Video Anyone?

Computer Stuff, General, ,

I managed to snag an invitation late last night from Loic Lemeur (one of those seriously type-a business people) for his newest web venture Seesmic. This morning I got everything setup and recorded my first Seesmic video. It’s a short (53 seconds) first attempt and I’m blown away. The website can get access to the webcam and microphone on my computer and record as a video whatever the webcam sees. That gets packaged as a video on their site and immediately sends a tweet to my Twitter account letting anyone following me (or tracking Seesmic) know that I’ve posted a video. It is amazingly easy to do.

Loic (it’s kind of funny using his first name … I’ve never met him!) is one of the people I follow on Twitter. He’s in the startup mode on this new company and each day records a video about what happened that day during the startup. That is what got me interested in him to begin with. Well, he also hobnobs with all the important people … such as dinner at the White House with President Bush and the French President a couple of days ago. After flying back to France on the French President’s airplane, he mentioned on Twitter than he had a few invites to give away. Being johnny-on-the-spot, I replied and got an invite.

Almost immediately after finishing the video, Seesmic sent out a tweet in Twitter (I didn’t know it was going to do that). Within seconds, I got a tweet from my son James in Missouri about the video. That’s when I looked at Twitter and saw the notification. A few minutes later, I sent a tweet: “Well, Seesmic is pretty dang cool. I just recorded a first brief (thankfully) video on Seesmic and within seconds all of Twitterland knows!” One minute later, the man himself replied: “loiclemeur @rolandksmith thanks for your feedback ‘Well, Seesmic is pretty dang cool.'”

I’m impressed. Another minute of my fifteen minutes of fame….

Disturbing Trend

General

Yesterday I received this update on my cell phone from Twitter:

(misspants): @babygirlxo: While I know that’s true, it makes me feel a lot better just that it’s there. Utah is f******g retarded and I hate it.

I’m not interested in forwarding the profanity, so I’ve edited it. Actually, the profanity itself isn’t the main issue. I expect that some folks on Twitter will use profanity. There is no reason … no real justification … it’s just that they take the low, vernacular road rather than trying to say something in a more profound way. Since Twitter is more of a casual conversation, some people use profanity because that’s the way they talk normally. And that’s part of the disturbing trend.

I got the update from Twitter because I track the keyword “Utah”. I don’t live there, but have an interest in what’s happening in Utah. That’s not the only keyword I track, but so far it’s the only keyword that has attracted a comment like the one that @misspants made. (As a clarification, in the Twitter language an ampersand preceeds the user’s screen name, which may not be their username, to signify who is the subject of the conversation.) She has no expectation that her tweet would be private, even though it was in response to something that @babygirlxo had said. If it was to be private, she would have designated the update as a “direct message” and I wouldn’t have received it, along with everyone else who tracks any of the words in her tweet.

So, I now have an impression of @misspants that perhaps she didn’t intend (or perhaps she did?). I think of her as being uncouth, uneducated, helpless, and well, dumb. So what qualifies her as an expert on Utah? Does she mean the state, the people, or both? The State of Utah seems to be a good place since hundreds of thousands of people each year make their way deliberately to Utah to go skiing, hunting, fishing, snow machining, mountain bike riding, back packing, camping, and playing. If the State were retarded, I think that wouldn’t be the case.

Does she then mean the people living in Utah? There are a couple of million people living in the State of Utah. According to the Census Department, more than 60% of the population of Utah who are twenty-five years old or older have attended college, or graduated from college, or hold advanced degrees. That’s about ten percentage points more than the general U.S. population. That doesn’t seem to fit the definition of being retarded.

Perhaps she is talking about a particular group of people in Utah. Most likely the people she is having to associate with either at school or work. If so, that is very unfortunate, but that small population doesn’t generalize to the whole state. There would be some redeeming value if she were not just complaining, but rather doing something to improve the situation, either her own circumstance or the perceived situation in general, but that seems too much for me to expect from her. My impression is that she only wishes to complain in some way that she perceives to be shocking.

This tweet from @misspants is only one in what seems to be trend, particularly among younger folks (perhaps because they’re more Internet savvy?) of pushing the envelope downwards. Trying to be increasingly more crass than someone else. Vilifying anything and everything just to do so. I don’t like it at all.

Playing With My Blog

Computer Stuff, General

Nina left this morning at her usual 7:30 a.m. time to go to the prison for their Sunday morning meetings. A few minutes later she called to ask if I was supposed to be at a meeting this morning at 7 a.m. at the Stake Center. I was supposed to be there, of course. Priesthood Meeting had completely slipped my mind. I wish I could blame it on age, but that really doesn’t work for this one.

