Some Interesting Features in Google Docs for Creating WordPress Posts
Image via CrunchBase
Up until recently, I’ve found Google Docs to be a little interesting, but nothing worth putting much time into. The more I learn and the more they improve the system, the more interested I am.
Here’s a few cool things that I found tonight. With these 2 features, it’s easy to start writing about an idea and picking up images and resources as you write. It simply speeds up the process. The post can even be edited by multiple people simultaneously. All of this is also easily connected to every other Google program.
The research tools.
Embedding ability in websites.
List of Blogging Tools
Here’s a good list of blogging tools. Some are free some are not.
Facebook Account Deleted
I decided to delete my Facebook account tonight. After some consideration, I found Facebook to have more negative about it than positive, so I’m done with it. It’s been great, for the most part, to reconnect with some old friends and I’ve had some good times with it, but there is just more garbage than good showing up on my screen.
I realize most people won’t understand this, but I make websites, I’ve worked for many companies that deal with data, and I understand how data and content(the stuff you post) is used and what it’s worth. Believe it or not, your data and content is damned valuable in more ways than you know. Facebook only makes some of it’s revenue from ads, the rest comes from selling data. I don’t care what Facebook claims, they’re collecting massive amounts of content and data. That costs a massive amount of money. They’re recouping their investment somewhere and it’s not just in those little ads on the side. I’m tired of giving those efforts to them for free.
You may enjoy Facebook so much that it’s hard to believe. You may think that I’ve been spooked by a conspiracy theory. Nothing of the sort. You see, Facebook is only one data set that you provide. Other data sets include your credit report, your resume, etc. All of these are out there for sale. When these data sets are cross-referenced, it’s a gold mine of information that can be used for all sorts of purposes. Now, take those cross referenced data sets AND cross reference them with everyone linked to you on Facebook. The amount of information collected is astounding.
So do I think some shadowy figure is going to use them for nefarious purposes? I hope not! Much more likely, this data will be used to sell you shit you don’t need. I think I could all use less shit I don’t need. I think I could use less coercing to buy shit I don’t need. This is just one easy step I’m taking to further that agenda.
There’s some other odd things about Facebook that I’ve noticed too. I’ve noticed that people’s idea of a “friend” has changed. That’s being redefined. A real friend may use Google to find my website and send an e-mail to see how things are going. That’s a lot different than a Facebook friend who had my face pop up on their friend suggestions and clicked out of curiousity. I got into the social networking to have a good time sharing ideas, experiences, etc. That just doesn’t happen very often with these types of “friends”. More often than not, they just want me to repost a cancer story, play a child’s game, etc. It’s a waste of time that I could be doing something much more productive with.
I know it’s time to leave Facebook when real friends try to communicate with me on Facebook, but I don’t even see it because it either wasn’t promoted to where I could see it at all or it was buried in a bunch of bullshit I didn’t care anything about. If I’m just not on it, they’ll contact me with another method.
So that’s about it. I didn’t leave Facebook because I didn’t like the people or completely out of fear of how the data is used. I don’t like how some people use Facebook, I don’t like how the collected data is being used, but the biggest part is making more time to create content that I own, not Facebook.
Google+, I’m Starting to Get It
Image by Aray Chen via Flickr
I’m starting to realize what Google+ is good for and it’s a great social tool once you realize it. The number one thing I’ve realized is that it’s not a competitor with Facebook. I was trying to look at it that way and this view will ruin your experience with Google+. Facebook is for checking to see what you’re friends are up to, Google+ is for your interests and passions your following.
Google+ is better because it’s searchable. Facebook’s search is lacking. The only thing Facebook’s search was good for was typing in a name and finding who you were looking for. It would just act weird for anything else. With Google+, you actually find posts and profiles that relate to your search! Using this, you find other users with the same interests that you have.
With Facebook, you get the sense that you should know the people in your friends list. Everything posted goes out to everyone on the list. Sure, there are privacy concerns, but what if it’s not about privacy? For example, I like motorcycles and photography, but there are many on my Facebook list that could care less about it. If I’m posting about these interests all of the time, they’re going to see it in their feed. If they see them to much, they’ll just ignore or delete me because I’m jamming their feed with things they don’t care about. Google+ solved this problem with Circles.
