I'm Twittering This! or Dude, Where's My Blog?

As you may have noticed, TalkingTree.com blog is rather barren these days. I find that while I work, while I relax at home (that is when I'm not working at home), or even when I'm mobile I'm nearly always using Twitter, and less so Facebook.

Unless you've been living under a rock you've heard of Twitter by now. If you're still not sure, Twitter is a bit like group chat where you post a short summary of what you're doing or what's on your mind, and other people that are interested can reply. While I'm not going to explain Twitter fully here -- you can find that on Twitter.com -- it can be very useful for sharing up to date information about a particular interest with lots of other people that share that interest. Most of my Tweeps fall into one of several interest groups... There's those interested in Photography, those interested in Web Technology, and those that happen to otherwise be friends or family. There are several applications you can use to watch Twitter updates. My favorite for use on a computer is TweetDeck, and on my iPhone I use Twitterific. One reason to love using an iPhone with Twitterrific is that I can be anywhere, shopping, getting a haircut, or at a conference and have the ability to take a cell phone picture for upload to Twitter with a brief description about what's going on.

Twitter and Facebook are such interesting places to socialize online while sharing information that I've neglected my blog for quite some time. To address that problem, I'll be posting summaries of recent Tweets to my blog here where you can catch up on some of the things I've been talking about. Although, this is a bit like sitting next to someone that's on the phone since my Tweets here are only half the conversation some time. To get the full benefit of Twitter you really have to follow both sides of the conversation.

To accomplish updating this blog with my Tweets, I whipped up a quick ColdFusion script to pull in my Twitter RSS feed and convert to HTML with all usernames and URLs converted to actual links. I'll next try to automate this so that my blog gets regularly updated with my Twitter summaries.

Of course, if you're already on Twitter, Follow Me, and on Facebook Add Me as a Friend.

How to read tweets

• If a tweet begins with an at sign, its a username, like @JoeSchmoe. Its at the beginning because I'm replying to something that Joe Schmoe tweeted earlier.
• If a @username appears later in the tweet but not at the beginning, then i'm refering to that user, like Hey, did you see that cool widget that @JoeSchmoe built?
• If a tweet begins with RT, that means Re-Tweet, and its kinda like holding up a megaphone. On Twitter you Follow or subscribe to certain people, and in turn other people follow you. The people that subscribe to your tweets may not be following the people that you subscribe to. So by retweeting someone that you subscribe to, you are amplifying that persons tweet by broadcasting to all the people that subscribe to you. Confused yet? If your subscribers are interested in the retweet, they may then follow that original person (a.k.a tweep or twit).
• If a tweet has a word beginning with a pound sign like #photog, that's called a hashtag. Hashtags are used as labels to identify a topic for your tweet. Later people can search by hashtags to see tweets from everyone that talked about that topic. In this case, #photog means the tweet is about photography or a photographer. This in contrast to #photo without the last 'g' and it is used for tweets about a particular photo.

Recent Tweets for Mon June 29, 2009

Mon Jun 29 10:09 PM

2 nights in a row my son doesn't want to sleep coz he's not feeling well. Long nights of frequent rocking, not much sleep for me.

Mon Jun 29 4:45 PM

@JoshuaCurtiss Pretty sure it was CF5 -> CF6 w/ the J2EE conversion. I was on the team at Macromedia that reviewd poss bkwds compat issues

Mon Jun 29 4:39 PM

@jlamoree Holy cow, a fradulent Lactating Lesbians infringement claim from Cream Ridge, NJ. That just, em, *sucks*!

Mon Jun 29 12:52 PM

@jonbcampos Apache XSL-FO http://bit.ly/Xrhar

  Power Mac G5: The lights are on but no one's home

The recent ice storm that crippled New England and left me looking for other shelter seemed to have killed my 2005 Power Mac G5. The night of the ice storm the lights in the house blinked off, then on, then off again... They stayed off for four days, along with the furnace, until the power company put my town back on line.

A week later, when I attempted to start the G5 in my home office the main power light came on, and stayed on when ever it was plugged in, and the desktop would not begin the boot sequence, nor were any sounds emitted such as the fans starting up.

With lots of other things to take care of I delayed troubleshooting it, but thought that it would eventually require a trip to the Apple Store Genius Bar for a drop off. Today I finally did a search and came up with this little wonder:

How to reset the SMU on a Power Mac G5

The SMU (System Management Unit) is a microcontroller chip on the logic board that controls all power functions for your computer. If your computer is experiencing any issues regarding these functions, resetting the SMU may resolve the issue. The functions controlled by the SMU include:

* It tells the computer when to turn on, turn off, sleep, wake, idle, and so on.
* It handles system resets from various commands.
* It controls the fan.

The guts circuit board did not look the same as in the photo on their article, so I started pushing all the transistors and every little silvery bumps I could find. Close to my RAM memory slots, I finally found a tiny, round, silver button on a small black square base that was in fact slightly pushable.

Upon reassembling the tower's side door and re-inserting all the cables, I was very happy to hear that little whir of the fan as the computer took its first breath after being resuscitated. The prospect of waiting in line at the Apple Store during Christmas week was something I was not looking forward to.

