STL Twitter Wiki
After some good old pro/con lists, I’m thinking wiki style will be the best bet for a STL Twitter Homepage. I’ve been looking at wetpaint.com for the host. It has the features I was looking for, Calendar creation, Page level editing control, Email notifications and RSS feeds. Best of all, it’s free! The only real downsides are no dedicated custom URL (Like STLTwitters.com maybe) and a way to integrate into twitter easily, but I don’t think that will be that big of a problem, and I can always get a redirect service if I need to. Also, I’m not creative enough to think of any real creative names outside of STL Twitters, or something along the lines. Since it’s wiki style, I’ll have it setup so those who want to can feel free to edit away, thus taking a lot of the risk of it getting stale out of my hands, So i’ll need your help!
Again, looking for your feedback on what else you think would be nice to have. Are there any other features you would be looking for? Any cool suggestions for a name? Let me know!
St. Louis Twitter Homepage?
So, we have a LinkedIn page for St. Louis that is usually used to link photos and announce tweetups, but I think St. Louis could utilize something grander! I would think with around 250+ twitters in St. Louis, we could all benefit to a homepage of sorts for us. We could have upcoming events, friendly people to follow in the area (potentially a long list), what bots are St. Louis centred, links to sites that feature St. Louis twitters and St. Louis centered #hashtags. Maybe even picture hosting? I don’t know if this would be more effective as a blog style or wiki style. Or if I would even create/maintain this.
I’m willing to take this on, I’d just like to know if there would be an interest in it. I am pretty new to the whole website development/maintenance and don’t know what my limits are yet. My ‘impressive’ blogging skills can attest that I wouldn’t be the best for this, but it would be a great project for me though!
Do you think there is a need for this (or would it be redundant with the LinkedIn page)? What are you suggestions or ideas? Am I wasting my breath(or electrons)? Please give me some feedback here so I can see what the interest level is.
SHRED IT!
Not getting my fix from willitblend.com I’ve moved onto watching bigger and tougher things get shredded. He’s some of my favorites!
First something obvious, but I didn’t know how they did, Hard Drives.
And a big ol’ batch of tires.
AND A CAR! It’s a shame to see a car get shredded, but oh well…
Just a little something to make you make the “Home Improvement” grunt. All three videos brought to you by SSI
How to simplify your life with Google Reader
So, I’m a pretty techie guy, but until a couple weeks ago, I hadn’t set up Google Reader. For those who don’t know the concept of an RSS reader, it’s simple. Websites (especially blogs) have what’s referred to as a feed (Indicated by the logo to the left). You can subscribe to these feeds with a feed reader and get all the updates at one source. So if you have a couple websites that you check daily (or more), you add them to your reader, and it’s a personalized news feed! I’d say it cuts my morning waste time on the computer routine down quite a lot. It’s pretty easy to set up, and again, I’ll hold your hand!
1.) Pick a reader, I’ll be using Google Reader. It’s pretty straightforward and I can use it at work. Point your browser to reader.google.com and login (or create a google account). This will bring up your reader page, right now it should be blank (with an intro video)
2.) Head to your favorite website, and play a little game called spot the reader. Some websites it’s pretty obvious, others you have to do some poking around. We’ll use icancheezburger. The RSS feed logo is always an indicator, but some websites just say the words “Feed” or “RSS”, but they will do the same thing. Mine says “Entries RSS” on the bottommost section of the right side toolbar.
3.) Most websites will prompt you to add the feed to a reader, you’ll click google, or whichever reader you use. Then click “Add to google reader”. This should bring you back to your reader, where you can now always catch the most recent cats with poor grammar(Not that I’m much better)
There’s really not to much more to it, as you find more interesting websites (Like my blog, hint hint) add it to your reader, so you can always stay on top of things! Just try not to spend ALL day looking at cat pictures!
BACON SALT!