Circles allow me to organize post coming in and going out. Let’s say someone likes spouting off drama and posting photos of cats. I like the person, but I could care less about their marriage problems or their cats most of the time. However, just in case I really need to see one of these posts, I can place them in a rarely checked drama circle and a cat photo circle. Also, this person can create a drama and cat circle if they want and post these only to the friends they know will appreciate drama and cats.
With circles, you can limit the amount of personal interaction. With Facebook, there is a feeling that someone is actually a friend, with Google+, adding them to a Circle is just showing that you have some of the same interests.
To get the most out of Google+, search your interests, circle many people that have that interest, then your incoming feeds will start to turn into a worthwhile look. There really isn’t that much of a learning curve and if you do it wrong, circles are easy to correct. Some areas of interest are taking off much faster than others with photography being an example of an interest with a huge amount of followers.
Related articles
- Find Out Who Removed You on Google Plus Circles (madrasgeek.com)
- Why Google+ is Not the Facebook Killer it Wanted to Be (geeknewscentral.com)
- How To Use Google+ (readwriteweb.com)
The Fall Has Arrived in Ohio
Fall In Ohio Image via Wikipedia
Today, I had a great motorcycle ride out on rural country roads. I felt the first chills of Fall and seen the leaves starting to change. It was a hot, humid summer. When it wasn’t hot and humid, there was a looming storm. These first fall days are a sad ones for a motorcyclist in Ohio. You know that you’ll get in a few more rides, but for the most part, their over.
The good part about Ohio is that the Fall colors and the rural areas are some of the best motorcycle riding one could experience. As far as I’m concerned, it’s right up there with riding down The Pacific Coast Highway. It’s just a matter of what a rider’s personal tastes are. Everything in Ohio is just a little more subtle than stunning vistas of the ocean. I quiet river with few people around can be just as enjoyable. A stop in any Ohio small town can be just as interesting as any California big city if you spend some time exploring it.
I didn’t take any photos of the ride, but I did get some photos of the Centerburg, Ohio farm festival that I’ll put up later. It was fun to see the farmers enjoying their hard-earned time off after the harvest season. Tons of motorcycles were there too. I’ll have to remember to put it on the calendar as an event to spend some time at next year.
Every time a season changes, I look back a little at the previous season. Not a bad summer. A few motorcycle rides, a few to many posts about the government, and I few posts from the things I’ve seen while working. I can do better though. One of the cool things about having a blog is that it’s easy to look back at what you found worthy of a post at any given point in time. Sometimes I wonder, “What was I thinking?”, when I look back at a post and that’s food for thought for the future.
So after looking back, I realize that posting about political things is no longer a good idea. They are headed down their path and I’m pretty sure there’s no turning back at this point. All that we can do is hope for the best on the other side of the mess that’s been created. My opinion along with the millions of others is irrelevant. I’d like to think that a vote is all that I have, but even that’s questionable. I’m going to concentrate on some posts that mean a little more in the long run.
I’ve quit watching the news and have limited the news I read on the Internet. I’m finding personal blogs to be so much more interesting. When I see a news story, I start looking for a local regular person’s perspective in Google’s Blog search. I’m also finding that going at least 5 pages deep on a Google search for anything is bring interesting perspectives. Digging a little deeper on anything has benefits.
This blog has been nothing more than a file cabinet of things I find interesting with a few photos and stories mixed in. I’m going to change that as there are better ways to do that now. We’ll see how it goes. As the season’s change, sometimes projects should as well.
50 Free Writing Tips
Here’s a link to 50 Writing tips – it’s free.
Finding County Lines With Yahoo Maps Instead of Google Maps
Google has street level images, but no county lines?Image via Wikipedia
Google maps are great for many things, but occasionally I want to see the county lines. If there is a way to see them in Google Maps, I haven’t found out how to do it yet. When I searched for a method to make them appear, the only answer I could find was a reference to use Yahoo Maps instead.
I would guess that there is a way to see the county lines on Google, but it’s just illusive to me. If it’s not there, one has to ask why Google doesn’t show them considering that so much other detail is provided. Why would Google find counties to be irrelevant? The only other reason I can think of is that county lines may clutter the view for many users that do not need them.
