Jougen

Earlier this week as I sat here staring at my Twitter feed, Todd Jordan sent a tweet asking everyone if they wanted to receive a postcard with a personal note from him. I decided to give him my address so he could send me one, which he has stated on his blog that he’ll send them out next week. It didn’t dawn on me until just now, but a simple act like this is an amazing thing. If someone can take the time out of their busy schedule to write people a postcard with a few words of encouragement on it, the act goes a long way.

Networking with people should be more than swapping business cards. Engaging discussions, getting to know them & allowing them to be a personality rather than just another email address should be a number one priority. With the direction social networking is taking us, it allows us to be more personable with the people we meet, causing us to build better relationships while expanding your social circle. What I’m trying to get at is this; if you take the time to get to know someone, the reward is far greater than what you’d get from the occasional conversation here & there.

As much as I used to despise the idea of social networking, I must admit now that I’m glad I got into it. Because the amount of ideas and great conversations I’ve shared with people these last few weeks have made it all worth it.

I think later on this month, I’ll make an attempt to reach out & send postcards to the people in my circle as well. A little goes a long way when it comes to showing that you’re willing to invest time in people & it’s well worth it.

Later folks

Have you ever found yourself at a loss for words when it comes to writing in your blog? I get like that sometimes, because I think that I strive to write something “perfect” so if I don’t feel like it’s going to be flawless then I end up not writing at all. If you feel like how I do at times, then I’ll say that you shouldn’t stress yourself over trying to write a masterpiece. I feel that my best material are the ones that come naturally where I’m not looking over it afterwards for mistakes. If you let your thoughts come through freely without trying to filter them, you’ll not only have more fun writing but your writing will keep its personality.

Why do I say this? I started looking at some draft posts that i’ve made over the course of the week and realized that I haven’t finished them yet because I was trying to force it. Writing this has been no problem for me so far because I’ve just let the topic flow freely without trying to stunt myself with reaching for something that’s not there. This is the main reason people suffer from writers block, too. I don’t even really like to use the term “writers block” actually, I prefer to call it “thought constipation”. As weird as the term sounds, it fits the situation perfectly, I think. Your mind shifts into neutral because you’re trying to pull things from it and suddenly you lose everything you had before.

Before you go to work on your next entry, take these steps:

• Take a deep breath
• Turn on your favorite songs (make a writing playlist beforehand)
• Have your drink of choice on hand
• Wear something comfortable

And most importantly:

• Just relax

Oh by the way, I haven’t forgotten about that big post I said I was going to write, i’m still working on it.

Later folks.

A couple days ago, I spoke about how I wanted Sprint to get a move on with the announcement of the Blackberry Curve, so I could get a new phone already. Well today they granted my wish and officially announced it’s release. Here is the press release if anyone is interested in reading about it:

Sprints Blackberry Curve press release

Blackberry Curve fact sheet

I’m psyched about it not only because it means that i’ll be getting a new phone soon, but because I can now stay more connected to everything when i’m not near a computer. While my Treo could do most of the things that the Curve does, it seems like the Curve will be better suited for my needs - namely email. While the Treo had does have an email program, it doesn’t work how I thought it would, especially with Gmail. Instead of downloading what is in the inbox, it takes everything from your account and puts it into one folder. I always found myself sifting through things I sent weeks ago as well as messages that I had already archived. I’ve read where they have various programs available for the Treo that do what the Curve does for your email, but IMO something like that should have been there out-of-box.

Another plus is the fact that I won’t really have to spend extra money on the BIS service because it’s included in those new “simply everything” plans that Sprint has now. I know if I would’ve had to pay that extra $30 for the BIS capabilities, then I wouldn’t have bothered getting the phone & just stuck with my Treo until something else that I liked came out, I’m cheap like that.

Last night I installed a plugin called Zemanta, that I’m actually finding to be kind of useful. What it does is install a sidebar in the writing area of Wordpress, so while you’re typing up a blog it suggests articles & pictures that relate to your topic. The time I spent writing about how I wanted the Curve, it would display images like the Sprint logo as well as articles about the phone, which I thought was neat. I’m thinking that it’ll help as time goes on when I’m stuck trying to write about things.

Apparently it also links keywords as well, interesting.

I’ve spent most of the weekend messing around with Wordpress and I must say that I really like it so far. It’s more sleek than 2.3 which makes it easier to find things and heightens the experience. Kudos to all the people who worked on it, because it’s a nice piece of software.

I need to fix the CSS so links show up & don’t appear as normal text.

April is finally here, so that means Spring should be here soon which also means that I won’t have to wear a jacket when I step out the house anymore. It also means today was April fools day, which seemed to be choc full of happenings this year. I think one of the better ones was the Steve Jobs interview that Mahalo Daily did. Here’s a link to that if anyone missed it.

Steve Jobs interview @ Mahalo Daily

What were your favorite April Fools stuff from today? I’d like to see if i’ve missed anything that was really worth laughing at.

One last thing, if you don’t already know Deutsche Telekom / T-Mobile sent Engadget legal papers demanding they stop using the color magenta on their mobile site. No joke. Here’s a link to the article with the letter.

Deutsche Telekom / T-Mobile demands Engadget Mobile discontinue using the color magenta

Big business never ceases to amaze me.