One of the fellows I follow on Twitter sent an update a bit ago saying, “At church … An hour early … Forgot about the time change last night!” At least we didn’t forget about the time change! I set all of the clocks that don’t know about daylight savings time before we went to bed last night. All of the computers that do know about daylight savings worked correctly. My cell phone switched correctly. However, the big “atomic clock” up on the wall did not switch correctly. It’s a pain to set the time on that clock. Oh well.

Since I had a few hours before going to Church this morning, I decided to do the code to put my Twitter updates on the sidebar of my blog. I wrote a script that every fifteen minutes goes to Twitter, downloads the last ten tweets that I’ve sent to Twitter, formats them, and puts them into my blog area so that they’ll be displayed whenever someone reads my blog. I originally thought to go get the tweets and include them on the blog anytime the blog page is displayed, but the Twitter Interface documentation says that they support a maximum of 70 downloads per hour per userid. I only update Twitter every few hours (unless exciting things are happening) so there’s no need to grab the updates each time the blog page is displayed. The process seems to be working correctly. The next step will be to insert the timestamp on these updates as well. Real Soon Now….

Shot

Computer Stuff, General, ,

I am actually quite paranoid (a disturbed thought process characterized by excessive anxiety or fear) about needles. But, I still go get a flu shot most every year. Today was the day this year. Nina told me that a local pharmacy was giving flu shots today for $15, a very good price. So I made my way to the pharmacy this evening, paid my money, sat down, and closed me eyes to make sure that I did not see the needle. So what did the nurse do? She gave me a countdown before the jab! Ugh. I was not happy. Then as she was putting on the band aid she said, “Oh, you look a little pale! You better sit here for a minute…” I told her it would have gone much better had she not said, “Ok, here it comes … 3 … 2 … 1 … JAB!” But I did sit there for a couple of minutes before standing up. I still felt a little wobbly-kneed, but got out of there without going down. Next time I’ll make sure to give some instructions first.

I’ve mentioned Twitter before. I’m finding it quite interesting. I try to send an update every few hours, most are bland and inane. I’m following a couple of family members (one of whom has never “tweeted” .. hint, hint littletwerp) and a few other people that I know or know about. A couple of them are very interesting and they often send links to interesting stuff (in addition to sending just inane, bland updates). Twitter also has a capability of “tracking” keywords. Any tweets that contain that keyword come to me even though I’m not following that person. So, I’m tracking three keywords: Idaho, Utah, and Mormon. That has also been very enlightening. This afternoon about 3:30 I got a tweet from the U.S. Geological Service that there had been an earthquake on the Wasatch Fault at 3:06 p.m. this afternoon. It was a magnitude 1.2 quake just down the hill from Heather’s house! That’s probably not strong enough to be felt, but still that was pretty close to hearth and home! One of the people I follow (Phil Windley … teaches IT at BYU, former CIO for the State of Utah, host of the monthly Utah CTO Forum) somehow grabs all of his updates that he’s sent to Twitter and puts them on the sidebar of his blog. I’d like to figure out how to have that automatically happen (it’s kind of cool!). There are so many interesting web things going on!

The company I used to work for here in Pocatello today did another round of people cuts. The company is having some serious problems and it’s being taken out on the people who work there. I’m very happy not to be associated with them anymore. Their idea of culture and ethics are a very long way from my idea and a very long way from those held by the Pocatello community (where the company is still the 800 pound turd). Woodrow Wilson said, “Never murder a man when he’s busy committing suicide.” Unfortunately, my former company seems to be high on the list of companies busy committing suicide … they can’t even release their third quarter earnings because of inventory valuation accounting issues. Meanwhile, no one in senior management is getting shot … for now they are doing the shooting. But, they should be warned: what goes around comes around.

Halloween Over For Another Year

Computer Stuff, General, , , ,

The conference in Boise worked out such that I was able to leave there about 11 this morning so I was home about 3:30 this afternoon. Once outside of Boise I set the cruise control and didn’t get out of that mode until I exited the freeway in Pocatello. It was very nice to get home. The Trick-of-Treaters started showing up about 6:30 this evening. They came in waves, as usual. First the really little kids with mommy and daddy hovering nearby. Then the grade school kids, either with an older brother or sister in the background or mom and/or dad in a car driving slowly up the street. After another break then came the junior high and high school kids, always in big groups, many with no real attempt at a costume. I closed up the candy shop at 9 and Halloween was over at our house.

Then it was time to refresh the mouse traps. One more mouse had been snagged by a trap in the basement. I’ve no idea how long it’ll take to get rid of all the mice. It’s a definite frustration. Maybe I need to borrow a cat or something! Jaelene, maybe you can come for a visit for a week or so … the cats would probably be well fed!

I’ve upgraded the operating system on my Macbook to the latest version (Leopard). It is very cool. Since my Macbook is so new, the upgrade went without a hitch and very quickly. I’m already in love with a couple of new features, like TimeMachine (which keeps a constant, browse-able backup) and Stacks (a great way to organize icons). So far I haven’t found anything about the new operating system that I don’t like.

