Is it just me or is Twitter down almost as much as it’s up these days? I realize they have a very difficult technical challenge presented to provide a service like Twitter, but I mean ultimately if IRC has been able to do basically the same thing for the last 20 years why can’t they?
Or: Further experimentation with personal aggregation services
After my initial experimentations with personal aggregation basically failed I’ve decided to take another stab at it, but this time with a DIY bent. I registered metaspark.net and am working a complicated series of Wordpress plugins to attempt to create the functionality I want.
Unfortunately it’s not entirely baked yet, but keep your eye on that domain - once I get a few RSS aggregation, twitter update, and posting date issues sorted out it should be ready to go fully live, and with style no less.
Stay tuned!
Today marked my first day on the new product management job and man was it excellent. I’ve never done a transition like this where I already knew my co-workers and I have to say it makes a big difference. I hit the ground running, like the people I work with, and in general feel like I’m ready to start kicking some serious butt already.
The last two weeks have been interesting and full of change. First off today is my last day working for MSCOM. I’m leaving after two years with the team as a Project Manager to go join the business organization which owns the Volume Licensing Service Center to pursue a career in Product Management. Moving from the implementation to the requirements side of the house is a good move for me and really has me excited about the opportunity to effect change and really challenge the space I’m in to continue to innovate.
Next off I met David, one of the sweetest men on the planet. I’ve spent practically the entire last week and a half with him and I couldn’t be happier about it. It’s one of those intense whirlwind relationships that seems to go at a million miles an hour - fun stuff while it lasts and heres hoping that it will last a very long time!
Finally Skype got to meet David’s roommates 12 week old pit bull puppy Porter. The two of them have been beating up on each other every other day or so and having a blast at it. David is a really active guy and thanks to his influence Skype’s activity level has roughly doubled. He seems happier for it and I hope to keep him active like this as long as he can keep up.
Wired just wrote up a great profile on my favorite futurist Ray Kurzweil. It’s an interesting read - particularly if you follow his work or have read any of his books. While some of his longevity techniques might be a bit off the deep end (hello 210 vitamins) he’s right on the money as far as I’m concerned when it comes to bridging human biology with technology.
In an effort to bring together the wonderful wide world of Sparky* I’m experimenting with Tumblr as an aggregation service. The hopes of my experimentation is to create a single point of contact for all my personal web content. Currently to get every last drop of Sparky goodness (and who doesn’t want that) visits to my blog, Flickr stream, Facebook profile, and Twitter are necessary. By providing this aggregate source of Sparky - henceforth referred to as Meta-Sparky - a single website can be visited to consume Sparky, Sparky, Sparky, and more Sparky.
Without further ado: http://sparktography.tumblr.com/
Update: Tumblr ended up being close to what I want, but not quite it. Tumblr will only allow short form content and won’t import long format blog posts. I also noticed it copies Flickr photos locally and re-compresses them which adds a slight color cast and loses the tack-sharpness that so much effort goes into on the front end.
Anyone know of a better aggregation service with similar features that I could check out? Leave a note in the comments with a link to it. If I don’t find anything readymade I guess I’ll have to roll up my sleeves and make something.
*wonder, wonderment, and wonderfulness not guaranteed. All Sparky all the time has been known to cause health complications in certain situations. If you experience a Sparky lasting more than 4 hours consult with a physician immediately.
I love my iPhone. I know it seems like such a trivial thing, but of all the gadgets in my life it has the biggest positive impact. Music, SMS, email, voice, or the full blown web - it’s all there in a pocketable little aluminum package. Having the world at your fingertips changes a lot about the way you live your life - keeping up with friends on the go or killing time in jury duty the iPhone scores a win.
That is all.