So I came across these guys on Twitter quite accidentally. I saw the fifth video they had done to the news and the Dancing Ana Marie Cox and Rachael Maddow were just too hot. Imagine my delight when I came across the Auto Tune The News page at Amie Street. Not only can you download most of the mp3’s for the auto tune the news videos, you can now listen to them any time. And of course, there’s the Gregory Brothers the more serious side to the group.

So this weeks cut is from the debut album from the Canadian actress (best known for her role on Law and Order) Jill Hennessy. Its a nice blusey rock album with sounds of Melissa Etheridge and is actually a nice sounding album.

Give the album a listen and catch some reruns of Crossing Jordan or Law and Order while you eat your hungry man dinner off a tv stand.

One of the cool things about having an open API like Twitter’s (and somewhat facebooks) is that you get a ton of cool and useful apps (websites) that can help you do everything from manage followers to search better to Assassinate Unhinged Industrialists. One of the bad things about having an open API like Twitter’s is that you get a ton of cool and useful apps (websites) that can help you do everything from manage followers to search better to Assassinate Unhinged Industrialists. It seems everywhere you turn these days everyone and everything is about twitter. Which in itself is ok, though twitter is quickly becoming the Z Cavaricci’s of 2009. Pretty soon, the cool kids in class will be on to the next internet fad while you’re still begging your mom to let you on twitter.

To help usher that along, here are FIVE twitter tools which may or may not make your “Tweepularity” rise.

1. Twistory – Twistory is a cool little app that actually ties your tweets (or the user you want to stalk) in to your ical application so you can see what was tweeted when. The neat thing about this app is that it works with ANYTHING that can use and iCal file, so google calendar, outlook, mac, thunderbird. It just works. I was interested in trying it out so I fired it up in outlook and I had a NEW calendar with just my tweets. Its actually pretty cool. Though something affected it as of 3pm yesterday and I haven’t updated the calendar yet (I keep getting errors…
2. TweetPsych – Tweetpsych admittedly does not do too much. But its a fun and interesting one to play with just to see whats in your psyche. From the site: “TweetPsych uses two linguistic analysis algorithms (RID and LIWC) to build a psychological profile of a person based on the content of their tweets. The service analyzes your last 1000 tweets and works best on users who have posted more than 1000 updates. It also works best on accounts that are operated by a single user and use Twitter in a conversational manner, rather than simply a content distribution platform.” Put in your userid and see how you psych out.
3. Tweefind – Tweefind is simply a search site for twitter. Its a little pink (ok, a lot pink) but its a handy tool for searching. Some of my favorite searches so far have been for words like “Twiends”, “OMG you guys”, and “Iran”. THere’s some crazy stuff posted out there!
4. TwitterAnalyzer – TwitterANALyzer is cool simply because it has the word ANALyzer in it but beyond that its a pretty well designed tool that is a good way to see how YOUR twits are trending. It provides all kinds of goodness that those in the marketing world would kill for to know who wants the newest shade of HOT PINK lipstick. Its also got some good built in metrics for figuring out your reach. TwitterAnalyzer is the TWITTER MARKETER’s DREAM!
5. Tweepular – Tweepular is one of those tools I actually keep going back to. I’ve written about it before and I was fairly impressed. It turns out that the folks behind tweepular have more up their sleeves and are working to make it better (if possible). Some potential improvements include tweeting from the interface, a blackberry and iphone app, and more ways to improve your following. One of the coolest features of tweepular is the ability to mass follow and unfollow people as well as the ability to find out who is the most tweepular (think popular) and follow them as well. Its a handy tool thats good for building a following.

Mind you, those are just some of the tools online that I’ve come across to help with twitter… I may take a look at clients or games next who knows… got any suggestions?

Holy KAW!! Wait. What? FOUR FREE ISSUES of Business Week?? You have to be kidding!

Guess what, not kidding. You can get 4 free issues of Business week, plus their digital playbook, Power Plays, plus access to the latest issue online for a limited time. This deal is too good to be true. The cool part is that after you get your four free issues, you can either continue your subscription for 46 or 21 issues for $30 or $20 respectively.

Those in the know, know that Biz Week is one of the leading magazines in the business world (I can remember flipping through my dad’s copies when I was in high school). It provides a deeper understanding of the trends that drive growth, how technology creates opportunities, and what best practices keep them ahead of the competition and should be in the tool box of any sales rep, manager or upper level wannabe in today’s environment.