The next task will be to get all of the weblogs on my server upgraded to the latest release of WordPress. I’ve been running the latest version on my blog for a couple of weeks and it’s working well. For most folks, the upgrade will be almost invisible. That’s all for tonight!

Moving Around

General

Tonight I’m in Boise, Idaho staying at a Hampton Inn and Suites hotel near the Idaho capitol building. Last night I was in Orem, Utah again at a Hampton Inn and Suites hotel. Tonight I’m actually in a suite. Last night was a normal room. This suite is very nice. Last night’s room was just OK. In fact, I may find time sometime to blog a bit about hotel rooms and all the dumb things that hotels do. I just saw on Twitter that there was a magnitude 5.6 earthquake near San Francisco a few minutes ago. That reminded me of the first big earthquake in Japan. I had moved into the house we were renting a little west of Tsukuba and Nina and Jared weren’t there quite yet. The earthquake happened in the middle of the night and I flew out bed, and then didn’t have a clue what I should do. The house was still moving and I stumbled to the bedroom doorway and stood there hoping that was the strongest part of the house. The earthquake seemed to go on for a very long time. The next day at the office I learned that the quake was a magnitude 5.2 and had lasted for twelve seconds. No damage done. It was considered a “small” earthquake. I knew then I didn’t want to be in anything larger than that.

This morning I attended a CTO breakfast that Phil Windley organizes each month. The link has a recap of the event. I really enjoyed being there and meeting the folks that attended. It was well worth my time and I’ll be at all future breakfasts that I can work into my schedule. Then it was over to American Fork to my new “office”. It’s a small, one-room office in the middle of a larger office space. Big enough for a desk and a chair. The phone is set up and working. I don’t know how much time I’ll spend there, but it does give me a place to be while I’m doing the business development work down there. After lunch with a potential client, I then drove to Boise. Once out of Salt Lake and Ogden, I didn’t have to slow down but once through a small bit of construction and got to the hotel about an hour earlier than I had expected. Downtown Boise is DEAD at night. There was a small pizza place open not far from the hotel, so that was dinner.

Tomorrow I’m attending a conference being put on by the governor’s office on how to do business with the State of Idaho. In attendance will be representatives from all the state agencies. There is some potential work here as well, so the meeting should be useful. Then comes the four-hour drive back to Pocatello. I’ll miss Halloween, but Nina thinks she’s got a mouse trapped in the house and has seen another one. Obviously we’ve still got some in the house … moving around!

Phone Update

General

The Treo cell phone powered up this morning and seems to be working … I’m quite surprised. The manual says that the phone is definitely not waterproof. I’m putting it on the charger and keeping my fingers crossed!

A Mystery..??

General

For the most part it’s been a pretty good day. The RV is winterized. I’ve replaced the water in the hot tub so it’s ready for the winter. I got the winterizer fertilizer down on the front yard. Ohio State clobbered Penn State, USC got spanked, and Texas came back against Nebraska. The Rockies are working hard at not going down three games to zero. With luck they’ll manage to win this game. On the other hand, while changing out the water in the hot tub, I managed to dump my Treo cell phone into the tub. I snatched it out, pulled the battery, and have been letting it dry out since. Maybe tomorrow morning I’ll put the battery back in and see if it has any life left. I’m afraid, however, that it is toast. That would be very unfortunate. I’m headed back down to Salt Lake on Monday, then after my noon appointment down there on Tuesday, I’m headed to Boise for some meetings on Wednesday. I’d kind of like to have a working cell phone for that trip!

I have two pedometers. One was a gift from my favorite brother (which was for him a freebe from the State of Wyoming). The other was a somewhat expensive unit, costing a year ago about $8. I wanted to know whether one or the other was somewhat accurate, so I’ve been wearing both of them for the past three days. They aren’t even close to each other. The freebe from my brother registers a little less than half the number of steps that the eight dollar unit registers. I thought maybe the freebe was counting only steps on the left side where I was wearing it and the eight dollar unit was counting right and left both. So, I reset the two of them while I was putting fertilizer on the front yard and counted my steps while I was doing that. I had 644 left steps … so if the theory was right, the brother unit should say about 644 steps and the eight dollar unit should say about 1288 steps. Nope. The brother unit said 580 steps. The eight dollar unit said 1055 steps. So, neither of them is very accurate. How does a person know when they’ve really walked 10,000 steps in a day? I should use the eight dollar unit for that, I think. It seems to be fairly generous in its counting.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox added four more runs and now lead the third game in the World Series 9-5. It’s the top of the eighth and not much chance left for the Rockies in this game (and in the series). It’s probably time to turn that game off! They were doing better when I wasn’t watching….