internet « Patti O'Shea's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘internet’

The Social Networks

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

I’m on far too many social networks, but being signed up for them and actually using them are two different things. I have a very different level of participation.

Twitter – This is my favorite and where you’re most likely to find me. I love chatting with people here and wish more of my followers would start conversations. Sometimes it takes me a while to answer, especially if I’m writing or at the day job, but I do reply most of the time. (There are occasions when I can’t think of anything to say in return.) I especially enjoy saying good morning.

Facebook – I’m on here and check in a few times a day, but I mostly forget to comment back to stuff on my wall. I mean to, but it’s just too easy to space it out. I also mostly forget to update my status (that’s what Twitter is for!) despite having multiple ways to post to FB at the same time I post to Twitter.

MySpace – Has gone from very active to next to zero. I would delete my account if I still wasn’t getting so many views on my blog over here. I wish MySpace, though, would let me feed in my blog the way that Amazon and Goodreads do because cutting and pasting gets old. Barring that, I wish they would let me preschedule posts the way WordPress and Blogger do. I don’t use the feature that often, but there are definitely times it comes in handy.

Goodreads – I had good intentions here, but basically my blog just auto feeds in to the site. I think I would be more active if I could have uploaded the books I own to the site. (My fiction collection alone is 5000+.) But Goodreads wouldn’t upload from my spreadsheet because I didn’t record the ISBN numbers of the books and I don’t have near enough time to even consider entering the titles individually.

Shelfari – I was active here very briefly. Now, I can’t tell you the last time I visited. I should see if I can auto feed a blog in here, too.

Library Thing – I joined this back before it was social. Big drawback here is the number of books you can list before you have to go to a paid account. I mostly forget to visit.

Bebo – I haven’t visited here regularly since In the Midnight Hour was releasing back in what? 2007? I’m still shocked when I get friend requests or notices that someone has made me their top friend because of how long it’s been since I was over there. This site is one from which I do need to delete myself. If I can ever remember to get over there.

Some Pages thing – I can’t remember if it’s Yahoo or Microsoft or if it’s someone else all together, but you can tell how long it’s been since I did anything with that site since I can’t even remember who runs it or what the exact name of it is. If I didn’t bookmark this site, there won’t be anyway to even get over here to delete myself.

Tags: internet
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Music Hunt

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

One really great thing about the internet is the ability to track down information quickly and easily. As a writer, being able to get an answer to a research point for a book almost instantly and being able to get right back to the story is a blessing. It’s proven to be handy, though, in other ways.

There has been some really great use of music in television commercials lately. It started with Geico using Let Me Be Myself by 3 Doors Down. Geico nicely put the name of the group and the song title at the bottom of the screen so I was able to jump over to iTunes and buy a copy for myself. Most advertisers haven’t been so helpful and this is where the internet comes into play.

There are two other songs I’ve been grooving on. One of them, Build Me Up Buttercup by the Foundations wasn’t too hard to figure out. One Google search gave me the name of the group (I only had the song title from the lyrics of the ad) and it was painless.

The other ad music I’ve been loving wasn’t easy to track down. Oh, I could guess at the song title from the lyrics. That was easy. The hard part was figuring out which version was the right one. I wanted the same one used in the commercial.

What ad was it? The one for the 2010 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. The ad is awesome by itself. A bunch of ballplayers suddenly inundated with sand, another player jumps at the outfield wall to catch a ball and falls through it onto the beach, and a giant sandcastle in the form of Angels Stadium. It’s just a fun commercial. The music made it even more fun.

But the song, California Sun was covered by about a million different bands/singers. I looked at the list and was like, wow, which version?

Google didn’t exactly help me here, but it led me to YouTube and some kind soul posted the name of the band. Thank you, sir, whoever you are! The version I wanted was by The Dictators. I bought it and have been grooving ever since.

Once, before the internet, getting the name of the band for California Sun would have been a futile effort. Now, it’s as easy as heading to YouTube. Awesome!

Watch the fabulous and fun commercial (complete with awesome song) below.

Tags: advertising, internet, music
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In Search Of a Home Page

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

Once, a long, long time ago, I used to have Prodigy as my ISP. And even longer ago than that, they had a great home page. It was affiliated with Excite for a while. When Prodigy moved to something else as the home page screen, I stayed with Excite, but lost the special Prodigy setup they had. It was never the same after that, and when they were bought out, it became worse, IMO. Since this time, I’ve been in search of a new home page to greet me when I log on to the internet.

I tried the Prodigy home page when I was with them and Earthlink, who I moved to next, and I’ve tried my current ISP’s home page, too. I’ve tried Yahoo and iGoogle and PageFlakes and didn’t like any of them. I stayed with My Way as my home page longer than most, but even they got annoying. I hung with them because I didn’t know where else to try next.

This weekend, I decided to try NetVibes. The jury’s still out on what I think about them.