After your four week trial you can:

• Continue to receive 46 additional issues (50 issues total) for just $30.00. (for Canadian subscribers, C$30.00) That’s only 60¢ per issue! 88% savings off the newsstand cover price!
• Continue to receive 21 additional issues (25 issues total) for just $20.00. (for Canadian subscribers, C$20.00) That’s only 80¢ per issue! 84% savings off the newsstand cover price!
• Keep just the 4 FREE trial issues and owe nothing by returning the bill marked “cancel”.

That’s a good deal when you consider that news stand price is $4.99 an issue. If you did the 50 issues at the store, you’d pay over $250. You can get it for only $30. Why wait?? Get your trial now before its gone… you can always cancel. Thats better than the 2 for 1 special on the best wrinkle cream that Bath and Body Works has to offer.

So I’ve been playing with the new theme a little more (in case you haven’t noticed). In addition to adding more of the ads back, I’ve added a couple of cool hacked up widgets thanks to the PHP Code Widget and a super cool article that I found at SmashingMagazine.

If you peruse the right side, you’ll notice to new additions to the list. Upcoming Posts and Past Year. Upcoming Posts is just that. Posts scheduled to be published sometime in the future. Could be tomorrow. Could be next week, could be in 2011. Whenever. It simply displays a list of the posts scheduled to be posted. Its pretty cool and for things that you want to have auto posted and you want your readers to know is in the pipe, it works well.

The code is simple and is making good use of the query_posts loop in word press. See?

<?php query_posts(’showposts=10&post_status=future’); ?>
<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
<span class=”datetime”><?php the_time(’j. F Y’); ?></span></p>
<?php endwhile;
else: ?><p>No future events scheduled.</p>
<?php endif; ?>

Granted, I cleaned it up a little and made some formatting changes to fit, but it works wonders.

The second one is the Past year articles. This one actually functions differently then I had expected. It figures out the date and it published the articles published on the 10th (for example) of the month for the past twelve months. You could modify it of course, to give you almost anything else or limit it to one post. I made a change to clean it up a bit and actually link to the article. Here’s my code:

<?php
$current_day = date(’j');
$last_year = date(’Y')-1;
query_posts(’day=’.$current_day.’&year=’.$last_year); ?>
<ul>
<?php
if (have_posts()):
while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<li><strong><a href=<?php the_permalink();?>><?php the_title(); ?></a></strong><br>
<span class=”datetime”><?php the_time(’j. F Y’); ?></span><br>
<?php
the_excerpt();
?></li>
<?php endwhile;
endif;
?> </ul>

Which is a little different then the code provided in the article and I’m still tweeking it a little bit.

Its amazing what you can do with WORDPRESS! Its almost easier then driving an rv.

Related External Links

• Trends in Web Design Involving WordPress | I'd Rather Be Writing …

Generated by LinkCurl

As its the first name of my Oldest Daughter, the name of the Newest Album by Gypsy Tailwind caught my eye. Grace is full of some good rock tinged folksy music that borders more on Country then Folk. However, with soulful lyrics, amazing vocals and the band to back it all up, Grace is definitely worth a listen.

I posted their first track, Way To Here, from the album here (which is currently FREE), but the one that is a must listen is the second song on this album. The Letter is an amazing piece that infuses brass with your standard country tune and gives it a very bluesy feel. Highly worth it.

Related External Links

• ASMW might BBS
• Hoboken Metro Mom » Guest Post: Playgrounds and More for City Folk
• Gypsy Tailwind CD Release / Will Dailey and the Rivals / The Grant …

Generated by LinkCurl

This is the fourth season in a row that I’ve been the lead operator on the Friday Night Fireworks for the Atlanta Braves down at the Ted. Usually, its 14 Friday nights (with an odd weeknight or saturday thrown in) which is long enough as it is. Most other Pyro guys in the Atlanta area (IE: Georgia) get one or two shows a year with the 4th of July making up the bulk of the work. I’ve been averaging 20. Not bad for a boy from Kennesaw, but this year got a lot busier.

The Atlanta Braves, along with their sponsor Gas South, have decided that they are now going to be doing Strike Out Pyro. Thats right, every Strike out the Braves Pitchers throw, will be met with a three shot barrage of 10×15 stage gerbs (think sparklers). Its not a bad gig, the only problem is the height at which the product actually sits.

