertising rates were back up to a respectable rate, and she bragging about wearing a tiara and wondering where her scepter was.
eyespi20.com urged her to calm down. Everything is fine, and wondered where Debbie was. Debbie has a blog, Wisdom Hypnosis and often comments in the forum with helpful suggestions about remaining calm and reducing stress in one’s life. Debbie joined in by commenting about losing a tiara she had when she moved, but about how it was one of the best moves she had made.
Reese came back and commented that ‘not many people can pull off the tiara look’. I joined the fun and admitted that I probably can’t pull off the tiara look anymore. People on EntreCard mostly know me by the card that I have up, which pictures my bald head and gray beard. Debbie commented that she would pay to see me in a tiara. Eyespi said she would pony up 1000 EntreCard credits. Debbie picked the word pony and suggested I should appear with a pony. Reggy at fragileheart said she would join in.
Fiona’s riding lesson was this morning, so I told everyone I would pose with a pony while wearing a tiara. Around the house, I tried to find an Tiara. I was hoping I could find one of my daughter’s dress-up tiaras from when she was younger. Like Debbie’s tiara, I suspect that Fiona’s tiaras may have gotten lost in our move. So, I ended up wearing the tiara that my wife wore when we got married.
The picture received several nice comments in the forum as well as on my blog post.
What does this tell us
Lighten up
I'm gonna soak up the sun
I'm gonna tell everyone
To lighten up (I'm gonna tell 'em that)
Well, perhaps the most important part is to not take things too seriously. Somehow, I can imagine Debbie offering that advice as she helps people find calmness and happiness in her hypnosis practice. I think this is particularly important to a wide range of bloggers.
I've got a crummy job
It don't pay near enough
To buy the things it takes
To win me some of your love
Over on EntreCard, there are a lot of bloggers that spend all their time writing about how to make money online. I must admit, I find most of their blog entries dreadfully dull. Granted, I don’t make much money online, but that isn’t really what I’m all about.
My friend the communist
Holds meetings in his RV
I can't afford his gas
So I'm stuck here watching tv
Likewise, many of my friends in the political blogging world are on their way to Denver for the Democratic National Convention. I’ll write more about this later, but I find many of the more serious political blogs also dreadfully dull. I can’t imagine that they get many people, other than those already sharing their views to make it through their blog posts.
Build community
C'mon people now,
Smile on your brother
Ev'rybody get together
Try and love one another right now
Beyond that, successful websites are about building community. EntreCard does a good job of that. Other tools do good jobs of that. You need to tie them all together. What matters is the mesh of social media, and not simply just a blog. I think that is where a lot of bloggers as well as companies trying to get their message out online make mistakes. They focus on too small a community, trying to build bonding social capital instead of bridging social capital, or they end up being just a broadcast oriented site.
But that is a different topic that I want to explore more in coming posts.
So, check out EntreCard and related sites. Find a broadbased community where you can talk, listen and have fun, and if you do something crazy online, let me know.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 08/03/2008 - 20:17
It has been a busy day, and I’m still trying to catch up. EntreCard announced their new toolbar today. I’ve played a little bit with it. It is good for buying ads more quickly, but doesn’t really help me a lot with the way I prefer to surf blogs on EntreCard. More on this later.
Fiona did her radio show again this evening. It went quite well. This is a show where I talk with Fiona about what is going on and we have friends and relatives call in.
I’m still kicking around social media tools for delegates going to Denver, and I hope to write more about this soon as well. Also, I need to follow up on Laconi.ca stuff.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 08/01/2008 - 10:43
As is customary, I start off the new month with hopes of a good month. Will I be able to put up a blog post every day? Will I be able to drop 300 EntreCards each day? Will I manage to keep building my traffic? Will I manage to write some good articles for SLNN? Will I manage to contribute to laconi.ca? Will I manage to get enough consulting or a full time gig to stabilize my finances? Each month starts off with plenty of hope.
