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The holiday season is here and I wanted to take a moment to wish you Happy Holidays!
Thank you to everyone who has read, commented on and linked to this blog or otherwise supported me in 2009. I really appreciate it and I wish you a happy, healthy and successful 2010!
Thank you for reading.
Yeah. So. This blogging thing. I should really do it. It’s been over a month since I last posted. Wow, how did that happen? Everything just sorted of piled onto me at once. I attended three conferences in three weeks in three different states. IZEAFest, Blog World & New Media Expo and Social Media Business Forum. And there was plenty of preparation, packing and unpacking. And they all went well, which was awesome. Expect recaps for the last two at some point in December.
Being away so much, messages just piled up. E-mail messages, Bloglines subscriptions, forum posts and other things. Almost three weeks worth in some cases. In catching up with that, I just never found time to blog. And then I got sick. And then I had another trip tied to my birthday. And then we have Thanksgiving. And then I’ve been contemplating what 2010 holds for me. It just never ends. But, the good news is I have an idea of where I want to go with this blog and that’ll come in time.
But, for now, I’m hoping that things will return to normal. Thank you for reading.
I forget what pointed me to it, but not long ago I discovered Armor Games – specifically, the games developed by Con Artist Games. They’re all great. The Last Stand and The Last Stand 2 are my favorites with Warfare 1917 right behind them, followed by Warfare 1944. I didn’t really get into Sin Mark, but it looks like a cool game. And I loved Crush the Castle, a game he had a hand in, as well. He does great work. If you’re looking for some fun games to try out and play without getting bogged down for hours, check him out.
I’ve just added this blog to the NetworkedBlogs Facebook application, making it possible to receive notifications of new posts through Facebook. If you are a Facebook user, please consider a subscription.
Thank you for reading and for your support.
It turns out, I wasn’t crazy. Not this time, anyway. The Firefox issue I had, where my cookies would be automatically deleted, was fixed in version 3.0.7, released on March 4. Sorry for the delay in posting an update, but better late than never. Thank you to everyone who attempted to help me with this issue.
When I saw Gary Vaynerchuk’s Good People Day 2009 post/call to action, I knew I wanted to put something together. This is the second annual Good People Day and I participated in 2008. In that post, which I could easily just paste for this year, as well, I tried to name as many people good I could think of, not wanting to leave anyone out. I also tweeted a lot. Gary mentioned a more refined approach this year and, in a great, beautiful video, he only named one person – his sister. So, I’m going to try that and I wanted to limit myself to 10 people.
I started to write out individual things about each person, but then I came to a realization. They all kind of sounded the same. I think this is because the people I gravitate towards, all tend to be similar in more ways than not. Before I continue, I did want to say that I know more than 10 people who fit this – I am blessed to know a lot of good people – so I hope no one is offended by not being included and I’m sure no one will be. Unfortunately, these lists are always going to be missing people who should be there.
Anyway, here is who I came up with: Brandon Eley, Jared Smith, Chrispian Burks, Stephan Segraves, Jonathan Bailey, Lee LeFever, Jeremy Wright, Jason Falls, Wayne Sutton and Wendy Piersall.
What is true about the people I’ve listed is that they are good people. They work hard, they try to help others, they do great things. They are open minded, they are respectful, they care. They share, they are approachable, they are kind. They are all great, but with the potential and talent to become even greater. But, with all of this said, what I like about them, as much as anything else, is that they love their family. I don’t know if there is a higher complement that I can pay. Here’s to you!
Check out Common Craft’s latest video, “Computer Software in Plain English,” below. I saw my friend Lee (half of the Common Craft team, along with his wife, Sachi) at South by Southwest and attended his panel, “Shift Happens: Moving from Words to Pictures.” I’ll talk more about that when I get my SXSW recap done!
For several years, I have supported Hewlett-Packard (HP) and their products. My family’s first computer was an Apple. But, the next one was a Compaq (who later merged with HP) and the one after that was an HP. When I was finally able to buy my first computer as an individual, I purchased an HP. I later bought a Laptop, which was a Compaq (this was after they merged, I believe). My second computer, the one I am on now, is an HP. My second laptop, the one I am typing this on right now, is an HP. We have two printers in the house – they are both HPs.
So, suffice to say, I’ve been a loyal Compaq/HP customer for more than a decade. I’ve been loyal because I’ve enjoyed their products and have been happy with the value and the results. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had crashes – but, those happen and the only thing that has ever really crashed on me is a hard drive.
Let’s go back to early January. I am getting ready to leave on a trip across the country for 2 and 1/2 weeks. I’m using my desktop, everything’s good. All of a sudden, out of no where, I see a blue screen flash and the computer goes off. Well, hey… that’s never happened before, in just over a year of using it. My thought, or my hope, was that I’d reboot and be good. That was not the case. I spent the next day and a half fiddling with it. Booting and rebooting, looking at the BIOS, messing with the boot order, trying system restores and system recoveries. I tried switching out memory. I gave up and just decided to factory restore it. Guess what? No go. I couldn’t do anything. I consulted with friends, went through various suggestions. Nothing.
With the trip only 3-4 days away, I decided I should go ahead and send it to HP for repair. This is where the first part of our story starts – the bad part. I had a hard time communicating with the HP support people. There was literally 6-8 times I called, so this is all a little hazy, but here’s the meat of it. The first lady I spoke with, at first, told me that HP doesn’t repair machines outside of the warranty. That can’t be right, I figured.
After restating my needs, she told me what I could do, which was that I could pay $149 for an extended phone support package and then see if their technician could help me over the phone. Then, if they can’t, I can pay for a hardware warranty for $120 and HP will take care of any hardware issues the machine has for one year. She wasn’t exactly the nicest lady I’d ever spoken with, but I thought there might have been a little bit of a language barrier. But, what she said sounded good. This was before I was done trying what I could on the machine, so I was really gathering info and didn’t place any orders. (more…)
When Brian Scott O’keefe followed me on Twitter, it made me look up what other O’Keefes were on the service. So, since I had already done this, why not post the top 10 most followed O’Keefes?
I used Twitter’s people search and I searched for not only O’Keefe, but O’Keeffe and O’Keef. Obligatory disclaimer: this search is limited. If someone doesn’t have O’Keefe/O’Keeffe/O’Keef on their profile, they wouldn’t show up. This is for fun and numbers aren’t all-important. With that out of the way, here are the top 10:
1. Kevin O’Keefe (kevinokeefe), 2,916 Followers
2. Tom O’Keefe (TOKiBiz), 1,158 Followers
3. Patrick O’Keefe (iFroggy), 906 Followers
4. Jeanne O’Keefe (thecolumbusteam), 632 Followers
5. Tom O’Keefe (TomOKeefe1), 561 Followers
6. Brian Scott O’keefe (randomblink), 556 Followers
7. Charlie O’Keefe (charlieok), 332 Followers
8. Linda O’Keefe (RIGHTone), 329 Followers
9. Matt O’Keefe (mattokeefe), 257 Followers
10. Kevin O’Keefe (voiceofwales), 253 Followers
Once in a while, I’ll randomly try something, sold by Amazon.com, that looks pretty good. I did this with Simply Asia Rice Noodle Soup Bowls, starting with the Garlic Sesame variety. It’s easy to make, healthy and really good. Problem is, Amazon has a really hard time keeping them in stock.
For this reason, I also tried the Spring Vegetable variety. It wasn’t as good, but was still quite good, in moderation. At the time of writing, it’s out of stock! So, apparently, plenty of people know about them. I may try another variety, but I’d definitely recommend them for anyone looking for a good, quick lunch.
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