Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Tag: Typepad

Blogging Gone Wild

February 13, 2011 / / 0 Comments

TechSurfBlog-post1 People who've been reading this blog for a while may know I started it in 2005. That's a long time in blog years, and it's resulted in a monstrous archive of what people now call "long-form blogging" — at least it is for me, as one, lone writer.  My quick tally is about 400,000-500,000 words (several books' worth), and I can't even begin to guess the *time* I have into it. Let's just say it's been countless thousands of hours that I've spent filling this space — planning, thinking, writing, editing, covering events, managing comments, and, not the least, all the time spent in the behind-the-scenes (pain in the ass) administration of the site. That last part is especially a challenge with Typepad, the platform I chose way back when. Unfortunately, it hasn't kept up with bloggers' needs, especially from a UI/ease-of-use standpoint. (But the time to convert my blog to WordPress, as I might like, has just been way too much of a time hurdle to consider if I want to keep paying the bills with the income I have to generate in the non-blogging part of my business life.)

The whole notion of "micro" blogging wasn't even in our minds back in 2005. But, of course, those of you who follow me regularly know I've been posting the majority of my online content for the past few years on a certain site that starts with a "T".  Twitter-logo With 11,000+ tweets there, at 140 characters each, that works out to some 200,000 words. And to say that's cut into my long-form blogging frequency here on this blog would be a gross understatement. Twitter, as it turned out, opened the floodgates on short-form, real-time blogging. But "blogging" almost seems like the wrong word these days, doesn't it?  Seems like it's really just about "content sharing" anymore, in the age we're in of never-ending "status updates." Speaking of which, yes, I'm of course on Facebook, too — here and here. Friend me at the first (my personal page) and fan me at the second (my company page). Or is it all about "Likes"? Whatever! Just click something there, will ya, and I'll be happy… :-)  [Note you can also now hit the little "Like" icon at the bottom of each of my blog posts here, as well as "Like" my blog overall in the sidebar to the right. We all *so* need to be liked these days…]

Where does it all end? Well, it doesn't. Which is the reason for this post. It's not to bore you with stats about my huge trove of blog content (which, along with $3.00, will get me a nice cup of coffee anywhere), but to tell you about other places where I'm now doing even more of that shorter-form blogging thing, in case you haven't run into me there yet. Flickr-GraemeAt least I'm having fun (I think). Just gotta keep sharing! These other domains of mine are more for my personal, random thoughts — and for sharing photos when I have some text to go along with them. Sure, I can share photos on Twitter (and I do, often, from my iPhone, with various Twitter apps) — but there are times when 140 characters just won't do. And then I have my Flickr account, which I think I've had about as long as this blog, where I can share anything I shoot — and I've done that with some 4500+ images, all neatly organized into sets.

Medium-Form Blogging?

But I like to say these other blogging places I'm about to tell you about are "somewhere in the vast expanse between my long-form and short-form blogging."  Here's one of them: my Posterous blog, which I've actually had for several months now. PosterousBlog-GraemeOn a site like this, I put up all kinds of stuff — I don't think much about it (unlike this site, which is really all about my serious, professional life). I can even email something to Posterous that instantly becomes a post. So, you'll see a whole array of…stuff. And maybe you've heard of PicPlz? It has an iPhone app I've started to use to share photos. Well, I've set those pix to also show up on my Posterous blog as individual posts.

TumblrBlog-Graeme As opposed to Instagram, another iPhone photo-sharing app (which I like even more). I have the pix I shoot with that app set to show up on my Tumblr blog, where I also post…other stuff. Just kinda started that one. Actually, there's no telling what posts will show up where, really. They just kinda happen, I guess, which I 'spose is the whole idea of real-time content sharing, right? I even did a kind of long post there recently (at least for Tumblr), a rarety — most people on it are just blogging a single photo, or maybe a video. But what is blogging, I say, without a little text, huh?  Words, baby! They make the world go round, don't they? (But, hey, that's a blogger talking.)

Like I say, blogging — it's gone wild.

