Andrew Gordon's Blog

Site moved to apgordon.com

Andrew — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:01:46 +0000

This blog has moved to apgordon.com. I hope you’ll follow me over there and subscribe to my new RSS feed.

-Andrew

Filed under: Daily

My “Real People Profile” guest spot

Andrew — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:24:54 +0000

I’m featured on David Hoffman’s “Real People Profiles” project today over at Co-Create UMBC.

Special thanks to David for the opportunity to share some thoughts on his blog.

Filed under: Link

What Twitter’s become (or becoming)

Andrew — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:00:02 +0000

Looking through my Twitter feed this morning, I realized something. Very few people are answering the original question Twitter posed to the world: What are you doing?

Which I can’t say I’m against. It would probably be incredibly boring if everyone was JUST answering that question. I can see my feed now…

Sitting at my desk, doing work.

Just got up to get some water. Now I’m back sitting at my desk again.

EATING LUNCH! …at my desk.

That would be lame. I would have absolutely no interest in updates like that from most of the people I follow, just as most of the people who follow me would have absolutely no interest in updates like that from me. Now, I got in the Twitter game a little late, but it seems like that wasn’t how it always was — the content of people’s tweets started changing when Twitter broke open to the masses circa fall of 2009. Now instead of having 10 followers, all close friends, you have 100 or more broken down something like this: ten close friends, ten acquaintances, and eighty people you probably don’t know very well or at all.

I will give Google Buzz one thing. I like the ability to share updates with just a certain group of people. It’s great Twitter allows me to compartmentalize certain updates coming IN with Lists, but I think there needs to be the option to make updates going OUT private to certain group/s of people. I love all the cool links, pictures and video I find thanks to people tweeting, but I feel like there’s a personal element of Twitter (an element that I think Twitter was originally created to satisfy) that’s either gone or going now that the site has become so integrated with more people and businesses, and I think it can be salvaged with a few small upgrades.

Filed under: Twitter

Recycling is Cool

Andrew — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:45:36 +0000

Alright, fine, that title was ridiculously corny.

This is our recycling bin (as of this past weekend), pinned under about 18 inches of snow and encapsulated in ice.

Filed under: Photo

Well, you’ve gotta give Google’s PR team credit

Andrew — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:42:20 +0000

It wasn’t long after the Feb. 9, 2010 announcement and launch of Google’s new social messaging service, Buzz, that people turned around with complaints. But, Google’s been very quick to resolve and clarify the privacy issues that caused many (myself included) to quickly turn off Buzz from their Gmail accounts. I’m still a little weirded out, and I can’t think of a use Buzz offers that isn’t satisfied by other existing networks like Twitter, but I’m no longer 100% turned off to the idea of Buzz. With the inherent base Buzz has being integrated to Gmail it will likely give other social messaging sites competition, and may be good to get in and become knowledgeable starting from square one.

Filed under: Google

WFH View

Andrew — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:45:06 +0000

This was my view for most of last week.

Filed under: Photo

A Midnight Snack

Andrew — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:45:48 +0000

This shot comes from our bedroom window, Saturday morning, approximately 1:30 a.m. The front loader and dump truck combo started hauling snow away from the street and sidewalk starting at around 12:30 and didn’t stop until about 5:00. One thing I don’t understand is why they can’t turn off that beeping sound when going in reverse.

One thing I do know for sure? The grilled cheese sandwiches Steph and I made at 4:00 a.m. were probably the best I’ve ever eaten.

Filed under: Photo

What Facebook Should’ve Worked on Instead of a New Homepage

Andrew — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 03:00:18 +0000

So, Facebook has redesigned its homepage. Again. Here are the major take-homes, according to what was included in the homepage announcement.

Welcome to your new, simplified home page.

Manage privacy settings and log out using the Account menu above.

See new requests, messages and notifications grouped together by the Facebook logo.

Easily access your messages, applications and chat on the left side of the page.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has redesigned its homepage, and not the first time its users have been unhappy. See 7/24/2008, 3/22/2009, 10/27/2009, and most recently, 2/5/2010. I love the title of that last one: Surprise! People Dislike the Facebook Redesign.

