I have actually been putting stuff online since before 2004 but alas, those articles and content have pretty much been lost after moves into and out of various blogging platforms over the years. I’m pretty sure I could probably locate them if I really tried and perhaps I will someday. But for the moment, I’m content to have this blog’s starting date be in June of 2004.

In the interest of fun, though, let’s step into the Wayback Machine and see what I was thinking on that first fateful Summer day in June of 2004. From that first post it seems like I was talking about a mix of tech and politics and also managed to throw in a quote from Chris Rock too. Not a bad bunch of content at all.

Although, I’m not sure why I felt the need to say “later” at the end of the post. It’s almost as if I didn’t know what I was doing then. So weird.

Anyway, now that I’ve evolved into the highly skilled professional that I am (hey, if you get or got paid to do it, you’re a pro) I can safely omit any of that kind of stuff and just talk directly to the audience. You know, you and you out there reading this.

Yes, there’s probably only two of you but that’s okay, we know something that others don’t know, right? We’re the cool kids now. Suck on that nerds. . .

But, I digress.

Nostalgia and self-affirmation is great but it doesn’t help me figure out if I should keep my Flickr Pro account or not. See that there, that’s what they call a transition. Although, it wasn’t a great one. No, not at all.

My Flickr Pro account expires later this month and my dilemma is that I haven’t been uploading photos to it at all. In fact, I haven’t used it for many months. Granted, it’s only about 25 bucks a year but if I don’t use it at all, why bother? Plus, maybe there’s something better out there with more features, more interaction and the like?

I’m also considering that I have pretty much unlimited bandwidth, space and server power with the Media Temple servers we use for The Flickcast and other sites (including this here blog) that I could just host my photos myself and skip the third party stuff. That’s why you now see a “Photos” tab up there at the top of the screen.

I’m trying out various photo gallery plugins for WordPress to see which one looks the best. Right now, it’s one called NextGen Gallery and I kinda think it’s the best of the bunch. We also use it at The Flickcast so I’ve got some experience with it. I think I will leave it in place for now and see how it goes. I will add more photos I’ve already taken and perhaps some new ones soon too.

I also know that I’ve invested a lot of time and effort over the years to upload stuff to Flickr and it has a lot of photos of mine. It would be a lot of work to start completely over somewhere else. In fact, I’m not sure exactly how I would bulk download all the photos at Flickr and upload them somewhere else. I would need to look into that more.

Given the potential pain in the ass and time involved, I would instead probably want to have Flickr serve as an archive for my old photos and would start anywhere new, like SmugMug, from this point on. However, because of the large number of photos I have (too many for the free Flickr account) I would end up having to keep paying for the Pro version just to maintain the archive.

So I guess that pretty much answers my question, doesn’t it? Yahoo will be getting 25 bucks from me this month. They can probably use it.

Thanks for playing along. Always fun to see the decision making process at work, right?

The truth is no service, free or paid, is going to motivate me go out and take pictures. That motivation has to come from within.

Now where did I put my camera?

So far, it’s going well. I’ve managed to be more productive and also managed to enjoy some quality time doing as little as possible. I’m well on the way to achieving that balance I was looking for.

Another thing I would like to do more of in 2012 is take photos. With the iPhone 4S it should be very easy. The camera is great and there are several apps that help to make the pics look cooler. One is Instagram, which is what the pic above is.

I highlighted some of those apps and some of my latest photos in an earlier post. Now that 2012 is here, I’m going to be doing more with these apps and trying to take a few photos each day.

I’ve done this experiment before (taking a photo a day for thirty days I mean) and it seemed to go well. I will try to make it last longer this time around. We’ll see how it goes.

How’s your 2012 going so far?

I think in the spirit of trying to make things work, and also challenging myself a bit, I’m going to try to use the iPad 2 as a writing/blogging tool as often as I can. Let this post serve as the first-ish example of that.  
 
I say -ish because I’ve already done at least one or two with the iPad 2, but that was before. Now, I’m going to take it more seriously and consider it more of an experiment, or test , then I did before.  
 
One of the first questions to ask when embarking on a journey such as this is do I use the built-in keyboard on the iPad 2 or do I use an external one? It’s an important question because, to be honest, my fingers do get kinda sore when using just the iPad 2′s touchscreen keyboard.  
 
However, that may be more a function of the fact that by the time I start using the iPad I’ve already been typing for a few hours. Maybe my fingers would hurt no matter what? I suspect they would.  
 
So, with that in mind I think I will try to use the touchscreen keyboard for now and see how it goes. I’ve got an extra Bluetooth keyboard I could use but that sorta defeats the purpose of using the iPad if you have the also lug around a keyboard.  
 
At any rate, I’ll know soon enough if my fingers can’t take it and then I will consider other options. Fortunately, as I discussed in an earlier post, the rest of the writing/blogging experience shouldbe pretty good on the iPad 2.  
 
I guess I’ll find out.  
 
