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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Itchy!!

Many moons ago, Allison became obsessed with taking her blog's template and making it her own. I was genuinely excited for her efforts and many hours of hard labor to turn out such a nicely polished site, but felt no compulsion at the time to do anything of the sort for mine.

Having added a few new blogs to my own repertoire just recently, I've been suddenly bitten by a similar bug. Nothing offered by Blogger seemed good enough any more. I found a number of free templates, and I was immediately hooked. Autogotistical Carpinions got the first new dress, and I have just completed the new suit for my mobile blog. I haven't spent this much effort playing with photo editing software since I managed to attach my uncle Marty's head to a manatee gracefully swimming underwater (rather convincingly, might I add!) , about 12 years ago!

In the midst of all the terrible things going on in the world, I'm feeling a little bit as if my life is facing a new dawn. I'm pursuing a few more of my interests, and enjoying watching some of my friends and family enjoy theirs as well. I'm excited to have plans for what I'd like to write about, however trivial it may be, and that I can make a useful contribution.

I wonder how long I've been needing to scratch this itch.

2 quick plugs:

1. My sister mentioned my blog on her's (http://adventuresofkimbolily.blogspot.com/), so I would like to point anybody drifting by toward her place in return. I'm proud of all 3 of my sisters and am always happy to point his out.
2. The latest entry on my mobile blog features a rather funny slip-up that may be rather large in nature. My employer contracts a food service called Bon-Apetit to provide all of the catering and meal services at each site. Somebody there or contracted by them made a little mistake that has shown up on all the tables where I work. I took a picture of it this afternoon. See if you can find it before reading the lower caption here.
   

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E-Tools that don't Cinco el Buque

(I've been trying for so hard to find the name for part 5. Please forgive my lingual mutilation)

This time I'm going to discuss some specifics in using Twitter and Remember The Milk. They seem to be the services that my friends and family have the most problems with. I'm going to start with Remember The Milk, as it is more immediately useful to those who might feel a little daunted by the two at first glance. I seem to be most successful when I can demonstrate the cool stuff first, then encourage the newbs to try it out for themselves.

Remember The Milk is all about lists and how to access and add to them. Checking off items can be useful as well, depending on what you are using the lists for. Lists, or any items within them, can be made public or shared with people that have been added to your RTM Contacts (they have to be RTM users as well. I keep finding new things to make lists of, things that are genuinely useful! The kicker here is that you can access your lists via SMS (with the help of Twitter), mobile web browser, your desktop computer's browser, and even news feeds.

My big thrill for friends and family is Birthday Lists. Everybody is trying to figure out at the last minute what to get somebody for their birthday. We can near-completely solve this by simply populating a list and publishing it. Any lists you have published can be seen by anyone on the web, and has it's own news feed as well. I have shared such a list here. You can see that it is pretty sparse right now, but hopefully you get the point. Now you know what I want for my Birthday!!

An example of using news feeds can be seen in the sidebar. Look for "kEnny's Tasks - Blogs To Be" on the right. This is my list of reminders for things I want to write about. The list is hosted by RTM, but now you can see it from my blog.

How about your favorite books, or books you want to read? Make a new list for the ones you haven't read yet, populate the list with books you want to read, then check them off as you finish them. You have just made a new list of recently read books, that can be added to your blog. it gets updated automatically as you add them and mark others complete. You can move the best ones to a "Favorite Books" list and add that to your blog as well!

I love movies, and I love seeing them in well equipped, modern theaters. Ever since the early nineties, I have avidly watched previews to find the next movie I need to see, then kept the lists to remind me of what I wanted to see later on. I first used PDAs of various sorts for this. I stopped being quite so much of a geek (I mean by whipping out a PDA and typing or writing on it during movie previews, the rest is kinda hard to wash off) when I found a companion to enjoy movies with. Now that I have RTM and Twitter, I am doing it again with my cell phone, which isn't nearly so out of place. At home, I can go through the list of movies and use IMDB to add opening dates, websites, and any other details. Weeks later, RTM sends me a reminder for the movies opening that day. It shows up on my cell phone as an SMS message, courtesy of Twitter, and my email inbox. If I miss a movie and it isn't in the theaters any more, I move it to my movies-to-see-at-home list, and the due date is removed. Now I can watch for it to be available on TV or DVD. I would like to eventually connect that one to a TiVo Wishlist or Netflix Queue. That would be sweet! WAIT! I'm going to add that to my to-do list right now!

I also love music. I've spent a lot of money on music over the course of my years as a bachelor, but in acquiring extra mouths in my household I have come to realize that the same money is better spent elsewhere. I'm very lucky that the popularity of MP3s popped in not long before my first household companion showed up. The good part about having other ears in the house is that I get exposure to music I might not otherwise ever come across. The bad part is that I don't have anywhere near as much spare time for uninterrupted tune-browsing as I used to. Now I can make a note right away for music I need to look for. At my computer is where I can sort the list contents. In my spare time I can see where those songs or artists lead me. Music ID services and HD radio data are also very informative sources for artist and song information, and I'm looking forward to using those to automatically populate my music list in the future.

I'm moving next month, so I started a list of all the big stuff we have to ensure we have the proper facilities to transfer them to the new house. I shared the list with Allison so we both know what we have in front of us.

When I've got a bill or other important matter to attend to in the near future, I send it to RTM, so I don't forget. It only takes a minute to make the note, and I don't ever have to worry about misplacing it.

Does it get better? Yes. Using tags and locations (RTM integrates Google Maps), you can connect items from multiple lists. There's a multitude of ways to manipulate data in RTM. Sign up now, then go here for help setting it up. You won't regret it.

Next?

This is where Twitter comes in. At its core, Twitter is known as a micro-blog. You can send short messages to update your status, and you can "follow" your friends' updates at the same time. Many services (like RTM, duh!) use Twitter as the glue between you and their operations. This population is what gets me excited about using it, because Twitter is so connectible to begin with. You can send and receive updates (and therefore message to the other services) from the mobile devices via text message, email, IM, and their web page, to name only the direct methods. There are scores of other desktop gadgets and programs that can do it as well. My favorite-est browser, , has Twitter functionality built into the sidebar. Between my phone and Flock, I get all the Twitter love I need.

Twitter is smart, too! If you set it up for multiple interfaces (IM, SMS, and Web), it can figure out the best place to contact you. When you have a message coming in, and you aren't logged into your IM service, it can go to your phone. If you designate hours when you don't want Twitter sending Tweets to your phone, it only leaves them in your log on the web for you to check on later. You can also selectively enable alerts from certain folks and services so that you are not totally inundated with incoming Tweets all the time. That was the part that took me a while to catch on to. Every time I added a new entity to follow, I also had to enable their alerts to come to my phone. After that it all works great!

I'm only following one actual person on Twitter: one of my sisters, whom I have suckered into trying it out. I follow 2 services: RTM and Xpen$er (which I haven't done a whole lot with yet). I have also set up two accounts to post to, using Twittermail, that I follow. Twittermail allows you to send an email to post to your Twitter account, and is great for coordinating activities for large groups of people. Anyone who knows the correct address can post comments or directions to everyone following that account. One recent example of such coordination was protesters trying to get face-time with the Olympic torch. I have set one up for use during a week-long family reunion this summer, and another to help coordinate resources at work. You can follow updates from your favorite political candidate, and many other entertaining and informative people.

That's what I've got for now. Tune in later to see what title I come up with for the next installment.

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