E-tools update: Feedburner, FuelFrog, and Meanderings on Twitter

This post is a conglomerate that has been waiting for some time, so here we go.

The first item has been around for quite some time, but I am relatively new to: FeedBurner. This service takes any news feed, and dresses it up so you can do more with it. I've been trying for some time to get my "blogs to be" list attached to the sidebar of this blog, to keep me on track with everything I want to write about and give you a preview of what's to come. I found out that Blogger has a little problem grabbing items from Remember The Milk, and was left with Blogger showing items that had already been completed in addition to the ones not yet done. I did a little looking around and found FeedBurner, a product purchased by (who else?) Google a while back. I found that by pointing FeedBurner at my "blogs to be" list at Remember The Milk, then pointing the Blogger sidebar gadget to the resulting Feedburner feed, everything worked fine! I know it isn't ideal, but I won't have to worry about it again, and I'm happy for that.

Next up is FuelFrog. This is a simple service that offers functions I've been chasing for some time. I've been a long-time believer that keeping track of your car's gas mileage can be a handy way to gauge the relative health of your car. The hard part has always been getting myself to consistently log my fuel usage, or was it doing something with that data later on? In any case, FuelFrog makes it simple to do both. What would make it even better would be to use the mileage entries to integrate service reminders.

Now, I have to rant and rave a little more about .

Raves first: Since blogging about the uses of Twitter, my tweets have gone from private to public so I could (once again) add something else to my sidebar and demonstrate some of the goodness behind Twitter. I'm sure somebody has to be doing this already, but I think there are some really fun games that could be played between friends via Twitter. I originally started thinking poetry would be fun to post one stanza at a time (either ascending or descending order), which evolved into playing "Whose Line Is It Anyway" games. This could be fun. Anybody want to play Scenes from a Hat?

Rants last: For all the mixed opinions about Twitter, it sure has some big issues to overcome. One of them is growth. As it's number of users grow, and the numbers of followings and followers blossom, it seems to be having more problems keeping up. I hope they can find an operational framework that will allow them to grow without taking the service down (willingly or unwillingly).

The drawback to adding my tweets to the public time line is being discovered by the Collectors. This is the term I have coined to refer to those individuals that have bought into the thought that you have real influence over the people that follow you, and that by following complete strangers they will follow you in return. I've been found by a number of these people, and while I have allowed a few of them to receive my updates, I have blocked a few more. I see no use for such efforts, when it does nothing for me but to make it harder for me to handle my own lists of genuine "followers".

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Hooray for Pictures!!

After being jealous of the mini slide show at my sister's blog, I have finally added my own. Blogger did not want to cooperate and use its own built in hooks to to automatically grab the pictures from my Picasa web albums though. I had to make my mobile blog album public, then get the link for the RSS feed, then point the layout tool to it using the "Other" option.

Oh well! It looks nice, and I can give a little more face time to my mobile blog here as well!

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Notes From The Couch

Sitting in the new house with a few moments to spare for what feels like the first time, I thought I'd post an update somewhere. Truth be told, I do actually have stuff to do still. The old house still needs attention, but it has achieved a level of stability where we not only need a break, but don't feel bad about taking one.

We don't have any of the desktop computers set up yet, but they are on the way. We have to find a desk and partitions for Allison's, and my desk needs to be transported from the garage to the bedroom, before either can be set up. I hope we find Allison's desk soon, because some of her Mother's Day presents are rather useless without her computer having a home. I wish there were more "ergonomic" desk solutions at the local stores. We made a trip to Ikea not too long ago, and have been on the lookout since then. She needs a new chair as well. Come on Dealnews & Pricegrabber, show me what you got!!

Last night, I took the kids on their scooters and found the entrance to our nearest exercise trail. All through the Olympia area, old railroad lines have been converted to these trails, and I've gone biking and walking on a few of them after driving to an entrance. Our new location puts us about 3 blocks from one! To prepare myself for my own upcoming fitness challenge, I did a short stint on the elliptical trainer after putting the kids to bed. We have it in the garage and I'm liking it there. Our landlord installed some handy shelves on both sides of the garage, one of which is at just the right height for parking your ice water for mid-workout replenishment. Now I just need to find the closest basketball hoop!

The last note: I'm loving that more of my family has joined the text messaging crowd. Even if we aren't constantly texting each other all the time, we can keep up with each other to a certain extent via Twitter as well. This was especially handy yesterday. I was able to get my siblings on board for my mom's flowers with one text message and a phone call (I have to find a wi-fi messaging device for Jon).

Happy Mother's Day, to all who are mothers or have them!

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