I haven’t noticed how the new homepage design significantly changes the site. And all the call-outs they made, about managing privacy, seeing new requests and more easily accessing my messages… those were all things I either had no problem with before or still have the same problems with now.

So, what changes could Facebook make that would actually significantly improve the users experience?

Don’t allow people to message me about a group or event when I haven’t even responded to it. Or at least give me the option whether I want to receive these kind of messages. As is, my messages/Inbox is non-functional because it’s swamped with these mass messages. Or, if that’s not possible, at least separate them into their own folder.
Make and stand by some of your own apps. I’m tired of having to rely on third-party apps exclusively. It’s great that Facebook has opened the doors to developers, but there should be some basic tools that are available with Facebook’s name and credibility attached. Like an RSS importer. I’ve considered just creating a feed for my blog to dump into my profile, but I can’t figure out how. Simple stuff like that shouldn’t require outside Googling support.
Give me an easier way to edit my lists of Friends. Really? I have to click the drop down menu for each individual person? I can’t bulk-edit this? Given how wide-spread and public Facebook is now, I’m very glad they’ve added the ability to alter what is visible to who by lists, but c’mon. It’s normal for people to have hundreds and hundreds of friends. No one wants to dedicate the time it’d take to really use this feature to the fullest, so you either have people not using it as much as they could (take me for example), people not being very smart with their privacy, or people dedicating far more time than they should have to in order to protect themselves — none of which are great options.

Don’t fix what isn’t broken, and fix what is broken and has been for some time.

Filed under: Facebook

Alternative Transportation

Andrew — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:41:25 +0000

This picture is from Sunday, the day after the first snow storm. At that point, there were lots of cars on the road, plenty of tires spinning, and a few people finding alternative means of transportation.

Filed under: Photo

6 Non-traditional Ways to Use RSS

Andrew — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:07:14 +0000

Given the amount of electronic information people consume on a daily basis, it’s no wonder RSS feeds (“Really Simple Syndication”) have become a daily necessity for many of us. An RSS Feed’s most common task is subscribing to updates on a blog or news site. Which is no doubt unbelievably helpful, but there are lots of other ways to take advantage of RSS.

Before diving in, if you haven’t already, you should take a look at Google Reader (free) or another RSS aggregator service. My instructions will assume you’re using it.

1. Keep track of who’s linking to your site

Go to http://blogsearch.google.com/
Type in link:the URL of the site
Results will show you other pages that are linking to your site.
At the bottom of the page, click the “Subscribe to a blog search feed for…” link.

2. Keep track of Google Alerts without swamping yourself with email

Go to www.google.com/alerts/manage
Create a new alert and select “Feed” under the Deliver To option.
Click the RSS link, or the link that says View in Google Reader.

3. Get updates from Twitter

Say you’re interested in scanning for certain topics, but you want to see what people who may not have time to write a blog about it are saying. Maybe it’s your business, your product, your favorite sports team… Twitter offers a lot of value.

Go to www.search.twitter.com
Type in what you’re interested in.
Search and review results.
Right click the RSS feed button and copy the link location.
Go to Google Reader, click Add Subscription, and paste.
And you’re done. Now new results will populate in your Google Reader.

4. Keep track of job search queries

I really like using idealist.org. One of the nice features of using it is when you perform a search, there’s a “Get an RSS feed for this search” link. Save this feed and you can quickly find new job postings that satisfy your search filters.

5. Let others do the work for you with Delicious

I use Delicious to organize my bookmarks online, but it’s also a great way to let others do your research and tracking work for you. For instance, I like checking out new links about free online tools. So I search by tags (first “free) then filter further (with “tools). From here, there’s a link at the bottom of the page for “RSS feed for these bookmarks.” Add that into reader and whenever a new link is tagged with those specifications, it’ll show up in your Reader.

6. Follow changes to any website

Google’s now added a feature that lets you subscribe to a page, whether it’s activated for RSS or not, and track any changes to that page. Read more about this feature here, on the Official Google Reader Blog.

Filed under: How To, Online Tool