Category Archives: Technology

Business & Marketing, Technology

Does Online Banking Work For You?

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I’m one of those old fashioned people who still pays most of my bills with checks and stamps. Which is bizarre considering how much I love the web. Mainly it’s thanks to inertia–it’s just been easier to do it the way I’ve done it and not bother exploring scary new options. But now that I’m going to be moving there’s the hassle of address changes and making sure all my bills still get paid. It seems an easy way to avoid that is to switch to online bill payment now.

But I’m wondering if it works well for anybody. Seems like the glowing future of online bill payment hasn’t quite happened yet.

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Blogging

Rebooting My Blog

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Well, I started redesiging my blog today. It’s actually less of a redesign and more of a ‘throw it at the wall and see what sticks.’ I added a new plug-in to show Flickr photos in the header (yes, we say goodbye to the fun, randomally loading pictures. It was too much work to add new ones) and tested that a bit to make sure it worked, but this morning I just went nuts and threw a few things together to mess with the layout.

It’s not a drastic change, but the header is vastly different and you can say goodbye to the left sidebar (I added it primarly for ad space, but I don’t need it and that location wasn’t that effective, so it went). I’m still toying with some ideas, but for the moment I’m finished. So if you see anything goofy, please speak up. I’m not exactly doing error-checking or taking a look on multiple browsers. This is my personal blog and I’m just too busy to care about that stuff.

We’ll see if the name ‘thoughts’ still sticks, or if gravity and the churn of time slowly peel it from the wall. I was thinking of maybe calling it Frank.

Blogging

My Blog Needs a Reboot

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I’m frustrated with blogging right now. I had a few months of lackadaisical posting and now that I’m getting back on the wagon I’m frustrated. I don’t know if it’s the design or the format or what. But I need a change.

After reading the interview with Jason Kottke the other day and drooling over his blog design, I stumbled across this line:

“Tools are important. So is the format. It’s not as important as what people use them for, but tools and formats shape the environment in which they are used.”

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Blogging, Internet, Writing

Jason Kottke on Design, Writing, Blogging

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Movable Type (the blog software I use) is plugging a series of interviews with high-profile bloggers who use their product and the interview with Jason Kottke is worth a read. I’ve followed Kottke’s blog for a while and enjoy the undefinable nature of his collection of content.

I enjoy his simple-yet-functional design (check out this riff on too much meta; interestingly enough, I had a terrible time finding the link for the MT interview with Kottke thanks to poorly designed metadata) and would love to do my reviews the way he does his books and movies. I might actually get around to doing them if that were the case.

Here are a few of the money quotes from the interview …

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Internet

Networking the Social Networking

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So I’ve been playing around with the social networking sites lately. A while ago I hopped on the MySpace bandwagon, which I didn’t get at the time (I got over the weird protocol and started to add some friends and see some vague usefulness in it, but it’s not my favorite thing on the web), and lately I’ve joined Facebook and LinkedIn. It’s interesting trying out a few different social networking sites and seeing the pros and cons.

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Domicile, Movies, Technology

A Bit Mad

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It’s been a bit mad around here lately. After returning from our 2,500-mile holiday (that’s about how many miles we drove) we kicked into high gear getting our house ready to sell. Then Abby got sick. Nevertheless, we struggled on and last night sat down with our realtor to sign lots of paper and get the for sale band wagon moving. Hopefully by the end of this week we’ll be able to put our house on the market. Know anybody who wants a beautiful home in a wonderful location? May the financing be with you.

That struggling on included cleaning every last thing that could be cleaned and stripping our piles of crap down to the barest of the bare. All so we could get that nod of approval that our house is ready. A nod we thankfully received: Shiny. I’m not sure what I would have done if she told us we needed to do more. Probably given up. Perhaps reclaimed my office from Lexi so I could have a door. Or perhaps not.

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Technology

Do I Want a Nintendo Wii

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Our traveling Christmas parade comes to an end tomorrow. We finished our fourth Christmas yesterday and we’ve traveled through seven states. I won’t bother counting how many relatives we’ve visited because it won’t sound that impressive, but it feels impressive to me. We’ve also opened more presents than I care to admit. Most of them were for Lexi, but still. Wow.

Speaking of presents, I’m having my typical post-birthday dilemma of how to spend gift cash, thanks to a wad of cash I received for Christmas. Usually I only get cash for my birthday, so it’s a little different to get it for Christmas. Not that I’m complaining.

One of my potential purchases is the latest game system, the Nintendo Wii. I’ve heard glowing reviews from friends and strangers, and it sounds like fun. I’m not a huge gamer. I do have a GameCube that gets minimal use (though little to none lately). I’m not sure if I’m just being tempted by the latest toy or if it really would be fun.

But whether or not I want one is a moot point right now. They’re not exactly readily available. I don’t know how you’d go about getting one with their limited availability. I imagine by mid-January or so you could find them, so I probably don’t have to wait long. But it really kills instant gratification. Where’s all the cool web toys that can show me where the Wiis are.

Internet

2 for 5 on Craigslist

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My numbers are improving on Craigslist. I’m now 2 for 5. My baseball cards are gone and now the remains of my Star Wars collection are gone (unless there’s another box hiding at my parents house, which I may disavow any knowledge of). A woman picked them up this afternoon for her 8-year-old son who is nuts about Star Wars. If my collection must go, I’m happy to see it go to a kid who will play with it.

I’m still waiting to sell the beast, an old scanner and my racing cards. And if I ever get around to photographing and posting it, my entire collection of Billy Graham memorabilia (Billy-o-bilia) that I scored from the free table in the closing days of the BGEA.

Internet

My Baseball Cards Are Gone

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I just sold my entire baseball card collection. There’s a large empty spot on a shelf in the basement where they used to sit. Taking up space. It’s nice to see them finally go, but I am a little sad. Mainly sad because my childhood collecting dreams never materialized. And it’s sad to invest so much time and energy into something just to give it up one day. But I haven’t cared about baseball or baseball cards in a long time.

Yesterday I posted the entire collection on Craigslist with a brief description of what I had and a picture (check it out, you can see the entire collection overwhelming my coffee table). I asked for $50 for the whole collection after seeing larger and better collections going for about that. In a little more than 12 hours I had 10 offers and by 10 a.m. this morning the cards were gone and I had $50 cash in my pocket.

Part of me wants to dread giving them away for such a pittance and wishes I had asked for more. But the rest of me is just happy to be done with it so easily.

Now if I could just get rid of my NASCAR card collection and the beast.