  CDIA Web Development: A mix of LAMP and RIA that lacks focus

The B.U. Center for Digital Imaging Arts has just added another core curriculum to their stable of information technology certificates by introducing the Web Development Certificate. As you may know, they completely won me over with their Digital Photography program, and one of my coworkers at Adobe has been raving about their Audio Production curriculum as well. As such, I have high expectations that they will deliver great instructors for the chosen curriculum.

Their Web Development certificate program, founded on more than 20 courses, emphasizes the use of PHP and MySQL as core technologies, including a Rich Media Web Development subtopic focusing on the use of Flash and ActionScript. Along the way there's a sprinkling of Javascript, XML related technologies, and AJAX, and the course is capped off with some Content Management and Web 2.0 social network topics.

» Read More » »

  Leopard Day 0: A Day in the Life a Mac Fanatic

www.flickr.com

7:00 AM

Wake up early (yes, 7AM is early for me) to prepare to go to the Apple Store opening at 9AM

7:10 AM

Check the Apple website and find that the countdown still reads 11 hours. By 10/26 they didn't mean morning of 10/26. Back to bed.

4:45 PM

Leave work to head over the Apple Store at the Natick Collection Mall

5:30 PM

Join the line camped outside the locked doors of the Apple Store. A kid in front of me walks the line, returns to his father to report that they are #38 in line.

5:35 PM

The frumpy old guy next to me starts chatting with about Macs. Says that he's a web developer that works at home and uses Dreamweaver and Flash on PCs and wants to trash them for Macs instead.

  Ubuntu @ the Library -and- Vista SP1 Will Install XP

Jessamyn, a Flickr contact and the daughter of one of my friends at my photo club, recently posted a great video on YouTube about installing Ubuntu Linux. As a Librarian in Vermont, she was tasked with repurposing several computers donated to the library, each of which had a potentially unlicensed copy of Windows installed on it. Watch Jessamyn wipe the Windows off the computers, install Ubuntu Linux, and show how great Linux really is. She captured the whole procedure in this short and humorous video.

» Read More » »

  Professional Digital Photography at CDIA

This year I've taken a big step towards turning a long time personal interest into a professional skill. In May I enrolled in the Professional Digital Photography program at Boston University's Center for Digital Imaging Arts, or BU CDIA for short. The curriculum spans 24 classes over nearly 18 months, and requires the commitment of 2 nights per week and every other Saturday.

First class at CDIA

Over the years I've been able to study at various local universities to build web technology skills, including Bentley College, Brandeis University, Harvard Extension School, and BUTrain (Boston University's corporate education). Compared to CDIA, I would be hard pressed to describe a curriculum or facility that was more current and state of the art, or better staffed with highly qualified instructors. CDIA's facility, conveniently located on Moody Street in Waltham, can hardly be called a campus, although it occupies three floors of a huge building converted into classrooms and studios, and will soon expand into an adjacent building that formerly housed a Jordan's Furniture store. In retrospect, only Harvard's Extension School rivals CDIA in quality of equipment and facilities as well as teaching ability of instructors.

» Read More » »

  Google Wants to Get into Your Genes

The Biotech startup 23andMe aims to take genomic analysis up a notch, up several notches really, by bringing genomics down to a personal level backed by 21st century technology. In an SEC filing in May 2007 it was disclosed that Google floated 23andMe a whopping $3.9 million in addition to an previous loan of $2.6 million. [Via Bio-IT World]

As it turns out, this is not mere business nor even coincidence since 23andMe's co-founder Anne Wojcicki is none other than the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Wojcicki briefly commented that her goal is to use proprietary software tools, "to allow individuals to gain deeper insights into their ancestry, genology, and inherited traits and, ultimately, the option to work together to advance the overall understanding of the human genome."

As a software engineer and former biologist, I'm all for it. I wish Google and 23andMe many years of happiness and bliss together. Now if 23andMe only had an office in Boston...

(Funnily enough, the URL for the Bio-IT article ends with first base. >insert Beavis and Butthead snickering< *hee hee*)

  Total Training is Going Online

As a very satisfied owner of Total Training DVD video tutorials on Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, and Flex, I literally recommend their training to everyone I speak with that might have an interest... really, and half the time I chew their ear off because I won't shut up about how great their tutorials are.

Now they're launching online training as well, in HD and available 24/7. Here's some quotes from their website:

Premium Training Goes Online
Total Training is a pioneer in innovative video-based training for creative design, digital video, and office productivity software programs. Our mission is to deliver premium training to our users enabling them to quickly learn new software applications. Now, for the first time, our award-winning videos are available online.

• Access award-winning training 24/7
• High-quality content produced in HD
• Explore the customized interface

• Customized Controls
• Search Content Within Lessons
• Lesson Progression Tracking
• Ability to Bookmark Lessons

Get the Entire Total Training Online: Adobe Library for FREE!
In celebration of our upcoming Total Training Online release, we're offering this once in a lifetime opportunity. For every purchase of $150* or more, you will receive the Total Training Online Adobe Library absolutely free for 1 year — that's over $1,000 worth of DVDs accessible online! View our Adobe Library below.