I like that it’s customizable and that there are modules I can plug in to customize it. I like that I can create as many different tabs as I want for my data. Like the General page only has my local weather, a quote of the day thing, and a image search box. I have all my writing blogs on one tab, my non-writing blogs on another, a tab for tech news and a tab for regular news. A tab for cartoons and other fun stuff. It’s nice to have it all organized, but….

The things I don’t like about NetVibes is all the different tabs. Instead of just one home page where I can see everything in a glance, I now have 8 home pages and I have to click the tab for each one of them. The modules with the news/sports/entertainment stuff updates constantly and those little red numbers telling me how many unread stories I have is annoying. I think I turned them off somehow on some tabs, but it doesn’t work for all tabs and I don’t know why.

But I’m going to give them a month or two, maybe more because I just can’t find a good home page. I don’t think what I’m looking for is that unrealistic. I mean, hey, it existed in 2002 or whenever it was that Prodigy was affiliated with the old Excite.com. In the meantime, I’ll keep experimenting and hoping I find something, somewhere that works for me.

Tags: internet
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Wooting!

Friday, February 20th, 2009

Welcome to the new look for my blog. It matches my new website and I think it turned out great! And I can say that because I’m not the person who did it.

This week, there was a Woot-off on Woot.com. I can’t remember how I found out about this site, but usually they do one deal a day. Every couple of months, though, they hold a Woot-off and then it’s item after item until whatever they put up sells out. Woot-offs normally last two days, but occasionally go three.

Some of it takes a long time to go because it’s, well, junk. The used DVDs of three incredibly lame comedies are one item that came up today that I thought were never going to sell out! Other items are just things most people will never need. There’s a lot of tech stuff, like HD video cards. Great if you’re someone who likes to assemble your own system, not so great for those of us who aren’t. There’s a lot of refurbished stuff and then there are some really good deals.

Today, I wooted and bought coffee! Five 1 pound bags. It was actually a good deal if you happen to like the expensive coffee, and thanks to a friend of mine, I’m now hooked on the stuff.

But the highlight of every Woot-off is the Bag of Crap. Yep, Bag of Crap.

When I first got on Woot, I ignored them. I imagined that it would be some pretty lame stuff that they couldn’t sell. Like the mini kites or the bag of charades game. Then I was told, no, it’s not always junk. Sometimes it includes good things like televisions or other electronics.

Well, heck, if there was a chance to get something that might actually be useful, I had to try, right? It’s like buying the occasional lottery ticket–you just might get lucky.

So I tried and tried on earlier Woot-offs to get a Bag of Crap, but I had no luck. One time, they put it up while I was driving home from work. The others? Well, I just couldn’t get through. The server would crash and by the time I got back on Woot, some other item would be up.

I didn’t think today would be any different. For one thing, I was on my laptop which is four years old and is hooked to the internet via a wireless router. Not exactly as fast as if I were on my newish desktop hooked directly into the cable modem. And then the item that was up sold out and I kept pressing F5. And I saw the picture for a Bag of Crap!

Immediately, I hit the “I want one” button, and while it was slow, I actually got to the order screen. Nervously, sure that it would sell out before I could get through, I typed my password. Wrong. I had to backup and retype it. I’m going to be too late now, I knew it. I hit the button that all my information was right. And waited.

And waited.

I was getting more nervous. Bags of Crap sell out in less than a minute. I didn’t want to be sitting on this screen while it sold out. Then the order button screen showed up. My hands were nearly shaking as I clicked to submit my order. Again, I waited.

Would I be thwarted this close to my goal?

Then I got it, the screen that said they’d reserved my Bag of Crap and were processing my order. If I wanted to make sure it went through, I could wait till the confirmation screen came up. Like I was going to click away without that! So I waited, but my email came through first–I had successfully wooted my first ever Bag of Crap!

Whoo hooo!!!

Like a hunter bringing down the woolly mammoth, I had succeeded in bagging the prize!

So now I wait for my Bag of Crap to arrive and hope that I get something I can use and not three used DVDs of some lame comedies or a mini kite.

Tags: internet, shopping, woot
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Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Day to Stop Drinking Coffee

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

Last night, I decided I needed to kick the coffee habit. I usually only drink one cup a day, but I desperately need that caffeine kick. This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to quit, but I was on deadline when I made the other attempts and I quickly resumed the coffee, needing to meet my deadline.

Now, though, my next book is due March 1 and I don’t have revisions yet on the last book, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Um, yeah, while I’m still having insomnia issues. I had a grand total of 3 hours of sleep last night. Maybe.

I popped a vitamin B. That got me through my morning routine and to my car. It’s not helping at the Evil Day Job (EDJ). I’m sitting here, fighting to keep my eyes open. I’ve done a lot of walking around the office, on the theory that humans don’t sleep on their feet.

So far, I’m holding out, but if this is what it feels like to be without coffee, I don’t know how I’m going to make it.

Last night, my internet connection went down which is why I’m blogging from the EDJ today. It’s also why I didn’t get a chance to answer comments yet. I’ll do that as soon as I can.

Tags: coffee, internet
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