What I’ve Been Doing for the Last Month and a Half…

December 31, 2009 / / 2 Comments

…because I sure haven't been posting here.  Wow, I can't believe it's been 45 days!  My last post was soon after I got home from Defrag.  It's a long story.  First, I got sick right after I did that last post, coughing and hacking and generally feeling lousy, which went on for — I kid you not — four weeks!  Never had anything like that.  I think it was something I picked up on the plane.  Then, to top it off, I was really busy with new client work during this time … for BusinessCard2, VISI.com's ReliaCloud, three Skyya Communications clients, and others yet to be named — so, I was basically hunkered down at home, trying like mad to keep things moving forward. (We self-employed don't get no stinking sick days!)

Anyway, I just noticed that, although I didn't post here on my Typepad blog in those 45 days, I did post, count' em, 19 times on my Posterous blog! … pictured here in all its (semi)glorious splendor.

Posterous-GT


I remember doing a post about a year ago here explaining that I'd been gone so long because I was micro-blogging (Twittering).  You see, for us long-time bloggers, there's these huge guilt feelings we get for not blogging more often on our main blog.  So that was my excuse last year.  This year, it's Posterous that's to blame.  For me, it's a site I subtitle "somewhere in the vast expanse between his micro and macro blogging."  So, first it was short-form blogging (Twitter) that was taking me away from my long-form blogging.  Now it's, what, "medium-length" blogging?  Anyway, I find it pretty easy and non-time-consuming to post to Posterous (which I do fairly effortlessly via email). I actually use it more as a quick social-bookmarking service of sorts, when I find a valuable link — as I used to do with Delicious.

So, now you know I haven't been ignoring my contributions to the cause of online content and knowledge-sharing.  I just have too damn many places to do it!  And I've hardly backed down on my participation on Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, and LinkedIn, either.  Oh, and I wrote two posts and participated in four weekly podcasts on Minnov8, too, with my colleagues there.

So, please keep following me here, there… or how about everywhere?  :-) 

Thanks, and Happy 2010!

What’s Up With the ‘Social Media Today’ Widget?

October 9, 2008 / / 0 Comments

So, I tried turning on this widget again in my sidebar today.  It sure looks cool when you first see it, which I did several months ago.  I put it in my sidebar briefly back then, but I remember it wasn’t working right, so I took it off.  Also, it couldn’t be adjusted for width and was displaying somewhat "chopped off" in my standard.pngdth Typepad sidebar. Well, today, I thought I’d try it again to see if they’d improved the thing at all. The width thing is still a problem for Typepad blogs, and I don’t see any way to adjust for that. Are the links working for you?  I was having a problem for a while clicking through to the scrolling stories. But if this thing appears to be working okay now, I just may turn it back on again in my sidebar.  I’m sure you can get at a lot of this same news on Alltop’s Social Media page, if you just want a plain-vanilla UI (basically a random list). But I find scrolling widgets to be more fun….

Whatever Happened to Apple’s ‘Push’ iPhone 2.0 Update?

July 13, 2008 / / 1 Comment

I’m kinda pissed at Apple. (And I guess at AT&T, too — but then I’m always pissed at them.)  I mean, being a longtime Apple customer and a loyal iPhone user and all, not to speak of being an AT&T wireless customer since the beginning of time (I have the whole freaking iPhone package, including unlimited text messages).  So the point being, I bought into the whole deal here — okay, Apple?  You and your buddies at AT&T should really like me. Manpushingcar_3

But I just think they treated their existing customers shabbily this time around.  First of all, they never really communicated directly to me (neither firm) about what to expect regarding the upgrade to version 2.0 of the iPhone software, in the week approaching The Big Day.  I had to rely on what was being reported — and it wasn’t all that obvious, actually.  But I did read in a couple of places (can’t remember just where) that the upgrade would be handled by Apple doing a "push" of the v2.0 update to all existing iPhone customers (only those who were "official," of course, meaning signed up with AT&T here in the U.S.). Well, it never happened — still hasn’t. Not a word, and it’s now Sunday morning.

I finally got tired of waiting yesterday. About 11:00 Central Saturday morning, I was chatting with a buddy who told me how he got the update, and it had gone without a hitch for him. So, I went ahead and tried his approach. I hadn’t even tried to go "pull" it down — I was waiting for this "push" that had been promised!