In case you’re the sort of person who likes to know the more technical, nuts and bolts kinds of things, I’m going to list the tools I will be using during this experiment. Here they are:  
 
Apple iPad 2 (of course) – Apple’s device excels at so many things and has a battery that lasts a long time. It has become an indispensable part of my daily work (and fun).  
 
Blogsy – This is the primary blogging app I’m using. It allows for complete control over posts and offers the ability to insert photos and video. Pretty much everything you need and pretty easy to figure out and use.  
 
IResize – This is a great app that allows you to resize images to fit in a blog post or other writing. You can load any picture from your Photos on the iPad and change the size, resolution, etc. and then save the changed version for use in other apps like Blogsy.  
 
IAWriter – This app let’s you get back to basics and just write. It removes distractions and lets you focus on the words. Plus, it syncs with Apple’s iCloud and its own OS X desktop version to allow you to work on whatever you want and have it available on the iPad or your Mac with whatever changes you’ve made already there and synced.  
 
Other tools:  
 
Pages – Appple’s own writing App is pretty good and I used it quite a bit before IA Writer and Blogsy came into the picture. Now I use it less frequently, especially as oit doesn’t support sync across the mobile and desktop versions using iCloud as IA Writer does. At least not yet.  
 
FDX Reader – Sadly, my favorite screenwriting app Final Draft doesn’t have and iPad version yet. I’ve been assured one is on the way, but until then, I still need to use the MacBook Air when I want to write in Final Draft.  
 
However, I can at least read scripts in Final Draft format (instead of PDF) on the iPad by using the terrific FDX Reader app. This app allows you to load scripts written in Final Draft and saved as .fdx files and view them in their native format. Very useful and saves you the time and effort of saving scripts as .pdf files plus if your a writer on the go or collaborating with another writer it also makes it easier to quickly review the current draft.  
 
So, this is my challenge and those are the tools of choice. Of course, figuring out what you want to do and choosing the tools to accomplish a task is often the easy part. 

The hard part is doing the actual writing. I’m goin’ in, wish me luck.  
 
 
 

Since the iPad first came out I was hoping it would completely take the place of my laptop for most things. I was especially hoping it would allow me to use it when I go to events like Comic-Con in San Diego and other places I’m covering for The Flickcast that require me to post to the website during the day.  
 
Unfortunately, as an early adopter, I got one of the first iPads released. And although the hardware was darn good, the software, and in particular apps for blogging, left something to be desired.  
 
Cut to today and I’m using the iPad 2 and there are lots more apps out there to do most of the things you want to do on the iPad. Sadly, there’s still a shortage of good blogging apps. Fortunately, all you really need is one.  
 
I think I’ve found that one. Or, at least I’ve found one that’s as close to perfect as I’m going to get right now. What’s the name of this amazing, life changing blogging app? Blogsy.  
 
It does most of what I need it to do in the writing area. I can write a post in either HTML or visual mode, add photos and videos and set it to publish. Combine that with resizing photos using the great iResize app and the iPad has become almost a complete replacement for my Mac laptop.  
 
It does take a bit of time to get used to blogging on the iPad and also, typing on the screen itself is a bit hard on the fingers. Still, for short things like blog posts (just like this one!) it works very well.  
 
I’m going to be using Blogsy more and more and I’m sure I will find things I don’t like about it. Still, it has enough going for it already that I’m very pleased and happy I found it. Also, I’m sure they will improve it over time with updates.  
 
 

Here’s a pic of the final setup. For a bigger one, complete with notes, check out the photo on flickr.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. At least I don’t have to worry about which player to use to watch movies. My PS3 will be so happy.In truth, I always thought Blu-Ray looked better anyway and the upsampling for standard-def DVD’s is also very good. So, not a huge loss.

I need to spend less time in front of the TV anyway.

Starting in February 2008, current owner AOL will no longer support what was once one of the most popular web browsers of them all: Netscape Navigator. The browser will now be relegated to the anals of web history. Although, surely at some future date, Netscape Navigator will be inducted into the as-yet unrealized “Web Hall of Fame” located, one might assume, somewhere in Silicon Valley.

Does 1994 really seem that long ago? I guess it was — especially in technology years. Things do change rather quickly, don’t they?

As I love laptops, am also pretty fond of children and education and OLPC seems like a worthy cause, I went ahead and donated. Feeling left out? Want to know how you can do something? Well, don’t worry as you still have another week to do a good thing for some kids.

Plus, if you act now, T-Mobile will also throw in one year of free Hotspot access on top of giving one and getting one and that great feeling that comes from doing a good thing. How can you pass that up?

I know, some may argue that this isn’t what children really need but access to technology is important (as is food, shelter, medicine and clean water) but we’re talking about laptops at the moment so get those credit cards or Paypal accounts going and donate.

But in the meantime, here’s a pretty interesting video from Mr. GTD himself Merlin Mann about how to handle your hopelessly clogged email inbox. Give it a look and I’ll be back later.