So I came across Bacon Salt via reddit.com/r/bacon and @baconsalt on twitter, via @ganeshaxi. I found all 4 flavors at Schnucks for $4 and picked up both “Original” and “Peppered”. It’s pretty much the best thing that has happened to food, period. The company motto “Everything should taste like bacon” is a true testament to what you can put this product on. Obvious choices like french fries is a brilliant choice. I also use it to season hamburgers, make quesadillas, scrambled eggs and in soup. It’s a whole lot easier than actually cooking bacon, seeing that I am pretty lazy! The best part is that it’s vegetarian, so my vegetarian friends can enjoy the taste of bacon, without having flashbacks from their grandfathers pig farm… I’m partial to the “Original” flavor, Schnucks also carries “Hickory”, “Natural” and “Peppered”. But they have more flavors online, also some other products like Baconnaise (that would be bacon flavored mayonnaise) and bacon lip balm! If you’re looking for something to “spice up” your cooking, look no further than Bacon Salt!
What is Twitter?
I’ve been asked “What is Twitter?” a couple times, mainly by facebook friends who had to endure the couple weeks when I had my facebook status updated via twitter (which lead to about 20 updates a day). And frankly it’s hard to sum up, but I’ll try, and if you’re intrigued, I’ll show you how you can become a twitterholic too.
Twitter.com describes itself as “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” In simpler words, it’s facebook status on crack.
The great thing about twitter is there is so many things you can do with it, you can be as involved as you want, and you can meet new people. I use it mostly to follow St. Louis people (tweeps), and have met all sorts of interesting people around the area. Many people use it socially, promote their blogs, sell goods and services, recruit, publicize events and everything else.
But let’s cut to the chase, try it out! Register at twitter.com. Follow me! And have fun.
Why aren’t you using Pidgin yet? (with Facebook chat!)
This post is for my less tech savy friends (I’ll go easy on you!). If you are still using separate programs for AIM/MSN Messenger/MyspaceIM this is for you. If you want to use facebook chat without having to log into facebook’s website, this is also for you. Pidgin solves all these problems and wraps them into one easy to use, customizable program.
Pidgin has been around for a bit, and those who had used trillian should be familiar with the concept, all of your messangers in one spot. You can see from their website that out of the box it supports a slew of messengers, and i’ll show you how to add facebook to the list. Don’t worry, you can hold my hand…
1.) Download Pidgin and install. It’s fairly simple, just hop over to pidgin.im and hit Download. Obviously install, I recommend going ahead and installing the dictionary for spell check support.
2.) Go ahead and install the Facebook chat plugin found here (For the curious, their website can be found here). Start up pidgin (Mine did crash the 1st time, so don’t freak if yours does the same) and it should automatically bring you to the following screen, if not click ‘Accounts’ > ‘Manage Accounts’ on the top of the screen.
3.) Your’s won’t look like that, it’s okay. Go ahead and click Add, select the messengers you want (We’ll use facebook).
4.) This should be pretty self explanatory, but here’s a screen shot just in case. Go ahead and put your email address and password in there and hit save. Make sure there is a check box next to your account on the account screen (Picture #1) and close. You’re online friends should be showing up, and you can start to chat away!
The next steps. You saw in the 2nd screen shot MyspaceIM was already in there, along with other popular services, add whatever you need, and they’ll automatically login when you start pidgin. You can even update your facebook status by clicking ‘Accounts’ > ‘Facebook’ > ‘Update Status’. Some of my twitter friends should note that you can find a twitter plugin here. It will update your status according to your tweet history. Last.fm friends you can add a plugin that will change your status according to what you scrobble, add it here.
If you guys have any questions, let me know, I’d be glad to help you out!
What they don’t teach in High School
I’ve been out of my parents house for about a year and a half now, I now live with my fiancee (had two roommates at one point, bad idea) and I’ve realized some things. I didn’t learn shit in high school. So I’ve been thinking , these are the things I wish I learned in high school, that I’ve had to learn the hard way.
- How to iron clothes. Seriously, when I get done ironing pants, I have 3 extra seams in them…
- How to balance a check book. It’s simple, but it would have been nice to know.
- How to make a budget. Again, simple, but I always thought they were just for old people. I didn’t realize how essential they are to not going broke the 1st year you’re away.