Another question I would have is why Yahoo even bothers with maps at all? It seems a huge expense and for the exception of county lines, I cannot find any advantage. The satellite data is old, no street view, poor directions capability, and no ability to manually change a route are just a few areas that I find them lacking.
Related articles
- Google Maps & Its City Labels (41latitude.com)
- See Google Maps being edited in realtime (techattitude.com)
- Roads, Streets, & ‘The Smallest Effective Difference’ (41latitude.com)
- Google Maps & Label Readability — Part 3 (41latitude.com)
How to Install WordPress on Your Computer With Microsoft’s WPI.
- Image via CrunchBase
Microsoft WPI is a cool system to install WordPress or other CMS systems locally automatically on your computer. It automatically installs PHP, MySQL, and a webserver along with whatever extras, like WordPress, that you choose.
For those that don’t know, this setup on your computer allows you to setup a website without the use of a server on the web. You can experiment all that you like for free and without the public seeing the website. There are some other utilities that this is useful for, like creating a home or small office intranet, learning how to maintain a webserver, building a website for demonstration, or training.
Just follow the instructions, and for the exception of a few passwords, take the default settings and you can have a local website. There are other programs like WAMP that will do this, but Microsoft’s is the best that I’ve seen so far, and it’s free.
Related articles
- How to Install WordPress on Your PC (brighthub.com)
- How to Install Joomla on Your PC with Microsoft Web PI (brighthub.com)
- Microsoft’s Blogging Platform Deal with WordPress Looks Like a Win-Win (dailyfinance.com)
Google’s NGRAM Is a Fun Tool
I recently found Google’s Ngram and it will keep you busy and it’s a cool way to research things occurring in recent history.
NGRAM looks through all of the books in Google and counts the number of times a word was used in specific time periods. You can come up with some really interesting facts. For example, I put in “well regulated militia” and found this excerpt about how the U.S. reduced defense cost with this in our Constitution. At a time when France had to pay 525,000 troops, the U.S. only had to maintain 33,000. It gave us an incredible financial edge against our European counterparts and it was very effective. Fast forward to more current books and you’ll find where a certain group of people were vehemently denying that it had any use at all.
Check it out! You’ll learn some history and wisdom at the same time. Don’t forget to put in the obligatory cuss words too.
Related articles
- For You N-Gram Fans (arnoldit.com)
- Google Ngrams: OCR and metadata (teleread.com)
- Ngrams: one more way to win an argument using Google (quomodocumque.wordpress.com)
- The Google Word Books Ngram Viewer (webandrank.com)
RSS Feeds. A Simple Explanation
I don’t like the computer jargon and acronyms. They make things that are really not that complicated seem that way. Sure, some things like COBOL, they’re complicated. There’s no reason for a person to see the word COBOL and get excited. It’s a 50 year old computer language that’s miserable, so who cares?
RSS isn’t like that. This is more exciting than “Blue Ray“, DVD, IPAD, or IPOD combined. What RSS does is allow you to pull in “feeds” from websites. A “feed” is something that occurs every time a post is made. It’s a little excerpt of the post that can be sent out to millions of “readers” every time a new post is made.
For example, I’m going to make this post on my website, and because I’ve done the work, it’s going to go out to thousands of readers that have chosen to accept my “feed”. You can have your own reader to take in these feeds. Some of the most popular readers are
There are more and a Google search for “RSS reader” will find them for you. I use Google Reader because it’s simple enough and works with my e-mail. It’s not the best, just handy and good enough.
The benefit is that you can take all of the feeds from websites you like and put them in a reader. At a quick glance, you can see all of the new posts. It eliminates taking the time to go to the website looking for a new post. It also gives you the title and preview before you decide if you would like to go to the website. In short, content comes to you instead of you going to it.
As you’ll see in the video, the most difficult part is getting the feed address. Most often, right clicking the link and using “copy link location” is the best way to get the address of the feed. Many are simple. For example, markspearman.com’s feed is http://markspearman.com/feed. You just place /feed on the end of the address.
A nice feature in Google Reader is that you can save searches as RSS feeds. For example, if you do a search in Google’s Blog search, scroll to the bottom and you’ll see that you can save this search to Google reader. Everytime a new blog post from any blog comes out about your search, it will be stored in reader. It’s a nice way to compile information on a subject.
Here’s a movie that explains RSS a little better.