Later folks.

The whole WP upgrade process went smoothly this morning and I updated the permalink format thanks to the suggestion from my new pal Hoshichan, so all is well with that so far. I’m thinking about changing the permalink format to only show the postname in it, because I think that would look neater than using the format I have now, but we’ll see how I feel later on about that. I also plan on changing up the twitter area again, because it doesn’t look right, but I’m not too sure yet what I want to do with it at the moment.

Random thoughts

• I’ve been hearing rumblings of the Blackberry Curve coming to Sprint for quite some time now & at this point from the information i’ve seen, all that’s left is an official confirmation from Sprint themselves. I’m actually happy that it’s supposed to be coming out in April, because my contract is up in June, which means it’s time for me to upgrade and grab myself a new phone. I’ve been using the Palm Treo 700p for two years now & it’s really starting to show its age. I love the phone don’t get me wrong, but at this point I can’t be bothered with the random resets and the constant freezing which from what I’ve read rarely happens with the Blackberry. I think the only thing I’ll really miss is the touchscreen interface, because it made doing just about everything a quicker experience overall.

I’m a big fan of Palm and enjoy their products, but they really need to get their act together. Last I heard, their new OS isn’t coming out until at least Q1 ‘09, which in my eyes is going to be too little, too late for them. Their phones are huge, the OS is starting to show its age and their general public perception isn’t all that good at the moment. I’m hoping they can get their act together and make me regret moving on to a Blackberry at some point, but I doubt it.

• AOL needs to get their act together and give their AIM client some spice so I’m not always wondering why I still have it installed on my laptop. The only thing saving it from getting the boot is the fact that I talk to friends & family on here. I wish they would add some features so that I could interact with other AIM users, you know, kind of like how the social networking sites are. I’m not asking for the world either, just an option or two that allow me to find people to chat with when I’m up at 5am and can’t sleep.

• Why is Twitter so addicting? I’ve been on it for a few days now & it’s found its way onto a permanent tab in Firefox. I woke up this afternoon to discover it was down and didn’t know what to do with myself. Does Twitter have an app for the Blackberry or should I just be content with the mobile version they have for phone browsers? I need help.

• I’m still not satisfied with how the site looks, I think the next few days will be spent working on a few cosmetic issues that I have with it. I guess I’m a perfectionist when it comes to how I want the site to look.

• When is MF Doom going to drop a new album? I’ve heard things about Madvillain 2 & the album he’s doing with Ghostface dropping this year, but nothing concrete enough to get me hyped.

• Speaking of which, I need new music for my iPod. I should ask people on Twitter for suggestions on stuff to check out.

• Rum or Vodka? - Decisions, decisions.

• Microsoft should never have released Vista. It’s just like ME, except more bloated.

That’s it for tonight I think, catch you later folks.

I must say, even though it’s only been two days so far I find myself slightly addicted to Twitter. I can say that the reason I like it the most would probably be that it’s helped pass the time while i’ve been at work. On top of that, it’s fascinating how easy it is to connect with people on there when it comes to finding out things. For instance, i’ve been thinking about upgrading WordPress all day, but holding back on the simple fact that I don’t want the site to implode after the upgrade is complete. Following some conversations on Twitter, I’ve seen that people are upgrading seamlessly which has brought my paranoia down somewhat. I’ll probably go ahead with the upgrade tomorrow now since I’ll be home all day & won’t have much else to do anyway.

I never did get up this morning to cook, sleeping seemed like a much better idea at the time especially when people started calling me at 10AM to see if I wanted to play Halo 3 before work. Regardless, after I decided to finally get up to spend quality Xbox Live time with my cousin & brother I headed off to work where i’ve pretty much spent the entire day on Twitter & various other places to kill time.

Spending the day on Twitter has made me realize that I enjoy social networking sites more than I’ve originally let off, or maybe I’ve just been ruined by how clunky Myspace is which made me assume all social sites were the same. People keep asking me why I haven’t made a Facebook yet & apart from the usual “I’m too lazy” excuse I’ve been riding with the “all those sites are lame” line, too. I suppose that’s going to change now, because if Facebook is even half as fun as Twitter is then I’ll enjoy it a lot.

I almost feel defeated because I’ve put off making a Facebook for so long & now I’m all anxious to go home so I can set one up. Like i’ve said before though, I’ll go ahead and place the blame on Myspace for being so clunky, unintuitive & shallow as my reasons for not wanting to venture out into other social sites. Better late than never is what I always say anyway, so that’s always a plus.

I really need to relax this weekend, because it seems like the last few weeks all I’ve been doing is running around while leaving little time for me to just sit down and collect myself. Aside from cleaning the apartment and paying some bills, luckily I have nothing to do until I go back to work on Wednesday. For the most part, I really want to keep this week as slow as possible to give things a change of pace from what it’s been usually.

All in all, today has been pretty good and tomorrow should follow suit since I already know what I need to get done:

1. Upgrade WordPress without breaking the site
2. Set up a Facebook page
3. Stare at Twitter
4. Cook/clean
5. Waste away on Xbox Live
6. Recompile Apache & update the permalinks

Nice & simple, I think.

Later folks.