Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

Tumblr seems to be a nice little system that you can sign up and blog, share your twitter tweets, and import posts from other services. I recently signed up and perhaps it is because of their recent infastructure work on September 14th, the site loaded slowly, and frankly when it did load, I would have turned people to WordPress.com’s free blog accounts.

I have always expressed spreading out and signing up for different social handles online, but I believe it best that if you have a full blog, to just import your posts to your Tumblr account rather than use it religiously. I found it not as user friendly as I would have liked to see, and that is something I look forward too, not the fact that I was running in circles trying to find out why the places I am importing there did not start posting after the hour that Tumblr tells its users to wait. I got faster cross-posting with my Dreamwidth.org account.

I am sure I will blog more about Tumblr in the near future, but right now, especially for bloggers who are active, it is just better to use as an extra place to spread your blog posts and social network streams.

Have you used Tumblr? What do you think of it? What do you use it for?

So many things to do in the world, right? Even before the Internet ever existed, work, going out for vacation, parties or regular leisure, hobbies/ exercise, and family were all things people had to worry about balancing around their already filled scheduled. With the Internet and so many social networks, and other places to go, scheduling has gotten more hectic – especially if you have a business online too!

In the beginning, you will work a job offline while trying to get your business off the ground. The problem is that there are definitely a lot of distractions online. For example, while you might be networking, you might go play some games or end up off on a tangent talking to someone when you really need to get back to what you need to do. On top of that, these tangents could take essential time from family too.

What can you do? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Jot down an allotted time you designate for your internet for the day.
2. Make a list of things you need to get done.
3. It is okay to take a 10 minute break once or twice and hour, so make sure your allotted time includes that.
4. Whatever you do not get done on your list, it will be the first thing you do the next day or time you have allotted. Some people have businesses that require checking at various times a day because their service may depend on their reaction to new orders or possibly troubleshooting (example: web hosts.)
5. When checking email, immediately remove the junk and spam. Whatever is left, prioritize what should be answered first and what can wait a few hours to a day.
6. Make sure to try to stay on topic. You can always invite those you network with to email you and continue the conversation at another time. Do so in a polite manner. People will understand that you are busy, but if you give the impression that you do not care and or they feel like they have bothered you, they may be hesitant to speaker or even do further business.
7. When your allotted time is up, close up your computer and spend time with the family. Although they might be excited about what you are doing, focus more on doing activities with them.

Do you have a business online? How do you fit it in with all your other daily activities? If you have a family, how do you allot your internet time for your business and find time to spend with them? Do you have any other suggestions?

The tech industry has its quirks. It comes with spats, seriousness, rolled up in great geekiness and sometimes even humor. NO! It is not for September 11th, 2001 events, but just regular humor, so no reaming me a new one for assuming. I would never joke about that – EVER!

However, for the first time ever, TechCrunch has made me laugh so hard in one day alone. The first three articles I read were:

• Google Voice Creeps Me Out On My Mother’s Birthday
• Facebook Lite: How Will Twitter Respond? Twitter Lite!
• Yeah Ok, So Facebook Punk’d Us

I usually do not expect this, but even with TechCrunch, between all the spats and seriousness, there are some great humor to harness. In fact, I hope TechCrunch continues to share their humor on occasion, but not too much. I know people are already getting tired of their Twitter articles. (Just in case you did not know, if you do a search on TechCrunch for the keyword ‘twitter’, the results of ‘twitter’ showing up are 162,495,336, which is only 30 million behind the search for the older company, Facebook.)

By the way, TechCrunch, care to do an article on Yahoo! mocking them for not giving a real reason why they are dropping GeoCities?

Have you read the articles at TechCrunch today? Are you a normal TC reader? What did you think? Should they show their light side more often?

A couple of months ago, P2 was mentioned at WordCamp Chicago (and I am sure it was mentioned at a few other WordCamps before that by Matt Mullenweg.

It is a way to integrate microblogging and regular blogging. Or you can use it by itself. For those who are regular bloggers, this is an extra way you can harness your blog’s power. How? Well, for example, you might come across something interesting, but only have a brief thought to share with your readers. You can not only engage your readers in checking out what you were reading, but encourage them to join in and share their own thoughts.

It gives more of the dynamic of group blogging in a way that not many would really think about doing. Below is the video describing P2′s features. I recommend taking a look.

P2 was announced in March 2009 as P2: The New Prologue as Prologue was introduced a little over a year before. Although it is not like Twitter, it has real time capabilities, but with comment threading, RSS feeds, and many other great features.

Do you use P2 already? What do you think about it if you do? If not, do you think P2 might be something that you might want to use?