First, on Thursday, I had downloaded iTunes 7.7  — which I’d read somewhere was required first, before I could use the iPhone 2.0 update. No sweat — that happened without any issues.  But I found it strange, come Friday morning (I had figured the 2.0 software wouldn’t be available till then), that I still had not seen the "push." So, I clicked on "Software Updates" in my Apple menu, and was surprised to see it tell me nothing was available — that I was all up to date. (Lies!)  But I figured, hey, they must be overwhelmed right now, or waiting to update existing customers till all new customers could be served (which is another customer service topic, but I won’t get started on that). Iphone20screen

So I thought, okay, apparently Apple did tell the press that this "push" was coming — so just be patient, I reasoned.  What’s the big hurry? I would never even THINK of going and standing in line for a new phone myself, just to be first.  So, why should I care when I actually get the 2.0 update to my current phone?  Except all the hype about the flood of new apps coming — which I couldn’t use without the new software update — was getting deafening. I was itching to get some on my damn phone and try ’em!

Like a dutiful little Apple fan-boy, then, here I was sitting and waiting for this "push" they were going to do to us — and I get super busy, putting in a 15-hour day on Friday. But, heck, I would have broken for a message from Apple!  So, here comes Saturday morning, and I find that the update IS in fact out there for us "old" iPhone users to "pull" down, and that other people already have it!  Shees, I’m a laggard. Apple has left me sitting here looking like an ass, waiting for their damn "push"! 

I had synced my iPhone earlier Saturday morning, expecting maybe to see when iTunes popped up on my Macbook that "You do not have the current iPhone software – do you wish to upgrade?" — or some such message.  Never happened. On the contrary, it said "your iPhone is up to date"!  Weird, I thought, maybe Apple’s servers were still screwed up from the barrage of the day before.  Then, I hear my buddy ask, "So, do you have the new iPhone software yet?  Some of these new apps are cool."  I ask him, "How the heck did you get it?"  He tells me, and it’s really strange.  Get this — even though the message on iTunes tells me I’m up to date, I have to click on a button there that says "Updates" and — lo and behold — I will THEN be able to get my blessed update.  WTF kind of usability is that?

So, natch, now that I become aware of this strange situation, I click.  In another blast of user unfriendlieness, there’s no feedback that anything at all is happening!  So, there I am, wondering WTF to do.  But it had warned me on the initial screen that "This will take a while" (mentioning it had to back up all my stuff first). So, I figured I’d better just leave it alone, that something was happening in the background — and that I should just leave my Macbook and tethered iPhone combo sitting there while I hit the shower.  Some twenty minutes or more later, I came back to find the process was successful, and the two apps I’d previously downloaded on my Macbook the day before (remember, I had iTunes 7.7 so I could do that), were right there on my third "home screen," just like they were supposed to be!  Typepadiphoneapp_2
Those apps were the free Typepad app — so (you guessed it) I can now enter posts from my phone to this blog! — and the free myLite Color Strobe and Flashlight, a "Utilities" app, so I can be the life of the party at my next rock concert. [Okay, I don’t go to many, but I definitely want to be ready… 🙂 ]  Myliteicon

Alas, what to make of this whole mess?  I don’t care about the snafu related to so many people not being able to activate their new iPhone 3Gs on Friday in the stores — I’m talking about the way the software update was handled for existing customers.  It sucked.  I agree with at least one other blogger who said it should have been offered by Apple FIRST to their current, loyal users, well ahead of the onslaught of the iPhone 3G debut on July 11. Instead, they treated us as not important — didn’t even communicate to us about it directly. And, if they’d have gotten that out of the way first, it would have greatly lessened the burden on the servers for the 3G activation process.

Don’t get me wrong — my 2.0 update process went smoothly.  I have my "new" iPhone, I love the apps I have so far, and I will be getting a lot more.  But, then, there are things I don’t like about the App Store process, either — the slowness of them getting new, approved apps up there (I know of several that aren’t there yet and should be), the way they handle consumer reviews, and more. But don’t get me started — that’s a topic for another post.

Maybe I’ll do that one from my iPhone (thank you, Typepad app!) — though it will understandably have to be a lot less keystrokes than this one…  🙂

UPDATE: Whoops, meant to include this link to Declan McCullagh’s post on a CNet blog from Saturday afternoon: Apple iPhone v2.0 software on Saturday: Still M.I.A.

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