Friday Wrap Up



Kopi Susu

It’s Friday and it’s been a long week. I don’t think you know, but my wife has been gone for two weeks to the Philippines. She is arriving back tonight. I’ve been playing Mr. mom, and doing a pretty sorry job at it.  I’ve managed to grill the worst steak ever, make the most pasty mashed potatoes of all time and absolutely ruined some linguine pasta. Did you know you are supposed to stir pasta? Who knew?  It will be great to have Alou home again, if for no other reason, for Jessie’s health.

On the blog it’s been a busy week. On Monday,  I was able to release to the world my PhotopShelter galleries. On Tuesday, I posted a multimedia slide show on The Last Songkok (prayer cap) Maker in Penang and then on Wednesday we had a lively discussion about critiquing images and whether to do that with a real world perspective or a perfect world perspective. Then, yesterday a post on conflict in images. So all-in-all it’s been a very busy week around here. Off the radar I’ve been working on several aspects of my social network. I managed to make live my Digital Trekker fan page on Facebook ,as well as add a nifty social software bar at the bottom of the site by Wibiya. Speaking of which, take a few minutes and play with the bar at the bottom of the page. The bar gives readers many different options to share this site and the information on it with others as well as options for drilling deeper into thedigitaltrekker.com.

I discovered a new analytics application called Woopra. it gives real-time information in a very user-friendly environment.  One cool thing about Woopra is I can tag visitor to my site with names and then pop up a browser screen on their screen that lets me chat with them while they’re on the site. It’s crazy, I’m not sure how I’d use it. Though I do think I scared David duChemin to death the other day when he was visiting my site. That alone was worth it.

Yesterday, at around four in the afternoon my Internet provider went down. Actually, my whole phone system went down. I’m now checking e-mail, and posting to this blog by using my iPhone tethered to my computer. I’m amazed at the speed and the bandwidth provides.

One quick FYI before I close this post. Next week I’ll be giving away a license to Soundslides Plus to some lucky reader. So be sure to check back in and be a part of this contest.

Now go out and have a nice relaxing weekend with someone you love. That’s what I am gonna do.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 14th, 2010 at 10:57 am and is filed under Blog, Gear, News and tagged with , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

  • http://www.craigfergusonimages.com cfimages

    If only I hadn't bought a Soundslides Plus license a month ago. For those that have never used it, it's easy, powerful and making multimedia content with it is incredibly addictive.

    Let us know how you find Wibiya. I just had a 4 month long test of it, and have recently switched to Meebo to try that out for a while. Wibiya gave me a bit of a boost in traffic and interaction but not significant enough to win me over without trying other options.

  • Sterling

    Don't let the potatoes cool before mashing, and don't over-whip/mash them. This releases the starch which will make them gummy. My best results come from draining, air-drying back in pot for a minute or so, mash, stir in butter and warm milk and whatever else I feel like at the time.

  • http://thedigitaltrekker.com Matt Brandon

    lol! I'll remember that. I knew I should have nuked those boiled potatoes from the fridge, then tried to mash them!

  • http://thedigitaltrekker.com Matt Brandon

    To quote one of my readers: “BTW, I like the blog improvements. Your change to the Wibiya bar was a good one. The other method (Meebo) was cool, but annoying.” It was that “drag to share” option on Meebo that got in the way of everything. With Wibiya you can turn it off. So far I like it. But lets give it time.

  • johnbatdorffii

    You've hit it out of the park this week. I feel like I've been rendering video for two straight days….and no time to post. Thanks for making feel lazy…;)

  • http://www.hebervega.com Heber Vega

    Matt, you should share your thoughts on this new “features” that you have been experimenting with. At least I'm interested in hearing your find-outs.
    Meebo, Wibiya, even the CC license.

    PS. waiting for the contest ;-)

  • http://www.TomBourdon.co.uk Tom bourdon

    I´m also very interested in the your decision to opt for CC licensing, I don´t think its a viable option for me but perhaps (and at the moment thats a big perhaps) I can be persuaded otherwise.

  • http://erinwilsonphoto.blogspot.com Erin Wilson

    Looking pretty slick around here… :)

  • http://thedigitaltrekker.com Matt Brandon

    Tom – I'm not sure if you read my article on my choice to go with Creative Commons on the blog. But you can find it HERE. It pretty much explains everything. The fact is all my pictures on PhotoShelter are copywritten. You can't access them without paying for them or downloading a very small comp that is heavily watermarked. But anything that's on the blog is fair game as long as you link it. The idea is that the more people willing to link than willing to steal. And those that link will end up creating Internet goodwill for the site. That's also why I've chosen to add every possible way to share the information on this blog through software add-ons like Wibiya.

    Heber – I'm not sure there's anything else to add at this point. We'll just have to wait and see. So stick with me. By the way Heber has been writing some pretty interesting blogs on the whole idea of working with NGOs pro bono. You should check them out at his website HERE.

  • http://www.hebervega.com Heber Vega

    Hi Matt, first off, thanks for sharing about the series on pro-bono work.
    And sorry to not have elaborated better my last comment, but what I meant to say is this:
    You probably have installed those new set of “features” in your website because you want something in return; i.e. more people sharing your photos, articles, brand, etc. You know better that point.
    What I'd love to read about from you, not now but maybe in a month or two, you decide ;-) . Is to see if you have seen any improvement in those areas, are you meeting the expectations behind these “features”? the goals?
    You are one of those blogger with a lot of experience and your blog is well known, so I'd love to read from you on those areas… but again, you are the boss ;-) .

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