Hurry! Offer expires June 15, 2007.

Dear Total Training:

Please add ColdFusion 8 training as a part of your web technology stable of training products.

Thanks!

  Snap Back!

I'm a fan of the Snap Preview Anywhere (SPA) to provide small previews of web pages that I link to from my blog. I think it saves time by giving me a quick idea of the content behind a link so I don't have to click through, change my mind, and then click back. It also helps conserve network bandwidth usage across the internet. In fact, TalkingTree.com was just listed in the SPA 100 on Snap blog.

Go ahead, mouseover some links. You know you want to!

Ok, so maybe you don't want to mouseover the link. Maybe you don't like Snap Previews. Maybe you're just old fashioned that way. Click on the Snap Preview [options] link to adjust the preview delay, or if you're just in a foul mood that day then just disable them completely.

Not feeling cranky anymore? What if you want Snap back? Here's how to turn Snap Previews on again.

Ahhh, isn't that better now? :)

  Two day seminar in the Boston area: Deep AJAX

At this week's Boston CFUG presentation of AJAX by Rob Gonda, a new member informed us of an upcoming, comprehensive seminar on AJAX sponsored by the Greater Boston Chapter of the ACM. At Harvard University's Maxwell Dworkin center, this two day conference Deep AJAX will feature speakers from Yahoo!, the Dojo Toolkit, and the Django Framework, running the weekend of October 14th at a cost of $495. I won't be able to attend it unfortunately, but just wanted to get the word out if you're in the area.

Deep AJAX
A two day deep dive into developing real world applications using AJAX
AJAX - more an approach than a technology - is one of the hottest topics for Internet developers. AJAX builds rich interactive applications using standard browser technology, enabling delivery of sophisticated user experiences without the problems of distributing and updating client software.

  We can only be stupid, sloppy, and lazy for so long

Since the local news channels have evolved into pure entertainment (are you listening WHDH?), provide no real news value, and do not exhibit much journalistic integrity in my opinion, my viewing preferences have changed such that one of my primary sources for in-depth information about global politics, technology, and economics is now the Charlie Rose show.

Among the guest list, Pulitizer Prize winner Thomas Friedman makes frequent appearances, a favorite of mine. In the May 22, 2006 show, a forward thinking converstation about "Geo Green" or "Green Energy", flex fuels (E85), and the dominance of China and India as world leaders is catalzyed by a quote from George Bush, "America is addicted to oil".

» Read More » »

  Jeremy Allaire Interview on the Charlie Rose Show: Watch the Video

Guest host Walt Mossberg, personal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, interviews Brightcove Founder and CEO, Jeremy Allaire for the Charlie Rose show on April 26. Mossberg's introduction to Allaire and some of the questions posed to him follow:

Tonight I talk with Jeremy Allaire. He's been called a serial entrepreneur. His first venture, the Allaire Corporation, focussed on building internet based applications [ColdFusion]. He later joined [sic] Macromedia as its CTO. There he helped develop the Flash Player into internet's dominant media platform. His new venture, Brightcove, which he founded in 2004, is on the forefront of convergence. Its goal is to bring down the barriers between television and the internet. The company has already attracted major investments from Time Warner and IAC interactive, among others.

» Read More » »

  Website Design Professional Training on DVD

TotalTraining.com has released a great line-up of DVD video lessons including Advanced Dreamweaver 8 and Extreme Website Makeover. Read about how much I like training from this company.

Master Collection: Total Training for Advnced Dreamweaver 8

This design training helps you go beyond the basics and dive into the advanced capabilities of the industry-leading web design tool. Efficiently layout, develop, and maintain standards-based web sites with the industry-leading tool.

Total Training for Website Design - Extreme Website Makeover

These video tutorials equip you with the skills necessary to turn an ordinary website into one that’s content-rich using popular web design and development tools: Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Contribute, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

  Computer Security Program at Stanford

• Computer Security Principles
• Introduction to Cryptography
• Secure Programming Techniques

The Cryptography course was the most interesting, and now I have a better understanding of block ciphers and stream ciphers in symmetric key cryptology, as well as differences between symmetric key standards such as DES, 3DES, AES, and RC4. I also learned more about asymmetric cryptology including RSA, how a buffer overflow attack works and how to code to avoid them, and more about hashing algorithms MD5 and sha1.

The Stanford program built on related knowledge I've accumulated over the years of working with web technology and from other courses including Network Security at Brandeis, Networking and Security Administration at Red Hat, and Intro to Cryptology Bootcamp at BNUG.

  MIT PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTE – SUMMER SESSION 2006

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is currently accepting registrations for 35 intensive, week-long programs designed especially for professionals. Courses taught on campus by MIT faculty from June through August. Earn a certificate and CEUs. Offerings include biotechnology, chemical engineering, energy, IT, mechanical engineering, nanotechnology, physics, technology policy, system architecture, and other topics of vital interest to today's engineers and scientists.

Visit this website to register and view course descriptions.

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