DigitalFanGirl

This is a story about my short love affair with seesmic. I had a seesmic invite/account two or three months before I actually used it because I didn’t have a webcam. Clarence of DYKC.com was kind enough to send me an extra iSight he had. When I received it in the mail, I logged on to my seesmic account to see what all this hype was about. I must say, seesmic can certainly suck you in.

Before I made my welcome video, I spent an hour or so looking at all the video conversations that were going on. I recorded a welcome video and a couple of others and got immediate video feedback. That was really cool. I really enjoyed the interaction with everyone on seesmic.

I carried on a great video conversation with a lady in Wisconsin about the growth and potential of social media from an educational standpoint. It was great. That night; my first night on seesmic, I spent four hours on there – yes, four hours.

The next day, it was pretty much the same. Four hours just flew by.

My love affair with seesmic was sweet, but short. Although I think seesmic is awesome and I had some great conversations with people on there, I quickly became super addicted to it. I found myself spending countless hours on there and you really can’t do anything else while watching and recording seesmic videos.

So, I had to get the seesmic monkey off my back.

Maybe I’ll return one day, after I get through seesmic rehab and gain a little more self control.

Until then – a bid seesmic a farewell.

I love Twitter, but sometimes; ok a lot of times, I forget that just because I know about Twitter and actively use it, doesn’t mean that everyone I know is doing the same thing. I forget that not all of my friends and family are total web geeks such as myself. So when people ask me “why I use Twitter” and tell me how pointless it seems, I become stunned and am all of a sudden baffled by the fact that they are truly unfamiliar with Twitter and a lot of other social type sites and apps I use.

Thanks to Lee Lefever who created a video titled ‘Twitter in Plain English’, I can now direct my friends and family who question Twitter to this video.

As a matter of fact, why don’t I just add it here for their convenience.

Twitter in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

I think twitter is a great tool. It isn’t all business for me. It’s a social and information sharing thing for me. What do I mean by that? I’ll gladly explain. It is social because sometimes I treat it like my water cooler moment. It also allows me to not only connect with existing friends on twitter (although none of my friends were on twitter when I first joined in November of 2006), but also allows me to meet other people. For some reason; people who are unattached to social web activity, think that services like twitter and facebook (and so on and so on) replace real life interaction, but they don’t. I think it does just the opposite. I think these types of services enhance and increase people getting together in the physical world. For instance, through twitter I have met a ton of folks from all over the place. I reside in Northern Virginia, but when I go to Atlanta this summer to visit a friend, I know there are about 10 people on twitter that I follow (and vice versa) whom I can meet up with to have cup of coffee. When I go to Nashville for my family reunion this July, I know 5 people on twitter I can hook up and chew the fat with (you get the drift). Am I saying these people on twitter are my best friends; of course not, but not everyone is your best friend anyway. However, they are people whom I share a common interest and what’s wrong with that? There’s no harm in expanding your social network of peers and friends.

Twitter is also a most excellent place to share and receive information. People on twitter share links to articles, other blogs and websites, share invites to new web apps and sites, details on various conferences and expos, etc, etc. I love information sharing as most other people on twitter do as well.

So, in a nutshell, I love twitter. Before assuming it’s ridiculous, give it try; you just might like it……

I’m thinking about adding a calendar or something to this blog so I can share various social media, podcasting, blogging, film and video meetups and events I attend. Someone in the DC/MD/Va area may have an interest in attending. Maybe I’ll add an upcoming or 30boxes widget to the blog, whichever one works and looks the best.

More later on that….

How many times have you looked for jobs and wanted to have the ability to contact someone who works for or has worked for companies you are applying for jobs with? I know I have wished for this. You apply for jobs and you go on an interview and you then you get the job offer, but you have no inside track on how it really is to work for this company. Sometimes you just want to hear some opinions from employees who actually work there or have worked there in the past.

Criticat is a site that allows you to rate the company you work for and companies you have worked for in the past and share your work experiences. This sounds like it could be a really useful tool. Especially if Criticat really catches on and people use it and are truly honest with their ratings. I could really see the value in something like this. There are some places I’ve worked for that were horrible and if only I’d been given a heads up to the culture of that particular work environment I would have been better equipped; mentally, to deal with it or maybe I would have turned down the job altogether or maybe I could have asked more probing questions durung the interview. Too many ‘maybes’ to list. I’d like to see Criticat blossom because I can see how having the ability to go to a site to get an inside glimpse on a particular company could prove to be beneficial to someone to better prepare them for interviews and make better decisions on accepting job offers. So, I’m definitely going to keep my eye on Criticat. I’m curious to see if other people will take the time to participate in leaving their rating and work experiences.

If anyone has already use Criticat, leave a comment and let me know how you participated and what your opinion of Criticat is. Would also like to know if you see any real value in a site like this.

1. At
Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair
Dryer At Passing Cars.
See
If They Slow Down.

2. Page
Yourself Over The Intercom. Don’t
Disguise Your Voice.

3.
Every
Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, Ask If They Want Fries with that.

4.
Put
Your Garbage Can On
Your Desk And Label It ‘In.’

5.
Put
Decaf In The Coffee
Maker For 3 Weeks
.
Once Everyone
has Gotten Over Their Caffeine
Addictions, Switch
to Espresso.