First, I have to climb an 8 foot folding ladder to a platform. From there, I climb another 25 or 30 feet up a ladder thats welded to the back of the Gas South Sign to the platform. The platform itself is at the top of the Gas South sign and is *just* big enough to stand and work on. The bad part of all this is the fact that the sign itself sways in the wind or when I move. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in the catwalk of the Ga. Dome, Phillips Arena and on the roof here at the Ted. I’ve gone rock climbing before, done the Ropes courses at several Boy Scout Camps, and even made it to the top of the Tooth (if you have to ask what the Tooth is you don’t need to know). But I. Hate. Heights.

I don’t know if its the height (which I seem to be ok with) or the idea of falling (which it probably isn’t because I want to go parachuting) or the hitting the ground with a thud that I dislike most, but something about it is just not right. I’ll do it though. Don’t get me wrong, its a good thing they have AEDs around the park just in case. I’ve been down here 5 of the past seven nights already and my season is just starting. I don’t know how these ball players do it.

Any way, back to the pyro. Like I said, 10×15 Gerbs, that are wired three in a series. We have 12 shots for a total of 36 gerbs. It looks ok, though personally I think there needs to be a whistle or something to let people know whats going on. The first couple we had exploded, the noise was good, but they weren’t supposed to do that… Oops.

Anyway, if you’re down at the Ted this season catching a game, stop by the Gas South sign, chances are good I’ll be there.

Related External Links

• Fireworks and Thunderstorm Phobias in Dogs | DOG BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS

Generated by LinkCurl

So somewhere around two weeks ago, I talked about SugarSync. I was pretty impressed with it and the ability to share documents between my desktop, laptop and blackberry with ease. Today, I’m still impressed (enough so that I’m on the 4.99 a month plan) and I’d highly recommend EVERY sysadmin adding this to their arsenal of tools. Here’s Why…

I have the sugarsync manager setup on my desktop. I created a ‘hot folder’ of sorts that I can drop documents, images, pdfs, whatever in to and it syncs to the server. So the important stuff (passwords, network keys, server information, contact information, etc.) is safe in the case that I loose another Harddrive. I can log in on any PC anywhere through the web interface and have access to my important files.

So I can be sitting in a web cafe in Paris (though, one in Kennesaw is more likely), pull up the sugarsync web site and log in, have access to the email password or system passwords and access the accounts I need. Even better, there are blackberry and iPhone apps for sugarsync that allow me to do the same thing! SO I can be in the process of setting up or diagnosing a computer or email issue and pull up what I need right there on my blackberry without wasting space on my device. Totally adds a new tool to my box.

In addition, I can now keep photos accessible over any device with little effort as well. So once I clear the camera of photos of the little ones, I can pull them up for family and friends on my BOLD for anyone to see. How awesome is that?

Are you using SugarSync yet? If so, how? If not, WHY NOT?? It will change the way you do business!

Related External Links

• Auslogics Blog » Unlock Files in Windows
• Guifx Blog : Blog Archive : Guifx Skin for DVR Remote iPhone App

Generated by LinkCurl

Ok, so I’m a day late, but I’m not a dollar short. Its amazing what you can find on AmieStreet and todays ASMW is another good example. Yes, I picked this group simply because of their name, however, Trampled by Turtles bluegrass tunes are simply fun listening.

Take for example, this one about wanting to be a school bus driver. Oh, and enjoy your summer break. You lousy kids you.

Related External Links

• ASMW might BBS
• The Cabooze gets Trampled by Turtles (and recorded for upcoming …

Generated by LinkCurl

Or maybe its the stale air smell you get in your car when you let it sit with the windows up too long. Either way, something has to be done. So, after almost two years with the same blog design, I’m changing things up.

The previous theme was a paid theme I paid some designer to throw together. Visually it was nice, but under the hood, it was a coding and layout nightmare. Tables everywhere, poor use of CSS. Its time to get back to a more userfriendly theme. So, here it is. TweetMeBlue by WebDesignLessons.com. Its a nice two column theme (which again, isn’t too different). The colors are warm and appealing and the design is nice.

There are some things I have to do to make it feel more homely and I find that using predone themes makes using wordpress a whole lot easier than buying life insurance from Wholesale Insurance.

I’d love to know what you think about the new layout, and also, don’t fret, I’ll be adding *some* of the old plugins back…

Related External Links

• Collection of Useful CSS Grid Layout Generator For Web Designers …
• Premium Wordpress Theme Giveaway – Stylish Blog | Inspired Magazine
• Trends in Web Design Involving WordPress | I'd Rather Be Writing …

Generated by LinkCurl