I went and looked at a large set of EntreCard using sites this morning. Several of them list the top card droppers for the previous month. (Say Cheese, moms…check nyo, Unpredictable Life, and Acakadut as examples.
So, I thought I would list the top droppers on Orient Lodge:
My Absent Mind
Snapshotcap
Turnip of Power
On the Horizon
MamaFlo's Place
Random Ramblings
The Success
High Quality Pictures
Templates Treasure
Blog of Music
Now, time to work on some of those projects.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 07/28/2008 - 16:21
It can be a lot of work to unpack from camping for five days at a folk music festival in the rain. It can be even more work if you are a social media consultant who has photographed, videotaped, recorded and microblogged a fair amount of the festival.
Today, I’m spending my time unloading the car and setting things out to dry and catching up on what is going on online. While I was at Falcon Ridge I sent seventeen videos from my cellphone up to various video sites. I need to spend time titling, describing, tagging, and in come cases geotagging what I’ve uploaded. I’ve spent a little time doing this with some of my videos on blip.tv.
The videos from my cellphone are low quality. Poor resolution and limited to 17 seconds. However, the montage provides a great glimpse into the experience. One of the emerging artists that performed Friday had a great song about having a brother go off to war. I think it was Amy Speace, but I’m not sure. The clip I captured has these lyrics:
There was Homecoming and football games
And picking out our dresses for the prom
With my brother in some desert dodging bullets
When he wasn’t dodging bombs.
I haven’t been able to find a copy of the song. If anyone knows where I can find it, let me know.
I also got a chance to upload pictures from my camera and put them in a Falcon Ridge Photoset on Flickr.
I have a couple great videos, one is of Lowen and Navarro and their friends and family performing Learning to Fall, and another is of Dar Williams with friends and family performing Iowa. These are special videos that I don’t want to post without speaking with the artists to make sure it is okay with them and done in a way that will be most beneficial to them and what matters to them.
Meanwhile, I’m going to tag a bunch of posts here on Orient Lodge into the Music category and take them off of the front page so people interested in other topics that I like to write about can find those posts easily as well.
There are other sites that I need update titles, tags and descriptions, and for that matter, I should really put a load of muddy clothes in the washing machine.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 07/23/2008 - 12:00
Last night, I spent a bit of time reviewing the different performers scheduled to be in the Emerging Artists Showcase at Falcon Ridge this year. Each one of them has a MySpace Music page up where you can listen to their music and find out other information about them. With that, let me list the artists, with links to their MySpace pages, and a few different comments about each one.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 14:01
While we were on vacation, we got a couple phone calls from friends that let us know that Orient Lodge, our old house that we lost in foreclosure, not this blog, was on the front page of a Stamford newspaper.
The article was in the Stamford Times and talked about, “the board of representatives voted unanimously in favor of designating the home a local historic property”.
It talks a little bit about the person who bought the house. An old friend from Stamford commented here that there is some sort of connection to the school my kids went to and the church we went to.
It is great to read about the new owner falling in love with the place and about his plans for renovating it. It may seem a bit strange, but when things started moving towards foreclosure, I was more concerned about what would happen to the house than what would happen to me. I know that I will get by. The right opportunities will come along soon enough.
Yet the house, it needed someone special to love it, someone who would save it from being torn down and replaced with a McMansion. Now, it is protected as a local historic property and has a person who will help restore it in a way that I never could.
 Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 07/19/2008 - 19:56 (Check me out!)
Back home after a weeklong vacation on Cape Cod. There are around 5,000 messages in my inbox and many comments and connections to follow up with on many different sites. It was a great vacation, but if I don’t respond for a few days, I hope you will understand why.
I have taken many of the Cape Cod posts off of the front page. You can find them in the personal section of the site. Once I get a little more caught up, I hope to post some more complete summaries of the vacation as well as a collection of pictures we took at various locations.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 07/17/2008 - 16:23 (Check me out!)
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