6.
In
The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write ‘
For
Smuggling
Diamonds’

7.
Finish
All Your sentences with
‘In
Accordance With The Prophecy.’

8.
Don’t
use any punctuation

9.
As
Often As Possible, Skip
Rather
Than Walk.

10.
Order
a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with
a serious face.

11.
Specify
That Your Drive-through Order Is’To
Go.’

12. Sing
Along At The Opera.

13.
Go
To A Poetry Recital And Ask Why
The Poems Don’t Rhyme?

14.
Put
Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area And
Play
tropical Sounds All Day.

15.
Five
Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can’t Attend Their Party Because
You’re Not
In The Mood.

16.
Have
Your Co-workers Address You By Your
Wrestling Name, Rock
Bottom.

17.
When
The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream ‘I
Won!,
I Won!’

18.
When
Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The
Parking lot, Yelling ‘Run
For Your Lives,
They’re
Loose!!’

19.
Tell
Your Children Over Dinner.
‘Due
To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.’

20.
And
The Final Way To Keep A Healthy Level Of
Insanity…….

I want to change my Tales of a Single Parent blog. I am currently running it on Blogger, but quite frankly, I have grown very tired of Blogger which is why I moved this blog to WordPress (by the by, I absolutely love WordPress and am very happy I switched). I am not sure if I want to run Tales of a Single Parent on WordPress or Joomla.

I want to add video to the blog and more information as far as news, photos and resources, etc. It will still be the official blog for the Tales of a Single Parent podcast, so of course I’ll still be adding the audio from each show on the blog as well.

So, I just don’t know which platform I want to go with. More later on that. If anyone has any suggestions, leave a comment….

Some of you from twitter know that I want to start adding video to this blog and my Podcast; Tales of a Single Parent. I have a budget of $250 and am looking for a mini camcorder; one I can carry around in my bag. Some twitter friends recommended the FlipVideo, but after researching it there were some things I didn’t like.

1. There are 2 models (one model allows 30 min of recording and the other allows 60 min of recording)
2. It records directly to the device
3. There is SD card expansion slot
4. Unsure about it compatibility with iMovie for editing purposes

So, I researched some more Mac compatible mini camcorders and found the Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG6 Digital Camcorder in Blue w/ 5x Optical Zoom, SDHC Compatibility, MPEG-4. It has some great specs, it is Mac compatible and it’s within my budget – $199.84. Wal-Mart has it and I am psyched. I’m picking it up this weekend… So watch out. I don’t know; me and a camcorder – could get crazy…..

I’ve been using the online ordering feature at pizzahut.com since they started and I love it. It’s so easy, so simple. When the kids and I want pizza, my first instinct is to always get online and put in my order, not to call in my order.

So tonight, the kids and I agreed that tonight was definitely a pizza nut (guess I should have thawed out that meat earlier). I get online to pizzahut.com and I see that you two new things:

1. You can text message your pizza order
2. You can go to pizzahut.com from your mobile phone and place your order

This is awesome. NOW, if I wanna order Pizza Hut and I’m not home yet, but am on my way, I can text message my order – I LOVE IT!!! (my best friend is going to think I am nuts if I really do this – but he knows I will)

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Thanks to Theo J from Theo Talks, I now have another conference to add my list.

Blogging While Brown Conference: to be held July 25-27 in Atlanta, GA. Needless to say, I WILL BE THERE… So thanks Theo for the info……

If anyone else plans on going, DM me on twitter or email me.

DIRT is definitely one of my favorite shows and is on my Top 5 list of must see shows. I don’t have FX, so I had to rent Season 1 on DVD. Totally watched it in its entirety in one setting. Courtney Cox is so manipulative, cunning, vain and hardcore in this show. I LOVE IT!!!!! She always has these celebrities on DIRT by the balls. It’s crazy. I also love the guy that plays her best friend Don who is her freelance photographer. On the show, he’s the one that always gets ‘the shot’ for DIRT magazine. He is a functioning schizophrenic, but a super talented photographer. I love this show. If you haven’t taken time to watch an episode, I suggest you check it out.

Other shows I consider must-see tv:
Weeds
inTreatment
The Riches
Big Love

In case you missed today’s speech given by Barack Obama – here it is…

Catch Jill Scott on BBC One in a new drama: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which premiers Sunday 23 March 2008, 9pm – 10.45pm. This drama is a story chronicling the adventures of Mma Ramotswe. Jill is certainly doing her thing. Doing more acting and of course laying down some of the smoothest grooves on this planet. I’ll be sure to check her out in this drama. Gotta give Jill my support. Besides, everyone knows I love me some Jilly from Philly and that I want to seek her out and be her best friend… Jill, are you listening….

I got an invite for BBMNATION back in January I think. So I signed up to see what it was all about. Bbmnation is a social networking tool that allows you to connect with the people around you using BlackBerry Pins. So I signed up and completed my profile and started trying to figure out how Bbmnation worked. Dang, I was and still am confused. When I initially started roaming around I honestly didn’t know what to do and I thought; maybe they’re still working everything out; I’ll check back in a month or so.

I checked back a month later and was no less confused. There is no razzamataz to this site and there is nothing from a design perspective that grabs me and makes me want to stick around. Maybe that’s done intentionally (IDK). When I think of a social network, I think of a site where members join and engage in conversation within that site. This is not how Bbmnation works. With Bbmnation, you add friends to your ‘network’ and then you carry on further communication by contacting them using their BlackBerry pin and you converse – BlackBerry to BlackBerry.

I am trying to understand this, but it seems so pointless; like an extra unnecessary step. When BlackBerry owners contact other BlackBerry owners using their pin; it is free. This is a great, but in all honesty I’ve had two BlackBerries and have never used a pin to communicate with other BlackBerry owners.

Besides, just because someone has a BlackBerry; it doesn’t mean that I want to ‘befriend’ them. Being a BlackBerry owner is not a prerequisite for becoming friends.

If you are a BlackBerry owner, go on over to Bbmnation and signup. I’d really like to know what your opinion of Bbmnation is. Maybe I am missing something or maybe it really is as pointless as it seems.