Archive for October, 2008
Written by Mark on 30 October 2008
Tags: tweets, twitter
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Written by Mark on 29 October 2008
Tags: tweets, twitter
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Written by Mark on 25 October 2008
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Written by Mark on 25 October 2008
I’m testing one of the new Targus Bluetooth Laser Mouse for Mac. They’ve designed a whole series of accessories for Mac users, all are streamlined, using the same design styling.
My previous mouse was the Kensington Slimblade Presenter Mouse. It’s a small, compact bluetooth mouse that looks good and works fine. However, it seems to eat [...]
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Written by Mark on 24 October 2008
Podcamp Registration
Today was the opening day for the two-day Podcamp Hawaii. It was a lot of great information, great variety of sessions, and plenty of wonderful people. Here’s just a few of my notes from the day:
Opening blessings by Haunani and ‘Illima Kauka. Followed by two lovely hula songs, danced by Kanoe Miller, and performed by The Casey Olson Trio.
Podcamp Blessing
Chris Heuer (www.chrisheuer.com) – Social media principles: tip — Be human, be personal. Check out: Filtrbox.com
Rob Farrow – Managing Online Identity: tip — chi.mp
Kristie Wells -Building Your Community: tip — socialmediaclub.org
Podcamp swag
Rob Halper – Johnson and Johnson health channel on YouTube: “equity marketing, not a hard ROI”
Dave Erdman – Podcasting Hawaii to Japan: tip — use lots of different media (YouTube, Podcasts, and “theme” web sites) to help Search Engine ranking
Overall, very interesting! I can’t make tomorrow’s session, even though there are some really good ones, including: Matt Mullenweg and Neil Abercrombie. Try to make it if you can: PodcampHawaii.
Tags: hawaii, pch08, podcamp, wordpress
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Written by Mark on 23 October 2008
Tags: tweets, twitter
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Written by Mark on 23 October 2008
I’m testing one of the new Targus Bluetooth Laser Mouse for Mac. They’ve designed a whole series of accessories for Mac users, all are streamlined, using the same design styling.
My previous mouse was the Kensington Slimblade Presenter Mouse. It’s a small, compact bluetooth mouse that looks good and works fine. However, it seems to eat through batteries like there’s no tomorrow. 
The Targus mouse feels more like a bar of soap in your hand — longer and taller than the Kensington. Getting it paired up with my Macbook Pro was effortless. However, the disc that came with it — to make use of the extra two side buttons — was unreadable. I had to use a Windows machine to grab the .dmg installation file.
Extra options
After installation into the System Preferences, you have to reboot. Then you can set those buttons to a variety of options; the default being forward and back in Safari, but you could set up AppleScripts to be triggered, or launch a specific application.
One of the biggest pluses for me was the “quick scroll” that is available in the four-way “touch scroll” button. It makes scrolling through long web pages a breeze! That “touch scroll” works well if you can get over the fact it’s more like a touch-pad than the standard scroll wheel on most mice.
Overall this seems like a good mouse for someone wanting to make use of bluetooth on their Mac, while getting extra functionality from the additional buttons and touch scroll. And, it has something the Kensington needed, an OFF switch!
Update 10/25/08: The scrolling on this mouse is sometimes a bit too much; it scrolls too fast, too far at times. Perhaps there’s a setting or button to help this. Also, the mouse is very particular as to WHERE you click on it. So, for me, when I type, then go to click with the mouse, I don’t always reposition myself in the correct position, ending up with some unexpected results, such as ending up with a right-click when I tried a standard left-click, or a side button when I was just trying to move it. I’m not sure if it’s a design problem or a (new) user problem yet.
Tags: accessories, mac, mouse
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Written by Mark on 22 October 2008
Tags: tweets, twitter
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Written by Mark on 22 October 2008
Today was Web Weavers Workshop with Lorelle VanFossen, part of Hawaii’s Geek Week. Lorelle had a ton of great tips to go along with the basics of setting up a successful Wordpress blog site. A large part of the information is in Lorelle’s book, but it was her discussions to student questions that often proved most helpful. Some sample tips:
- watch using pronouns in blog articles. Readers might be confused on what “it” is, along with the SEO problem related to keywords.
- do “brain dumps” and THEN edit. Unload your ideas completely and then go back and edit. And edit, and edit, and edit some more.
- and if you are using more than 400 words from someone else’s web site, be prepared to hear copyright problems. In other words, keep your quoting of someone else’s material under 200 words or ask that writer for permission to use more.
Being a power-blogger, Lorelle had several shortcuts using Firefox, GreaseMonkey, and Google Reader, she even had tips on a great mouse that will power through web site scrolling.
It was a good class for anyone interested in learning about blogging, from beginners to those already blogging! Check out Lorelle’s web site for lots more information also!
Tags: blogging, classes, seo, wordpress
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Written by Mark on 21 October 2008
During the opening event of Mactoberfest for Hawaii’s Geek Week, Lorelle VanFossen asked the audience, “How has Wordpress changed your life?” She showed some great videos of how lives have been changed by using Wordpress as a blogging software application for helping people express their lives. For me, Wordpress has changed my life in two main ways, though not really because of blogging.
1) As a web developer looking to help clients solve their online needs, I’ve found one of the biggest requests I hear is, “How can I get a great looking website THAT’S EASY TO UPDATE for someone with no HTML skills.” I’ve tried finding the perfect CMS solution for those kind of requests, but keep coming back to Wordpress.
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Tags: CMS, interaction, wordpress, wpmu
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