No, you do not go and scream (well, that is a bit dramatic, but some people were a bit overkill in their reaction) on Twitter as if someone died and flood the social network streams like with the recent Gmail downtime. Rather than wonder and ask like TechCrunch’s post – Why Gmail Failed Today, there are many things you can do.

Please understand that servers will fail at one point. Though most companies even in webhosting promise amazingly high uptime, that does not mean that you should really hold it against them. As for services like gmail, and especially other services that are free, you might become dependant on the service whether your email account is used for business and/or personal reasons.

Here are things you should do.

1. Have an alternate email address in case you are expecting and email. Contact that person and inform them of the temporary change.
2. Really, if you are seeing other people on Twitter, Facebook, or other social networks comment about a site gone down that you also use, remain calm and be assured the issue will be fixed soon. In this case, Google is not conspiring to shut your account down, peruse your email files (unless you have something that is questionable on a legal level) and they are not trying to screw you over (it is free, so there is no reason to pitch a fit.)
3. You could contact the support of the site that is down, but that will be pointless. More than likely they have already been hit with hundreds or thousands of emails in regards to the situation.
4. Go about your business and pretend you are having a vacation from your email. You know, like when you really are suppose to take vacations without being glued to the computer and instead enjoying something less virtual? Some who are addicted to checking their email as if they have a bad case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder will find it painful, but it will be a short pain. Go to other places online you have been wanting to see or work on other projects to pass the time. Read and comment on blogs – connect, interact, influence. Do something other than wallow in misery because your favorite internet service went down.

Though this is written with a hint of amusement, these are great suggestions. You can apply them to anything, not just email. It is not the end of the world if you cannot email for half a day. Just remember to have a backup email address and you will be fine.

What other things would you suggest to others when a site might be down?

I was surfing and came upon Icon Buffet. Of course, with the name, I thought it was going to be some cutsy site, but it was not. The site is chock full of icons in several varieties and they are all free.

Funny story though, they use to sell their icons, but according to Icon Buffet’s about page, they turned around and decided to offer all of their icons for free and make a community out of it. So now, you can connect with other icon fanatics and swap icon making tips, icon sets, and just about anything related to icons.

I think that is pretty nifty, especially for those looking for more resources to decorate their websites. Icons range from basic site navigation, to even some that I consider quite the novelty. I have not seen these anywhere else.

Have you been to Icon Buffet? If not, would you use this site as a resource in the future?

I am as much a Facebook addict as I am a Twitter addict, and it did not take TechCrunch in their article Facebook Tweaks Design, Drops Rounded Corners to tell me the notices about Facebooks design tweaks.

Already with every application and module a person adds to their profile, along with all the followers (I currently have over 1600 followers/ friends at Facebook), load time can get a bit bulky. Sometimes I even get the Facebook timeout connection too. Kind of reminds me of the Twitter Fail Whale. Yay, and I say congrats to the person who though rounded corners in Facebook would really be an asset, but really – keep it simple.

With the ridiculous and non-relevant advertisements, plus the applications, it is insane. Just in case those of you were not aware, there was an application to be able to change your Facebook background, but you had to download a toolbar. There are others than ask you to add a person, invite your friends to the group, and go to some chatroom to get the link to add your background. That is insane. It should be simple and not involve anything but adding the application itself. I decided to avoid that application like the plague because I really do not want another toolbar on my computer and I am really afraid of what the load time would be even though I have cable internet.

Although I would love to pretty up my Facebook, I am content with what it looks like. Getting fancy with a product like Facebook will degrade it and make it look like MySpace, the immature reject of Facebook.

What kind of design tweaks do you think Facebook should consider trying? What should be added? What should be removed?

I have to agree with TechCrunch’s article Right Before Facebook Bought It, FriendFeed’s Real-Time Stream Saw A Flood Of Usage, that I had no clue why it was bought. Kind of reminds me how no one knows why Yahoo! is shutting down Geocities. In fact, I recall Robert Scoble asking who would leave Friendfeed after Facebook had just bought the site. According to the Friendfeed blog – FriendFeed accepts Facebook friend request, things will go on as usual until future plans are decided… or at least that was the gist of it that I got from reading.

So, will yet another social network service go mainstream? Who knows, but I guess until Facebook actually does something with Friendfeed, then until any plans are revealed, we can only hope that Friendfeed does not become integrated into Facebook like so many services that have been bought up by Yahoo and Google.

I wonder if the Sherman Anti-trust Act might have to be enforced with these Internet companies? Or perhaps I am thinking too much into it. I already use both services, but I wonder if Friendfeed will eventually be phased out, forcing using to just use Facebook?

What do you think? Do you use Friendfeed? What do you use it for? Do you see the site either becoming more mainstream or being phased out?