- How to study. This takes practice, and you have to find how YOU study. The problem is, I never did study in high school. I didn’t have to do much to skate by. Now in college, you actually have to study, and I didn’t have any sort of study habits.
- How to do your taxes. You think the government would want people know how to do there taxes.
- How to register your car, pay property tax and sales tax. I got a letter the other day saying I had a different car listed for my property tax. I didn’t know that I had to change that separately from when I got my plates transferred. Again, you think the government would want this stuff to be right.
- How to buy a house, how a mortgage payment works, etc. If people were more informed about how that all works, maybe we wouldn’t be in as bad of a spot we are now.
- How your credit score works. Do you know? I don’t, and no one around me seems to have a clue.
Some of these could be considerd failure on my part, but I think it would be good for students to learn this stuff. There are pleanty of mistakes that I made in high school. I took a couple blowoff classes, and really hurt me when I got to college. I didn’t study(above) but I didn’t need to, even in my non-blowoff classes. I didn’t get involved as much as I’d like, and when I did, I didn’t do much. So part of it was me being just plain lazy, but I really think the school system has so much more they could offer to better prepare students entering the “real world”, but never will.
What did you wish you learned in high school? What have you had to learn the hard way? Am I just a whiney westcounty kid?
Anti-Religious Ads in St. Louis?
Richard Dawkins stands below one of the 800 new ads in the UK
A developing trend for the last couple months has been the increasing appearance of non-theist billboards and bus advertisements. Most recently the BBC reported that complaints are being filed with the Advertising Standards Authority in England about the recent bus ads. These ads, funded by the British Humanist Society, display the slogan “There’s probably no God now stop worrying about it and get on with your life”. The complaint, filed by the Christian Voice, cite a code that states “marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove all claims”. Obviously a tough claim to back up, but supporters of the ads don’t seem worried.
Many organizations stateside, such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation, have also been funding billboards with slogans such as “Beware of dogma” and “Imagine no religion” in major cities across the US.
I for one fully support these ads, most organizations state that these ads are not to offend, but to get people thinking, as Richard Dawkins said best.
“This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think – and thinking is anathema to religion”-Professor Richard Dawkins
While St. Louis may not be the biggest hotbed of religion, I’m sure these ads would meet with as much as opposition here, as anywhere, and that’s why I’m worried. There is no doubt in my mind that there will be letters written, sermons lectured and complaints filed as soon as these appear. Hopefully St. Louis ad agencies have enough balls to stick to their guns and uphold our 1st amendment rights.
My question is, how long will it be before similar ads start showing up in St. Louis? How will St. Louis react? Does the St. Louis Metro have rules against such ads, and can they enforce them?
I Love Chipotle!
I love Chipotle. That’s what this is about, I went into the Kirkwood Chipotle today (Kirkwood Rd. and 44) and was amazed at their customer service! The place was packed, there was a line to even sit down! Mostly 30 somethings dressed in ties and slacks all on their lunch break. I wanted my old standby, the Steak Burrito, no compromise, but alas, there was no fresh steak and asked if I wanted to wait. Knowing that anything less than the best would be a let down, I stood aside, but the cashier handed me a drink cup. That was pretty nice, every big box sits your cup on a tray, mocking you, while your food is prepared. 15 or so customers came in, and I waited, finally I saw my steak was done and got back in line, got my burrito and was told it was ‘on the house’!
Fancy that! I wasn’t one of the people waiting for a seat, I was far from looking almost important, I wasn’t in a rush and I didn’t make a huff. But sure enough, I got a free meal! Now that’s customer service, either these people are so scared of customer complaints, or they truly care about their job and are empowered enough to help customers. I’m thinking the later, Chipotle employees time and time again show me their excellent work ethic. I wish I had cash on me to leave a tip, I guess I’ll have to eat there again soon and leave extra.
I love Chipotle, I love food in general, but between Chipotles excellent fresh food, and excelent customer service, I’ll drive pretty far out of my way to eat at Chipotle!
I’ve added some links for the inquisitive!
Menu(official)
Nutrition Caluculator (via chipotlefan.com)
And for those with more self restraint than I, how to eat healthy (via ehow.com)
